Rare does one read a story which taps into who we really are and not a Hollywood version of ourselves. I loved this book and won’t reveal spoilers but will say running into a lost true love would make many of ask ourselves, “what if?”. This book no doubt is on everyone’s keeper shelves and has me looking for everything Thomas Greene has written.

I appreciated the writing of this one and the love story! It’s a good one for more serious literary readers and also anyone who wants to read a love story as an escape at the beach A beautiful book

Really enjoyed If I Forget You. Loved Greene's other book and was happy to find this was just as good.

Honestly, this book was pretty boring. I thought the love part of the love story was missing a bit. Not my favorite read.

First off I’d like to thank Netgalley, the author and of course the publisher, for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a typical story boy from a working class family goes to college, meets a girl from a wealthy family, falls in love, then goes their separate ways. That is, until 20 years later they meet again only this time on a Manhattan street. When they meet again and start talking, they both have secrets to hide; both have been living their own lives and have changed, some for the better, some for the worse, but their love still burns for each other.

I read the author’s book The Headmaster’s Wife and fully enjoyed it. I thought I would love this one as well. I liked it well enough, but it seemed like all the other books like it, I didn’t find anything special about it.

When Henry and Margot first meet, it is after he has spent weeks and months staring longingly at her during college lectures. He finds her beautiful and compelling. Able to attend this small, pricey northeastern college because of his baseball skills, Henry is a budding poet. The daughter of wealth and privilege, Margot dreams of being a painter. She likes that Henry notices her - really notices her. She feels valued and adored, and she, in turn, values and adores him.

When Henry and Margot meet the second time, twenty-one years have passed, during which Henry thought longingly and lovingly of Margot, as she did him. They have been apart, though, for these two-plus decades. Are their feelings those borne of being forced apart, or are they the result of real, true, abiding love?

I certainly have a real, true, abiding love for the way Thomas Christopher Greene writes. Henry is a poet, and Greene's writing is, at times, poetic itself. This book is lyrically written, with Greene composing characters who move you, frustrate you, and compel you toward them. This is fitting because even as Greene details the lives and choices of Henry and Margot, he also writes a love letter to art. Henry's art is his words; Margot's is her paintings. Henry hasn't written much in the intervening years since Margot, whereas she has painted but has kept them private. Artists cannot stop their creativity, and their art must be seen. As Margot observes, "[T]he real courage lies in taking what you have created and spinning it out into the world, letting it speak for itself and knowing that no matter how good you think it is, some will hate it even if others love it. And none of that matters, when you get right down to it ..."

Greene uses art as a metaphor for Henry and Margot's relationship. They create it, but they don't let it speak for itself. They let the voices of those who hate it matter, and that destroys them. Just as creating art makes you vulnerable, so does love. As Henry puts it, "[T]his is the great paradox of life, isn't it? The more you love someone, the more that person will eventually break your heart."

I could spend pages gushing over this book, but, in the end, all I can do is exhort you to read it. I love the art Thomas Christopher Greene creates.