The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life by Sharon Pywell

Two sisters narrate this genre-twisting tale by Sharon Pywell. The first chapter is narrated by the elder sister Lilly, already dead in Where She Is Now with their childhood dog, Mr. Boppit, and begins with

If you’re reading this, then you aren’t where I am, which is dead.

which pulls you right along every other chapter opposite Neave, the younger of the “Irish twins” (they were born exactly one year apart).

Neave describes her life that led up til now, the 1950s, how she learned about love through books while reading to her elderly neighbor, how she and her sister began a cosmetics business right after WWII ended, and how she is presently in danger like her sister had been. Lilly is the supposed reckless child, the eldest daughter, who is swept up by a lust-like love and lets her sister Neave be the one who “followed in her wake.” The sisters are sandwiched between an older brother, Snyder, and the youngest sister, Janey.

Neave’s narration begins with describing life in Lynn, MA, in 1936 when she got her first job at 11 years old reading to a going-blind Mrs. Daniels. This was Snyder’s castoff job, reading to an elderly neighbor who sometimes liked to read romance novels; Snyder’s enjoyment comes from comic books. Mrs. Daniels provides a safe space for Neave; the other space being her hall closet where she reads the first of many “borrowed” books of Mrs. Daniels called The Pirate Lover. This is one of the genre-twists, a story within a story, a parallel to the universe of Neave and Lilly, add in a little romance, historical fiction, thriller, and magical realism (a limbo-like afterlife with a talking dog who wears heels) and you got quite a tale.

The parallel to The Pirate Lover and the not-quite-linear storytelling is quite beautiful and aids the foreshadowing in the novel:

Lilly didn’t really think evil existed. Of all the reasons I wished I were her, that’s the big one. That blindness was her doing and undoing; mine too, maybe, but not in the same order. That’s why I’m here telling her story and she’s not.

Overall this novel intertwined two fantastic tales about the effects of love, romantic or otherwise. This novel explores how family members parallel one another and shape one another, as well as how often stories are about the same thing or at least we may find the same answers within them.

Trigger warning / content warning (tw/cw)

(graphic): animal death, domestic abuse, (minor): sexual abuse