A Love Letter to Whiskey

From the very beginning of the novel, B describes Jamie as an illicit substance that she shouldn’t have and herself as someone with an addiction who can’t control herself around him. The metaphor suggests the intensity of her feelings and the destructive ways in which they sometimes manifest. However, there is a deeper significance to the metaphor that only becomes apparent toward the novel’s conclusion: B frames her feelings as dangerous because she sees love itself as dangerous. To secure her happy ending, B therefore needs to rethink her approach not only to Jamie but also to the very concept of love.

In her very first description of Jamie, B compares Jamie to whiskey and calls herself “the alcoholic, pretending like [she] d[oes]n’t want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn’t make [her] crave him any less” (7). Likewise, when she first meets Jamie, her language suggests an immediate “addiction” to him: “I was drunk from the very first sip, and I guess that should have been my sign to stay away” (8). Even as Jamie and B forge a friendship that offers her genuine support (e.