Title: Swear on This Life
Author: Renée Carlino
Synopsys: Emiline has a normal life and a long-term relationship. She has a career at the university and nothing could go wrong. Except for the best-selling book that just came out and everyone is reading. She starts reading it and discovers that what is inside that book is her troubled childhood that no one knows about. And could the author of the book be her first love that knows everything about her but she hasn’t seen for over a decade?
Rating: 3.5/5 stars.
(Beware, the following review contains spoilers).
If I need to talk about this book, I must start from the first page. Here is one of the most beautiful book openings I have ever read, no lies. Maybe it’s because I love thinking about a greater power that is surrounding us and guiding us to our fate, or just because it was really beautiful and well written. I don’t know. Unfortunately, not the entire book was as good as this first page.
I think that the first part was the best one. We get to know Emiline, that is not really satisfied with her life and her relationship with Trevor. At some point, she bumps into the book “All the Roads Between”, which she discovers being the story of her life, narrated from her point of view. This was really cool, I liked the idea of the book in the book (and this reminded me of “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell. God, THAT BOOK). Almost every chapter is divided in two: in the first section we get to learn more about what Emiline’s life is like at the moment and in the second one we discover her past thanks to this best-seller book.
“All the Roads Between” was really beautiful. Really really beautiful. It was narrated in such a simple, straightforward way that I appreciated so much. Here we get to know her handsome neighbour/friend/lover/everything-you-want named Jason. Oh, I forgot to say that, in this book they have their name changed into Emerson and Jackson. So, Em and Jax have not a very simple and easy life. His mother is a junky, her father is really bad and violent and Jax’s brother at some point doesn’t end well. At all. This is all settled in a poor town in Ohio where there are few jobs and no money. It was like reading “A Series of Unfortunate Events” mixed with “Oliver Twist”. But in the end, it wasn’t so bad, I was really captivated by the story and I couldn’t put the book down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I liked what happened to them, especially to Emerson, but it was like being there with the two teenagers and I felt really involved in it.
Then things started to go down a bit. The second half of the book left me a little disappointed about many things. First of all, Jason/Jackson. When he was a young boy he made me fall in love with his character and his behaviour. He was so mature and smart. But now that we get the chance to meet him as an adult, I literally couldn’t stand him. He was very arrogant, haughty and condescending.
Another character that I hated throughout the entire book was Trevor. I always found him a bit distracted and careless about Emiline’s life; not that she was better than him. And things got worse when the author used two plot devices for him. First of all, the painkiller addiction. It seemed the perfect way to justify his shallowness and the author did not use it as a chance to try to develop more of his character and this really bothered me. Secondly, the love interest for the physical therapist when he is in rehab. Why can’t they be the adults they are? They have seen their relationship going down, it was like the Titanic. They didn’t really care for one another and I thought all the time that they were staying together because it was their all-day routine. Not to mention that she cheated on him with Jason and for Emiline it was not that big of a deal. Well, it was and it still is.
What I really appreciated and loved about this book was Em’s reunion with her father. What he did to her when she was a teenager is unforgivable but finding out he was really sorry and changed for the better made me cry a bit. I’m really happy that she forgave him and I do hope that things will get better for them.
So, this is my opinion about Renée Carlino’s book. If you have read it let me know what you think about it and if you liked it, by leaving a comment down below! I’ll be very glad to know all your opinions.
Our pick for the month of March is “Enchantée” by Gita Trelease. It takes place in Paris, year 1789, and we see Camille Durbonne’s life. Thanks to magic she can turn metal into gold and she can even change her aspect. This will lead her to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s court.
We are eager to read this book and we would be glad if you’d like to join us!