Things I Know About Love

18-year-old Livia’s experience of love has been curtailed by her leukemia but her recent recovery has enabled her to visit her brother Jeff in America. During her visit she renews her acquaintance with his friend Adam and experiences real, mutual love for the first time – a world away from the unkindnesses and adolescent fumblings of her previous boyfriends. At the end of her holiday she becomes ill again…

There are many pitfalls in tackling this kind of story, but le Vann’s experience as a writer for teenage magazines enables her to avoid both sentimentality and bathos and to deliver a rawly honest narrative rich in humour, exposing the stark realities of a first true love from the point of view of both protagonists and genuinely moving the reader.