"and I think about TV and how people fall in love , have families, and spend lives together. Not like it is around here; people love for a little while
...And I wonder what makes love last."

Love War Stories by Ivelisse Rodriguez is a short story collection that aimed to dissect the concept of love and show the many layers and aspects of it. I am a fan of short stories and this is one that is now one of my favorites. Every story brings up a new question about love and exposes another complexity. Each story leaves you wanting to search for answers and research further.

What I loved the most was that it was written from the Puerto Rican experience. Reading the stories felt personal. It exposed the mixed messaging and the ways that cultural aspects play a part in creating the notions and expectations of love. The prose was beautiful and relatable. The characters introduced were multifaceted and represented the mixture of identities found in Puerto Rican culture. Each story tackled a different conflict that is relatable. This collection pulled at different pieces of my heart.

The stories gave me so much to think about:
❤ How do you construct ideas about love when everything around you reflects the opposite?
❤ Why do we make idols of people we love?
❤ Why do women grieving love get stigmatized?
❤ Why is marraige the ideal and pushed by people unhappily married?
❤ How do continue to believe in love when all it does is disappoint?
❤ How do you make sense of all the mixed messaging about love and relationships?
❤ Why is a woman's reputation and identity judged in relation to who she loves?
❤ Is secret or forbidden love less valid than public love?
❤ If love isn't stagnant and constantly changing, how do you sustain or put limits on it?
❤ Why does love contradict?
❤ Why does love feel like grief?
❤ Can feminism exist with traditional ideas about love?

Bookdragon rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 ( )