This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce
Marnie FitzPatrick is a sixth former at St Libby’s, a prestigious boarding school. A whiz at maths, Marnie has a bright future ahead of her until she spends the day with the charismatic Rachel Porter, a fellow pupil, and everything changes.
Once a dancer in New York, Julie Crewe now hides herself in her maths teaching at St Libby’s. She has a mysterious past with a boy named Jo she danced with in Central Park, a past she can’t seem to forget or move on from.
During the summer of 1969, Marnie introduces Miss Crewe to Freddie Friday, a young man with a love of dance who seems destined to swallow his dreams and continue his days working at the local Shredded Wheat factory. But that summer changes the lives of them all.
Love Notes For Freddie is a powerful tale of first love and reaching for your dreams. It’s quite a gentle, slow-moving book but the message and the characters are potent. Although Marnie may seem privileged with her family’s wealth and her famous stepfather, the family is pretty dysfunctional, which becomes more and more apparent as the story moves along. I liked Marnie as a character and felt for her as she falls in love for the first time, her naivety not allowing her to see that the relationship is set for heartbreak from the start. She is still young and can’t deal with the events and emotions of that summer and it is at this time she really needs a strong family behind her to support her.
I also liked Miss Crewe and it was her backstory that I found the most interesting. We know that she was once a dancer and fell in love with another performer while she was in New York and I found the mystery of how and why she became a maths teacher intriguing. She keeps people at arm’s length and I wanted to know how the passionate performer ended up so closed off.
I really enjoyed Love Notes For Freddie. It starts off with one event with Rachel Porter and although the book doesn’t follow her own story too closely, she is the catalyst of a summer that changes the lives of three people brought together through dance. I was touched by the characters of Marnie, Freddie and Miss Crewe and I’m sure their stories will stay with me for a long time.8/10