Lauren John Joseph

At Certain Points We Touch by Lauren John Joseph is a beautifully written but at times quite jarring story of love, or what we often think of as love in our lives.

The book is bracketed nicely with an opening question that grabs the reader (When did you know you were dead?) and ends with a possible answer to that question. The journey between the two seems at times erratic and full of detours, but in fact mirrors many journeys in life, especially when viewed in retrospect. The ups and downs, the fine line between so many (supposed) opposites, and even the novelty to us of so many events can almost, when looking back, seem inevitable. So too this story.

While the characters are all, for the most part, interesting, they are not always likeable. I give little to no weight to character's likeability as far as how well I like a book. What it does do for me, however, is make me think about how I wouldn't want some of them in my life. Then, almost immediately, I remember people in my life who were every bit as toxic or manipulative. In other words. it is easy, and disingenuous, to criticize a character for being involved with a toxic person since we have done so ourselves. Life is full of irrational choices we make and our rationalization of them. This book highlights that tendency.

Like some others have commented on, the writing is wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that it can sometimes be distracting. Granted, this isn't an entirely bad thing, just be prepared to periodically get lost in the nuance of a statement, and how it applies well beyond this story. While you may have to pull yourself back to the book and reread the passage (at least it will be a nice passage) you will also be rewarded with whatever tangent you went on. These personal musings are the things readers should relish in a book, it means we are looking at our own lives and society as well as the "world of the work."

I would recommend this to readers who like stories that meander but with direction, narrators that admit errors but don't really regret them (not in a beat yourself up way), and endings that leave you pondering bigger questions than just what a character did or did not think.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mehr)