Because I Love You by Joy Watson

I first encountered Joy Watson’s writing in her debut novel The Other Me. I’m hardly one to read young adult fiction, particularly due to my protest against attributing a character’s choices to their juvenile minds. On the other hand, an author’s own wiser thoughts can leak out of the younger character with a level of maturity I struggle to believe an 8 year old would possess or articulate in that manner. Nevertheless, The Other Me held a perfect balance between my two conflicts with a level of realness that kept me captivated all the way to five stars at the end and cemented Joy as an auto-read author in my books. 

Because I love you similarly impressed me from the first line: “This is not a book about breakups. It’s a book about erasure. About the quiet violence that can live inside love, the kind that doesn’t leave bruises on your skin but rewires the architecture of your mind.”

The nonfiction anthology shares the stories of three women, Zara, Mira and Thuli, whose lives are altered by the love they choose to share. While it’s easy to almost want to condemn the women for what they, for lack of a better word, allow, I cannot discount the impact of hindsight (and foresight actually, as we go into the book expecting the shoe to drop) on the experience. These are men who are seemingly well-meaning at first encounter, to a point where it could be inconsiderate to not be understanding of their seemingly minor issues like a work emergency. In fact, I can understand the women chastising themselves for it. It’s a quiet violence. 

There’s the redemption from community in a friend saying “We don’t need to agree on taking [man] back into your life. The fact is, you’ve chosen him. And I choose you. I always will, no matter what choices you make. I’m here and you’re not going to shut me out.” This is important as shame demands the veil of isolation to regenerate itself. 

I appreciate that the stories have no neat endings because this is not fiction and the women’s lives go on beyond the pages. Joy also includes her own narrative in between each story, which induced mixed feelings in me. At first I thought she was breaking the fourth wall and distracting from the plot. However, this is not a plot to be merely endeavoured and Joy’s interjections serve as a reminder of that reality. It is the poignancy in her writing that lulls us into a nepenthic forgetfulness of the stories being a reality. 

Thanks to Jonathan Ball for the review copy and, while I acknowledge that the book is set in Cape Town, I hope Joy Watson knows she still owes us a Jo’burg launch!

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟