How to Love

I'm not usually a contemporary romance reader, but OH THE FEELS! First of all, I really enjoyed the format of the story. We start in the "Before" where Reena is fifteen and falling for Sawyer and the "After" where Reena is eighteen and seeing Sawyer for the first time in a couple of years. I really loved the parallel structure there, as though her life was in some ways repeating itself. The voices in the story felt very real despite being somewhat stereotypical at times. No one is so extreme as to become a caricature, but they're all very distinct. I would say in terms of realism, it doesn't get much better than this. Katie Cotugno manages to address a lot of really significant issues surrounding accidental pregnancy in a careful but purposeful way. Religion is addressed. Abortion is addressed. The stigma of being a young teen mother is addressed. I think she manages to do all this without sound preachy or making it the focus of the story, as the real focus is Reena and Sawyer's love story. It was enjoyable and full of feels, and while I still don't think I'm much of a contemporary romance kind of girl, I highly recommend this book!

Reviewed first on: http://stephwonderland.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-love-review.html This was breathtakingly beautiful. I loved this story. It was raw and real and reminded me so much of some of my friends back in high school. Katie took a really tough subject and made a beautiful masterpiece out of it. I wish this book was popular back when I was in high school. It may have helped some of the girls from my high school notice what consequences could arise from unprotected sex. Don't get me wrong I love all of my friends' kids. And I am there for them 100% no matter what. And I would be in their shoes if I weren't such a stickler about multiple forms of protection (condoms and the pill). Katie took teenage pregnancy and intertwined it with falling in love and it was staggeringly gorgeous. Reena, the main character, deals with so much after getting pregnant at 16. She deals with the consequences and I think she does really well with everything. Her parents don't help her situation (they don't shun her but you find out exactly how her relationship with her father did not go all rainbows and butterflies after the pregnancy). Sawyer (the baby daddy and the boy she fell in love with) didn't know about the pregnancy. His parents did and they basically shunned Reena out. They had nothing to do with Reena or the baby (Hannah) until Sawyer came back into town. Reena and Sawyer go through a lot of turbulence within this book and it was so great seeing the before and the after. I loved the side characters like Shelby and Allie. I loved seeing the before one chapter and the next chapter was about the after. Katie Cotugno wrote a beautiful story and I will definitely be checking out her future books. If you're in the mood for a contemporary with realistic issues, check this one out. It's a great summery read and you're just bound to fall in love with Reena's story.

I don't think I've ever read a novel in the format that Katie Cotugno setup HOW TO LOVE. It time hops every other chapter from BEFORE the love interest, Sawyer, leaves and AFTER he comes back almost three years later. Cotugno has some skill because I wasn't confused at all with this structure. There were no "wait, what?" moments that so often happen when an author time-hops. And after reading the whole story, I think it really was a great way to shape the novel. There was a build up of emotion and events for each time space, and the more you learn about how things are NOW, the more you want to know what happened in the past to get them there. I also want to give her props for making a really "real" book. Does that make sense? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love book boyfriends and swoony love interests, but you don't get that with HOW TO LOVE. What you get is a real life depiction of how loving someone can be hard. It can down right rip your heart out. But life also comes with forgiveness and misunderstandings and learning experiences. I love how the novel explores, not only her relationship with Sawyer, but also with her girl friends and her own family. I wasn't head-over-heels in love with Sawyer because he didn't do a whole lot of swoon-worthy things. But I could see the connection there, and in real life, sometimes that means more than having the perfect partner. Not only did I love the story and the exploration of relationships, but this was a nice spin on a "pregnancy book". We didn't really see her actually going through being pregnant -- just the before and after effects. I thought this was a unique twist on the subject and I loved seeing the AFTER scenes, especially being a new mom myself :)

Je suis tombé sur ce livre au hasard et j ai adoré l histoire est super l héroïne super attachant une très belle histoire d amour je recommande vraiment a toute celle qui l on pas lu

Ugh. This book takes the saying 'all that glitters is not gold' to a whole other level. Rude or not, I had such high hopes for this book and first, I get an old, dishevelled copy (all thanks to Amazon) and second, it's all just pure unorganized, turmoils crap. And you may like this book if you're a fan of stupidity. Because if you're anything like a normal homo sapien who's sound of mind, than you'll stay far away from this book and won't make the same mistake as I did.

I wasn’t expecting anything from this book.... I was so wrong! From the first chapter I was hooked, trapped by the wonderful story and forced to devour it in one day!

Love this book from the first word to the very last. This is an all night read, once you start you won't be able to put it down.

it is a tale of young love and what can happen if it all goes bad and have a kid