Finding Love | ✔️

notes and thanks

1. To be edited

Firstly, I would like to put it out there that this book is unedited and stuff so soon enough, I'll be going over the whole thing chapter by chapter and mending/tweaking it a bit.

2. Running themes

The fact that I take Literature as a subject makes me highly analytical and critical of books (so I read so much into things that most of the time it doesn't even exist). But, here are some themes (or motifs?) that you may or may not have noticed in finding love.

~ sleep ~

Whether she was blacked out, fainted, beat up, or simply just sleeping, there were tons of moments where April talks about sleep.

I reckon this was an important theme because sleep represents growth, repair and rest. I'd like to think that throughout the novel April grows into a fuller person, and her brokenness is slowly repaired as she lets go of her past and is allowed to be at peace, to rest.

~ dreams ~

She says she has dreams of "faceless mothers" and much later on "flabby arms" and whatnot. Dreams are a side-effect of sleep, so these two themes tie in together. Perhaps the dreams symbolize her evolution as a person because she begun with nightmares, and then at Quinton's Motel, her dream started out well but turned bad...but then towards the end, when she had found comfort and love, her dreams were warm.

Maybe the dreams represent April's mind in that it is initially disturbed and tumultus but it slowly begins to become a peaceful mind.

~ glass ~

One thing I'll have to do when I'm going over the book again is remember to incorporate more glass in the later chapters because I'd completely forgotten at some point.

Nevertheless, glass is something you may have noticed recurring often in the story. I like to think that glass is a reflection of April (no pun intended), as she is both strong and fragile at the same time. She is broken, but can be pieced together with a little glue. She is transparent in her thoughts yet, like glass, creates a barrier between two sides, ie. what goes on inside her head and what she actually communicates.

~ food ~

Right from Dudi offering her a slice of pizza to Leopold's cupcake, April has enjoyed an assortment of foods which have brought comfort in some very dire situations. Perhaps it is that much more valuable because as April is struggling to fend for herself, having a meal is a prize she wins.

We may also find that the foods Doreen had cooked - lasagne and apple pie - are the kinds where you share together, serving from the same bowl or plate, which implied a certain unity or bond between the three of them.

I'm sure there are many more of them and I'll leave it up to you to figure it out for yourselves.

3. Inspiration behind the characters (thanks and shootouts)

~ Phillip ~

Phillip is a cute seven-year old in the book, but in reality the equivalent of 'Little Phillip' is one of my closest friends in school. He's got an inner seven-year-old boy in him, and is also pretty smart (all those philosophical debates we have) and so I thought of him while making Little Phillip.

Also, I gathered some inspiration for Little Phillip from this young boy I met who was INSANELY smart yet very cute. A fierce spirit inside a small body, he was.

Shoutout to you Phil ♥️

~ Arghavan/Arghie ~

The real life Arghie is like my Wattpad bestie. I love her so much - her snapchats make my life! I felt her name and personality was perfect, and I do wish Arghie made more of an appearance in the book (been thinking of a spin-off novel for her though *winky face*).

Shoutout to Arghieeee♥️♥️

~ Gage ~

There may or may not be someone in real life who's really awkward and makes my day...lol.

On a more serious note, the real life Gage is a pretty awesome friend of mine (can we forget the part where April falls in love with him) and so here's a shoutout to you milovely, @AstroGage!

Follow the motherfucker, he's a little dry in that department 😂

There are other inspirations for some other characters (but who April is will forever remain a mystery) but meh, it's cool.

4. Why love?

Many Wattpad books that have to do with teenagers often focus on romance. However, I realized that the more you immerse yourself in such books, the higher your expectations become in regards to your own love life. And, the more your definition of 'love' becomes one thing: the sexual/romantic love between two people. However, in finding love, I attempted to portray love in different ways to show that that's not the only way we should see love.

In my Philosophy class, we were taught that there are four kinds of love in Greek:

Eros - romantic, sexual
Philos - brotherly, friendship
Storge - object, duty (family)
Agape - unselfish, unconditional, non-discriminant

As a result, I decided to show each and every one of these within the book so as to show that love is not only eros! It's so many different things and can be towards different types of people.

Can you link some events in the story to these types of love? For instance, April's love for Gage was obviously eros; but what about with Arghie or Eli?

This book was intended to make you think quite a bit about your lives and about what you think 'love' really is because today's society has attached so many things to the word that do not even come close to what it truly is or means.

Lastly, thank you to all of you who read this book and went on this journey with me. I really, really appreciate it. If you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it, don't forget to vote, comment, and share it - hopefully it touches many other people too.

Thank you so much ♥️