Like I Can Love
Kim Lock
Fairlie gets a phone call that changes her future and her past. Her best friend Jenna has just killed herself, despite everything in her life appearing perfect. In the pages that follow, questions of family and love are explored as fluid concepts that everyone sees differently.
The blurb of the book suggests that “a letter. In Jenna’s handwriting. Along with a key.” is the most important driving force behind the novel. In fact though there is so much more to the story. The interactions of the characters and the flipping time periods do a much better job of exploring the story.
There are so many layers of story here. It’s almost impossible to explore the character development without giving something key away. The way the novel is set up, things are revealed tantelisingly until you don’t realise what is happening, then BAM. It gets you with all those clues you should have seen.
I felt myself inside Fairlie’s flat, but struggled to see the inside of Jenna’s house. I wonder whether this was deliberate by the author – Jenna’s hidden life, and Fairlie’s rather messy one. The vineyards was beautiful and I could relate that to my own experiences of wineries and their beautiful scenery.
I’ve never thought of someone having a phobia about death before. It makes the end even more ironic, or perhaps melodramatic, or perhaps just leaves the reader to think more deeply about the story. Nothing is sacred.
At times this novel dragged, so I can’t give it 5 stars. A well-deserved 4 stars from me.
There are some interesting things going on in this novel. If you wait too long after reading something, you lose those things. It’s not that I’ve waited too long, its that I’ve read about 5 books in the mean time. Oops?
I feel like it is possible that this novel had too many themes crammed into it, but instead I felt like they all balanced themselves out. It read exactly like the protagonist was thinking and feeling. Ash struck me as so confused, and yet so cute. And don’t be put off by the ‘teacher crush’ thing. It’s not a big deal, its just used as a prop for forwarding Ash’s character development.
I admit I had difficulty remembering which character was which for the majority of the novel. Not the main characters, but the side ones (haha). The abbreviations of their names tripped me up.
I didn’t feel a distinction between the perspectives of Lowell and Lycaea. This is a common complaint of mine. Also, for a couple of chapters I didn’t realise that Lowell was a boy. Honestly, I thought it could have gone either way. Lowell isn’t depicted as a fighter, and Lycaea certainly breaks any stereotypes of a passive woman. Kick-ass!
Oh man, oh man. Where do I get started with this? The jazz and soul music promised to me by the author, or the attractive cover? Or both? I found myself hooked in, with the music and lyrics speaking to me and tying in nicely with the delicious cover. I didn’t feel ashamed of taking it out in public, and in fact read it instead of doing house renovations!
I’m pretty sure rescuing her mother from alcoholism in this method would be illegal… And I’m not sure how it would work. But in the context of the novel? Hell yeah! Bossing! Good work Kirra. For a stressed and ‘weak’ person such as Kirra, she has a real spine when she needs to. She just needs to be reminded that if you’re at the bottom, the only way is up.
This was impressive because Petraitis had obviously done her work well (as she has in her other books, which I now want to get my hands on), and she places the emphasis on the human touch. Humans are fallible, and criminal ones even more so. The book also highlighted the impact on police officers’ family lives in the days after a crime.
At the end of the first novel, there is a hint about what will happen in this one. I didn’t get the hint, even with this novel sitting on my shelf. This time we see the evolution of the 
I’m going to be honest here, the first couple of chapters were so slow that I considered putting it back on the shelf for another time. But I kept persevering, and I was rewarded with emotional torrents that could pluck heartstrings while also giving a harsh relativity to the main characters.