Find Someone to Love

A poignant story of love, loss, and personal growth. The prose is beautiful and vivid. Following Priya on her journey through the last 17 years is a wonderful experience. I will say this is not a romance book but it is a book about love. Readers be aware of this going in.

Find Someone to Love is a unique story that takes place over 17 years between two women. Well written and interesting characters. I would read more by this author.

This book is about love but most definitely not a romance.

During college, Priya is in love with her best friend Leyla. After a miscarriage and heartbreak, Leyla leaves and effectively disappears from Priya’s life. Seventeen years have passed. Priya is working as an optician at 20/20. Her cousin, Prem, recently committed suicide back home in Calcutta, India. Priya’s thoughts are constantly occupied by the past and centred around Prem and Leyla. The past walks into the present when Leyla comes in as the new optometrist at 20/20. Priya has nursed and nurtured her feelings for Leyla all these years and they come back in a rush, though Leyla is married.

The book is heavy reading but written in a strangely addictive prose. Neither Priya nor Leyla are perfect but at the end of the book they are not terrible people either. In fact, Leyla is quite a beautiful person.

This is neither a feel-good book nor a romance but hauntingly realistic.

I got an overwhelming sense of quietness from this story and I think that much of that has to do with it being told from Priya's point of view in first person. Part of it also has to do with it being a small cast in a fairly closed setting. Priya works at an optician called 20/20 with Sam who is the owner, Ed who is a technician like her and Dr Bello who is the optician. It's not long before the difficult Dr Bello is replaced by Dr LM Ibrahim.

Priya is quite self-contained within this environment so in the New York office she trades light banter with her colleagues but in her head she thinks about her cousin Prem, who has just committed suicide in India. They were close, both being gay but knowing limitations of their families and culture. Entwined with these thoughts are those she has of Leyla, her best friend of twenty years before and the woman she fell in love with.

The prose is beautiful and lyrical. It's worth reading for that alone. The threads of her relationship with Prem as well as those with Leyla are carefully interwoven with the present. There is lightness around her office interactions but I found it didn't balance out some of the heavier themes. I loved the experience of reading this novel but it’s not one I can say I enjoyed. I felt an empathy for Priya because it felt like being inside her head and I think she’s going to be in mine for some time.

Book received from Netgalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for an honest review.