Review: Mad Love by Suzanne Selfors

    

Title: Mad Love
Author: Suzanne Selfors

Series: Standalone
Pages: 336

Publisher: Bloomsbury 
Release Date: June 6th 2011 (UK)
Source: For Review
Rating: 4 stars

Writing her own love story could drive a girl insane! 
When you’re the daughter of the bestselling Queen of Romance, life should be pretty good. But 16-year-old Alice Amorous has been living a lie ever since her mother was secretly hospitalized for mental illness. After putting on a brave front for months, time is running out. The next book is overdue, and the Queen can’t write it. Alice needs a story for her mother—and she needs one fast. That’s when she meets Errol, a strange boy who claims to be Cupid, who insists that Alice write about the greatest love story in history: his tragic relationship with Psyche. As Alice begins to hear Errol’s voice in her head and see things she can’t explain, she must face the truth—that she’s either inherited her mother’s madness, or Errol is for real.

I enjoyed this book greatly. The plot of the story is quite clever and explores different aspects of love; love between mother and daughter being one of them. Alice’s love to her mother was showed through her protection from the media and the other people. With all the stress of being a teenager, it shows how great Alice’s love is as she puts her mother before other things such as school.

As well as having to keep her mother’s illness a secret she also had common teenage girl problems. Boys. I quite liked the character of Alice’s crush Tony but I believe she could have brought more of his character out.

Errol’s main story in this book was quite sad. His story made me sympathise for him as a character. The description of Errol’s character was unexpected. Having typically imagined cupid to be a little chubby baby, Errol is the exact opposite. He was mysterious which made me want to know more about his story.

Overall, Mad Love is an enjoyable book which explores many themes; one of them being mental illness. There are occasional moments where you can’t help but cringe, but it is a cute read!

Reviewed by guest reviewer Rebecca