This instalment of Piglet Picks is selected by Amy from @inkwells_bookshelf
There are books that tug you straight back to a time and place, and I Love You, I Love You, I Love You did exactly that for me. For anyone who was a teen in the early 2000s Britain, this is a glorious, bittersweet nostalgia trip: Marlboro Lights, Barry M Dazzle Dust, Watermelon Bacardi Breezers, Spice Girls on the Hi-Fi. Laura Dockrill captures it all with so much humor and heart.
At its center is Ella, who falls for Lowe as a teenager and spends the next fifteen years tangled in the exquisite pain of loving her best friend. They share everything - grief, laughter, secrets, cigarettes in the rain. What she can’t share is the truth: that every time Lowe kisses someone else, her heart cracks a little more. This is a love story, yes, but also a friendship story, a growing-up story, and a reflection on the people who shape us most.
The writing is sharp, self-deprecatingly funny, and moving. Ella’s narration sparkles with wit and painfully relatable observations about ageing, identity, and heartbreak:
"Why did nobody warn me that UNLIKE ALL OTHER BODY HAIR if I plucked my eyebrows off as a teenager, they'd take an entire lifetime to grow back? And now I'm just desperately waiting for the day they announce skinny/bald brows are back in fashion. Why didn't I drink more water? Gallons of the stuff? Why did I drink all that tea and stain my teeth?"
What makes this novel even more special is knowing it draws from Laura Dockrill’s own life, a fictionalized love letter to her now-husband Hugo of The Maccabees. That authenticity shines through; you feel the ache of unspoken words, the joy of shared memories, and the bittersweet weight of time passing.
"What she doesn't realize is that she is a poem. She is the fairy tale and we are the characters in the story of her."
Funny, heartbreaking, and nostalgic, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You is a book that will transport you, make you laugh, make you cry, and remind you of the first person who ever broke your heart.
Right, I’m off to listen to The Maccabees and find more millennial nostalgia fiction. BRB…
