There are books that remind us of who we are, and others that make us look back at who we used to be. Heart the Lover by Lily King manages to do both, with an emotional honesty that is as beautiful as it is painful.

This is a raw exploration of love, memory, time and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. King is interested not only in what happens to us, but in how we understand those events as we grow older, how memory reshapes them, and how the passage of time changes the meaning we give to our choices. It is a story in which not everything ends well, at least not in the conventional sense. And yet, as the pages unfold, you find yourself wondering whether things could ever have ended differently. Perhaps everything happened exactly as it could have. Perhaps that, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is the way it makes us confront the distance between the people we were and the people we have become. There is a particular kind of tenderness in looking back at our younger selves, especially at the versions of us who made decisions we would never make today. At twenty-two, we might have been certain of what we wanted, convinced that we understood love, or simply too inexperienced to recognise what was right in front of us. Even if the right choice had appeared surrounded by neon lights, with a band playing our favourite song, we might still have failed to see it.

And perhaps that is one of the most moving things about growing older: learning to look back without constantly putting our younger selves on trial. We made choices with the knowledge, fears, desires and limitations we had at the time. We cannot expect the people we were to possess the clarity of the people we eventually became.

Heart the Lover also carries a quiet but insistent reminder of how important it is to be present in our own lives. To pay attention while things are happening, rather than waiting for hindsight to tell us what mattered. We spend so much time imagining what comes next, revisiting what has already happened, or trying to make sense of what we cannot change, that we sometimes forget to inhabit the moment we are actually living. And yet, those moments are what eventually become our memories, our histories, our lives.

As a reading experience, the novel is extraordinary. It has a beautifully constructed emotional arc, one that allows its feelings and ideas to accumulate rather than simply presenting them for the reader to consume. There are moments when the descriptions linger, perhaps a little longer than strictly necessary, but I found that to be part of the book’s particular magic. The details create an atmosphere, give weight to memory and allow the emotional world of the story to grow around the reader. But I was raised on Eça de Queiroz and Júlio Dinis, portuguese romantic writers who painted pictures with words and transported us into the past.

This is a book that makes you cry, but its real achievement is what it makes you think about afterwards. About the people we loved, the choices we made, the possibilities we missed and the lives that emerged from all of it. About accepting that a happy ending is not always the ending we once imagined, and that an imperfect outcome does not necessarily mean a wasted life.

Sometimes, things end as they could have ended. And perhaps learning to make peace with that is another way of learning to love the people we once were.

Lily King has written a novel that stays with you. Not because it offers easy answers, but because it leaves you with questions worth carrying.

Heart the Lover: The Lives We Lived and the People We Were was originally published in Write Your World on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Call Me by Your Name is a beautifully written exploration of sexuality, desire and first love, told through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Elio. The experience of watching two souls collide and slowly become one is extraordinary, and André Aciman’s decision to tell the story entirely from Elio’s perspective is brilliant. There is something about being a teenager that makes every emotion feel absolute. Nothing is quite as intense as it is when you are experiencing it for the first time, and Aciman captures that intensity with remarkable precision.

You feel everything alongside Elio and Oliver. Every glance, every advance, every hesitation and every moment of stillness in their relationship becomes palpable. You understand the uncertainty, the longing, the anticipation and the fear because you are experiencing it through Elio’s consciousness. And when goodbye finally comes, you hurt just as much as they do.

In the final pages, Aciman gives us a glimpse of the twenty years that follow. It is brief, but enough to leave you aching to know more. And more is precisely what you get with Find Me.

The two books end almost at the same point in time, but Find Me offers something quite different: a more mature perspective on the lives that unfold beyond that first, defining love. Its multiple points of view allow the story to breathe and acquire layers that the intensity of Elio’s teenage perspective could never accommodate. Where Call Me by Your Name is about the overwhelming experience of falling in love, Find Me is about what happens afterwards: the lives we build, the people we become, and the unexpected ways in which love continues to shape us.

In Find Me, Aciman offers a particularly beautiful meditation on time and life as seen from its far end. Through Miranda’s father, the wonderfully crafted Samuel, Michel and, ultimately, Oliver, we encounter people looking back at the lives they have lived. There is a quiet poignancy in this perspective: the recognition that time has passed, that a life has taken shape, and that there comes a moment when we finally have the distance to examine ourselves and wonder which wrong turns brought us to where we are.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this second novel is the freedom that comes with maturity. The freedom of looking at life without the urgency and limitations of youth, of understanding that there are still possibilities ahead, and that it is never too late to be surprised by love or by ourselves.

Reading these two books together is a particularly rewarding experience. They are not simply a story and its continuation; they are two different ways of looking at love and the passage of time. One captures the almost unbearable intensity of being young and feeling everything for the first time. The other explores the complexity, compromises and unexpected possibilities of the lives that come afterwards.

And perhaps that is what makes them such a beautiful pairing: they remind us that love is not confined to one moment in time, nor is a life defined by a single relationship. We are constantly becoming, looking back, moving forward, and discovering that there may still be more to come.

Aciman leaves us with something that feels both deeply romantic and profoundly human: the possibility that life, even after all its wrong turns, can still surprise us.

Call Me by Your Name & Find Me: Love, Time and the Lives We Live was originally published in Write Your World on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My eyes were shut, but I could still hear my alarm clock ringing. No! I wouldn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to go to school. Even though I had told my mother the previous day that school was hard, she didn’t believe me. Instead, she just nagged.

The alarm blared louder. I didn’t care. Let it make all the noise it wanted. I still wasn’t getting up.

Just then, I felt someone’s presence. It was Mother. I could already imagine her furious eyes, although mine were still closed.

“Why is this boy still sleeping at this time?” I heard her say. “Philip!!!”

Seriously, I hate it whenever she screams my name like that.

“Will you stop screaming, Mom?” I mumbled, opening my eyes and sitting up on the bed.

Surprisingly, her eyes didn’t lock with mine. She was staring past me like I was still lying down. I burst into laughter. Maybe she had gotten some kind of morning blindness. But strangely, she didn’t react to my laughter at all.

Curious, I turned to follow her gaze behind me. And what I saw shocked me.

There was another me lying down, eyes closed.

“Ahhh!!!” I screamed, terrified. How could there be two of me? What was happening?

I called out to my mother again, but she didn’t hear me. I tried to touch her, but my hand passed right through her. I tried grabbing her, but I only clutched at the air.

My body felt strangely light. My heart wasn’t beating. My feet didn’t feel the floor. It was like I was… floating. It was terrifying. I was so occupied with trying to touch things that I hadn’t even noticed when Mother ran out.

A few moments later, she returned with Dr. Fred, our neighbor across the street, and Mrs. Uju, the compound’s troublemaker.

“He’s not breathing. He was fine yesterday. Please, do something quickly,” Mother’s voice trembled.

Dr. Fred leaned over my body, examined it, and slowly shook his head. “He’s cold,” he said quietly. “Your son is dead.”

What? I’m… dead? Why? How?

I found Dr. Fred’s words insulting. Furiously, I tried to hit him, but my fists passed right through his head like he wasn’t there. To prove him wrong, I lay down on my body, trying to merge with it. But nothing happened. I was still two.

I was definitely dead.

It felt like good news; at least I would finally escape my bullies at school, forever. Thankfully, I wasn’t even feeling the severe abdominal pain I’d gotten from their beatings the previous day. I hadn’t told Mother. I didn’t want to make her worry.

But it was also bad news. Mother was crying uncontrollably, lost in pain. And she would never see me again. I would miss her touch, her scent, her cooking, and her endearing love.

Joan. My first love. I would miss her too. Sadly, I would never have the chance to talk to her. I had admired her silently for three years. I kept it a secret. I was too scared she’d reject me. I was invisible to her. But loving her in silence was enough for me.

Now, I was invisible to the whole world. I stepped out, exploring my new form. It was fun, in a strange way. No one noticed me. I walked freely on the road, passing through speeding cars. Running felt like baby steps; I wasn’t getting tired.

The scorching sun couldn’t burn me. But the breeze couldn’t touch me either. That was saddening.

Just as I was about to enter GoldStyle, a fascinating fashion company I’d always admired, I noticed a strikingly handsome man at the entrance.
He wore a black suit, had golden hair, and stood calmly like a security guard.

Wow. What a great way to attract customers. Our eyes locked.

“It’s time to rest,” he said with a peaceful smile.

“But I’m not tired,” I replied. “Wait, can you see me? Am I alive?”

I felt something powerful and peaceful radiating from him, something beyond words.

“You don’t belong here,” he said. “I’m the guardian sent to lead you.”

I knew who he was. I was about to cross over to the other side. But I couldn’t leave without seeing Mother one last time.

“Don’t worry about her,” he said gently. “She’s being cared for by the One who is a husband to the widows.” His words were more than comforting and true.

So, I followed him into a white light. The way was a narrow highway and nothing else. But with him, I knew I was going to a better place, far away from the pain, suffering, and chaos of the world.

The Last Morning was originally published in Write Your World on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.