The Book of Love and Hate

by Lauren Sanders

"Sanders, whose first novel Kamikaze Lust, won a 2000 Lambda Literary Award, offers an international espionage thriller in which a failed Olympic speed skater falls for her father's lover, a former Israeli army pilot turned corporate spy."
--Publishers Weekly

"Jennifer Baron, a failed speed skater, tries to stay sober after her Olympic downfall. She's running her father's business, a billion-dollar foundation, when he mysteriously disappears. Soon she's invited to a conference that turns out to be a covert meeting with her father and a corporate spy."
--Publishers Weekly; included in Fall 2017 Adult Announcements, Literary Fiction

"The Book of Love and Hate is a most fantastic book--cinematic, a thriller that takes on both the big, global issues of our time as well as the intimate, personal demons that undo us. A book about obsession, it obsessed me. How incredible to come upon such a brainy, expertly written bona fide page-turner. Bravo!"
--Michelle Tea, author of Black Wave

"A richly suspenseful story of addiction, love/lust, and family ties--and how all of those things can hold us captive. A spectacular return from one of my favorite writers."
--Alison Gaylin, best-selling author of What Remains of Me

"The Book of Love and Hate is a fever dream of a novel, achingly sexy and at times startlingly funny. Lauren Sanders has written a stunning genre-defying tale of sex, longing, ghosts, and spies. Every page teems with her gleaming sentences and deliciously dark wit. The ending still haunts me."
--J.T. Rogers, author of Oslo

Jennifer Baron is a failed Olympic speed skater now running her family's foundation and trying to stay sober, when her billionaire father disappears. She travels to Israel in search of him, becoming recklessly entangled in his illegal dealings and with his enigmatic lover, Gila, a former Mossad agent gone bad. Along the way, she is drawn into the shadow worlds of the Promised Land, where career-jockeying government agents, fake Orthodox Jews, queer Palestinians on the run, and other displaced wanderers scramble to find home amid the endless cycles of war, occupation, and heartbreak.

The Book of Love and Hate is an unraveling of white-collar crime and its motivations. It's a testament to the magnificent oblivion of love and a shattering of inherited trauma, both personal and historical.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery Thriller

350 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2017

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a bit of a mess. The plot is fragmented, the premise is confusing, and the most cohesive parts are the sex scenes. I should have bailed but forced my way through.

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me access through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Frank Haberle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore the way the narrator unfolds her story in this book. There is a lot of subtlety in the storytelling-the way the war, the truth, the people she is searching for are all just-a-little-bit-out-of-reach. She is emotionally elusive, damaged and struggling, but she moves through a complex maze of lies with humour and toughness and incredible resilience. Scenes in Israel are unforgettable. Sanders' storytelling is really unique and fast paced. It's just really solid, really gripping character development and scene development. Anyone who has ever struggled with addiction in any of its forms will get what's going on immediately. Love this book!

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was... a true challenge to get through. I really wanted to toss it aside after 20 pages but no, I can't give a fair review without finishing. So I finished. I will admit I had to skim half of it in order to make it happen but I paced myself enough to keep track of what was going on plot-wise.

I'll lead with the good. The author is eloquent with her words, I would periodically come to a sentence or statement that actually resonated with me. The book was sexy (not smutty). The main character is lesbian. It is set mainly in Israel, sometimes NYC or Connecticut (flashbacks).

Prior to the events of the novel she met her brother in Israel for hanging out in the mountains? He was a little messed up (they all are) so they bond. He dies shortly after. A year prior to the current setting she returns because her father dies(supposedly) in Israel and she falls in love with his lover afterwards... whom is a spy. They part ways for about a year but she can't stay away and comes back. FBI etc. are eyeing her because they suspect her father didn't really die and he committed financial crimes prior to death with his business (I inferred). Jennifer (main character) was once a very good speed ice skater until she was injured. Her whole family is a disaster and she spends a lot of time reflecting on their past. She is a recovering alcoholic and her flashbacks reveal substance abuse and sexual experimentation from an early age. She hates her father but frankly she never really says why HE was horrible, she instead hates her mom and while she sees why her brother was horrible loves him dearly.

This book was more of an experience than a story. You are constantly in the main character's head and she is constantly reflecting on her past and not thinking nearly enough about the present.. or is a little too focused on her coffee. I was going a bit mad figuring out what the heck was going on. You know how you can walk in on a conversation and everyone is referring to "it" over and over yet you missed the part of the conversation that actually stated what "it" is? That is this book in a nut shell. I will say I it wasn't much of a story. You are only going to like this book if the character or the setting speak to you, which it did not speak to me.

So for the right audience this could potentially be an amazing book because the author does write well. But the style(all the flashbacks) and story itself are for a narrow audience.

ONE suggestion (other than redoing 85% of this story) I came up with. There was a scene where the lover asks about tear, she thought they were referring to crying and the main character corrected her, they were speaking of tear as in tearing paper. So it occurs to me yeah they are in a foreign country speaking English... how about incorporating dialects and accents into the dialog?

*won as an earlyreview copy from LibraryThing 2017.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE BOOK OF LOVE AND HATE by Lauren Sanders was sent to me by the publisher, Akashic Books, in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.
The book cover tells me that “Jennifer Baron is a failed Olympic Speed Skater now running her family’s foundation and trying to stay sober, when her billionaire father disappears. She travels to Israel in search of him, becoming recklessly entangled in his illegal dealings and with his lover, Gila, a former Mossad agent gone bad.”
“THE BOOK OF LOVE AND HATE is an unraveling of white-collar crime and its motivations. It is a testament to the magnificent oblivion of love and a shattering of inherited trauma, both personal and historical.”
I am fortunate to have this book cover synopsis because after reading (and rereading many parts of the book), I still have no clue as to what the book is about.
We seem to switch back and forth between different years - 2008, 2009, 1989, 2009 and 2012.
We spend a lot of time in Israel - in the present and in flashbacks.
We have whacko characters - spaced out, drugged out, crazy, self-loathing and self-destructive, wearing bedsheets in the desert with retractable wings (that’s what he told her!), rogue ‘agents’ (not sure really) who like to torture people, apartment bombings, a sexual predator, flashbacks of speed skating accidents, rampant drug-taking and lesbian encounters. I may be really nuts myself, but I did not understand the plot of the book or the characters in the book. Even at the end, I wasn’t sure if the father was alive or dead.
I did like the scenes of Israel and the description of the almond grove (p.129) “the scent of honey dripping from the sky”.

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, to be clear: DNF. And I hate to abandon books.... but, yeah. I just couldn't keep going.

This book sounded right up my alley... but it wasn't. I HATE not finishing books, but I just couldn't. I stopped at around page 60, and getting that far was a struggle.

Here's the thing--the plot is hard to follow, and the narrator is so incredibly entitled and unlikeable that I really couldn't get on board with her. Finally, the idea of 'listening' to her for another 250 pages was just too much to bear. Simply, there wasn't anything connecting me to the book or making me want to keep reading, even after 60 pages. On top of that, the writing felt uneven, and while that may have been a by-product of elevating the voice and stylizing the so-called plot, it made everything worse.

So, no, I couldn't make myself keep going. From the blurb, this still sounds like something I should love, but I'm afraid all it did was, at turns, either annoy me or put me to sleep.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. The main character is a former Olympic speed skater who failed spectacularly, a lesbian with many former lovers, a young woman searching in Israel for her father who may or may not have committed economic crimes and who may or may not be dead. If all that sounds like too much, I'm afraid it was.

[Geoffrey Skinner · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the blurbs called this a fever dream of a book and that would be my take as well.