Stay With Me

As the book jacket states, Garret Freymann-Weyr’s novel Stay with Me “is about how impossible and important love is” (Freymann-Weyr, 2006, on book jacket). Leila Abranel is searching for a “great love” like the love her father found with his first wife, Janie, and Leila’s mother, Elsa. She is forced to question the differences between great loves and soul mates in the midst of the suicide of her older sister Rebecca, and the beginning of a relationship with an older man. But what remains greater in Leila’s heart other than the meaning of “great love,” is why Rebecca chose to end her life. The mystery of her sister’s life and death leads Leila to become determined to overcome her own emotional and mental boundaries, and discover who her sister truly was. During Leila’s search for love and truth, her family is presented in an elegant and classic package that is slightly torn at the edges. Through Leila’s family, readers are pulled into Leila’s own elegantly torn life, and are presented the opportunity to confront their own emotional struggles.