Endless Love: A Novel

Absolutely a literary masterpiece, written with precision and pure talent by an author who defies description, a writer who can create character, thought, situation, depth, and who has a true sense of time and place. And above all, he can create passion. He opens the door and lets us "live" that passion, along with David. This is an unusual love story, and it will capture the reader who is tenacious enough to hold on through some very heavy (long and wordy) passages. I was engaged in the author's deep tale of obsessive love.Just the first part of the book's first sentence tells us so much:"When I was seventeen and in full obedience to my heart's most urgent commands, I stepped far from the pathway of normal life and in a moment's time ruined everything I love..." I found this to be one of the most incredibly poetic openings to any story, and I knew that I would read this book through to the very end.As a warning to some readers: Despite the above, I do have one criticism, and I hope that I don't sound overly prudish when I say WHY I would not recommend this book to a friend without a pre-warning, and WHY I would not suggest this for my Book Club. That is: In my opinion, there is one very lengthy and quite repulsive love scene. It actually made me a bit nauseated. It is not beautiful, but rather graphic and ugly. And it went on so long - I would skip ahead a page or two and think: "Oh, they are still at it," and then I'd skip a bit farther ahead. I cannot write specifics here, but I will say that I found the scene repugnant as opposed to sensual, and that about sums it up.Still, I couldn't leave this book, and there is so much to marvel at and enjoy. There is almost some dark humor during the chapters after the taxi accident, which were so good.A book like this is a gem and a rare one.

I'm going to go into this review as if the possible upcoming reader of this novel has never seen the movie, with Brooke Shields. It begins with a young man, David, standing longingly outside his girlfriend, Jade's house. They were both in their mid-teens & their relationship had gotten blatantly sexual & as the father noticed, quite obsessive. David has not only enveloped Jade but her mom, dad & two brothers as well & made them all his family, rarely going home to his own. The more time that goes by in this relationship, the more certain members of Jade's family recognizes the symptoms of a consuming sickness! Jade's father bans David from their home for 30 days, I believe, in an attempt to cool their romance; however, David lacks serious self confidence that the love between them can go the distance & as every day goes by in this exile, David gets inceasingly frantic & unbalanced with devastating results! The book is written in David's first person narrative & you can feel his torment as time passes & he commits a terrible crime in an absurd idea of getting to see the family again, especially Jade! What follows is years & years of obsessively waiting to get out of the mental hospital & scheming to worm his way back into this family's life once again, as soon as he can find them! The whole book gave me such ambivalent feelings; from one feeling to the next. One chapter reminded me of the powerfully sexual passion of adolescent love, another would disturb me with David's overly pervasiveness into their lives. His own parents were slightly dysfunctional but the Butterfields, Jade's family, slowly emerge as an eventual train wreck! Occasionally as I was reading, I would sometimes think that this novel could be classified as a horror story but there are no real monsters. One time you think this will be a happily-ever-after, the next, it can only come to a terrible, tragic end. Scott Spencer has the gift of describing those few, if any, amazing love affairs that begin as your destiny but sometimes turn to disaster!

The first thing that struck me was Spencer’s discipline as an author. This is a 400-page arrow of a novel that never strays from the mark of David’s passion. It’s a novel about first love and how its flames can (literally) engulf and destroy everything around it, alter lives forever, and drive one to madness. Spencer accomplishes an amazing feat by getting the reader to share David’s yearning for Jade. He does this with skills comparable to those of a talented seductress. He teases, gives us glimpses, leaves us writhing for more. In fact, David’s Jade appears in only a few flashback scenes early in the novel. We glimpse her only briefly, we see David yearning for her and plotting to see her, and we feel his desperation, but it will be nearly 300 pages before we actually get to consummate our love affair by meeting Jade in person. A lesser writer would be inclined to spend those hundreds of pages trying build up a love affair by showing endearments, hand-holding beneath the stars, flowers, dances, and kisses… which would make for a boring novel. Spencer cuts straight to the core of “first love” in part by realizing that the “love” itself is cliché, but the mad, all-consuming passion surrounding it is what is compelling.The themes and imagery motifs are well-constructed and carefully woven into the narrative. The most pervasive and powerful motifs revolved around hearts, blood, and flames, and there are many subtle word choices, descriptions, and images that keep this playing at the back of the reader’s minds (like Jade, in frustration, poking at her car’s cigarette lighter, or white smoke behind a car turning the color of ash from the exhaust). Endless Love is the definitive novel of first love, and a true tour-de-force.I'm glad I read the novel before seeing the 1981 film, which cannot compare; they completely altered the structure and even the point of the story. This is a literary masterwork, and it's hard to imagine anything on screen can do it justice… but after having it on my shelf for a few years, I read it in anticipation of the new (2014) movie.

1000 fois mieux que les films

Couldn't put it down. I threw it down. One of the worst books I've ever read.

The title of this book does not do it credtit, this is not a romance in the traditional or expected sense. This book reminds me of the writing of Donna Tart, it has emotional depth and characters who are flawed in the extreme. It is a very good read. It should have been called something else as many people will skim past it thinking it is chicklit. it is not.

VERY different to the film but still a good read, a window into teenage brains. Highly recommend!

J'ai adoré le film avec Pettifer, c'est la raison pour laquelle j'ai acheté ce livre : afin de retrouver l'atmosphère et l'histoire. Que néni ! J'ai tenu autant que j'ai pu, mais j'ai du abandonner la lecture de ce livre passé la moitié (ce que je ne fais jamais) tellement je trouve cette histoire nulle