The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes - Book Review

I first read this book during the summer of 2018 when I was in Italy for two months. During those months, I ended up reading ten books, finishing writing my first draft of my romance and having thought of ten other romance book ideas. But whenever I think about my summer in Italy where I stayed the majority of the time at my grandparents' house, I remember two things, the enjoyment of writing with the views of the mountains and reading this romance novel. 

I decided to read this novel again during the summer of 2021, due to the adaptation of this book being released to Netflix and the cinema. 

Sure the movie is not exactly the same, there are a few differences, especially as the present day wasn’t set in 2004, like it was in the book, but set in 2021. But overall, the movie had the same feel that the book gave to me, the feeling of hope and trust that love is and forever will be around us all. 

The novel revolves around two women, Ellie and Jennifer. Ellie works as a journalist, and during the move between two buildings she finds a love letter from the sixties between Jennifer, and a man called Boot. Determination sets inside of Ellie and with help of Rory, who works in the archives, the pair find more secret love letters. 

We are transported into the 60s and straight away learn that Jennifer has been in a car crash and has lost her memory. It isn’t until she arrives home with her husband that she finds a love letter addressed to her and she realises she had been having an affair. As Jennifer learns more and more about her forgotten past, we as the reader learn who the identity of Boot is, how the pair met and why this affair happened. 

There is a lot more that I could say that happens in this novel, but I would be spoiling it. All I can say is there will be tears, so make sure you have tissues by your side. 

I adored this book the moment I started to read it. Before reading this novel, I already loved romance, but the way Jojo Moyes wrote this book made me fall in love with romance even more. She kept you on your toes, making you want to carry on a new chapter the moment you finished one. 

The plot of this story was wonderful, and it’s extremely clever how Moyes linked the past with the present. It wasn’t two stories, with one set in the 60s and the other story set in the present. The stories needed each other to survive, without Ellie the letters would never have been found and Jennifer’s life wouldn’t have come to life. But without these love letters, Ellie wouldn’t have grown as a person and understood herself and what to do when it comes to love.

Both women were not perfect, they were flawed and layered with personality, which is something that every writer must do to create a realistic character - one that the reader can relate with. From the start of the novel, we learn that Ellie is in a relationship with a married man, and we know that Jennifer had an affair. As readers, we know this is bad, and it does give a negative impact on our protagonists. Nevertheless, Jojo Moyes is still able to write the story in a way that we like these characters. Even though we know what they are doing is wrong, we understand why. 

As much as I love this novel, there is one small area I do not like. The book was split into different parts, depending on what year we were in. When flashing back into the 60s and Jennifer finds the first letter, the next chapter goes back in time even more to the moment she met Boot. However, the chapter doesn’t state that we’ve gone even further in Jennifer’s past, and I still had to read over a few pages on my second go of reading to double-check where we were in Jennifer’s life. 

It’s only a small matter, but if the chapter had mentioned we had gone back 6 months or so, then it would have made it clearer to me and other readers that we were reading about what happened to  Jennifer before the car accident. 

Overall, I loved this book and I will read it again for the third time, maybe even more times. And The Last Letter From Your Lover will always be the novel that made me want to write a romance set in the 60s. 

Therefore, I will be giving this novel a 4.5/5.