The Joys of Love by Madeleine L’Engle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

During the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is doing what she has dreamed of since she was a little girl: working in the theatre company on the sea where she is an apprentice actress. She’s never felt so alive. And soon she finds another passion: Kurt Canitz, the dashing young director of the company. Then Elizabeth’s perfect summer is profoundly shaken when Kurt turns out not to be the kind of man she thought he was.

Moving and romantic, this coming-of-age story was written during the 1940s. As revealed in an introduction by the author’s granddaughter Léna Roy, the protagonist Elizabeth is close to an autobiographical portrait of L’Engle herself as a young woman—“vibrant, vulnerable, and yearning for love and all that life has to offer.”  -GoodReads

I enjoyed reading this book! L’Engle has such a unique writing style; she can take a side-character with a toothache, and make their toothache be a philosophical commentary on the fantasy vs. reality of emotional entanglements, weaving it so perfectly into the storyline that you barely realize she’s doing it. As always, brilliant writing! Continue reading →