Love's Journey Home

By Gabi Coatsworth

Love’s many colors.

The best memoirs are like beautiful cakes. Within the light, lovely layers is a delicate recipe: Emotion + Pace + Character, and not just any character, but a relatable, vulnerable, open individual whose life struggles along an arc of lessons. Whether the story ending is happy or sad, by the time you turn to the last page, you’re satisfied. Chatsworth’s memoir, Love’s Journey Home, delivers all of these ingredients—through to its bittersweet end.

I had downloaded Love’s Journey Home onto my Kindle for a 4-hour flight. I’m not kidding about Chatsworth’s pace, each chapter flew by. No small feat when it comes to memoirs. True to her title, the story’s driving force is love and its many colors—forbidden, elicit, heady, forlorn, steady, disorienting, true. The author’s voice spoke in my head (as an English accent of course!). Her prose was frankly candid, her thoughts clear and relatable--whether as a single mom in her 20’s or an Englishwoman moved to Chicago or a wife struggling with her husband’s alcoholism. Again and again, the implicit question is asked, “How do you trust love?”

The journey to the answer is well worth it.