Sarah Salway’s debut novel, Something Beginning With (aka The ABCs of Love) is the story of Verity Bell, a secretary in an industrial publishing company, who falls in love with a married man just as her best friend Sally’s own affair enters turbulent waters.The most immediately striking thing about Something Beginning With is its structure: the novel is arranged like an encyclopedia, with alphabetical entries (which have headings from ‘Baked Beans’ to ‘Railway Stations’ and ‘True Romance’) and cross-references. What this does is make the narrative highly fragmented, so that passages from the fictional present jostle with recollections from Verity’s past and her inner wonderings. From these pieces, we build up a portrait of a young woman who is pretty insecure with herself, and not always a sympathetic character. From an early scene in which the eleven-year-old Verity destroys an ant colony with boiling water, Salway drops in these details that complicate and colour our mental image of Verity.Perhaps Verity’s greatest wish in life is ‘to matter’ (p. 154), not to be one of those people who goes through life never being noticed by anyone. But she doesn’t make life easy for herself: emotionally, she can push people away; and, materially, she has the financial means to live much more comfortably than she does. The way Salway portrays Verity, and especially with that alphabetical structure, one starts to wonder just how much is not being said and what might be happening in between the passages of the text. On the strength of this, I’ll definitely be looking out for more of Sarah Salway’s work.
The book was okay. I can't say that I really liked nor disliked this book. It was just kind of there as a book.
Do You like book The ABCs Of Love (2004)?
I've had this book sat on the bottom of my 'Yet to read' shelf. This shelf generally consists of books I have read the first few pages of and then left for months on end til I bother to return to it. I wanted something easy to read, and I noticed this so thought I'd actually read it and finish it. I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to. I likes elements of the stories. Some moments I could relate to, and others I'm not sure I'll ever relate to. The story was good, and I liked the layout. It reminded me of 'The Lover's Dictionary' by David Levithan. I have given this 5 stars, because 5 stars for me means I didn't find anything wrong with it. I read it, enjoyed it for what it is, and will remember the more storytelling parts with joy. I'd like to have seen certain elements of the story explored in more depth, but I think the layout restricted this slightly, but either way it satisfied my need for an easy read!
—Jade Moore
