Book Review: A True Love Story by Kevin Scrima

(PLEASE NOTE: EACH OF THE ORIGINAL REFERENCED REVIEWS MENTIONED IN THIS POST CAN BE FOUND ON AMAZON.COM)

It appears that this book seems to have a lot of negative reviews on it but honestly, it is an amazing book. Reading through the other reviews, I saw that they are often ripping apart the author for the choices he made throughout the novel. Honestly, I admire the author for WILLINGLY sharing this story with the world. No one made him write the story and he definitely was not forced to publish it. 

The memoir beings by explaining how Kevin managed to, eventually, get himself involved in his little situation. Although Kevin directly states that “[he] [is] really curious about sex,” he also admits that he feels “those who lose their virginity early are lowly because they are eager to desecrate themselves so quickly [and] they desire only lust, not love” (Scrima). The experience Kevin goes through doesn’t destroy that thought process as he later states; but, instead, it shapes it differently when Kevin realizes that, although he has lost his virginity, he has something else that would be worth almost just as much, his undivided attention and love. 

As the memoir progresses, Kevin shares not only the pain that he was experiencing but, also, his reflection on everything that happened. I noticed that a few people did not like the parentheses that were spread out throughout the story. I will admit they occasionally made the story hard to follow when the parentheses went on for a few pages; HOWEVER, the addition of the parentheses allows the reader to directly see that Kevin learned from everything that he went through. Some people said that Kevin was the bad, whiny guy in the story and that Sarah was the perfect, innocent one. That is not the case at all. Sure, Kevin could have made a few different choices as things progressed in his relationship with Sarah; but here’s the thing, the appearance of love, especially in a sexually based relationship, can blind a person to what is really going on and I genuinely believe that is what happened to Kevin in this case. As for Sarah, she NEVER should have entered a relationship with Kevin if she was still in love with a guy who lived out of state. But since she did, she should have at least told Kevin that there was another guy in the picture. Without knowing there was another guy, what was Kevin supposed to do when his girlfriend would disappear to another state and come back more distant from him? 

It is mentioned in the memoir that Kevin heard voices in his head at one point in his life and that he was depressed for a while. THIS DOES NOT MAKE HIM CRAZY! Nor does it make him a narcissist, schizophrenic, or anything else! At some point in each of our lives, we are going to suffer from depression. As a matter of fact, this way my most relatable part to Kevin’s story as I have suffered through the voices in my head and the depression myself. Am I crazy? No, I just had gotten to a point in my life where I needed some encouragement and a reason to be happy. For Kevin, his cure to the voices was being with Sarah; that is until he learned she had been cheating on him the whole time. Later Kevin cured them with writing stories and providing for himself a reason to smile.

I found that, as I read the memoir, I was experiencing the heartbreak and suffering that I may feel in the event I learned my boyfriend was cheating on me. I didn’t feel bad for Kevin necessarily nor did I feel bad for Sarah or Holly. I felt bad for myself as though I had been the one to get myself involved in such a mess. This feeling was strange for me because I, until a few weeks ago, had never had a boyfriend so I had no previous memories of heartbreak that I could easily add into my sorrow. Why do I mention this? Because Kevin was able to share the pain of cheating with someone who had never had the opportunity to have her heart broken let alone be cheated on. I didn’t know what it would feel like but, because of the way Scrima wrote the book, I have an idea on how much it would hurt.

I’d like to take a moment to side track from the book directly though and discuss a few of the negative things said in the other reviews. In one review, the writer says “[They] found [themselves] wondering if there was not some exaggeration in it” (Kindle Customer on March 9^th). My question is, why would someone exaggerate a story like this? To make it more painful emotionally? To have people more interested in it? I don’t think so. A story like this is already painful enough to live through; but, to re-experience it in order to write the story would only tug at the raw emotions even more. I also can’t believe that Scrima would exaggerate the story in order to have more people interested in it. Those who would have interest in it without the exaggeration are the people Scrima wants to read the book. He wrote it to help people see that they aren’t alone if they are going through something similar; and, for those who haven’t gone through it, he wrote it to layout the warning signs, although there may only be a few. If Scrima wanted it read for other reasons, he would have written it as a fiction story and not used his real name. No, there is no way Scrima exaggerated this story. 

Another reviewer says in their review that “maybe, his mother should have taken that abortion pill when she had the chance, so no one would have to suffer from reading this book like [she] did” (Anne). WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WRITE THAT IN A REVIEW?!?! I’m sorry; I don’t see how that is appropriate to post. Believe it or not, I’m 100% positive that, somewhere in the world, there is at least one person who loves Kevin for who he is. Kevin was born for a reason. Maybe it was to publish this book or maybe it was something else; but, Kevin was born for a reason. That’s that.

And since all three of the reviewers had the nerve to complain about the poor writing of the memoir, I have one thing to say to that: when you write a novel, I would like you to let me know. I would find great delight in reading a book that is 100% flawless in its grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I guarantee that you can’t do that and here is why: even the world’s most popular writers of contemporary novels still have flaws in their books AND THEY HAVE GONE THROUGH DAYS AND WEEKS OF EDITING AND REWRITING!!! I’m sorry; I just hate that people think the grammatical errors, of which some made more of in their review that Scrima made in his whole memoir, take away from the point of the story. 

In conclusion, I would hope that people would disregard the negative reviews because this is an AMAZING novel and well-worth the read. I WOULD recommend this book to others. 

Citation: http://www.amazon.com/True-Love-Story-Unrequited-Networking-ebook/dp/B00EPRG0EE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428869302&sr=8-1&keywords=Kevin+Scrima