LO QUE ME COSTÓ. A ver, es bueno? meh. Está TODO el tiempo hablando sobre la filosofía del amor y te mete tantas palabras que vos decis ???? y te marea.
JURO POR LOS DIOSES que llegué a la mitad del libro y lo dejé porque no me daba más el cerebro.
Un personaje tan chato como el del prota, me daban ganas de arrancarme los ojos.
Siento que la escritora se esmeró demasiado en el trasfondo de la historia del protagonista que se olvidó de desarrollarla.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how to approach this review. I supposed I'll just get right into it.

Based on the official synopsis, this book isn't exactly what I expected. I thought I'd be reading a contemporary fiction about a man who learns what it is to love, albeit with a little mystical help. I thought it would be light- to medium-hearted in seriousness. And this book is these things. But it also turned out to be way more about what it means to love in a psychological and spiritual sense. And by that I mean the author really infuses a heavy dose of philosophy and text book analysis through out the entire story. I didn't know this until I received a copy from NetGalley and more information was provided to me. I requested this book based only on the synopsis.

To be fair, Satterfield tries to lighten the learning load by including Pythia, a high priestess of Zeus, as Gabe's teacher. Pythia teaches Gabe about various aspects of love including the different types of love; how one's generational history can influence one's interpretation of love; how one must be aware of the lens they view life/love through; and something about a Higgs Boson. Pythia assigns Gabe homework and his dutiful studies, along with his interactions with the world, serve to teach him about love.

The book is well-written and the author, who I learned is a licensed psychotherapist, clearly knows her subject matter. However, I had a difficult time getting through it. I felt like it was too dense. Sure, the book introduces some concepts about love that some might find interesting. But honestly, I wasn't looking for or anticipating to read a philosophical book.

Satterfield uses her characters to explain and philosophize about love in an attempt to make it easier for the reader to digest. Personally, I didn't find it that easy to read; it felt like an information overload. Yes, I know it's a fictional book, but I found it mildly unbelievable that Gabe just so happens to more or less understand all of these lessons about love so quickly--and be able to discuss it intellectually at that.

Overall, this book was not for me. I recognize that it's written well and that this book may clearly resonate more with someone else. Thus, I struggled to rate this book. I have to give one on NetGalley, but I won't be assigning one on my blog. To avoid dissonance between a reader's expectations based on the synopsis, and what's actually in the book, perhaps the official book blurb needs to be revisited. I think the marketing needs to make it clearer that this book is more philosophical than the synopsis suggests.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book is less of a story and more like a discussion about the meaning of love and life.
Gabe thinks that his life would become meaningful only when he finds love and hence begins his journey to find love with some help from Pythia. Both of them travel through time and space to meet many historical figures.

The depth and thought with which the book is written is astounding. Many a times I found myself contemplating about the discussions taking place in it and constantly adding new things in my knowledge and understanding.

It was amazing to experience this journey along with Gabe.