Review of Looking Glass Friends
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Ana Chao
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Review of Looking Glass Friends
[Following is a volunteer review of "Looking Glass Friends" by E L Neve.]
Looking Glass Friends by E.L. Neve focuses on the blossoming love between Neil and Ellie, two individuals unhappy in their marriage. Their love story is sweet, never truly crossing the line of infidelity. The story is riddled with letters between Neil and Ellie, as well as poetry and excerpts from scientific journals that highlight the feelings between them. Neve, focuses on trying to fix a relationship too late and the innocuous ways that love can be born and die.
One of the greatest positive points in the Looking Glass Friends is the side character Fae, Neil’s former wife. While the excerpts and scenes focusing on her are short, Neve demonstrates Fae’s growth, pushed by the loss of Neil’s love and infidelity, Jake’s cruel words, and Anabella’s gentle encouragement. Neve demonstrates that in spite of the destruction of her self-esteem at the hands of another, one can and will recover. Another positive point is how Neil and Ellie achieve their happy ending without harming Ellie’s son, Johnny, or themselves. Moreover, Neve masterfully sprinkles excerpts of letters between the two lovers, real life poetry and scientific journal’s to relay the growing passion between Neil and Ellie. These same anecdotes are wonderful analogies to their romantic relationship, as well as their relationship with others.
My greatest gripe with the Looking Glass Friends is that there is no true character growth with the protagonists, Ellie and Neil. To make matters worse the reprehensible actions taken by Neil towards his ex wife, i.e. cheating on Fae with her best friend, lying to her, starting a romantic relationship with Ellie, is excused by Neve. In essence, the author writes that this was inevitable and a fault of Fae for not being Neill’s soulmate, for not being the type of woman who deserves loyalty because of the lack of care she puts into herself physically. This is only made worse by the fact that Jake, Ellie’s former husband, cheats on his wife and is vilified and blamed for the lack of love in their relationship. While the author may have attempted to mirror either character as a sort of foil to one another, I would say they failed. Another negative point of the book to me was that I felt as though there were not enough letters or excerpts of them. The summary of the Looking Glass Friends , advertises itself as a love story told in letters, but I truly did not feel like it completed it’s promise. The love story was mostly told in descriptions of the feelings that grew between Neil and Ellie because of the letters and phone calls, rather than within letters.
I would rate Neve’s the Looking Glass Friends as a 3 out of 5 . The author has a way of drawing you in and the love story, in theory, is in fact beautiful. In spite of this, I didn’t myself actually and actively enjoying Neil and Ellie’s story because they, at their core, are immature in spite of their explicated maturity. In essence, I hated Neil’s character because he justified his failing marriage to Fae as something inevitable because of their incompatibility intelligence wise. In spite of this statement and Neve’s description of all the books that he reads, after meeting Ellie, his understanding of them remains elementary at best. He, at his core, is the type of person that once he grows bored of a person he will ignore them, as shown by him switching from playing video games all day to reading books and ignoring the former. I empathize with Fae, unhappy with the development of her marriage and trying her best to change it for the better. On the other hand, I cannot empathize with Ellie who makes no such attempt, and only remained in the marriage playing her role because of a sense of duty to her son rather than her own happiness. Moreover, I hate how both Ellie and Neil attempt to justify their betrayal to their respective partners because of their, supposed, inability to stimulate them mentally. I also disliked how Jake and Neil didn’t have to face any consequence whatsoever for their continued infidelity to their wives throughout their marriage, leaving the situation with both the canary and the cream. Now, I am happy that Fae was able to achieve her own happiness after the end of her and Neil’s relationship, but I would have enjoyed Looking Glass Friends more if it focused on Fae’s growth and trudge towards happiness rather than on the immature Ellie and selfish Neil.
The recommended audience would be those who are unhappy in their marriage or going through divorce, maybe this book could offer them peace or give them encouragement to escape their unhappy relationship. As for a specific age range I would say those 28 and older.
******
Looking Glass Friends
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Looking Glass Friends by E.L. Neve focuses on the blossoming love between Neil and Ellie, two individuals unhappy in their marriage. Their love story is sweet, never truly crossing the line of infidelity. The story is riddled with letters between Neil and Ellie, as well as poetry and excerpts from scientific journals that highlight the feelings between them. Neve, focuses on trying to fix a relationship too late and the innocuous ways that love can be born and die.
One of the greatest positive points in the Looking Glass Friends is the side character Fae, Neil’s former wife. While the excerpts and scenes focusing on her are short, Neve demonstrates Fae’s growth, pushed by the loss of Neil’s love and infidelity, Jake’s cruel words, and Anabella’s gentle encouragement. Neve demonstrates that in spite of the destruction of her self-esteem at the hands of another, one can and will recover. Another positive point is how Neil and Ellie achieve their happy ending without harming Ellie’s son, Johnny, or themselves. Moreover, Neve masterfully sprinkles excerpts of letters between the two lovers, real life poetry and scientific journal’s to relay the growing passion between Neil and Ellie. These same anecdotes are wonderful analogies to their romantic relationship, as well as their relationship with others.
My greatest gripe with the Looking Glass Friends is that there is no true character growth with the protagonists, Ellie and Neil. To make matters worse the reprehensible actions taken by Neil towards his ex wife, i.e. cheating on Fae with her best friend, lying to her, starting a romantic relationship with Ellie, is excused by Neve. In essence, the author writes that this was inevitable and a fault of Fae for not being Neill’s soulmate, for not being the type of woman who deserves loyalty because of the lack of care she puts into herself physically. This is only made worse by the fact that Jake, Ellie’s former husband, cheats on his wife and is vilified and blamed for the lack of love in their relationship. While the author may have attempted to mirror either character as a sort of foil to one another, I would say they failed. Another negative point of the book to me was that I felt as though there were not enough letters or excerpts of them. The summary of the Looking Glass Friends , advertises itself as a love story told in letters, but I truly did not feel like it completed it’s promise. The love story was mostly told in descriptions of the feelings that grew between Neil and Ellie because of the letters and phone calls, rather than within letters.
I would rate Neve’s the Looking Glass Friends as a 3 out of 5 . The author has a way of drawing you in and the love story, in theory, is in fact beautiful. In spite of this, I didn’t myself actually and actively enjoying Neil and Ellie’s story because they, at their core, are immature in spite of their explicated maturity. In essence, I hated Neil’s character because he justified his failing marriage to Fae as something inevitable because of their incompatibility intelligence wise. In spite of this statement and Neve’s description of all the books that he reads, after meeting Ellie, his understanding of them remains elementary at best. He, at his core, is the type of person that once he grows bored of a person he will ignore them, as shown by him switching from playing video games all day to reading books and ignoring the former. I empathize with Fae, unhappy with the development of her marriage and trying her best to change it for the better. On the other hand, I cannot empathize with Ellie who makes no such attempt, and only remained in the marriage playing her role because of a sense of duty to her son rather than her own happiness. Moreover, I hate how both Ellie and Neil attempt to justify their betrayal to their respective partners because of their, supposed, inability to stimulate them mentally. I also disliked how Jake and Neil didn’t have to face any consequence whatsoever for their continued infidelity to their wives throughout their marriage, leaving the situation with both the canary and the cream. Now, I am happy that Fae was able to achieve her own happiness after the end of her and Neil’s relationship, but I would have enjoyed Looking Glass Friends more if it focused on Fae’s growth and trudge towards happiness rather than on the immature Ellie and selfish Neil.
The recommended audience would be those who are unhappy in their marriage or going through divorce, maybe this book could offer them peace or give them encouragement to escape their unhappy relationship. As for a specific age range I would say those 28 and older.
******
Looking Glass Friends
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Luray by Dennis Haupt
