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Loving Donovan
The first section of this unconventional love story belongs to Campbell. Despite being born to a broken-hearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love...if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the "little man" of a shattered home-a family torn apart by anger and bitterness. In the face of these daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing for the NBA. But, deep inside, Campbell and Donovan live with the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover-together and apart-forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.
A deeply thoughtful novel about hope, forgiveness, and the cost of Loving Donovan, this is certain to be another bestseller from a supremely gifted author.
A deeply thoughtful novel about hope, forgiveness, and the cost of Loving Donovan, this is certain to be another bestseller from a supremely gifted author.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2003
75 people are currently reading
2074 people want to read
About the author
Bernice L. McFadden
21 books2,247 followersBERNICE L. McFADDEN is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels including Praise Song for the Butterflies (Long listed for the 2019 Women's Prize in Fiction ) The Book of Harlan (winner of a 2017 American Book Award and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction) Sugar, Loving Donovan, Nowhere Is a Place, The Warmest December, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012) and Glorious . She is a four-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of four awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA).
McFadden has also penned five novels under the pseudonym: Geneva Holliday
She is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is at work on her sixteenth novel.
McFadden has also penned five novels under the pseudonym: Geneva Holliday
She is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is at work on her sixteenth novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
January 13, 2021
This year I have committed myself to reading the works of three authors: James Baldwin, Bernardine Evaristo and Bernice L. McFadden.
Loving Donovan is the first novel that I have read for this challenge this year. It is the third book that I have read from Ms. McFadden. One commonality that I have found in her books is that they get to the heart of human emotion. Her characters and their backstories have so much depth and are complex. You can't help but identify with their pain and their joy. Even if you don't see yourself in her pages you feel as if you know someone just like that. Her writing is just brilliant.
Loving Donovan is the first novel that I have read for this challenge this year. It is the third book that I have read from Ms. McFadden. One commonality that I have found in her books is that they get to the heart of human emotion. Her characters and their backstories have so much depth and are complex. You can't help but identify with their pain and their joy. Even if you don't see yourself in her pages you feel as if you know someone just like that. Her writing is just brilliant.
February 25, 2010
I just finished reading "Loving Donovan" and it brought me to uncontrollable tears at the end. Ms. McFadden is a MASTERFUL storyteller. The pivotal moment in Donovan's childhood was so deftly brought to life by the author, that it made nauseous. This story, this love between Campbell and Donovan, hit a very raw nerve with me. Their separate stories, the stories within the stories were expertly woven. I can't say enough good things about this book. Over the last year, Bernice McFadden has become one of my favorite authors ever. All of her books are phenomenal.
February 13, 2016
Loving Donovan is the third novel I’ve picked up from Bernice L. McFadden. And I surely won’t wait so long to pick up another. I previously read Glorious and then Gathering of Waters. I really enjoyed both of these books. In light of Loving Donovan being re-released this year with a modern fresh new cover, I was enticed to pick it up. Loving Donovan, as all of McFadden’s work, shares some unique characteristics that define particularities in her writing style. She manages to balance character development and plot to a fault, particularly in this one. The two principal characters Campbell and Donovan are developed from childhood to adulthood. To continue click the link http://browngirlreading.com/2015/02/1...
December 19, 2017
Again. Again with her captivating writing, her ability to make me feel so strongly about her characters and her stories. This was such a good read and I couldn't put it down. Great, heartbreaking story, and for some (myself included) will touch close to home.
August 28, 2021
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3.5 stars
The title of this novel is somewhat misleading. While yes, there is plenty of love to be found within these pages, it is almost obscured by the many harrowing scenes that make up most of the novel.
McFadden's writing is both direct and expressive which made her story all the more vivid. The narrative follows Campbell and Donovan from the childhood to their adulthood. Although we know from the prologue that these two characters will at some point meet and fall in love, most of the novel (say 60%) is focused on their 'history'. In chronicling their lives McFadden also brings into the picture the lives of their families and friends. The novel presents us with two complex and layered families as well as with a community that is divided by love and hate. There is cheating, jealousies, prejudices, and an array of other things that make their way into these relationships.
While I was absorbed by these characters much of what happens to them is horrifying and not easy to read. Pedophilia and rape mark the lives of many of the characters, and we see just how traumatising their past experiences are and the effect they have in shaping the rest of their lives. While there were many moving and touching moments these were almost obscured by the brutalities that occur throughout the narrative.
I wish that we had seen more of the relationship between Campbell and Donovan. The last section of the novel seemed hurried, especially when compared to the rest of the story. The ending was somewhat unsatisfying and left me wanting more out of the whole thing.
3.5 stars
The title of this novel is somewhat misleading. While yes, there is plenty of love to be found within these pages, it is almost obscured by the many harrowing scenes that make up most of the novel.
McFadden's writing is both direct and expressive which made her story all the more vivid. The narrative follows Campbell and Donovan from the childhood to their adulthood. Although we know from the prologue that these two characters will at some point meet and fall in love, most of the novel (say 60%) is focused on their 'history'. In chronicling their lives McFadden also brings into the picture the lives of their families and friends. The novel presents us with two complex and layered families as well as with a community that is divided by love and hate. There is cheating, jealousies, prejudices, and an array of other things that make their way into these relationships.
While I was absorbed by these characters much of what happens to them is horrifying and not easy to read. Pedophilia and rape mark the lives of many of the characters, and we see just how traumatising their past experiences are and the effect they have in shaping the rest of their lives. While there were many moving and touching moments these were almost obscured by the brutalities that occur throughout the narrative.
I wish that we had seen more of the relationship between Campbell and Donovan. The last section of the novel seemed hurried, especially when compared to the rest of the story. The ending was somewhat unsatisfying and left me wanting more out of the whole thing.
May 9, 2016
Bernice L. McFadden
Terri McMillan writes in the introduction of Bernice McFadden’s novel, Loving Donovan:
“…I was struck by how much Bernice tackles in this seemingly straightforward story of romance. And while she addresses difficult topics such as pedophilia, domestic abuse, homophobia, abortion, depression, suicide, she writes with such finesses that she doesn’t leave the reader in total despair. Saddened at times, yes, but throughout it all, Bernice gives her characters hope.” (page 8)
Bernice McFadden masterfully takes her readers on an embraced journey that blurs the lines of time, space, and sometimes, sanity. The prolog exposes the beginning of an end, yet, as few writers can, remarkably exposes, comfortably, the trials of the human soul with emotional truth absent of punitive venom (although there is plenty of bite) and vulgarity. Each part (calling them chapters minimizes the overall nuance) of Loving Donovan carries readers across waves of family, community, and social history. It tells the story of love: good, bad and in between, of longing and wanting and of realities so well known that the characters will lose their fictitious names and take on the names of people you know.
Loving Donovan is a love story, of sorts, but it is so much more. It is a story of women who love too hard and men who are selectively blind to, or openly unsure of, how this thing called love was supposed to be achieved. It is the story of sexual lust and tension and deviation and uncertainty. It is the story of joy and blues, and joy in blues and sometimes, just blues. It is the story of love: familial, manipulative, abusive, unrequited, and lost (including the inability to fully love oneself). Perhaps this definition or description does not do the brilliance and emotion of Loving Donovan justice, but McFadden has opened long shut doors and reveals details once hidden.
In the ‘part’ of Loving Donovan, entitled “Age Eight,” McFadden writes:
Millie don’t know why he act the way he do, say the things he say, and don’t seem to know either, ‘cause when she ask him , he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Baby, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I spent the rent money, stayed out till dawn, had my hand on Viola Sampson’s knee… Millie, baby, I just don’t know.” (Page 21)
This passage is the overarching mantra of most of the men, even when they are silent. They simply do not know why, in any capacity, they do [some of] the things they do. This, from my purview, is not intended to universally denigrate men and is not, in my opinion, an attack on their character, but instead, in its complex simplicity, utters the truth (as aforementioned, McFadden opens doors once hidden) about simply complex relationships, knowledge of self, and misunderstandings of love. Equally, McFadden holds the women in the novel accountable, perhaps not as dramatically, but certainly enough for the reader to ask, “what in the hell were you thinking.” It seems that, for the most part, their minds are occupied by thoughts of the men who should love them back, the way they deserve to be loved.
Loving Donovan parallels, essentially, the lives of Campbell and Donovan; their upbringing, their similarities, and differences, and how a narrow space between them is indirectly shared without awareness of each other’s presence. Their eventual bond is seemingly inevitable, coincidental, as they come through mazes of events that shape them into adults. They are the products of storied lives; experiences that build and destroy and leaves scars. The scars run deep and they, especially Donovan, struggle with the monsters within. Campbell, on the other hand, cautiously but simply looks for the"penguin" and found (was introduced to) Donovan. In the search for happy finishes, the reader will instead find beginnings, middles, and endings that explore and reveal romance in the real world; the uncertainty, difficulty, confusion, frustration, and agape of an undefinable emotion.
Bernice McFadden magnificently captures the full lives of her characters in Loving Donovan without adding filler. Each 'part' is straight forward, clean, and familiar. I was lost in the lives that McFadden so gingerly and intentionally breathed life into. In the end, Donovan became a ghost, disappearing into the realm of eternal goodbyes and Campbell fell into the bottomless well of emotional despair until the bottom rose to meet her (she cuts her hair -- a symbol of change and surrender). She was lifted slowly from that abyss, and although granted a new happiness, is still secretly lured to the edge, from which she'd carefully glance down into its darkness, hoping that Donovan returned to resume their story.
McFadden writes:
The love she had for him never changed, never shifted or waned, just lodged inside her, wrapped around her heart.
She still looks for him behind the smoke-glass windows of Benzes...
Her heart still hopes when the phone rings...
And finally...
Campbell has a better understanding of love and the paths God and the universe have laid out for her, and it allows her to muse that perhaps she and Donovan will meet again in another life, on another plane...
...she as the sand, him as the sea...
...him as moon, she as the stars...
...penguins...
This was a beautiful journey, one that is unforgettable, familiar and awakening. In the literary styles of Angelou, Walker, Morrison, and Brooks (just to name a few), McFadden is a voice that resonates and becomes fodder for evening conversations. Although, thematically, love is the subject, the truest love is that which the reader will unquestionably feel for McFadden as a writer and her novels, as national treasures.
BERNICE L. McFADDEN is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels including Sugar, Loving Donovan, Nowhere Is a Place, The Warmest December, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012), and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a three-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of three awards from the BCALA. McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Book of Harlan is her latest novel. (from Amazon)
February 7, 2017
This is the story that I hear of in the forums and on social media amongst the brothas and the sistas. This is the story that the fellas always say isn't true and that the ladies are merely perpetuating this exaggerated dynamic that is only true in their minds. Minds with overly active and unhinged imagination.
I loved this book and the undercurrents of our social ills. I have met a Campbell and a Donovan. I am a Campbell and in some ways a Donovan too.
and yet love transcends all things and when you find it you just know.
I loved this book and the undercurrents of our social ills. I have met a Campbell and a Donovan. I am a Campbell and in some ways a Donovan too.
and yet love transcends all things and when you find it you just know.
January 30, 2021
I had a complaint about this book within the first 100 pages but, ultimately, the prose, the drama, and the emotion of the story won out!
February 23, 2016
One mark of a great novel is the intense emotion it causes the reader to feel. I came away from listening to this audiobook with one all-encompassing thought and one strong emotion: I intensely hate Grammy. I can’t even feel sorry for her, her lot in life, etc. Grammy represents every person who has allowed circumstances and their own poor decisions to warp their psyche. She is a bitter manipulative, crazy, pathetic, lonely, controlling creature who spews acidic-like venom over everyone unfortunate enough to be around her. Her unchecked dysfunction causes her to destroy marriages (including her own) and relationships. The lives wrecked by her inane ramblings, lies and stereotype-laded speculations that plant seeds of doubt/mistrust are numerous. Her venom destroys the minds of the ones she claims to love causing them to struggle with the basic emotion. If Grammy had sought help earlier in her life (like when her hubby left) and chosen a better path, she may have made better decisions which may or may not have spared Donovan the thing that haunted him from boyhood. I have seen and met people like this and seeing this character played out in this manner got my blood boiling. I kept waiting for Grammy to be hit by a bus and killed because no one likes to see that kind of evil live and thrive while her victims suffer.
April 27, 2021
Wow. This book was powerful. I have so many emotions, it’s hard to nail down just how this book made me feel. In short, retrospective is the word I would use. I’ve known men like Donovan and I’m ashamed to say I never thought about why they turned out the way they did, I only thought about the pain they left me to sort out, alone. So many people have stories of neglect, abuse, secret hurt and undiagnosed PTSD. And I’d bet most don’t seek help for it, opting to just hold that pain inside and silently self destruct. Campbell represents so many people who unknowing fall in love with someone who never learned how to allow themselves to be loved and show it to someone else. It’s a wound that never really heals, unfortunately. The book also delves into what it means to feel like a woman versus how it feels to feel like a man, emotionally, physically, sexually and financially and the generational curses that have become popular to discuss via hashtags in social media. I wonder how many people would actually benefit from normalizing the idea of therapy for everyone, not just those who seek it or those who are required by law to receive it.
These are just a few of my major thoughts, but I would be happy to recommend this book to anyone interested in the dynamics between men and women and their romantic relationships. 5 stars!
These are just a few of my major thoughts, but I would be happy to recommend this book to anyone interested in the dynamics between men and women and their romantic relationships. 5 stars!
December 14, 2012
I love this book, but I swear to God it is not the book to read if you have unresolved feelings about an ex. When I read it a few years ago, I wasn't really affected by it. I listened to it this time around & I was ready to kick stuffed animals before it was all over.
July 30, 2015
really sad but it pulled me in right away and i couldn't put it down - very well written
February 6, 2019
4.5 🌟
Go into the lives of Campbell as a child plus her family past.
Going into Donovan's past as a child including his family past too.
To grow up and see black love but it's not all great due some keep their past on their shoulders.
Enjoyable, sad, cute at times. I loved.
Go into the lives of Campbell as a child plus her family past.
Going into Donovan's past as a child including his family past too.
To grow up and see black love but it's not all great due some keep their past on their shoulders.
Enjoyable, sad, cute at times. I loved.
Read
December 5, 2015One thing that stuck is that, guys are douchebags. This is true. But when this happens, more often than not, it's because he's battling his own demons. A literary "It's not you, it's me" thing.
I liked this book.
I liked this book.
June 1, 2021
4.5 ⭐️
Dear Lord, please protect me from broken men. Please give me discernment to see the signs. Amen. 🙏🏾
There should be a manual on how to love a broken man. Or better yet, there should be a manual on how to get help for a broken man.
From a child his right to thrive in life was snatched by a monster, which was something he lived with and never talked about. Something that ate him up inside, to the point where he was incapable of being the great man I feel he really wanted to be. I instantly thought of the poem in the Antoine Fisher movie, “𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐶𝑟𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑦“.
𝙃𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚, 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚.
Donovan and Campbell were the central characters, but we learn about the people and stories that shaped them even before they were conceived, up to when they meet as adults. This “circle of life” stance gives insight on their mindsets and rationale for their actions. It highlights how the baggage of pain, darkness, and trauma of our pasts can haunt and affect future relationships.
My emotions went from 0 to 100, real quick! This story was incredibly painful to read at times. I felt my chest tighten, and teeth clenching more than a few times while reading. When Campbell said she’d give up everything to be with Donovan after the pain she endured... man! I felt that deep. 🤦🏾♀️
The book ended quickly and I longed for more. I was completely enthralled! I was like why’d the audio stop? What happened? The end. I needed more closure, but I guess that really symbolizes how quickly things come to an end when you’ve been ghosted. AHA 💡!!
Dear Lord, please protect me from broken men. Please give me discernment to see the signs. Amen. 🙏🏾
There should be a manual on how to love a broken man. Or better yet, there should be a manual on how to get help for a broken man.
From a child his right to thrive in life was snatched by a monster, which was something he lived with and never talked about. Something that ate him up inside, to the point where he was incapable of being the great man I feel he really wanted to be. I instantly thought of the poem in the Antoine Fisher movie, “𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑊𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝐶𝑟𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑦“.
𝙃𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚, 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚.
Donovan and Campbell were the central characters, but we learn about the people and stories that shaped them even before they were conceived, up to when they meet as adults. This “circle of life” stance gives insight on their mindsets and rationale for their actions. It highlights how the baggage of pain, darkness, and trauma of our pasts can haunt and affect future relationships.
My emotions went from 0 to 100, real quick! This story was incredibly painful to read at times. I felt my chest tighten, and teeth clenching more than a few times while reading. When Campbell said she’d give up everything to be with Donovan after the pain she endured... man! I felt that deep. 🤦🏾♀️
The book ended quickly and I longed for more. I was completely enthralled! I was like why’d the audio stop? What happened? The end. I needed more closure, but I guess that really symbolizes how quickly things come to an end when you’ve been ghosted. AHA 💡!!
Read
November 1, 2017I was excited to read a story about a romance but Bernice McFadden was a little too realistic with this one. Of all the emotions I felt for various characters, I never felt any love for Donovan. I didn't even like him. From the start he was really lazy about dating Campbell. I couldn't understand why she was so sprung but that was one of McFadden's points...
The story is set up in three sections: Her, Him, and Them. The first two sections give us all the family histories and the traumas that make these two who they are before they meet. Those histories were exhausting and painful. I just kept hoping they were gonna find some love in each other to cure themselves of their pasts. (The worst kind of thinking, I know.) But, yeah it doesn't quite work out that way.
Overall, I enjoyed McFadden's storytelling. She keeps things simple, no fluff, just doing what she needs to do to tell the story in an engaging way.
The story is set up in three sections: Her, Him, and Them. The first two sections give us all the family histories and the traumas that make these two who they are before they meet. Those histories were exhausting and painful. I just kept hoping they were gonna find some love in each other to cure themselves of their pasts. (The worst kind of thinking, I know.) But, yeah it doesn't quite work out that way.
Overall, I enjoyed McFadden's storytelling. She keeps things simple, no fluff, just doing what she needs to do to tell the story in an engaging way.
December 10, 2015
Beautifully written and easy to read. Insight into a world different than mine. What isn't different is the painstaking heartbreak when a man you love and adore with every fiber of your being kicks you to the curb for no apparent reason. It breaks you.
January 3, 2021
Auntie B has taken me through all of the phases of a jaded relationship in this one. She goes from the conception of man all the way to the ends of his aint shit ways. A look into the longing for love that all of us women know to well.
January 18, 2015
I won this book off Goodreads from Akashic Books - so thank you first to both!
This book captures the lives of Campbell and Donovan and is separated into three parts. Throughout the book you learn more about their separate pasts (with some surprises no less!) culminating in their paths crossing in a "6 degrees of separation" kind of way.
I haven't read anything by Bernice L. McFadden before, but definitely hope to get to some more of her books later on. She writes her characters so well, you can't help but feel for them every time something happens to them. You share their pain, love, joy, and it's a roller coaster of a ride. The ending wasn't what I hoped for, but it just shows you that we don't always get happy endings in certain times of our lives.
If you haven't read her books before or maybe have but it's been a while, then you should definitely give "Loving Donovan" a read!
This book captures the lives of Campbell and Donovan and is separated into three parts. Throughout the book you learn more about their separate pasts (with some surprises no less!) culminating in their paths crossing in a "6 degrees of separation" kind of way.
I haven't read anything by Bernice L. McFadden before, but definitely hope to get to some more of her books later on. She writes her characters so well, you can't help but feel for them every time something happens to them. You share their pain, love, joy, and it's a roller coaster of a ride. The ending wasn't what I hoped for, but it just shows you that we don't always get happy endings in certain times of our lives.
If you haven't read her books before or maybe have but it's been a while, then you should definitely give "Loving Donovan" a read!
November 15, 2015
I love a good structure, and this novel has it -- one section for "Her," divided up by age from childhood to young adulthood; one section for "Him," set up the same way. Then a final section for "Them," when they are in their 30s, hurt, lonely, and isolated. We know from the first page that this isn't ultimately going to work out, but it's the getting there and being there that is the important thing, not what happens after. McFadden's characters have had rough lives -- abuse, rape, teenage motherhood, abortion, adultery, divorce -- and she doesn't shy away from the good or the bad qualities of "Her," "Him," or all the family and friends that influence, support, and interfere with their lives. I didn't really like the ending -- I felt like it undercut the power of the structure and richness of the characters, but the book as a whole is an engrossing and moving read with rich prose and just enough humor to keep it real. McFadden is quickly turning into one of my favorites.
March 29, 2016
To be fair to Ms. McFadden, whose prose is a joy to read, Loving Donovan deserves a 5 for her ability to turn a phrase and to make her characters rise off the page and become flesh and blood for the time you read this novel. I loved Campbell. I felt empathy for Donovan and Luscious. The reason I rated Loving Donovan a 3, however, was because there seemed to be no arc or purpose to this story and it ended abruptly. I suspect that this would have worked better either as a novella, or as a longer novel. In any event, while not one of McFadden's best, her best is so phenomenal that Loving Donovan is not one to miss.
July 11, 2015
I had just finished Sugar and got my hands on this one. I again live McFadden's writing and her ability to tell the stories so many want to hide. However, I admit that the ending felt abrupt and incomplete. I found myself needing ore closure on Donovan.
January 23, 2021
The way in which Bernice L. McFadden is able to tell Black stories with such brilliance is a lot for my heart and mind. I just...I feel like my words will never be enough to suffice just how beautiful, raw, real, and BLACK her books are, for myself and for our community. Loving Donovan shattered my heart into pieces, do you understand me. Our experience of life and loving one another as best as we’ve been equipped to sometimes simply isn’t enough sometimes. But we take and deal with being broken as we find the courage-in most cases-in rare cases, some take Pat’s route-to dust ourselves off, begin again, and LIVE.
I’m left with so many other thoughts and feelings in the wake of finishing this novel. There are so many topics to discuss and unpack. I just...OMG!!!
I’m left with so many other thoughts and feelings in the wake of finishing this novel. There are so many topics to discuss and unpack. I just...OMG!!!
May 25, 2017
I wanted to like this book. I held out hope that something good would come from so much pain. This book definitely imitated life...not everyone gets their "happily ever after." I'm not mad at the author though, it was her story to tell, but I would love for her to give Donovan another chance, in another book, somewhere down the line, perhaps after his evil a*s grand mamma is dead. Please?
July 25, 2018
This ending was haaaard. I’m typing and crying at the same time! Praying for a sequel. This book was one of the most REALISTIC love stories I’ve read in a long time. Our childhoods and our traumatic experiences truuuly shape our lives and how we handle relationships— This book doesn’t sugarcoat that! I loved it even though I’m bawling my eyes out!
May 17, 2022
Wow ripped and made my heart whole again so many times. My emotions were a roller coaster but McFadden DID THAT. This love story felt close to me. This love story hugged me and patted me reassuringly on the back. “They always are so damn beautiful, right?”
December 27, 2022
Eventhough I enjoyed reading Loving Donovan WHAT IN THE ENTIRE HELL was the purpose of this story. The book starts out good backgrounds about both families. They meet...fall in love...heartbreak...THE END. Where they do this at?🤨 Where is the rest of the story???🤔🤔
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2015
Amazing story of broken families, broken lives, people whose paths cross through many times in their lives. So much hurt and enough blame to pass around. And still there is hope for a perfect love.
June 10, 2021
3.5
wait... what?? 💔💔
wait... what?? 💔💔
January 15, 2024
This book has truly left me speechless and heartbroken.
McFadden is a phenomenal author with writing that blew me away. Loving Donovan was absolutely incredible.
You grow up with Donovan and Campbell and you see all the horrible things they’ve witnessed and you watch as their traumas slowly creep over every aspect of their lives in a way I have never read before.
The whole book was devastating, yet beautiful. So so so touching.
It is a story about love. Both the right kind of love that makes you want to explode with joy, and the wrong kind of love perfectly disguised as care. It opens your eyes to the difference between what it really is. Nurturing and warm. And what it can be. Harmful and manipulative.
This book was definitely a tough one to emotionally get through but it will never leave me. Look through the trigger warnings carefully, and if you can, please, please, please give it a shot.
McFadden is a phenomenal author with writing that blew me away. Loving Donovan was absolutely incredible.
You grow up with Donovan and Campbell and you see all the horrible things they’ve witnessed and you watch as their traumas slowly creep over every aspect of their lives in a way I have never read before.
The whole book was devastating, yet beautiful. So so so touching.
It is a story about love. Both the right kind of love that makes you want to explode with joy, and the wrong kind of love perfectly disguised as care. It opens your eyes to the difference between what it really is. Nurturing and warm. And what it can be. Harmful and manipulative.
This book was definitely a tough one to emotionally get through but it will never leave me. Look through the trigger warnings carefully, and if you can, please, please, please give it a shot.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews