How to Fall in Love with Anyone: Essays
Written by Mandy Len Catron
Narrated by Mandy Len Catron
4/5
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About this audiobook
What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer.
In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship.
“Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).
Editor's Note
True love…
In the day and age of Tinder and online dating, finding “true love” seems more elusive than ever. Part memoir, part scientific investigation into how love works, Mandy Catron has advice on love that both hopeless romantics and jaded cynics need to hear.
Mandy Len Catron
Originally from Appalachian Virginia, Mandy Len Catron now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in the The New York Times, The Walrus, and The Rumpus as well as literary journals and anthologies. She writes about love and love stories at The Love Story Project (TheLoveStoryProject.ca). She teaches English and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Her article “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This” was one of the most popular articles published by The New York Times in 2015. How to Fall in Love with Anyone is her first book.
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Reviews for How to Fall in Love with Anyone
74 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book! Everyone should listen/read this, lt’s not quite about how to fall in love then how to love anyone( family, friends, your dog) :)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mandy is extremely articulate and insightful! Wow. It does not happen to me often where the author makes a deep statement and I have to pause and reflect to make sure I digested and understood it. She makes some incredible points about an array of topics!
I wish I didn’t feel like I was waiting for the “how to fall in love with anyone” question to be answered the whole entire book only to realize that it was about the 36 questions. The let down was due to the fact that I already know all about them and have done it serve all times. I feel like the common thread and theme could have been stronger BUT this is the nature of a collection of essays right?
The middle dragged on a bit, BUT, the first part and ending parts had me captivated!
Overall glad I read. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved these essays. I think it’s important to read about all types of invisible struggles to break stigma.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book was fine; Mandy Len Catron is surely a skilled writer, and a great storyteller. This essay collection kept me listening, but frankly, I almost forgot about the book the moment I finished it. I was familiar with the NYT article that the book is "based on", and maybe reading the article would have been enough... Sure, the book contains more personal stories, but I felt like those were going in ring, and some aspects were a bit repetitive. I value and admire Mandy Len Catron for her openness and vulnerability and for sharing her story. It's just not the most intriguing book I've ever read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5OKAYY. Not so eh like I originally had felt. Granted it took me quite some time to listen to this (it was my in between listen for when I'd be driving alone, or walking around campus), but it really was fantastic towards the end. I think I had a slightly harder time really getting into the memoir BECAUSE it's a memoir, but the hope I had in this continued because I knew she'd really say something to hold my heart in her stories, and she did. I love that she addresses the social scripts of love, and overall, I really did enjoy this.
I continue to think that one of my favorite quotes that comes from this is "Choose someone who makes you better" and to add to that, it's to continue to choose them each time, even when they don't always choose you back as a form of vulnerability. LIKE !! I needed to hear some of this so much, and I continue to stay thankful.