I did not finish the book. I found the narrative voice “I remember”. You remember” “I remember” irritating and I was unable to experience the story or the characters. Also, because the heart of the story being about a woman dying of cancer, for me there needs to be some points of light along the way. I could not find that here.

This book reads like a long poem. I like a story, and not a poem… or a list of sentences. It’s hard for me to get the point. The main character was unknown through two chapters. The beginning of chapter 3 looked like a very sad story about a person or people I didn’t know if I should care about. I stopped reading at that point.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. This Is a Love Story tells the love story of Abe and Jane. They have been coming to Central Park for the last fifty years and the book documents their story with the park as their witness. I enjoyed reading about their lives, and the highs and lows of their last fifty years. I was excited to read this book but I struggled to finish this book. I struggled to connect to the story throughout the book.

At its core, This Is a Love Story is a love story between an artist and a writer, Jane and Abe, as they look back on all of the small moments and memories that comprised their life together. But it’s also a love letter to Central Park and New York City as a whole. Anyone who has spent time in New York will relate to the perfectly captured details, and it made me nostalgic for my own memories in Central Park and in my relationship.

The writing feels more like stream of consciousness, and the speaker often shifts, from Abe and Jane, to their son Max, to people in Central Park itself. With this changing structure, it can be a bit confusing at times to remember who’s speaking to whom. Yet the prose flows effortlessly, and it’s a book that you can completely fall into.

Beyond different types of love, this book also examines pain, the pursuit of art, postpartum depression, and a tenuous relationship between parent and child. Though the subject matter and some of the storylines could feel tired, Soffer offers a new perspective.

Central Park has watched the love story of Abe and Jane for decades, from the early stages of romance, through the struggles of parenting and now into the end stages of Jane’s cancer journey. Together they reminisce about their lives and their love, the highs and lows of their relationship.

Told from multiple perspectives, including that of Central Park, this story is simple yet powerful in the ways it illustrates these characters' lives and their love. Though heartbreaking, I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Jane’s experience with postpartum depression. The reader gets to see how her husband and her child remember that time in her life but reading it from her point of view was powerful.

This was so different! Like stories within stories. Very sweet and heartfelt at times. Never been to Central Park and now it makes me want to go there and just sit on a bench and people watch.