With Or Without You by Caroline Leavitt

Forty-nine years into my relationship with my husband, I can attest that people change and grow and couples must learn to adapt to the changes. 

Typically, personal growth evolves over time. But imagine waking up to find your partner in a coma, and they recover they a totally different person. Imagine that your connection is broken, your shared loves lost, that you are strangers that quickly.

With or Without You by Caroline Leavitt is the story of Simon, a one-hit-wonder still lusting after fame, and Stella, a practical nurse. They have been in love for decades even though their dreams don't mesh. Early in their relationship Stella gave up following Simon on tour and took up a career. Now in her early forties, she wants permanence and a family.

A new star in music recognizes Simon's band as his inspiration they are invited to open for him in Las Vegas. On the eve of Simon's leaving to reboot his career, Stella isn't sure she wants to give up her life to go on the road again.

Bad decisions leave Stella in a coma. Simon stays at her side while the band replaces him and moves on. Stella's work friend and doctor, Libby, had never liked Simon before, but in their mutual care for Stella, they become friends.

Stella comes out of the coma and recuperates. Foods she loved she now hates. She volunteers at the hospital and no longer enjoys being there. What does engross and calm her is drawing, demonstrating an amazing talent. For her drawings do not only show the outside of a person, they capture their inner being.

Simon, Stella, and Libby work out their ever more complex relationships, all on a journey into healing, personal growth, and an opportunity for full and productive lives.

Each character's childhood has impacted their self-image, and once confronted, they are able to become happy and healthy. This aspect of the story has universal appeal, affirming the possibility for wholeness and self-realization.

I loved the exploration of the quest for artistic success and the lure of fame against the pure love of doing art leading to success.

A thoughtful, deep novel with fully formed characters and a happy ending which I read in 24 hours.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

See Leavitt's Virtual Book Tour here

With or Without You
by Caroline Leavitt
Algonquin Books
Pub Date  August 4, 2020 
ISBN: 9781616207793
Hardcover $26.95 (USD)

from the publisher

New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt writes novels that expertly explore the struggles and conflicts that people face in their search for happiness. For the characters in With or Without You, it seems at first that such happiness can come only at someone else’s expense. Stella is a nurse who has long suppressed her own needs and desires to nurture the dreams of her partner, Simon, the bass player for a rock band that has started to lose its edge. But when Stella gets unexpectedly ill and falls into a coma just as Simon is preparing to fly with his band to Los Angeles for a gig that could revive his career, Simon must learn the meaning of sacrifice, while Stella’s best friend, Libby, a doctor who treats Stella, must also make a difficult choice as the coma wears on.

When Stella at last awakes from her two-month sleep, she emerges into a striking new reality where Simon and Libby have formed an intense bond, and where she discovers that she has acquired a startling artistic talent of her own: the ability to draw portraits of people in which she captures their innermost feelings and desires. Stella’s whole identity, but also her role in her relationships, has been scrambled, and she has the chance to form a new life, one she hadn’t even realized she wanted.

A story of love, loyalty, loss, and resilience, With or Without You is a page-turner that asks the question, What do we owe the other people in our lives, and when does the cost become too great?