Tami

In the end it is quite simple.

I didn't enjoy this book very much. 

It was an excellent book. With a flowing and elegant prose. With clever and heart-breaking observations, with very many different views on love. 

But what also flowed through all four stories about love was melancholy. I found this book so very depressing, as none of the shown facettes of this emotion led to lasting happiness. Maybe this is what makes you a literary writer - that you show a dark side or sad ending to something as sappy as romantic love. But it doesn't make for nice reading.

The best (and least depressing) story for me was "Cortes Island" - I believe this one is autobiographic.

I am a romantic, I guess. And I do believe in happy endings. Also in real life. It doesn't have to be sappy for every character in a book (as it does with those typical romance novels), but it would be more enjoyable for me if there was just one ray of hope in between this bleakness.