If he hasn’t that doesn’t really matter either because I’ll just pretend that he can’t watch my story as it will make him miss me too much. It starts with the break-up and goes both backwards and forwards in time, with Lord trying to make sense of things. It’s been almost two years now, and my life is so much better than I ever thought it would be, and despite the pain and anger that the end brought to my life, and to that of my almost adult children, I have no regrets.

Heterosexual women often have a cultural script to follow about breakups – one your book perhaps contributes to – where it’s like men instigate them either directly or by bad behaviour and then women process them – often with other women – and gradually recover a sense of lost agency. he said and then slapped him hard on the back in that way men do when they don’t want shows of affection to seem affectionate. Perhaps Joe and I can carry on loving each other, even when miles of air and experience separate us. Reading this felt like talking to a friend, like complaining together about the pain of heartbreak, sobbing over a glass wine in self-pity about how unfair it all is, but also shaking each other out of it, knowing that even if romantic love ends, there will always be people that love you outside of that. As Annie Lord deals with her broken heart, the book constantly revisits the past, from the moment she first fell in love, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making.Esta viagem de regresso ao seu próprio eu e a consciência crescente de que o apoio das suas amigas ao longo do caminho tem sido inesgotável e essencial levaram-me constantemente a pensar no Everything I Know About Love.

Every line felt like it could only be crafted from her perspective, in her mind, with her words — which is what I love most about my favourite authors! I told Joe about my day in this much detail because he was another part of me, and if that other part of me didn’t know what I was doing it felt like only a fraction of an experience.

Rarely do I get that gut-punch sensation now that it’s November; instead, the feeling of loss has come down around me like a cloud, one that people would look up at and say, “Doesn’t look as though the weather’s going to turn. Or maybe, like me, you’ll think you’re over your breakup and that reading this book will be a bit of entertainment while drinking tea and taking a break from life. For example, I really liked a bit in CS Lewis’ book about grief [ A Grief Observed ] where he says that grief is like suspense because you’re constantly looking around to see or hear them.

Yet, I regularly work weeks like this and my whole life is about juggling, so why, with a book I was enjoying so much, was it taking me so long to read? Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse, starting with a devastating break-up.Perfect for fans of Everything I Know About Love, How to Heal a Broken Heart, Conversations on Love and Three Women. But by the time it comes to the end of the book, I instead have a real conversation with him as he actually is rather than a version that’s all romantic and sepia-toned. it is an unflinchingly honest yet lyrical meditation on the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone who has ever nursed a broken heart. I noticed a lot of the literary references you cite in the book to express your feelings were originally written about grief as we traditionally understand it – linked to bereavement. Oh Annie, I feel like we are friends now and I want to give you a big hug and say thank you for being so vulnerable, so honest, so brave, so lovable!