I can't stop thinking about 'This is a Love Story' by Jessica Soffer: Here's why

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a crier.

But you've got to get me in the right moment. I get misty-eyed at a nostalgic song and as the credits roll on a beautifully-shot movie. I cry when I'm happy as much, or perhaps more, as I do when I'm sad. The sentimental girls get it.

A well-written book scratches that itch. There's something special about that cathartic feeling of letting it all out when you reach the acknowledgments. Reading is, after all, a journey. It takes time and concentrated effort. You become part of the world built with nothing but words. The characters become part of you. Finishing a well-written book can be an overwhelming experience – you did it! How emotionally wrecked are you?

The crying, then, usually only happens toward the end of the novel, as characters seek a resolution. But when I read “This is a Love Story” by Jessica Soffer, I was in tears by page four.

Out now from Dutton Books at Penguin Random House, “This is a Love Story” (★★★★ out of four) tells a tale of romance, family and loss through Central Park. Here, the Park is not so much a fixture as it is a figure, as any New Yorker will tell you. Seasoned or rookie, we all have a corner of our heart reserved just for it.

“It can be said: there is no greater ecstasy than reaching the pinnacle of Cat Hill on bike. No purer pleasure than holding hands, watching the ducks flap flap flap,” Soffer writes, in the opening pages. “Even as raging wars, another mass shooting, Me Too, hostages, hateful graffiti, youth cyberbullying give us no reason to have faith in passion, the brown-belted bumbles are rapturous, pollinating beardtongue and American wild columbine. For some, the Park’s branches are arms stretched up and out, abating hate. It is possible to see them as that. Perhaps, for some, to love the Park makes seeing them as that essential.”

And then we meet Jane and Abe, whose love story is told across decades, up and down the paths of the park. An artist and a writer, they meet at Tavern on the Green, one of the Park’s most famous sit-down eateries. In present day, Jane is on her deathbed. Abe is telling their love story. They remember together.

Abe’s love for Jane is moving, but it isn’t particularly transcendent – at face-value, at least. It is, like other stories, a tale of boy meets girl. There are no star-crossed lovers here. But that doesn’t matter. In fact, the littlest human moments are what make you feel this partnership so deeply. (“When you are like this, it feels like hitching my wagon to your horse. I want to follow you raspberry picking, listen to you contemplate fish and sun and shadows in oil on driftwood,” Abe remarks.)

It’s not all simple, of course, as rarely anything is. The couple go through their fair share of distance and closeness – pushing and pulling apart as they reach for career success, lose parents and a pregnancy, have a child, grapple with infidelity. Jane and Abe’s story is thorny, complex. And Soffer expertly grounds us in that Park through it all – a Park lamppost helps a lost boy find his way home. An invisible string is unexpectedly connected in Strawberry Fields. A difficult conversation happens on a familiar walking loop.

But even more touching than Jane and Abe’s story are the city vignettes puncturing it. Soffer plays with magic, the way she weaves these little threads – random, interspersed characters we may never see again but feel deeply all the same. The gardeners. Yogis. A cardiac surgeon. A housepainter. You don’t know them, but you know them, as living in New York City often feels. Little heartbeats, crossing the grid from Broadway to Central Park West. However separate and different, we are all breathing in the same air.

“Among the tulips, fritillaries, and anemones, juniors from Bronx Science make promises across the Whisper Bench – I want to exist in the same quantum state as you. An optometrist who has been married five times finds love again at the Rumi Festival in Shakespeare Garden. It feels like 20/10 eyesight.”

I’m reminded of a quote on a bench I saw in Central Park once, a tribute to Barbara and Stan, wherever they are: “How perfect is this, how lucky are we?”

In New York City, but perhaps in any place, there are moments between the hustle and bustle when you look up to the sky and breathe, grateful to just be for another day. Reading “This is a Love Story” feels a little like that. Love stories may be far from perfect, but how lucky are we?

Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, check out her recent articles or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: I can't stop thinking about 'This is a Love Story': Review