Review by Katie Lipoma
I had so much fun reading The Secret Language of Love by Megan Tresidder this week. Fortunately, contrary to the title, there aren’t so many secrets and unanswered questions to mull over in this read, unlike last week’s book, The Secret History. This was a much-needed lighthearted pick-me-up that jumped out at me from a sidewalk pile a bit ago, and I’m so glad that I grabbed it! Why someone would choose to discard this absolutely lovely book about love beats me—not to mention, it just seems like a bad omen. Anyway, I’m happy to announce that I’m finally able to share an all-around happy review, and one that’s shorter than usual to mix things up.
Just as it says on the cover, this book is “a visual treasury of love through the ages.” In my eyes, the book itself is a work of art. Each colorful page resembles that of a delicately crafted scrapbook with its tidbit of information combined with visuals of historical artifacts in the form of art, objects, or drawings. This book is so beautiful that I want to display it rather than keep it hidden away on my shelf.
The Secret Language of Love is divided into several interesting sections: THE ANATOMY OF LOVE, DIMENSIONS OF THE HEART, THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE, and ARCHETYPES OF LOVE. The book explores aspects of love, how love is portrayed, art inspired by love, etc., across history, cultures, and the globe, paving the way for love today. Some of the topics that I found the most fascinating are The Beast Adored, Love and Magic, The Ring, Messages in Flowers, and Love and Madness. I loved all the visuals! I really like how the author covers nearly all facets of love, and I appreciate how she includes forms of love that most of us overlook such as platonic love in which she references William Shakespeare’s “marriage of true minds” sonnet (wouldn’t be a book blog without Shakespeare :/).
This book is really insightful and packs a lot of punch despite its small size. However, it only provides a general overview and small glimpse into the history behind each topic. This likely isn’t the book for you if you’re a huge history nerd or are in search of more content. There is a focus on visuals which sometimes overpowers the writing. Additionally, I found a lot of the information to be obvious and general—stuff that I already knew despite not knowing much about history and the history of love. I’m not too disappointed, though, as I figured this read wouldn’t be digging too deep. I also would have liked to see some information regarding homosexuality in these pages as this was very common throughout history despite not being talked about and accepted as much as it is today.
Here is one of my favorite sets of pages on valentines (pp. 128-129), so you can enjoy the beauty too! Thanks Emily, for holding my book open!
I love love, and so naturally, I love this book. Have I said love enough? It was a refreshing read, considering that I only seem to hear about hatred nowadays.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review as much as I enjoyed sharing my thoughts. As always, thanks for following along!
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