Young Love is Blind Love

Aaron Elkin’s BLIND LOVE (Beachfront Press, 2009) is about the real choices that teenagers make today. The first in the STORIES FROM PALMETTO HIGH series, BLIND LOVE resonates as a true-to-life, honest handling of the issues that reign supreme in the hearts and minds of High School students.

Elkin is a retired teacher. Consequently, BLIND LOVE brims with anecdotes collected over the years. From page one, it is obvious that a teacher who listened to and cared about his students wrote this story.

BLIND LOVE has many strong points. Strongest, in my opinion, is that the story manages to be a sermon-less morality play. Mr. Elkin seems well aware that teens need to read about making good choices without prejudgment. BLIND LOVE is what you might expect; it is a love story.

As a love story, BLIND LOVE will capture and keep the attention of 14 to 19 year-olds because it is told through the eyes of a young man who struggles with how to fit in. The main character, Dave, is an imperfect person trying to remain true to himself and his values.

Fate opens a series of doors for Dave to prove his worth and to discover the true meaning of love.

When Dave comes upon a near fatal accident, involving a girl that he had always considered “out of his league,” he has the opportunity to become Stephanie’s knight in shining armor. However, this opportunity is not as simple and straightforward as it initially seems. There are unintentional consequences to Dave’s actions that he could never have anticipated. For example, others misconstrue Dave’s being in the right place at the right time as opportunism and perhaps even criminality!

Another door opened is the one to the popular crowd. Upon Dave’s admission to the upper echelon of High School cliques, his life begins to go into a tailspin. The simple, humble and moral plan that Dave had drawn up for his life is challenged to the core by the pitfalls of his newfound popularity.

Though BLIND LOVE is written from Dave’s perspective, I believe that girls will generally enjoy reading this story more than guys will. Girls will be drawn in by the surprising complexity of Dave’s mind. Most stories of teenage love don’t provide girls with the depth of insight into the male mind that BLIND LOVE does. For this reason alone, I believe that this book could be quite popular, even if the writing style is a bit simplistic for my taste. ( )