GRAVITY by LAUREN RUNOW

“You and me, we’re meant to be together.”

This was our first experience with Lauren Runow’s stories and we’re certainly keen to try out more. In Gravity we meet Lily Pace and Trevin Allen who become firm friends at eight years old and who live a life of ups and down, successes and failures, missed opportunities. And as the synopsis suggest, it’s certainly not a warm and gooey childhood to lover’s story, indeed it’s not. This is one angsty journey for Lily and Trevin that’s full of heartbreak, loss and bad decisions, and begs the question, can soulmate love fight, survive and conquer?

‘Without each other, we both will float away into darkness, because my life would be nothing without her.’

Trevin Allen lives in a troubled household with an alcoholic cruel father who really was one of the most revolting characters we’ve met. He made our stomach turn and his treatment of Trevin was hard reading, in fact his behaviour was downright bizarre at times.

A friendship with Lily develops when they are both eight, with Lily’s companionship being the reprieve Trevin craves. They share a reckless innocence which is so sweet and develops as the year’s progress into something more than friendship. At thirteen Trevin’s talent and passion for Baseball could be his passport out of his situation, but it is music that is his dream, and apart from Lily, his love.

‘I will try my hardest to be the best man anyone would want to love, especially the girl holding me right now.’

Trevin’s life begins to take a downward spiral thanks to his father in which Lily tries to pull him out and show him his potential, signing him up for an audition with Sony records. Trevin’s life changes, leaving Lily behind as he chases his music dream.

Trevin tries to include Lily into his life but it’s clear the prim and proper Lily is out of her depth with Trevin’s drug taking, rock star companions and cracks in their relationship and friendship develop.

Gravity follows Trevin and Lily from eight to thirty five and it’s quite the journey. We advise you to hang onto your Kindles because you’ll want to throw them a time or two! Both Lily and Trevin change in personality, behaviour throughout the story, fighting to find their identity whilst exploring the complexities of growth and eventual maturity. Life at times is erratic, separation unavoidable, and both have to learn to bend and make allowances for the other, which is easier said than done.

‘He’s been here, with me, every day since I was eight years old, and now he’s gone.’

Despite Lily’s belief and encouragement in Trevin, we did find Lily to be a little judgemental at times, and felt the time jumps didn’t allow for us to actually feel and live their story some of the time. We know Trevin had drug issues throughout his rock and roll lifestyle but we feel as though we didn’t really experience the gritty, raw aspects of this, and so the impact wasn’t as compelling as it would’ve been if we had lay witness to it.

“He’s my gravity I’m pulled toward him, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The path to true love isn’t always straight and narrow, it’s rocky and full of potholes, and no more so than in the case of Lily and Trevin. Their love tested us, their reasoning frustrated us, some of their decision making infuriated and confused us, but there’s no doubt Lauren Runow’s story held us captive as we hoped with our hearts in knots that love would eventually prevail for these two.