Do Sole Mates From Childhood Fall in Lobe Again
(Blog Post ★ Recommendations ★ Analysis)
Over the years, I found that romance has many different sub genres. Been an avid romance reader, you tend to sort through the genres that you like and the ones that sometimes don't quite sit well with you.
The premise of "Childhood Lovers" has always been an all time favorite sub-genre to read of mine. Without a doubt, I find soul-mate love to be one of the best kind when reading novels, because it revolves around on how they're is one person for everyone. Childhood love links to that massively (be it friends to lovers etc.) because knowing love from a very young age or even starting to feel it gives that little twinge of magic.
Longing is a very strong word that I could interpret in two ways.
First, lets go by the dictionary definition
longing
ˈlɒŋɪŋ/
noun
1. a yearning desire.
This is a very straightforward way of saying that longing is a type of desire. Humans experience desire with many things. Desire to eat (hi hello that would be me.), Desire to do well, Desire to love… Desire to be loved. Therefore, when connecting longing to soul-mate love or childhood sweetheart stories and then give it that "one that got away" aspect surrounding it. It's a story that bound to be bursting with desire.
I do in fact think that nostalgia plays a vital role in longing, because by definition nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.
Now, thats the most direct answer to what longing could mean.
Let me break down my answer.
To start,
Aristophanes was an ancient greek playwright and he recounted a story about soulmates. He stated that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. He said that there were three genders – male (children of the sun), female (children of the earth) and androgynous (children of the moon, which was born of the sun and earth – hence the status of androgynous).
Zeus, the god of thunder and the sky was scared with the prospect of these humans because of the great power they could have to conquer the gods. To prevent this, Zeus came up with the punishment of splitting these humans in half, asking Apollo to stitch and reconstruct the bodies. The navel being the only reminder of their original form.
So as each human wandered aimlessly around the earth, forever longing their other half, the other half of their soul. Searching for their one true soulmate in the mortal world. He stated that when the two find each other, there is an unspoken understanding between them, staying together and being unified again. And that there would be no greater joy than that.
I do believe in soul-mates. Perhaps, the people who do find that reading books and stories about characters that believe in them too gives a sense of community. I do not believe in love at first sight however, and those are two very different things.
So in my terms, longing is that search.
Sometimes you spend your whole life looking for that one person. Searching for that completion of you. People lucky enough find that, some people don't and they get married to other people, some people do and let them slip away.
So longing is searching. When your heart is split in two, when your body is split in two, and your soul is split in two – it's that yearning to search for that other part.
In theory, childhood love causes that effect in ten-fold because the search is over early. Who doesn't want to read a story about two people who were so drawn to each other right from the beginning that they didn't have to search any more. They've been completed.
I'm going to split my recommendations into two lists.
The first being books that I have read and can summarize a little bit about, and the second is novels that I haven't read, or want to read that revolves around childhood -sweethearts or soulmate love.
Childhood Lovers / Soulmate Love ★ Read
Book Blurb: Sweet tea, corn bread, and soup beans—everyday fare for eight-year-old Alix French, the precocious darling of a respected southern family. But nothing was ordinary about the day she met ten-year-old Nick Anderson, a boy from the wrong side of town. Armed with only a tin of bee balm and steely determination, Alix treats the raw evidence of a recent beating that mars his back, an act that changes both of their lives forever.
My Rating: 5/5 stars
5) RoomHate by Penelope Ward
7) April and Oliver by Tess Callahan
8) Infini by Krista and Becca Ritchie
Book Blurb: Some love is infinite
8) The Opportunist by Tarryn Fisher
Childhood Lovers / Soulmate Love ★ Not Read
- Carnage (Carnage Series) by Lesley Jones
- The Secret of Ella and Micha
- The Vincent Boys
- Corrupt
- Present Perfect
- The Silent Waters
- The Fire between High and Lo
- Bright Side
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Source: https://cometsandcomments.wordpress.com/2017/08/13/romance-sub-genre-childhood-lovers-childhood-sweethearts-soulmate-love-blog-post-%E2%98%85-recommendations-%E2%98%85-analysis/