November review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2017: The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel (Translation Margaret Sayers Peden), 1995. [book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author category]
Boo. I didn't finish reading The Law of Love. I got 20 pages in and was pretty mad/uncomfortable, so I decided to just put it aside and spend my precious reading time on something else. I tried. It was touted as a Mexican Midsummer Night's Dream, but the half-page diatribe about souls filling each other like a man filling a woman, like the only way to be truly whole was heteronormative, penetrative sex, and I just didn't like it. Maybe I'm being a little too obtuse, a little too reactionary, but if that was my visceral response after 20 pages, I don't think I'd be able to make it through the rest of it. If 2017 has taught me anything, it's that I don't need to hold on and slog through something that doesn't give me joy or teach me something positive. There is too much other, meaningful work to get through to waste time on something I am not going to get anything out of.
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