The Hypnotist's Love Story

Liane Moriarty doesn't release books often enough for my tastes. Her stories are creative, upbeat but also true to life. While this is nominally a love story, the romance between Ellen and Patrick is anything but a fairy tale. They meet through an online dating site, slowly fall in love, but are challenged by the ghosts of Patrick's past - his first wife died, and his previous girlfriend Saskia has been stalking him for several years, ever since their breakup.

I didn't expect to feel so much empathy for a stalker, but Saskia tore my heart out. She didn't do anything wrong except refuse to let go of the relationship, after serving as mother to Patrick's young son for several years. While I couldn't agree with her bizarre behavior, I could show more definitely understand the feelings that caused it. By the end of the book I was rooting harder for her to find some peace than for Ellen and Patrick to have their HEA. Fortunately Liane Moriarty provides both - despite Patrick's label of Saskia as a "bunny boiler," this is no "Fatal Attraction."

Bonus points for interesting descriptions of hypnosis and discussion of what it can and cannot accomplish.

Write faster, Ms. Moriarty! show less

Audible audio performed by Tamara Lovatt Smith

Ellen O’Farrell works out of her home as a professional hypnotherapist. She likes her life, except for a failed romance. She’s moved on but would welcome another shot at a long-term relationship. Then she meets Patrick. They hit it off and things are going well when he spouts the dreaded “We need to talk.” Turns out Patrick has an ex-girlfriend who is stalking him.

What an interesting and fresh take on relationships and the psychology of love. What makes us attracted to one another? What holds us together? What happens when one partner moves on, but the other hangs on – desperately, crazily, dangerously?

The relationships between these three people – Patrick, Ellen and Saskia show more (the ex-girlfriend) – are complicated by misinterpretation, jumping to conclusions, and secrets kept from one another. They are all broken in some way, and all trying to come to grips with past and current relationships. And it will take a significant crisis to finally bring some sense of resolution, however tenuous.

Tamara Lovatt Smith does a fine job narrating the audiobook. However, Moriarty switches point of view between the two women. In the text it’s a little easier to tell when she switches. One character’s perspective is always written in first person, the other in third person narrative. However, there is much dialogue in which a character would naturally speak in first person. (e.g. “I went to the store.”) While this is easy to discern on the printed page, it’s less obvious when listening. Not the narrator’s fault at all, but it still adversely affected the audio experience. I would probably have rated this higher if I had read the text rather than listened. show less

Best for: Someone who wants a quick read with some interesting explorations of loss.

In a nutshell: Ellen (they hypnotist) has just started a relationship with Patrick. Patrick’s wife died seven years ago, when their son was only a year old. Saskia was Patrick’s first relationship after his wife died, and after they broke up, Saskia began to stalk Patrick. It continues.

Line that sticks with me: “You weren’t meant to admit, even to yourself, how badly you wanted love. The man was meant to be the icing, not the cake.”

Why I chose it: I’d downloaded it during my Liane Moriarty phase two years ago but never got around to reading it. But I was just on a cruise, so it was perfect.

Review:
This book reminds me a bit of “What Alice show more Forgot” in that it doesn’t quite follow what I now consider the Liane Moriarty formula: two or three interweaving story lines told out of order with a great mystery revealed. This has elements of it, but felt fresh to me.

I enjoyed the storytelling and the elements of mystery - some characters pop up unexpectedly - but the main plot felt a bit deeper than one might expect from a beach read (which is where I think her books often end up). Saskia is a stalker, and in general I wouldn’t be interested in their perspective. And she is not made out to be any sort of victim, but as the story progresses, I think we start to recognize that her motivation is more complicated. But that said … if the genders were reversed, I’m not sure if I would feel as much empathy for Saskia as I found myself feeling. And regardless of the amount, is it odd to feel any at all?

The book also looks at how we view losses differently when it comes to an unwanted break-up versus a death. We all carry bits of previous relationships, but when someone leaves us through death, they can become canonized. And the next person who dates the one left behind is there because the previous person isn’t. How do you handle that? How long ‘should’ one grieve a death? And is there a particular reason why we allow for more grief over a death than over the end of a long-term relationship? Is it reasonable to expect someone to get over being left in a few weeks when they thought they had a life with someone? And how can their grief be directed in a healthy way. Moreover, how does it all change when there are kids involved?

I enjoyed this book a lot. The ending was satisfying to me, although I could have seen it ending differently and also being enjoyable. show less

The story of a hypnotherapist, Ellen, the man she falls in love with, and ahis stalker. While it sounds straight forward, I wasn’t expecting it to be from the point of you of both Ellen and the stalker. Moriarty has an incredible skill for invoking empathy and creating characters that live in the gray zone; they are not necessarily good or bad, they’re human. I love that and like this one much more than I was expecting. It deals with parenting, grief, jealousy, and much more.

“Its very awkwardness and awfulness made out somehow essentially human. It was one of those rare, poignant, pure moments that encapsulate everything that was wonderful and tragic about life.”

“Having a baby had been like starting a demanding new job and show more beginning a passionate love affair and moving to a new country with a different language and culture all at the same time. The baby filled her mind, her heart and her senses.”

“Her giggles were fat and delicious, the most edible sound Ellen had ever heard.” show less

Ellen O'Farrell is a hypnotherapist with a gift for helping her clients making better lives for themselves. It seems unfair that her own relationships have ended in rejection and loss - until she meets Patrick on the Internet. Over dinner one night, Patrick confides his secret: he has a stalker, his ex-girlfriend, Saskia. Ellen is more intrigued that frightened; but that is before she finds that she may know more of Saskia than she thought she did.

Despite its peculiar plot twist, The Hypnotist's Love Story begins with deceptive gentleness; in fact, the opening chapters were so extremely laid-back that I wondered if it was really the book for me. (Answer: YES. I skived off the whole day to finish it in one sitting.) Liane Moriarty show more divides the tale between an omniscient narrator focused on Ellen's story, and Saskia's first-person narration, a structure I liked more and more as the plot thickened. At first, Saskia's narration is disturbing, even menacing; Ellen seems to be the sane foil for Saskia's madness. But Moriarty is deft and subtle at turning the story on its head, and ultimately, the reader begins to understand that Saskia is simply Everywoman on her worst day; only Saskia's worst day is lasting longer than most. By the time I had turned the last page, I had spent almost as much time thinking about the crazy things I have done in my lifetime (that I sincerely hope no one ever finds out about) as I had thinking about the hypnotist, her boyfriend, and the "crazy" stalker. Cleverly done, Ms. Moriarty! I will certainly be checking out this author's earlier work.

Thanks to the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program for my ARC of The Hypnotist's Love Story! show less

Moriarty knows and writes women like nobody else. I think that is the biggest reason why I am so drawn to her books - I am able to identify with her characters (some more some less, but still each and every one of them). Her characters think exact thoughts that fly through my head, they do things that I've done or at least thought of doing - sometimes I have to stop and think " hey, is this character - me?".
Maybe it's the age thing, maybe since I'm getting older I like to read about women who are older and to see how they navigate their life.

“Breathe in. She didn’t give a fig what other people thought! Breathe out. Rubbish. She gave a whole fig tree.”

I was able to identify with Ellen on a whole other level, as she seems to have show more many traits that I have as well. And when Patrick drove her crazy with his boxes of rubbish and stuff just laying around in her clean hallway - I honestly felt twitchy as if I had boxes in my hallway. Ohhh, to be OCD and have a book understand you - there's no better feeling.

The plot itself was very bizarre and "out-of-the-movie-screen" at times, but I just couldn't stop reading. I needed to know what will happen next. I just needed to be in the lives of those women. Man, now I sound like another character from this book - see, relatable!

I know this book is not nearly as popular as Moriarty's other books, but I really enjoyed it and I would really recommend it to fans of women fiction such as What Alice Forgot by Moriarty or Eleanor Oliphant is completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. show less

I read Liane Moriarty because she consistantly creates fascinating characters, and The Hypnotists Love Story did not disappoint.

At first, the novel seems to be the simple story about the girl who got the guy and lost him, and the new girl that keeps him. But it doesn't take long to realize that Moriatry takes us deeper than that. With quirkiness, humor, and mystery, Moriarty delivers a story of the lengths we go to for those we love, and the emotional cost of losing them.

The loser in this story is a woman who goes absolutely crackers when her partner ends their relationship. She stalks him for a couple of years, and eventually gets to the point of breaking into his home when he is out, and spying on him from the street when he is show more there. She knows she is out of control, but can't stop. The reader almost begins to root for her as we realize her love for this man and his little boy that she helped raise.

At one point, she breaks into the home of her ex-lovers new girlfriend, bakes biscuits in the woman's kitchen, and then leaves them for her on the front porch as a gift. Hilarious.

Everyone wins in the end, but maybe no one more than the loser. I think she carries the trophy home. show less