Dan loves Jill. Of that he is certain. Everything else he seems to doubt. A therapist once told him to make lists, and while the therapist didn’t last, the list-making did, so he carries with him a notebook where he makes lists. These lists reveal his worries about his recent job change, when he went from being a teacher with a salary and benefits to take over a local independent bookstore that is struggling for customers.

Dan also has a lot of concerns about his marriage. Jill was married previously, and he worries about how he compares. Jill wants to have kids, but Dan worries about money and about if he’ll be a good father. He really worries about everything, from Jill’s unwillingness to put the laundry away to why he doesn’t have more friends.

As the months go by, and their financial picture worsens, Dan just creates more lists of bad ideas instead of being honest with his wife about his worries and their money problems. He keeps getting in deeper and deeper, until he has to take action. But when the action he finally takes turn out to be wrong, so very wrong, will he be able to make things right again for his employees, his friend, his family, and himself?

Twenty-one Truths About Love is a novel told completely in lists in Dan’s journal. His lists expose a surprising amount of insecurity, warmth, thoughtlessness, stubbornness, charm, wit, love, and pettiness. Dan’s lists about his life draw readers in to his inner world, where he is scared and feels alone, and stretches out to those he cares about.

I struggled to get into this book at first. Author Matthew Dicks is a little honest with these lists, and I have to admit feeling some of my own selfishness and pettiness through those early chapters (and no one likes to feel that vulnerable so early in a book!). But I stuck with it, and I’m so amazingly glad that I did because it just opens like a flower, slowly but gracefully, as you move through the weeks and months with this very human narrator. Mostly, this book just vibrates with love and hope and happiness as the pages go by. It’s a beautiful read for when you need something especially heart-warming to remind you of the great possibilities for growth that lie within us all.

Galleys for Twenty-one Truths About Love were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.