Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at MizB’s Should Be Reading. My teaser this week is from Erich Segal’s Only Love.“There is a popular legend about a graduate student who entered the genetic engineering lab at Harvard twenty years ago and has never emerged. Some say he is still there, eyes welded to an electron microscope, desperately seeking a particularly fugitive gene.”
The story is about two doctors, Matthew and Silvia, who fall in love in Africa. It is a reality of their own, away from the rest of the world. Their perfect illusion breaks when they are driven apart during some bloodshed, and Matthew is left alone to mourn. Even today, Matthew Hiller, one of the best neurosurgeons ever, is haunted by the memories of his lover. He faces the worst time of his life, when he realizes that his new patient, a dying woman with a brain tumor is no stranger, after all.
I always stayed away from romance as a genre for fear of pseudo-intellectual, mushy, dramatic writing, designed to make people cry. Only Love by Erich Segal is the first love story I have ever dared to read. And I have to admit, I was mildly surprised. It didn’t have any of the drama I was expecting. It is a quick read. The book is funny and romantic and quite believable. I actually loved the fast paced writing style and the fact that it didn’t bring me to tears. This is what all love stories should be like, instead of the usual raging sob stories!
Tabula Rasa 