Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The Course of Love” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The Course of Love

Alain de Botton (Goodreads Author)

4.03 · Rating details · 35,356 ratings · 3,912 reviews

"An engrossing tale that provides plenty of food for thought" (People, Best New Books pick), this playful, wise, and profoundly moving second novel from the internationally bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life tracks the beautifully complicated arc of a romantic partnership.

The long-awaited and beguiling second novel from Alain de Botton that tracks the be ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published April 28th 2016 by Hamish Hamilton (first published March 2016)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Course of Love, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

Books Recommended by Harry Styles

34 books — 36 voters

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Goodreads Picks for Tournament of Books 2017

512 books — 2,151 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.03 ·

Rating details

· 35,356 ratings · 3,912 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of The Course of Love

Apr 03, 2016 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, favorite, mental-health-psychology-self-help, romance, relationships, netgalley

Update: This is a $1.99 Kindle special right now. Personally... I think all young couples would find value in this book. I have the download too ... I still wish to own a physical copy. I've seen the hardcopy. It's beautiful.

Wonderful! Wonderful! *Extraordinary*!!!!!

I sooooo want a copy of this PHYSICAL BOOK!!

I have the hardest time writing reviews for books I love the most.

There are literally dozens and dozens and dozens of passages I want to highlight...but realized that wouldn't be possible ...more

flag 330 likes · Like · see review

Mar 10, 2016 Esil rated it liked it

Shelves: netgalley

I know what I think about The Course of Love, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I do know that I feel like an outlier because clearly de Botton is loved by many and already many GR friends have responded very positively to this book. The Course of Love focuses on the relationship between Rabih and Kristen from the time they meet to 13 years or so into their marriage. There are two narrative strings. The first is told from Rabih and Kristen's perspective, and takes us through a gamut of event ...more

flag 228 likes · Like · see review

Jun 06, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: credshelf

C'est tellement simple, l'amour. Jacques Prévert

Profound Truths of Marriage (and Human Nature)

Through a Scottish couple, Rabih and Kirsten, de Botton dissects love and marriage. From the seeds of love planted when we are teens to dating to wedding to kids then through adultery and counseling for anxious and avoidant attachment arising from childhoods in which each lost a parent young, de Botton tells their story which he mixes with profound truths about human nature and the mountainous terra ...more

flag 112 likes · Like · see review

Nov 27, 2016 Jill rated it really liked it

Once, early on in my marriage, my husband and I had a particularly intense fight over a ridiculously trivial matter. I barely remember the topic – something about where to hang some artwork – but I vividly recall that frightening feeling that I had made a ghastly mistake in joining our futures together.

Enter Alain De Botton. I wish I could advise my younger self to have read his book. De Botton employs an everyman and everywoman – in this case, Rahib, a non-religious budding architect from Beiru Once, early on in my marriage, my husband and I had a particularly intense fight over a ridiculously trivial matter. I barely remember the topic – something about where to hang some artwork – but I vividly recall that frightening feeling that I had made a ghastly mistake in joining our futures together.

Enter Alain De Botton. I wish I could advise my younger self to have read his book. De Botton employs an everyman and everywoman – in this case, Rahib, a non-religious budding architect from Beirut and Kirsten, a woman who had been abandoned early on in life by her father. Sparks fly and we follow the two of them through the course of love – infatuation, wedding, children, disillusionment, adultery, and finally, maturity.

Rahib and Kirsten are just foils for the author’s theme: falling in love is easy but maintaining that love is the real challenge. No one, after all, is perfect. “Rather than split up,” the author writes, “We may need to tell ourselves more accurate stories – stories that don’t dwell so much on the beginning, that don’t promise us complete understanding, that strive to normalize our troubles and show us a melancholy yet hopeful path through the course of love.” Each step of Rahib and Kirsten’s relationship is met with an evaluation – even an analysis – of what, precisely, is going on in their heads. The primal needs of this everyman and everywoman still demand attention as they reach adulthood and parenthood and much of their disillusionment stems from a desire to have the partner magically understand what those needs are…without appearing too vulnerable.

There is a problem with presenting the course of love through the eyes of surrogates. This reading experience is bound to be intensely personal, and when it deviates too much from the reader’s own experience, there is a waning interest. My husband, and I, for example, never had kids together, and I found myself not all that interested in Rahib and Kirsten’s parenthood experiences.

Yet the conclusions – that Romantic ideas of love are a recipe for disaster and that one can only be in love when one has given up on perfection – is compelling. “Rather than notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate dissimilarity that is the true marker of the “right” person.” My husband and I are still going strong after reaching that conclusion. To my mind, this book should be de rigueur reading for every couple contemplating marriage and every couple who wonders why their own marriage isn’t 100% perfect all the time (which is the vast majority of us!)

...more

flag 90 likes · Like · see review

May 29, 2016 Holly Bourne rated it it was amazing

This book should be compulsory reading before ANYONE gets married. I adored it. The last two chapters in particular were just astounding and beautiful and poignant and WISE. I wasn't a huge fan of 'Essays' - although it was still a remarkable achievement for a twenty-something's debut. But in The Course Of Love, Alain's life experience and wisdom really shines through. It's perfect.

The perfect antidote to what we're told Love *is* from the movies. And yet, never cynical. Truly remarkable. ...more

flag 66 likes · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2016 Bianca rated it really liked it

How can a book be enlightening and, at the same time, irritating? That must be a feat in itself, so I guess that's something.

I've been aware of Alain de Botton for years. I've watched most of his documentaries, TED talks, I even follow him on Twitter. So when I saw that there was a new book, a novel, I immediately requested it.

This book is definitely different. It's penned as a fiction novel, but is it really? The fiction part, the story of Rabih and Kirsten, was more of a conduit for the author ...more

flag 44 likes · Like · see review

Jan 24, 2016 Laura Spira rated it it was ok

The idea behind this book - to invent a pair of characters and to consider the nature of love by tracing their experience from first meeting through the first sixteen years of their marriage - is an interesting conceit. De Botton conducts a forensic analysis of their relationship, principally through the eyes of the husband, interjecting further thoughts on the nature of love at frequent points in the narrative (I found that the authorial voice became very irritating by the middle of the book.)

I ...more

flag 44 likes · Like · see review

Dec 16, 2015 Leo Robertson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

RE-READ NOTES:

Still wonderfully insightful and I can still recommend it. It's as searingly honest as anything, but doesn't feel the need to see the negative of life in a negative light. Nor a positive one. Like shining all colours on life so it looks all washed out and white. But true.

This is as patently revealing of a novel's intent and structure as any work can be, and so it's no surprise that it directs its characters towards more disaster and conflict than might be necessarily realistic, bec RE-READ NOTES:

Still wonderfully insightful and I can still recommend it. It's as searingly honest as anything, but doesn't feel the need to see the negative of life in a negative light. Nor a positive one. Like shining all colours on life so it looks all washed out and white. But true.

This is as patently revealing of a novel's intent and structure as any work can be, and so it's no surprise that it directs its characters towards more disaster and conflict than might be necessarily realistic, because it's trying to prove certain points. It proves those points well, but as a friend pointed out, there's no reason for two reasonably well-off people to be constantly scrambling for money. Everything is so medicore about their lives because mediocrity is to be studied in its every form, but it's hard to believe there was nothing of the spectacular, that someone could conceivably create people they don't seem to see much of themselves in, approach their lives in such a rote fashion.

Or maybe I should count myself lucky that my life appears more enjoyable than that of these characters. Fuck that! I work so hard for everything. Omg I'll be a centrist for life D:

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

This is the book that How to Think More About Sex promised to be, but it's way better.

It is a novel, I guess, but an extremely stripped-down version. de Botton is familiar with a novel's functionality, and presents us only with its functional aspects- there are no digressions, prolonged scene-settings or reels of dialogue here. These would have created an enthralling novel of 800pgs, but strayed from the text's central goal, namely that it's a case study of sorts of the average marriage- so its characters are given enough details to make them live, but no more, since they are essentially irrelevant as individuals- they're you, me and everyone. (And if you've read any of my other reviews, you know how thankful I am that a contemporary author refuses to give into indulgences or lofty goals of edging out other books with their own text's impossible length!)

The novel covers those aspects that have previously been left out of literature before this new movement, that seems to have started with Knausgård that I'm gonna coin "normalcore": the movement seeking to re-establish the courage it takes to live a normal life and extol the virtues of mediocrity- de Botton's enemies are tabloid newspapers; others might be Kardashians, The Voice, or talentless YouTube twerps with millions of followers. And it's about time, I think*: most other novelists, when they cover these areas, focus on the crushing despair of their characters when they realise they won't ever make anything of themselves and will perform their thankless jobs before being forgotten forever- and they often just leave it at that. But de Botton approaches every single honest facet of adult life, with its frustrations, shames and disappointments, with kindness and compassion- my own philosophy is to do this, but isn't it interesting that some realisations come to you with such apparent originality and extreme weight that they feel exempt from being treated kindly?

Having watched some of de Botton's School of Life videos on love, disappointment and the importance of melancholy (check these out!), it was impossible not to read his prose in his singularly kind and familiar voice.

This is positively essential reading. But normalcore books should be treated as moments of clarity in life treat us: as fleeting ventures packed amidst pleasant fantasy (this truth is one I earned the hard way by reading back-to-back Joseph Heller, David Foster Wallace and William Gass last Spring, so just trust me on this one- if you're gonna be kind, always start with thine ownself!), and to that end I'm now gonna read a 650pg Japanese crime novel and set aside the inevitable disappointments throughout the course of work, love and life :)

*Though I would say the American trend to elicit addiction-based confessions from celebrities in the aim of proving that they are not immune to statistics has become patronising and excessive. The point has been proven: celebrities are humans. FUH. ...more

flag 41 likes · Like · see review

Jun 19, 2020 Théodore added it

Love reaches its peak when it is proved that the loved one understands, more clearly than others have ever been able to, maybe even ourselves - those parts of us that are chaotic, embarrasing and shameful.

"The Course of Love " - is a stenic book, which proposes a detached and not at all conventional contemplation of love.
One question that is most often asked is " how did they get to know each other ? " - a question that dissatisfies with the exaggerated importance given to the beginning.
The s ...more

flag 36 likes · Like · see review

Dec 07, 2019 Anne Bogel rated it it was amazing

Every once in a while I stumble upon a book that completely and unexpectedly wows me.

In this novel, De Botton tells the story of a completely ordinary couple through a blend of philosophy and fiction, which might strike you as either as dead-boring or disastrous, but I loved it.

And when I say "loved," I mean I found it interesting, engaging, thought-provoking, and well-written. I didn't always agree with his conclusions, and some episodes made me cringe, but I always admire a work that accompl ...more

flag 33 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2019 Vicky "phenkos" rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

At around 30%, I'm not sure whether to DNF the book or keep going. It's not that the book is badly written, or that it has no intrinsic interest. On the contrary, de Botton touches on an issue that I think is under-estimated and worth talking more about: what happens to love when a couple moves from the heady days of falling in love and wanting to spend more time together -- in fact, to spend their whole lives together -- to actually doing just that, i.e. navigating a closeness that shoves them At around 30%, I'm not sure whether to DNF the book or keep going. It's not that the book is badly written, or that it has no intrinsic interest. On the contrary, de Botton touches on an issue that I think is under-estimated and worth talking more about: what happens to love when a couple moves from the heady days of falling in love and wanting to spend more time together -- in fact, to spend their whole lives together -- to actually doing just that, i.e. navigating a closeness that shoves them apart as much as it brings them together. I think it's laudable that de Botton raises these questions because, as he puts it in the book:

"The ordinary challenging relationship remains a strangely and unhelpfully neglected topic. it's the extremes that repeatedly grab the spotlight -- the entirely blissful partnerships or the murderous catastrophes -- and so it is hard to know what we should make of, and how lonely we should feel about, such things as immature rages, late-night threats of divorce, sullen silences, slammed doors and everyday acts of thoughtlessness and cruelty."

So, it's not the content or the choice of topic that failed to win me over. It's rather the form de Botton has opted for that I find odd and slightly unappealing. The reader follows the story of Rabih and Kirsten, two people who meet through work, and fall in love as they get to spend more time together. This story is interrupted by the author's musings about the nature of love, mutual insecurities, spousal rows, etc. I guess Rabih and Kirsten are not "real" characters but are intended by the author as foils - universal archetypes on which we, the readers, project ourselves. For me, however, this didn't work very well. The universality of a character, in my view, lies not so much in that character's generic-ness, but on the contrary, in its uniqueness. Paradoxically, the more a character is unique and well developed, the more we see ourselves reflected in that character's thoughts and deeds. Obviously, this book is not fiction, and therefore Rabih and Kirsten are not meant to be read as fictional characters. I can appreciate that. However, I'm not sure whether this hybrid type of character development (neither entirely fictional nor auto-biographical or journalistic) works well. My star rating reflects this ambivalence in me: the book didn't win me over but I can see its merits in a kind of cool, detached way. ...more

flag 33 likes · Like · see review

Dec 18, 2019 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019, philosophy, self-help, nonfiction

"Love means admiration for qualities in the lover that promise to correct our weaknesses and imbalances; love is a search for completion."
- Alain de Botton, The Course of Love

An interesting approach to the genre. This could have been an interesting book that explores relationships and love through all the stages, but Botton enjoys approaching things with a bit of novelty. And, for the most part, it works. Instead of breaking sections down by stage/ages, Botton uses two characters and their devel ...more

flag 32 likes · Like · see review

Jul 24, 2016 Lyn Elliott rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, fiction, psychology

I felt at the end of this that I hadn't read a novel at all, but an extended hypothetical case study on what couples need to consider once the first fine flush of Romantic Love has faded. The story of Rabih and Kirsten seems constructed to provide opportunities to present the reader with careful reflections, mostly cautionary in nature, on the traps that beset the best intentioned couples.
It does seem a bit odd to me that the characters could be in their early thirties and still not know about s ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Dec 22, 2015 Emma rated it it was amazing

Thanks to Netgalley for this copy. I LOVE Alain de Botton. I wonder what it would be like to have a relationship with someone with that much insight into the human condition?! In this book he examines the flaws of Romanticism in love. He does this through observing the emergence of a couple ,Rabih and Kirstin.
All the way through the book I completely agreed with all his observations, so astute they made me squirm..
One of the main problems with romanticism is that often only the beginning of a r ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

May 23, 2016 Cheri rated it really liked it

Shelves: arc, 2016, love, netgalley, philosophy

Alain de Botton maneuvers the reader through time, using a fictionalized couple, Rabih and Kirsten, a perfectly average, normal, couple living mediocre lives from the time before they meet, and after. Interspersed are de Botton’s philosophies that are relevant to this particular point in their lives, going through the years, from the beginning, growing attraction through those early years of parenting young children to reflecting back through the years, where they’ve fallen off course, where the ...more

flag 26 likes · Like · see review

Feb 14, 2016 Bettie rated it liked it

Shelves: winter-20152016, net-galley, e-book, published-2016, philosophy

Description: Rabih and Kirsten meet, fall in love, get married. Society tells us this is the end of the story. In fact, it is only the beginning. Over the years this ordinary couple will miscommunicate and misunderstand each other, will worry about money, will have first a girl and then a boy. One of them will have an affair, one will think about it. Both will have doubts. This will be the real love story. Twenty-first century depictions of love and marriage are shaped by a set of Romantic myth ...more

flag 25 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2020 Diba Tano rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: never-in-a-million-years-wtf-ew

This book was so bad I didn't even want to mark it on goodreads but I want to keep track of everything so here we go.
It wasn't the *worst* book I've ever read, but it was the most disgusting thing I've ever laid eyes upon... and I used to read smut on wattpad.
The writer went around Wikipedia and Google looking for some random food or plant names which was painfully obvious. It made the process of reading more difficult and the story way more boring without any reason or pay off.
The book does go This book was so bad I didn't even want to mark it on goodreads but I want to keep track of everything so here we go.
It wasn't the *worst* book I've ever read, but it was the most disgusting thing I've ever laid eyes upon... and I used to read smut on wattpad.
The writer went around Wikipedia and Google looking for some random food or plant names which was painfully obvious. It made the process of reading more difficult and the story way more boring without any reason or pay off.
The book does go through some realistic scenarios and situations but the main character is so unrelatable and out of touch that it didn't make a difference from all the unrealistic so-called "useless" love stories the book mentions so many times that "do it wrong".
It is as biased as a book can be (worst of all in the therapy sessions) and romanticizes lying, bullying, and hurting your partner, and most of all STAYING with a partner that bullies, hurts, and lies to you just because "awww they were scared :((" Well tough! Everyone's scared. Life is scary. That doesn't justify this behaviour. And the average rating of this book is so alarming to me. For the love of god people don't listen to this book. Don't stay with someone who doesn't respect you because "there isn't going to be a better choice". Yes there could be. Sure, maybe no-one is 100% compatible with you but that doesn't mean you have to tolerate someone who is different from you in every aspect of life. Being alone is better that that. If you made a mistake, a wrong choice, that's sad but alright; admit to it and move on. Don't stay in an F-ed up marriage just because separation or divorce isn't aesthetically pleasing.
Being from the Middle East is, as ever in the modern western world, played as a political agenda, "oh nu he experienced war :("but then that same character can't handle the smallest inconvenience... Racist much?
And don't even get me started on the sexism. At first it was just internalized sexism and I thought the writer just didn't know (doesn't make it any better but it can at least be tolerated.) I don't want to go around quoting all the things I despised about this book (if I were to do that I'd have to type out the entire book and nag about it.) But this one just broke me: «...her
knowledge of what might be going on under a car bonnet (the sorts of things which
women let down by their fathers at a young age seem to be particularly good at).»
So remember kids, the next time a woman has a general idea of how cars work, you can go ahead an assume she has daddy issues. God forbid a woman having traditionally un-feminine knowledge without it surrounding men!
The main character is a self-righteous hypocrite who treats people nicely only in aspects that he needs people to be nice to him as well. The book calls this a character development of him becoming a "good" person. That's not the case. If you're good to another person because you are in need of their goodness, or as the book puts it: «He is readier to be generous, too, from a sense of how much he needs the charity.» Then you are not a good person. It's pretty simple. Let me quote our lord and saviour, Steven Moffat, from my favorite TV show, Doctor Who, to explain this: "Only in darkness are we revealed. Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit, without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis."
And looking at it from the other way, it's still wrong. The book constantly keeps mentioning that you have to be hurt to know not to hurt others. Again, bullshit. Do you have to have your arm chopped off to know that chopping off people's arms is wrong and hurtful?
Furthermore, it says that normal life is as cool as epic stories which... okay this one isn't as fundamentally wrong as the previous points I mentioned but comparing ancient mythology to buying groceries just doesn't sit right with me.
Anyway, I want to be fair so I'll say that the text of the book had some smart and subtle word-plays that I liked. Plus there were a couple of philosophies mentioned that I agreed with, to an extent, but the way they were unfolded in the story just made me hate my own stance.
I'm not even gonna rate this out of ten. Just sitting here waiting for the day goodreads makes zero stars a thing. ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Apr 05, 2020 Henk rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Dispassionate, like a wildlife documentary on human love and relationships but very spot on and relatable as well - 3.5 stars
...love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm.

The premise of The Course of Love starts of that where most love stories end, with happily ever after, is where real love starts. It's like an inversion of the idea Italo Calvino had in If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, not focussing on starting but on how a relation needs to be nurtured further to be successful. I am rather sur ...more

flag 23 likes · Like · see review

Dec 09, 2020 Emma Angeline rated it liked it · review of another edition

There is a lot I don’t like and don’t agree with, especially regarding where he seems to think modern marriage fits in its history as an institution. That was driving me slightly mad. While I didn’t like everything he said it was still interesting to have a different approach to relationships. Whether you agree or not I think it helped me see where I stand on a lot of things. I valued most what he has to say about older relationships rather than falling in love etc. Do I think love is a skill... ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

May 18, 2016 Ali Abdaal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was an absolutely wonderful read. I found myself awestruck at the author's insight into the human condition, and have learnt important lessons to apply to my own life and (hypothetical) relationships. ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Oct 01, 2021 Janet rated it really liked it

This was an interesting book, not a novel really, more like a series of instructive chapters using a couple of fictional characters as exemplars of stages of romantic love within a marriage, rather than examining, as most love stories do, the courtship that ends in marriage. I found it more a Course in Love. It was alternately fascinating and boring as real relationships are--and would be a wonderful book for people who do find relationships perplexing. Why people at a certain stage are vulnerab ...more

flag 23 likes · Like · see review

Sep 04, 2016 Deea rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Anyone who has/had relationships

Shelves: psychology

This book is like an applied lesson of psychology: it has great insights about how to make a couple survive and how our childhoods determine patterns of behaviour in our adult lives. However, Alain de Botton has a great article on closeness that I happened to read before and this book is just the extended version of it. Also, although the information you get from it is priceless, from a literary point of view this book is not very good. Hence, the 3 stars.

flag 22 likes · Like · see review

Apr 26, 2020 Kelly rated it liked it

Shelves: mawwiageiswhatbringsustogethertoday, owned, examined-lives, 21st-century, romantical

Light and lovely. If he sometimes takes it a step too far with the cloying metaphors for me to come along with him, I forgive him for the kindness of his insight about grown peoples’ needs to have their inner child acknowledged. If I’m slightly put off by the outsize place given to his musings on the virtues of infidelity, my faith is restored by his intelligence about his main character only being ready for marriage after thirteen years of marriage. For every minor thing I might quibble with, t ...more

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Jun 19, 2016 Jaclyn Day rated it it was amazing

I’m still not sure if de Botton was trying to write an indictment or an endorsement for the institution of marriage and I think that was basically the point. This book is incredibly good. Sickeningly good. I highlighted so many passages that it basically became one long highlight and I’m still thinking about it and working through some of the deceptively simple but thought-provoking passages on the life and marriage of Rabih and Kirsten. It’s not an intimate text but tells their story at an inte I’m still not sure if de Botton was trying to write an indictment or an endorsement for the institution of marriage and I think that was basically the point. This book is incredibly good. Sickeningly good. I highlighted so many passages that it basically became one long highlight and I’m still thinking about it and working through some of the deceptively simple but thought-provoking passages on the life and marriage of Rabih and Kirsten. It’s not an intimate text but tells their story at an intellectual remove, even when we’re receiving Rabih’s direct thoughts and feelings. On reflection, I think this actually helps rather than hinders the text, since the reader receives—through this remove—an understanding of how much of marriage, the good and the bad, is about negotiation and logic. But to come back to my initial thoughts: I’m still thinking about the final few chapters and Rabih’s ultimate conclusion about his own marriage and the cynicism and resignation that flows through every word, every thought. In his moment of clarity, he does not receive the white dove of romantic comedies, i.e., a renewed passion or devotion that places them on the path to eternal bliss. Instead, we see the mediocrity he so loathes coming to roost, and his understanding that this is his life, a path he has selected and chooses to remain upon, and all that that means for him through the twilight of his life. It is honest, painfully so, and doesn’t resolve well enough for the reader to leave the work feeling comforted, let alone satisfied. It’s unnerving, this fictionalized account of the death of sentiment. It forces us to question our need for fulfillment through the existence of another, has us examine closely the role of love in the context of marriage, and gives a view into how the introduction of children into a relationship can be both wondrous and immensely damaging. My only qualm is that we hear just from Rabih. Kirsten is seen entirely through his eyes, and though we get some idea of her experience, we don’t get to know her as closely and are therefore missing a large part of the story. Then again, perhaps this was intentional. As within our own relationships, we can only ever know one person completely (and even then, maybe not)—and that person is ourselves. ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

May 12, 2021 Joy D rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, relationships, literary-fiction, philosophy, europe, zck, reviewed

Rabih and Kirsten, a couple living in Scotland, fall in love, marry, and have children. The storyline follows the ups and downs of married life. The novel is a unique mix of story, philosophy, and psychology. The narrator alternates between what is currently happening in the lives of the couple and commentary about this stage in their relationship. The latter is indicated in italics. The narrator challenges romantic idealism, and the story portrays how a deeper knowledge of human behavior (and m ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Apr 14, 2016 Ellie rated it really liked it

Shelves: first-reads, 2016indchallenge, favorites, fiction, kindle, literary

I love Alain de Botton. How Proust Can Change Your Life is one of my all-time favorite books. I could list his other books that I also love but that would be just about all of them, all that I've read so far, anyway. But his newest work, a novel, The Course of Love, is about as lovely as a book can be.

Ribah and Kirsten meet (in Scotland), fall in love, and get married. That's just the beginning, though. What The Course of Love is really about is what happens after after the "I do," when the "hap I love Alain de Botton. How Proust Can Change Your Life is one of my all-time favorite books. I could list his other books that I also love but that would be just about all of them, all that I've read so far, anyway. But his newest work, a novel, The Course of Love, is about as lovely as a book can be.

Ribah and Kirsten meet (in Scotland), fall in love, and get married. That's just the beginning, though. What The Course of Love is really about is what happens after after the "I do," when the "happily ever after" actually begins and is lived out.

And who knew: staying in love is actually the same thing as growing up. To stay married means to shed the illusions of romantic love and replace them with the reality of two damaged (as we all are in some way or another) human beings trying to care for each other and to learn to love, rather than seek to recapture the early childhood paradise of being completely cared for and accepted unconditionally. Love involves two people constantly stepping on each other's emotional toes and finding a way to forgive each other, continually, year after year. It means learning to tolerate failure in oneself and the other, to be disappointed, to realize that a life can be merely ordinary and yet take great courage to live.

De Botton alternates the narrative with philosophical commentary dissecting the myths of romantic love and describing how these interfere with mature relationships (that seem to involve accepting one's hopeless immaturity) and how living out a marriage means tolerating weakness and flaws in both oneself and the other. The story of the marriage is simple, even banal, but the commentary renders it fascinating, in the way that any examined experience becomes interesting.

Because along with tolerating a lot of frustration, maturity means embracing those moments of happiness wholeheartedly, recognizing how precious they are. Happiness is not a goal but when it comes, de Botton seems to say, allow it its sway. Happiness comes along with a lot of hard work and failures and seems to be a gift to give us the strength to keep going.

I found myself underlining nearly every other sentence because of how well-written and also how profound de Botton's writing is. I wanted to commit the entire book to memory. At the same time, I think de Botton is telling the story I know from personal experience and the experience of friends of how a marriage really works. This experience is not usually portrayed or explained as well as in this book.

I want to thank NetGalley, the publishers Simon & Schuster, and most of all Alain de Botton for the opportunity to read this very touching and thoughtful work. Its words and thoughts will stay with me, as will Rabih and Kirsten, for a long time to come. ...more

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Jul 12, 2020 zahra rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2020, كتب-سيئة

*Ladies, if you meet a guy anything like the protagonist of this story, run for the hills.*

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2017 Nnenna | scsreads rated it really liked it · review of another edition

After a couple meets and falls in love, what exactly happens during the “happily ever after?” This is the main question that de Botton seeks to answer in this novel. In the first few pages, Rabih and Kirsten meet, fall in love, and become a couple, but that’s only the beginning of their love story. Throughout this book, the author charts the course of their relationship and all the messy, complicated bits that happen in-between.

I’m a horrible romantic and at times it felt like this book was spea ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2016 Tanja rated it it was amazing

As always, I just love Alain de Botton. This book also couldn't have been timed better with where I am in life. My opinion is summed up in this quote from the book:

"Ideally, art would give us the answers that other people don't. This might even be one of the main points of literature: to tell us what society at large is too prudish to explore. The important books should be those that leave us wondering, with relief and gratitude, how the author could possibly have known so much about our lives." ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Oct 31, 2017 Deanna rated it liked it

I wouldn’t call this a novel, though it’s billed as such. It’s more of a teaching story contrived to illustrate a succession of lessons about relationships from the perspective of pathological analysis and relationship theory.

The lessons are valuable enough, particularly for younger people or someone who isn’t already familiar with these concepts and the kind of subtextual advice offered here.

If I wanted a relationship book, though, I would rather just read it as non-fiction. Instead, this fel ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Play Book Tag: The Course of Love by Alain de Botton - 4 stars	1	6	May 12, 2021 10:14AM
Play Book Tag: The Course of Love - Alain de Botton - 5 stars	3	37	Jun 12, 2017 06:52PM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Fiction

776 users

Philosophy

384 users

Psychology

229 users

Romance

220 users

Relationships

134 users

Love

94 users

Contemporary

85 users

Self Help

79 users

Novels

54 users

Audiobook

42 users

See top shelves…

About Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton

12,479 followers

Alain de Botton is a writer and television producer who lives in London and aims to make philosophy relevant to everyday life. He can be contacted by email directly via www.alaindebotton.com

He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas- and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday li ...more

Books by Alain de Botton

More…

"In Bed" with Alain de Botton

Adolescents who can't get a date are in a uniquely privileged position: They will have the perfect chance to get grounding in world literature....

Trivia About The Course of Love

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from The Course of Love

“...love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm.” — 140 likes

“We should add that it is a privilege to be the recipient of a sulk: it means the other person respects and trusts us enough to think we should understand their unspoken hurt. It is one of the odder gifts of love.” — 112 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

The Course of Love

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Alain de Botton

Books by Alain de Botton

Related Articles

Trivia About The Course of Love

Quotes from The Course of Love

See a Problem?

Preview — The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

The Course of Love

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Alain de Botton

Books by Alain de Botton

Related Articles

Trivia About The Course of Love

Quotes from The Course of Love

new topic
Discuss This Book