Despite what you may gather from the title, "Forty Words for Love" is way more than a romance. Instead it's a book about a dying town that was once a tourist attraction. Not really action packed. It truly feels like "magic realism." Like I could find the Golub in our reality. Everything that these characters and the community goes through feels like something that would or has happened in our reality.
"Forty Words for Love" emphasizes the importance of remembering the past, even when attempting to move on. This message is portrayed everywhere throughout the book. In Raf and Yas's relationship with each other, in Raf's relationship with college, with Yas's relationship with Moonlight Bay as a whole. Even the towns people as a general body experience this realization by the end of the book. The obsession with moving on isn't something you notice much until the end of the novel. This book does a wonderful job at pulling together all the side plots by the end. I feel like all the characters stories have been completed. This book was also really nice because it didn't make the possibility of romance between Yas and Raf an overdramatic thing that took away from the rest of the book. It was a soft, slow, burn that was beautiful to read as it blossomed in the pages. Overall I really enjoyed this book and I think it is one of my new favorites. Would definitely read again.
"Forty Words for Love" emphasizes the importance of remembering the past, even when attempting to move on. This message is portrayed everywhere throughout the book. In Raf and Yas's relationship with each other, in Raf's relationship with college, with Yas's relationship with Moonlight Bay as a whole. Even the towns people as a general body experience this realization by the end of the book. The obsession with moving on isn't something you notice much until the end of the novel. This book does a wonderful job at pulling together all the side plots by the end. I feel like all the characters stories have been completed. This book was also really nice because it didn't make the possibility of romance between Yas and Raf an overdramatic thing that took away from the rest of the book. It was a soft, slow, burn that was beautiful to read as it blossomed in the pages. Overall I really enjoyed this book and I think it is one of my new favorites. Would definitely read again.