4.25 ⭐️ “ti amo” is one of those books that lingers quietly in your mind long after you've finished it. “I love you. We say it to each other all the time, We say it instead of saying something else. What would that something else be?” In her novella, Hanne Ørstavik’s captures grief, love, and the slow, surreal experience of loss in a way that feels both intimate and universal. There’s a haunting stillness to the way she writes, like everything is slightly suspended in time. Yet, this story is immensely emotional and made me sob whenever I opened the book. I appreciated how raw and honest the narrator was—there’s no sugar-coating, no dramatic flourish. Just this quiet, unflinching confrontation with mortality and the messy, beautiful, painful love that comes with it. At times, it almost felt like I was eavesdropping on someone’s inner monologue in the middle of a life-defining moment. Why 4.25 instead of 5? Just a small thing—there were moments where I felt a bit distanced from the emotional core, possibly because of how restrained the language is. But even then, that restraint is also what gives the book its power. It’s a short read, but definitely not a light one. Highly recommend if you're in the mood for something reflective, poetic, and deeply human. “You, with whom I belong. You, who make the night and the darkness our own, in our bed, a place where I can touch you, sense that you exist, and feel secure you, who are home to me, my sky.” “You asked me to marry you. You wanted to cement our relationship in formal terms. As if getting married could protect us, create a bond that could stop you from dying.” “I don’t recall the exact words I used, but I know that I asked for love and that I was thinking of us.” “You’re not going to lose me, you tell me then. Never, never, never.” “(…), and yet still it’s you, still these are your eyes, and I feel as if I’ve come home when I look into your eyes.” “Places I hoped and believed really did exist, that was the reason I fell for you in the first place, your eyes, the promise they held of this great inner landscape where perhaps I could wander too, at your side.” “Where are you? My dearest. Soon, I’m going to lose you, but I don’t know where you are while you’re here either.” “It feels like it’s never going to be possible to ever feel happy again, buoyantly happy, the kind of happiness I used to know, in which the thought of death was quite absent.” “And you wanted me to go. Go, you said. I’ll be fine. And so I went, and all I wanted was to come back that whole autumn was like an archer’s bow stretched taut.” “I’ll do anything for you. But writing it down here, feel so little. Isn’t there anything else? Is there nothing else I can do for you?” “Don’t leave me, I used to say, don’t find someone else, and you’d always say to me then, You’re so close to me, we’re so close there’s no room for anyone else between us.”