How to Love

Overview

How to Love follows Reena, whose relationship with Sawyer collapses when he disappears without warning, leaving her to raise their daughter on her own in their hometown. The novel moves between two timelines: the arc of their early romance and the present, in which Sawyer has come back and Reena must decide whether to let him back into her life.

Katie Cotugno builds the story around the gap between who Reena was before Sawyer left and who she has become since, using the dual timeline to show how a single rupture reshapes a person's sense of trust. The return of an old partner forces a reckoning not just with unresolved feelings, but with the practical and emotional weight of single parenthood.

Rather than resolving neatly, the book lingers in the discomfort of reconciliation, asking what forgiveness costs and whether love can be rebuilt on a foundation that already broke once.

A Story About Aftermath, Not Just Romance

Cotugno's novel sits within a wave of young adult fiction that treats teen romance as consequential rather than incidental, following characters into the years after a relationship ends rather than stopping at the breakup itself. The book's structure, alternating between "before" and "after," is used to interrogate memory and hindsight, letting readers see how the same events look different once their outcomes are known.

The novel has been discussed as part of a broader shift in YA literature toward frank depictions of teen pregnancy and its aftermath, treating Reena's circumstances as a lived reality to be navigated rather than a cautionary tale with a tidy moral. That choice, favoring emotional honesty over didacticism, is central to how the book has been received by both readers and critics.

Why How to Love Has Been Challenged

Objections to How to Love have centered on its candid treatment of teenage sexuality and its depiction of a pregnancy resulting from a teen relationship, subject matter that some parents and community members have viewed as inappropriate for younger readers. Critics of the book have also pointed to its frank language and romantic content as concerns for school and library shelves aimed at adolescent audiences. The novel has been challenged or restricted in 1 state and 3 districts tracked in this catalog, reflecting the recurring argument that its portrayal of teen sexuality and unmarried parenthood is too mature for the age group most likely to encounter it in school settings.