the love letters of abelard and lily by laura creedle

However, the themes of love, the power of story, family influence, and holding onto belief are well rounded and add depth. While the pervasive magic and concept of the Fates as a religious system add interest, other fantasy elements are haphazardly incorporated without enough time devoted to building a cohesive world. The writing style fluctuates from clever and original to overly verbose and often confusing in its jumble of senses. The bargain they strike sends her on a dark and magical journey throughout the land. Evangeline desperately prays to the Prince of Hearts, a dangerous and fickle Fate famed for his heart that is waiting to be revived by his one true love-and his potentially lethal kisses. Despite inheriting a steady trust in magic, belief in her late mother’s homeland of the mystical North (where fantastical creatures live), and philosophy of hope for the future, her dreams are dashed when Luc, her love, pledges to marry Marisol instead. When her father passes away, Evangeline is left with her cold stepmother and kind but distant stepsister, Marisol. Because many teens with ADHD manage college without medication (the surgery option is fiction), the scenario’s either/or premise also merits examination.Įntertaining, thought-provoking, and unsettling-in a good way.Īfter praying to a Fate for help, Evangeline discovers the dangerous world of magic. How will excising it affect her? Her romance with Abelard? Everyone around her has an opinion, and so will readers. As revealed in her trenchant narration, Lily’s smart, funny, impulsive, easily distracted-ADHD is part of her. Banishing or alleviating her symptoms could make college (previously ruled out) possible for her, too. At her mother’s urging, Lily consents to experimental brain surgery. While Lily’s dream of Oregon collapses with her grades, Abelard awaits admission to a prestigious college-prep program in New Mexico. Abelard’s journey from social isolation to engagement is slow (hovering parents don’t help). A strong text-based and shaky in-person romance ensues. Having inadvertently exposed Abelard to online ridicule, Lily borrows from the letters of Abelard and Heloise and apologizes. When Lily lands in detention with handsome, smart, socially isolated Abelard, he covers for her, earning her appreciative kiss. Failure seems likely Lily’s hidden her emotionally deadening meds in the bedroom she shares with her little sister, who attends a school for gifted kids.

If she raises her grades and stops skipping school, Lily might be allowed to visit Dad-medieval-history scholar–turned–Oregon goat farmer-this summer.

When two white Texas teens-Lily with ADHD, Abelard with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder-fall in love, their romance loosely tracks that of their medieval predecessors.

The love letters of abelard and lily by laura creedle