Rating: 
Summary: Underdeveloped, over-sexed characters
Review: The title of this book should be "Sex Invents Us", since Amy Bloom has fallen into the trap of many modern authors, focusing almost solely on the sexual experiences of her characters in telling their life stories. Are all the defining moments in Elizbeth's troubled childhood sexual? What about the social ostracism she experienced, and the effects of cold, distant parents? Only the sexual abuse is spelled out in excruciating detail. Why did an adult man fall for Elizabeth? What was Max thinking? In Lolita, the reader was privy to Humbert's deluded rationalization of sexula desire for a child. In this book, the reader is never given a glimpse of how Max justified his actions to himself. I repeatedly found myself asking the question - why?The reader also knows that Huddie and Elizabeth had great sex together from the start. Is that what makes them life-long soulmates? How did these characters relate as people outside the sexual arena. Once again, I was left wondering why the connection between these characters is so strong. This book was a major disappointment. Next time, Ms.Bloom, give me a story - not a sexual dossier. I know you've got it in you!
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly depressing, beautifully written
Review: The title of this book, Love Invents Us, leads you to believe you will be reading a passionate love story, one with obstacles to overcome and triumphs to behold. What I read was pure drivel! I had no sympathy for Elizabeth, who never stepped out of the cycle, who loved the unloveable and continued to exercise meaningless, false relationships throughout her life. Elizabeth was very unhealthy and used, and I had no room to find goodness or sincerity in her. I could barely make it to the end of the 205 pages. Although there were some allusions to the human body that were very well written, there weren't enough of them to redeem this book for me. I'm sorry, but this book belongs in Bad Book Hell.
Rating:
Summary: The title is the best part...
Review: The title of this book, Love Invents Us, leads you to believe you will be reading a passionate love story, one with obstacles to overcome and triumphs to behold. What I read was pure drivel! I had no sympathy for Elizabeth, who never stepped out of the cycle, who loved the unloveable and continued to exercise meaningless, false relationships throughout her life. Elizabeth was very unhealthy and used, and I had no room to find goodness or sincerity in her. I could barely make it to the end of the 205 pages. Although there were some allusions to the human body that were very well written, there weren't enough of them to redeem this book for me. I'm sorry, but this book belongs in Bad Book Hell.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful, poetic and memorable book.
Review: This is a book that throughout the year I have found myself asking others to read. It stayed with me... and you would be doing yourself a favor if you read it.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW!!!NY
Review: This story was...gripping. It sounds cliche but I couldn't put it down. I was entranced by the life of a small girl, me not wanting her life to be true, but at the same time realizing that this is her life and it doesn't only happen in a book, but in real life also. This story was remarkable, well written and intriguing.
Rating: 
Summary: A very unfulfilling book
Review: This was a pick for a book group that I am in, out of 17 books that we read this had to be everyones least favorite. Not only did we find the book completely unrealistic but not written very well. It was a very confusing read in the way it was written. If you must read this get it from the library.
Rating:
Summary: As dark as "She's Come Undone", but not as well written.
Review: This was a really disturbing story with nothing "feel good" about it. In the realm of "dark" books, of which I have read many, this is the darkest, with a main character who posesses no redeaming characteristics nor strives to. Her whole life it is clear that she is not loved. I had a hard time reading this author, not only because of the books nature, but because she tends to right in prose and run-ons. Her storytelling style lacks the allure to get me hooked.
Rating:
Summary: what a mess this novel is: too bad, as Bloom can be good
Review: What a mess! Bloom knows how to pace a short story. Not a novel. This is a manuscript in search of an editor. She can't just throw this together and call it a novel. The tenses shift, the point of view is awry...what was she thinking? She's got a great eye and a great ear but this is a failure of a novel. The good reviews show the respect Bloom has in the literary community, and it is well-deserved, but they pulled their punches on this one. So so NOT recommended unless you're obsessed with Bloom and can't do without.
Rating:
Summary: Nourishment
Review: While reading "Love Invents Us" and about Elizabeth, I was reminded of several recent movie characters who find themselves in similar situations: Enid in "Ghost Story" and "J" in "My First Mister." Besides all three characters being about the same age, all three also have affairs of a sort with older men, all are rebels, all dress in a style best described as Goth and all three are devastatingly intelligent and colossally misunderstood ("My Mother usually acted as though I had been raised by a responsible, affectionate governess: guilt and love were as foreign to her as butter and sugar."). More importantly all have a deep capacity for love, untapped as it mostly is.
Elizabeth Taube, though she complains of not being, is well loved: by Max, a high school teacher who falls compulsively and helplessly for her: "So beautiful, Max thought. Am I supposed to be ashamed for being such a dirty old man, another Humbert, disgusting in my obsession?" By Mrs. Hill a nearly blind elderly woman whom she helps out several times a week and who "sees" Max's attraction to Elizabeth: "You put one hand on that child who thinks you love her fine mind...and I'll see you turning in Hell, listen to you pray for death." and by Huddie a young African American who once his father finds out about the affair, sends Huddie away: "(Huddie was)...a hundred times handsomer than the other handsome boys, kinder than the other sports stars. Even girls he slept with only once had nothing bad to say about him."
All of the characters in "Love Invents Us" have to deal with missed chances and miss-connections. Max's wife Greta says: "I did think it would be a happy life. That is what people think. That's why they marry and have children. In anticipation of further joy, of multiplying happiness." To which Max replies: "People like me marry and have children because we are apparently not dead, because we are grateful. Because we wish to become like the others. To experience normal despair and disappointment."
Amy Bloom's writing is voluptuous, fat and juicy as befits a novel about the many faces of Love and what we as humans are willing to do to bite off some of it for ourselves. If Love Invents Us, it also feeds us, nourishes us and substantiates our existence.
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