For a brief moment she does, tearing herself down with a self-review as scathing as some of my own. You can tell she needs this, that it provides the catharsis necessary to breakup, not with him, but with the lasting memories of what used to be, and start mingling with the reality of what is.Īnd, as always with breakups, there’s the devastation it leaves in its wake, extensive enough to ruin her if she lets it. The further in she gets, the less hung up on him she becomes, until she lets go with a certain finality there at the end. Min, I can tell, needed to learn how to see through the falseness as well, and her story, written all in one ( extremely prolonged) sitting, mainly in a moving vehicle no less, in a sense charts that emotional maturation.
Were I to do something romantic, she would respond the way I thought a girl (who claimed to be in love with you) was supposed to, AKA not just giving me a half-hearted thank you. In spite of our eventual breakup, I could sense the love in our relationship in a way I never could with Sarah. It took me until I met my next (ex-) girlfriend to see this, however. She would never give me back even a fraction of what I put in. We weren’t as drastically different as Min and Ed, but enough so that, looking back, I know we weren’t ever going to be compatible. I was too blinded by what I dumbly called “love” to see how far apart we were in spite of being together.
She was my first kiss, first time, first real girlfriend, and I treated her as if she were destined to be my last. Really, it reminded me of one more than the other, hence the parenthesis. Having the blurbs on the back be authors talking about their own breakups, instead of the book, was a nice touch, and the book got me thinking about my own breakup(s) as well. Min’s love for and committment to Ed may slip into confusing territory occasionally, causing me to wonder if she is, or at least was, really that stupid, but that also is true to life, I guess. Were you to make a series of minor adjustments, the book could read equally well as a love letter… of sorts. Lending it that noticeable heft are Maira Kalman’s illustrations of the many mementos Min leaves for her ex, Ed, to go along with this, her letter to him explaining, as you would expect, her reasons for breaking up.Īlbeit comparatively lacking in reasons for their getting, and staying, together, Why We Broke Up feels like an accurate summation of the conflicting emotions drudged up by both love and heartbreak. To avoid having to carry a book so heavy on the walk to and from work, which is when I do a large portion of my reading, I read this all in one (briefly interrupted) sitting.
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