Used book – Embracing Life, Christine Arnothy

She was twenty when she met the love of her life. He was forty-five. For her, it was the dazzling beginning of love, a case of love at first sight; for him, a final desire to embrace life. He was not free. Neither was she. She wanted to escape what she feared was emotional dependence. He held her back. Their journey was a kind of war, a succession of endless legal persecutions. Ten years of compromises - which she never thought herself capable of - accepted for the man she loved. Ten years of love, of divorces on both sides, of blackmail involving children.

Everything was used to destroy them. Through writing and love, she resisted. But, during these ten years of passion, torment, and happiness made sublime because it was hard-won, she knew more than ever that every happy minute comes at a price, sometimes a very high one.

Christine Arnothy chose to speak about herself and open a secret door: these are the ten years of her life that she recounts in Embrasser la vie (Embracing Life). This biography is the sequel to J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir (I Am Fifteen and I Do Not Want to Die) and Il n'est pas si facile de vivre (It's Not So Easy to Live). Today she asks herself: what if I had to do it all again?

The answer is in this book where, as events unfold, cruelty and tenderness, harshness and emotion, are intertwined.