'Yours Always x' What an amazing name for a book full of love letters, right?
My girlfriend got me this book as a gift, and I have to admit I was a little sceptical at first. On the outside, it didn’t really seem like my kind of thing and something I wouldn’t pick up in a shop. However, I guess what they say about not judging a book by its cover is accurate as I have to admit I adore this book and I’m in awe over it.
The book consists of love letters, split into three categories, ‘Unrequited and Unequal Love' being the biggest category, ‘Conflicted and Condemned Love' and lastly ‘A Final Word’. This book honestly pulled on my heart strings, containing love letters between literary greats such as Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf and Ted Hughes.
Before each letter, there is one or two pages of background information regarding the person and their lover who they are writing too, which is pretty cool as it gives you an overview of their relationship and why they are writing!
A consistent love
I immediately fell in love with the first letter of the book, which was letters Charlotte Bronte had sent to a lover, which covered the Unrequited/Unequal love. All the letters in the book really did pull on my heart strings, even leading me to tear up. The book is so well put together and does really emphasise different aspects of love that people experience in their lifetime.
I think the book really highlights that love is consistent and each love is different and effects people differently, as the time period of the book stretches over a large period such as from Henry VIII to right up to modern day. For me personally, it shows how everyone gets caught up and captivated by love, and how it can either spark positive or negative emotions in people. I think the book is really lovely and well thought out and it definitely gave me loads of new words to add to my vocab!
Overall, I feel as if this book will leave a different mark on each person that reads, each person taking something different and maybe forming a different opinion of ‘love’, so I would recommend a read!
I will now leave you with my favourite quote from the book, and I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did.
‘’That, indeed, is humiliating – to be unable to control own thoughts, to be slave of a regret, of a memory, the slave of a fixed and dominant idea’’
