MEMOIR

The Love You Save: A Memoir

Hanover Square: Harlequin. Jan. 2023. 320p. ISBN 9781335449375. $28.99. MEMOIR
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When a book is compared to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tara Westover’s Educated, it has to deliver. Political journalist/activist Taylor’s (Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics) memoir does just that, with its forthright prose and clear, insightful observations about experiencing and learning from trauma. The memoir reads almost like a novel, and each voice that emerges through the dialogue shimmers with complexity, making Taylor’s memoir richly evocative, harrowing, and beautiful, despite the dark traumas and acts of violence the story exposes. The author’s syntax explodes on the pages: short sentences make it impossible to look away from ruptures and pain, while longer passages suggest nuanced thoughts and complex feelings.
VERDICT While the moments of racial and gender-based violence are difficult to read, the book ultimately promotes a sense of hope and healing, designed not just to tell the story but to show readers that every act of resistance, every movement toward change can have an impact, and that no impact is too small when it saves someone.
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