But I Love Him

I have read a lot of stories about domestic violence. If I come across a book about it I have to read it. And yet, I have never read one quite like But I Love Him before. At first the style was confusing to me. Not that it made it difficult to follow, just that I felt it was needless. I mean, why write it in reverse? I was afraid that it would start with the first entry which was exactly one year into the relationship with Ann incredibly hurt and upset and then just flash back into the relationship without ever letting us know what happens to Ann. Fortunately that is not the case and while it is written in reverse it does flash to "present day" so to speak so we know how Ann is feeling while she is flashing back to the show more relationship.

Connor is different from most of the abusers in the books that I have read. I felt for him. He really hated what he was doing to Ann. He desperately wanted to control it. But luck just was not on his side. He grew up seeing his alcoholic father abusing his mother and Connor found himself stepping between his parents to end the abuse on numerous occasions. Even now that he has his own apartment his mother still calls him when his father attacks her. And despite himself he has become as abuser himself.

Ann was raised by her grief-stricken mother after her father died of cancer when Ann was young. She never felt a connection with her mother who never seemed to get over Ann's father's death. She meets Connor and immediately falls in love him. She loses herself in him so quickly and before she knows it she has moved into his apartment with him, quit the track team, and started to ignore her best friend. Connor always told her that he hits objects, not people and she believed him. That is, until he slapped her for the first time. But Ann knows he doesn't mean it. The second Ann starts to cry Connor seems to wake up from his anger and immediately apologizes to Ann. She feels trapped but she can't turn her back on him either.

After finishing this book I read an interview with the author in the back of the book. One of the questions asked was why she chose to write the book in reverse order. She explained it by saying that most books about domestic violence follow such a predictable pattern. The reader can see the abuse before it happens and therefore not understand why the person stays with the abuser. In But I Love Him, Amanda Grace wrote it so you were hurled into the abuse from the first page. You know he abuses her and now you get to see, in reverse order, how it progressed. You can't pinpoint in your head where it started, why it happened, etc. I also feel that in this way, Connor doesn't seem like the bad guy. I actually felt for him. He so obviously didn't want to be an abuser. He mentions getting help on numerous occasions. Usually I am adamantly against the abuser in books on domestic violence but this one was different. There is almost a connection felt with him as well as with Ann.

I flew through this book and I loved every minute of it. It's exquisitely written and I hope to see more novels written like this. I would love to see this book be required reading for high school students. I think it would open the eyes of teens to see an abuser relationship in a new way and possible save some lives. show less

//But I Love Him// by Amanda Grace is one of the best pieces of contemporary teen writing I have read this year. Amanda Grace is a pseudonym for the powerhouse YA author Mandy Hubbard whose works include the popular //Prada and Prejudice//.
//But I Love Him// focuses on Ann who is extremely confident, gets amazing grades and has her life all planned out; until she meets Connor and her dreams go down the drain. The story is told in reverse, starting with Ann listless on the floor after being beaten by Connor. The story plays in flashbacks, their first meeting, when he started using words to abuse her, and then the hitting.

We learn how Ann lost her friends, and why she made the decision to stay with Connor even when he begins to hit her. show more To Ann she is the only one who can heal Connor and she is the only one who loves him completely, unconditional love like hers requires some sacrifice for the final payoff, and Ann dreams her payoff will be Connor completely healed of his emotional scars and then finally beginning life together.

//But I Love Him// is haunting, heartbreaking, and full of wondrous hope. show less

Anna knows what buttons send her boyfriend, Conner, into a rage, but as the relationship progresses it becomes harder and harder to say and do the right thing. She's pushed everyone away just to be with Conner- to be needed. But I Love Him begins at the end of the toxic romance and is told in reverse chronological order to the very beginning.
This novel from the very first sentence enthralled me: "I lie in pieces on the floor." Anna's voice is so true and unpretentious that I can't help but like her even though I want to shake her. Even Conner, the villain of the story, is undeniably human, but terribly wounded to the point of cruelty. A fast, but engrossing must read for young adults (adults too, of course).

But I Love Him breaks my heart. I am left with so much heaviness and uncertainty that it makes me marvel at how much stronger Amanda Grace has become as a writer (compared to her debut Prada & Prejudice). Walking backwards through Ann and Connor’s tumultuous relationship is a stroke of genius – and the question of how these two got to this pivotal moment burns through my mind as I read onward to the very beginning. The warning signs are there, but the troubling and most heart-wrenching thing about them is how much Ann and Connor wanted to their love to counteract all negativity in their lives – and watching them fail. With a bittersweet ending, But I Love Him will be an unforgettable classic that will make you wish that life’s show more lessons did not always come in hindsight. show less

But I Love Him is a beautifully written story about a young woman named Ann, and her abusive relationship with Conner. Many girls do not think they could ever be sucked into something like this. They say they would leave before it ever got that bad. Amanda Grace shows us that it isn’t always that easy to leave. But I Love Him is told in reverse chronological order and I loved that the author decided to tell us this story in that way. I really got to see where Ann’s “voice” changed. As we read about earlier in the relationship, we see Ann as a happy, energetic, friendly, young girl. When the book starts (a year being in an abusive relationship), Ann is submissive, lonely, and emotionally drained. She doesn’t know how her life show more turned out the way it did.

Reading this book was very hard. I felt Ann’s pain and I wanted to help her. I felt powerless. Just like her friends and family felt. Knowing people who have gone through this makes it that much harder to read. But it is an important story that needs to be told.

Ann was in love with Conner and never saw the warning signs until it were too late. She wanted to help Conner heal from the emotional and physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his dad. She thought if she could just help him move on from his pain, then he wouldn’t be so angry, and things would be ok. They would finally be able to be happy.

This book shows us that the abuser is, in many cases, is also a victim. Conner needs a lot of professional help to deal with the scars he carries. This is not an excuse though. Many people suffer a lot worse, and never grow up to hurt another person. Either way, I still felt for Conner. I understood why Ann wanted to help him. He didn’t deserve the life he was dealt.

But I Love Him is a heart breaking novel that shows the codependency of an abusive relationship. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in those kinds of dynamics. This is not a light read, but it is a story worth reading. show less

After reading Stay by Deb Caletti I didn't think I was ready to handle another book on abusive relationships so quickly. I didn't think I had the strength to get so emotionally involved in a another intense book. But I picked it up anyway and I devoured it.

But I Love Him is told in reverse order (I know everyone's mentioned this in their reviews, but trust me, it's important) and in between certain dates, we get a glimpse of the present, where Ann is laying bleeding and broken on the floor.

I'll admit, at first this reverse order stuff confused me. I was constantly flipping back pages just to make sure I wasn't... I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking but let's just leave it as for awhile, I was confused. After the first 50 show more pages it starts to make sense and everything starts to pick up. I agree that an opening like the one this book has definitely grabs you. You want to know why Ann is broken on the floor. You want to know why she let it get this far and you want to know if she'll get revenge on Conner. No? Was it just me? It couldn't had just me who thought that!

As the story unfolds or folds or whatever it's doing, you start to see the insane parts of their relationship first but you also feel the struggle that Ann has to deal with. Why she feels the need to stay when she knows deep down inside Conner can't be saved. But it's not told in an annoying-she's-so-stupid way. You can feel her concern, her panic and her hope for him. The thing that sets this book about this subject apart from all the others is the detail, the detail and being right there with the character. While all the other books based on abusive relationships take place after the relationship, this one pulls you right in there with Ann from the very first page.

Amanda Grace stated in an interview in the back of the book that she wanted to show that Conner wasn't a bad guy, just a broken one and I think she achieved that. In the beginning of the book I hated Conner, to witness what was going on was sickening and stupid but towards the end when you start to see the good sides of Conner you can't help but just feel bad for him. He never asked for this life or this responsibility. But it still doesn't give him the right to take it out on Ann.

Abusive relationships are like that; full of fun and butterflies and intensity in the beginning then the next thing you know you're spiraling out of control and you don't know when everything started going wrong. I love that there are so many YA titles being released this year based on abusive relationships, I think this is an issue that hasn't been focused on that really needs to be show less

Ann is starting her senior year, she's a track star, and has a great boyfriend and she thinks she has it all together, but Conner is not liked by her friends or by Ann's mother, they think he is bad for her, and with good reason. Conner is possessive and abusive both physically and emotionally. Ann has given Conner all the pieces of her heart, Literally. But what happens when she forgot to save a piece of it for herself?

But I love him opened my eyes to a way I once felt about abusive relationships. I always said that if a man every laid a hand on me, I would be gone so fast their heads would spin, and thank God i've never had to go through that situation, but this book made me see why leaving isn't always the easiest thing to do. Conner show more was very malipulative and made her feel bad for him, he'd break down after the abuse, and say that he'd never do it again, and don't know what came over him, etc. I could see how Ann felt trapped by his love, because when it was good it was really good, but the lows were even worse then the highs.

I think every teen/adult should read this book. It was very eye-opening to me, and i'm sure that EVERYONE has been in an abusive relationship or has known someone else that has, and if this book dosen't help you, then maybe it will help you help someone you know that's dealing with this. Amanda Grace's writing style in this book was real, emotional, and pulled at your emotions, and i loved it! The only reason why this book didn't get 5 stars for me is because of the jumping around of the timeline, I know a lot of people enjoyed that but for me I found it took away from the story and was a bit confusing at times. show less