The End of Loneliness, by Benedict Wells

Even though I have a German name, I don't speak German, not very well anyway. And I'm going to Germany for a while. I'm freaking out. So I started reading the german Vocable It's great: these are articles written in German and partially translated into French, which I hope will help me not die of embarrassment there.

It was in this magazine that I learned about Benedict Wells, a Swiss-German writer who had a very enviable success: his first book was adapted to the cinema, his work has been translated into 38 languages and he won the European Union Prize for Literature for The End of Loneliness, by Benedict Wells. But of course, we're not in Europe here so I'd never heard of it. I'm not good enough to read a novel in German yet, but at least I can read books by German authors.

Summary

One day, without warning, Jules' parents, Marty and Liz, die in a car accident. Jules is still a child. The three children go to live in a boarding school, where they are separated from each other and begin to lose sight of each other. Jules has only one friend: Alva. They are too young to realize it, but they are in love. They too will eventually lose sight of each other. But they will not be able to forget each other.

Impressions

This novel is good, I could see it pretty quickly. There is something honest and beautiful about it that charmed me. But it's also quite melodramatic: that's intentional, but in general I don't take the bait very well.

At least, that's what I liked to tell myself, until the scene where two young children come to visit their mother for the last time who is dying of cancer in the hospital. My heart was torn into a million pieces and I cried for a good half hour. I didn't know if I was going to get over it. I heard that the author himself was crying while reading this book. Well, I guess so.

It's very rare that I cry this long over a book or movie. It usually happens when I least expect it (the last time was at the end of season 2 of Love is Blind. But shhh, you can't say it too loudly). Maybe it's because I don't expect to be touched. I jump into moving stories expecting to roll my eyes, and then I get my heart crushed by unusual talent.

Plus, I didn't like this young mother all that much. But this scene was realistic and well enough told that I could form a vivid picture of it. The whole book was like that. So like it or not, it's likely you'll fall for it too.