What I loved

...Bill, who never bored me, because when I was near him I felt his weight. The man was heavy with life. So often it's lightness that we admire. Those people who appear weightless and unburdened, who hover instead of walk, attract us with their defiance of ordinary gravity. He had always been a stone, massive and hulking, charged from within by magnetic power. I was pulled toward him, more than ever before.

I'm angry to have turned the last page on this spectacular novel. I cannot express how much I loved it. I think it may, perhaps, be the book I was hoping for, earlier in the year, when I read [b:A Little Life|22822858|A Little Life|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446469353i/22822858.SY75.jpg|42375710]; they share the New York location and themes of friendship, art, love and grief. While I found myself more overwhelmed than enthralled with Life, I found something poignant, beautiful and true on every page of What I Loved. I cannot understand how it's possible for a book to be so perfect right from the start and how Hustvedt managed to maintain this perfection to the very end. It's much more than a book about art, although how art and its meanings was weaved in a out of the narrative certainly elevated the book. Above all, the book follows the beautiful friendship of art historian Leo and artist Bill, their partners and children. I felt a huge spectrum of emotions about every character and I was noting down quotes on pretty much every page. I'll have to stop there, because I'm speechless and can only gush. My book of the year so far? I think so.