Love Forms

Love Forms is a novel written by Claire Adams. Most of the novel takes place on the island of Trinidad. Later we go on to Venezuela and the United Kingdom.  I enjoyed reading the descriptions of Trinidad and Venezuela. The author wrote lovingly about the towns, big and small, and the beaches and the hills and the roads. The story was sad. Dawn, a sixteen year old girl in Trinidad is the best swimmer among her friends. Her family is wealthier than others and because of that she has few friends. Then comes the daughter of a traveling businessman and suddenly she has a friend. They attend the Mardi Gras parade together. Dawn takes a tourist to the beach to impress her friend. Later, finding out she is pregnant, she is shamed by her parents and her two elder brothers. Her father arranges an illegal trip to Venezuela to live with the nuns until the baby is born. He doesn't share how the journey will go so she is scared as she gets into various cars with strange men. She has to wear a black pillow case over her head in the boat on the way to Venezuela so that officials won't see her teeth or the shine of her eyeballs in the dark. Later, as an adult, she works as a physician in London while caring for her two sons. Once her marriage fails she decides to try and find her daughter. The author does a better job with descriptions of the land than the descriptions of the relationships between people.