<The Lover’s Dictionary>

The school year is winding down, which frees up the mental space required to fully appreciate books like “The Lover’s Dictionary”.

But it isn’t that David Levithan has written something dense and complicated. He executes an innovative idea awesomely - map out the trajectory of a relationship from the male’s perspective in the form of dictionary entries. Each entry begins with a word and proceeds with several sentences or paragraphs linking it to his relationship. Most of his entries are short and sweet - shorter than my book reviews, in fact. So, they are quite easy to read through.

Most of these entries are written in an understated way. They typically end with a punch to the heart - and reverberate through the arteries. I needed to allow the emotions to surface and bubble up and make themselves felt. I needed to think about the things left unsaid. A process that I was willing to undergo because from the looks of it, he was crazily in love with her but she couldn’t reciprocate, perhaps due to her unresolved family trauma or inability to hold her liquor. We’re unsure as to why their relationship fell apart. Literature enthusiasts would have a whale of a time dissecting all the metaphors and rhetorical questions Levithan used.

One thing’s for sure. The female character cheated on the protagonist. And boy, did he pour out his raw anger forcefully in the entry “livid”. That’s the only entry in which I don’t have to play detective at unravelling his emotions.

I love that some dictionary entries build on previous entries but come with an additional sentence, letting me know sequentially how that pivotal conversation exactly went. Really smart of Levithan to introduce layers to the story.

I also realise that all authors are great at using punctuation marks as analogies to make salient points about something else. David Levithan has some good writing about commas and exclamation marks. So does Matt Haig, another author I enjoyed this year.