Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler
For twenty-six-year-old Adelaide Williams, an American living in dreamy London, meeting Rory Hughes was like a lightning bolt out of the blue: this charming Englishman was The One she wasn’t even looking for.
Is it enough?
Does he respond to texts? Honor his commitments? Make advance plans? Sometimes, rarely, and no, not at all. But when he shines his light on her, the world makes sense, and Adelaide is convinced that, in his heart, he’s fallen just as deeply as she has. Then, when Rory is rocked by an unexpected tragedy, Adelaide does everything in her power to hold him together—even if it means losing herself in the process.
When love asks too much of us, how do we find the strength to put ourselves first?
With unflinching honesty and heart, this relatable debut from a fresh new voice explores grief and mental health while capturing the timeless nature of what it’s like to be young and in love—with your friends, with your city, and with a person who cannot, will not, love you back.
Review:
Have you ever read a book and felt as though it was calling you out on your shit? That’s how I felt with this book. In the beginning I felt very exposed – almost as if someone had followed me around when I was in my mid 20s to early 30s and documented my thoughts and behaviors and then gave me a vagina, named me Adelaide and wrote a book about me. I know I can’t possibly be the only person who read this book that felt this way. For the record, not everything that happened to Adelaide has happened to me, but a lot of her thought processes were 100% spot on.
As the synopsis tells us, Adelaide is an American living in London where she attends university to get her masters. Adelaide is a good student and applies herself at school, but she also loves to have fun. When she meets handsome Rory Hughes, she’s swept off her feet. His coming into her life must be fate. She knows this because several months back, Adelaide had walked up to a guy who was sitting with his friends and told him he looked just like a Disney prince before turning and walking away. That guy was Rory and the fact that he is now in her life has to mean something. As the two continue to see one another, she realizes that there were several times over the past year or so when the two of them were at the same events, mere feet from one another. Rory must be her one true love.
Unfortunately, Rory doesn’t feel the same. Some days he is happy to see Adelaide, at other times he goes completely MIA for days or weeks before resurfacing. Some days Adelaide feels like she needs to just throw in the towel and walk away. But then when he’s present, he’s very attentive and amazing – maybe he just needs more time… right?
On the surface it certainly appears that way, but like all humans, Rory is a complex human being who is broken and not good at expressing emotions. He certainly isn’t equipped to give Adelaide the love and commitment she desires, and this further plays into Adelaide’s own insecurities and her feelings of being unlovable. There are times when she feels like maybe this is as good as love will ever get for her. Maybe she just needs to settle and accept this. Girl, I’ve been there!
The book is written in an interesting way. First of all, the author doesn’t use quotes around the dialogue–it all appears in italics so it’s almost as though you’re sitting in Adelaide’s head and what we are witnessing are her thoughts as she remembers them, not so much as the exact time she experienced them. Another interesting aspect is that the book isn’t told linearly. In fact, when we first meet Adelaide, she is checking herself into a mental hospital because she tried to commit suicide and then we go back to what led her to do this.
We get glimpses of Adelaide before Rory and even a glimpse of Rory before Adelaide when he met who he thought was his one true love–that is, before he totally fucked it up and lost her for good. This was nice to see because it gives us a little insight into why Rory behaves the way he does. We also get to see snippets of Adelaide in high school and the first guy she dated – the one who made her question her self-worth and put her on the path of putting up with the type of crap that Rory does to her.
I thought this book was beautifully written. It was heartbreaking and very frustrating, and by frustrating I mean I knew exactly why Adelaide stuck with Rory. Just when she was about to walk away, he would do or say something that would give her this brief glimmer of hope that would make her think she was overreacting. Why would she give up this great guy? Of course she’s being stupid and insecure… and then he’d do it all over again until she finally broke.
This book touches on loss, grief, sexual assault, verbal and emotional abuse and mental health issues such as depression and bipolar disorder, so if any of these are triggering to you, you may want to stay away. I will say that while handled realistically, they’re also handled with care.
As depressing as this all sounds, the story has a very sweet ending, even though all of Adelaide’s problems aren’t tied up in a nice, pretty bow. This book is very realistic and makes you feel a whole lot of different things. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an emotional read that packs a punch.
