"I wasn't fooled, I knew what kind voices were used for. I knew all the meanness in the world begins with a kind voice."
Almost unbearably brutal yet completely irresistible, "Juno Loves Legs" is a devastating look at an unseen life on the streets of Dublin, Ireland. Karl Geary captures the beautiful-but-doomed relationship between Catholic school outcasts Juno and Legs and how it is impacted by their separate paths through trauma and neglect.
"'She broke your mother's heart.'
'You broke my mother's heart.'
'Your mother loved me.'
'I know she did. It's the only way to break a heart.'"
If you can name a setback or kind of abuse, it was present in "Juno Loves Legs" and faced by one or both of the main characters. Despite the stifling overcurrent, Geary manages to find and lovingly present small moments of beauty in a masterful way.
"There's really nothing to prepare a person for having their hand taken in just the right way."
Just when you think you can't take much more, the book trails away on a tender moment. "Juno Loves Legs" is not to be missed by anyone with the constitution to persevere through how much it hurts to fall in love with characters who are cast to the wolves and yet find a connection in the fury.
"This was our room, it was home, and even there in the thick silence that would last till morning, like the silence of reading or reading about people who love and must part, I thought it perfect."
I purchased this book on a whim in Edinburgh, Scotland, drawn by the depiction of Dublin's backstreets and the powerful cover art on the European version of the book. For that reason among others, it will always hold a special place in my heart and memory as a lottery ticket that paid off.
"'It wouldn't be true, though, would it?'
'I wouldn't worry about it, true doesn't care if you believe in it or not.'
'I care.'"
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