Book Review: I'll Know You By Heart

I grew up reading a lot of historical (Regency in particular) romances and romantic suspense (Mary Stewart). I also read a lot of the older authors of romance produced by Harlequin—such as Betty Neels. That being said, I don’t tend to read contemporary romance, and contemporary LDS romance.

Kimberly Job’s first novel, that just came out is titled I’ll Know You by Heart. As soon as I started reading I was sucked in—I’m sorry to say though that I was pulled out fairly quickly. I think that maybe I was pulled out because I had such a hard time relating to the main character—who I really liked, but didn’t understand. I’ve never been abused and the main character, abused by her husband, finally leaves him when he hits one of their children for the first time.

I’ve often thought about what I would do if I were abused in one way or another and every time my solution is fight back or leave immediately. So I had a really hard time getting it. However, even for someone who does not ‘get it’, I still felt the reality of the abuse and the reactions of the main character. I’ve read other books where someone is abused and it often comes across as unreal to me—the way the character reacts. This did not happen in this book—although I am the kind of “KICK HIS REAR-END” kind of person, I still got the main character’s reactions and why she did the things she did.

I’m not sure what I would call this genre of fiction, but I think it is a cross between chic-lit and romance or maybe just realistic romance. That being said, even though I felt a little distanced from the characters (for a little while) I was still interested enough to keep reading. By the time we started experiencing more problems I was wholeheartedly back ‘IN’ the book and never left until the last page. Darn Kim for making me cry! Yeah. I used a lot of Kleenexes.

Who would I recommend this book to? People who enjoy a romance that is realistic, that deals with real issues. I’m not a big ‘real’ issue kind of a person. I like escaping reality, not facing its harsher aspects. For anyone who has known someone or experienced abuse themselves, I fully believe this book will speak to you on a level that will give you hope and faith.

I also liked the lack of focus on the main character’s appearance. So often in our society we are so intent on the woman being beautiful and perfect (especially in romances) so the man can be attracted to her that we forget a real relationship does not come purely from attraction AND that we can be attracted to people who do not fit our society’s view of beauty. Relationships are about connecting. The main character and her love interest connect deeply on a level that we often don’t understand because we, as a society, are so focused on the superficial.

I appreciated the problems that came up to keep the love interest and the main character separated from each other. Too often romance books fall on the whole not talking to each other and jumping to conclusions about the other person. That does happen in this book, but just a touch and the characters actually learn from the experience deciding to be sure to communicate. No, the elements that keep these two separated feel real and valid. Especially at the end, I totally understood why the main character had a hard time overcoming her specific challenge.

If any of you who read this review are turned off by the “LDS” in the first paragraph, I would say that the religious parts of this book are natural and exist in the people’s lives. It isn’t a hit you over the head, but simply the religion is reflected in the lives of people who are doing the best they can.

Ultimately, even though I was pulled out of the book for a time, I would recommend it to anyone who likes these types of books and for anyone wanting to try to experience maybe a harder (emotional) book to read. Also, for those of you who are sick of books that purely ride on physical attraction to bolster the romance? This is a refreshing change.

To order the book click here.