The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (original 1963; edition 2000)

Aw, come on, Line. You can do better than Dot. Especially after your burst of personal growth! Why didn't you outgrow Dot?

I don't think this is the message I'm supposed to take from this story. I finished it with similar feelings to how I feel about Shel Silverstein's sweet story of codependency The Missing Piece Meets the Big O--a nagging suspicion that I was supposed to find it charming and romantic but instead feeling pity and a mild revulsion to the dynamic.

Why everyone should read this anyway: (a) it's Norton Juster, (b) it involves math jokes, and (c) what do you need a (c) for? It's Norton Juster and makes math jokes. Line's friends were concerned about "how terribly thin and drawn he had become"? Who doesn't think that's hilarious? ( )

Intermittently inventive; twee; weirdly essentialist about what women, I mean dots, want, and how lines are supposed to woo them. ( )

A sweet little romance, in which a sensible straight line falls in love with a dot, who spurns him for a squiggle. But it all turns on right in the end. See this review with illustrations from the book!

Brilliant! Universal theme of attraction and relationships distilled to its simplest form. ( )

Pure fun. ( )