View source for Love Notes for Freddie by Eva Rice

{{infobox1
|title=Love Notes for Freddie
|author=Eva Rice
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An easy to read, slow-paced love story.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=336
|publisher=Heron Books
|date=June 2015
|isbn=9781782064480
|cover=1782064486
|aznuk=1782064486
|aznus=1782064486
}}

Marnie is an innocent, mathematical genius schoolgirl who, unfortunately, gets expelled from her fancy boarding school.  Julie is her teacher, formerly a dancer, rigorously private about her past.  Freddie is the boy that both of them fall in love with.  Revealed through the eyes of two of the three main characters, this is a slow-moving, but rather beautifully told, love story.  It has the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets'' and it cleverly winds its way through Marnie's story in the 1960's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New York.

I was eager to read this book since I really loved Rice's previous novel.  I liked that this one had the same historical feel, but not intensely historical, if you know what I mean!  It's more about the flavour of the past, than the insanely detailed research an author has carried out.  (I don't get on well with historical novels!)  Along with Rice's settings, her characters seem very alive, very real.  Although Marnie is very endearing to begin with I think, by the end, I preferred Julie, even if I didn't always like the way she was behaving.  Her storyline was intriguing, and I wanted to know more about the romance in her past, that had affected her whole life, as well as why she was working as a teacher, and not as a dancer.  I enjoyed all of the action in the school, and I wasn't entirely sure what direction the book would take.  

Dancing forms a large part of the story, and I think it helps if you can at least vaguely imagine what Freddie might be doing as he wows first Marnie, then Julie, with his innate abilities.  I used to live with a group of dancers, many years ago, and so I was able to conjure up pictures of them leaping about as they made their toast in the morning and then imagine Freddie, dancing his heart out!  I have to say, I didn't always like Freddie.  I certainly didn't fall in love with him.  It was interesting that the story is never told from his point of view, and although he brings some interesting themes and ideas to the book, and he is the focus for Marnie and Julie in different ways, he really isn't the important character here, and is merely the star that Marnie and Julie revolve around.

I didn't love this book as much as I'd expected to.  Perhaps that's always a problem, when you come to a book with high expectations.  It is a good story, and it reads so easily, so fluidly, that I did enjoy it, it just didn't leap into my heart.  There was something about Marnie's story line that felt wrong, somehow.  The way no one seems to deal with her alcoholism is unsettling, and I kept worrying about it throughout as I read.  I felt like I was supposed to be more shocked, towards the end of the book, than I was, and the epilogue annoyed me by wrapping everything up far too neatly for my liking.  Much as I long for happy endings, I think I would have preferred this had things still been a little imperfect.

Still, it is a good story, and definitely worth a read.  I thought the portrayal of Marnie's obsessive, all-consuming teenage love was very convincing, and tied in well with Julie's story that reminds us not to hold on too tightly to the past, because it can stop us from going towards the future we're meant to have.

If this book appeals then you might also enjoy [[The Silent Hours by Cesca Major]].

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