It wasn't until the second to last page of the book that I understood what the title was for. I had been trying really hard to figure it out and I was making all these wild connections to things that could have possibly fit. But nothing really made sense, until I read the last chapter. Usually the books I read, (mainly Jodi Picoult), have titles that interconnect with the story in a variety of ways and all of the characters have moments where you, as the reader, make the connection and are able to figure it out. It is usually mentioned in dialogue at least once in the book. Or it's just blatantly obvious and you don't even have to think hard to figure it out. But this book was different; there were no subtle hints in the conversations, it didn't really weave through the book and relate to all of the characters, and it wasn't really clear why it was the title.
When I first started to try to make connections I focused on the characters relationships I tried to see if any of the characters were each others perfect match. But I couldn't really find anything; Nina and Patrick were definitely not perfect for each other because they both had really time consuming jobs and while Patrick was in love with Nina, Nina was already married and was not really in love with Patrick - she cared about him, but she wasn't in love with him. They did grow up together and they had the boy loves the girl-next-door thing going on for a while. In the beginning I thought it was going to be them but as the story went on you could tell that Patrick had lost his chance. As much as you pity Patrick and wish there was a way for them, it's pretty clear that it just wasn't going to work out.
The next character I focused on was Nathaniel. I was looking at his relationships with all the other characters. For a while I supposed that it had to be Nathaniel and his mother, Nina. Nina loves her son enough to commit murder (later ruled out to be manslaughter) and the only person that Nathaniel lives for is his mother, yes he loves his father too but he is more emotionally attached to Nina. When Nina is taken to a prison for a short time Nathaniel regresses so much that he needs therapy to teach him how to talk again. But while they do love each other and Nina definitely goes above and a bit too far beyond to prove her love for Nathaniel their relationship would be incorrectly labeled if you called them a perfect match. They were a family, they loved each other, but they weren't perfect for each other.
I skimmed over a couple of the other character relationships but none of them seemed to really make any sense with the title. Nina and Caleb are married but they don't agree on many things and they aren't very similar at all. Caleb and Nathaniel were just a typical father son and just lacked the intense connection that Nathaniel had with his mom. Patrick and Caleb both loved Nina but one of them got her and the other one didn't, and they weren't friends, they simply tolerated each other, and Caleb sort of pitied Patrick for being in love with his wife. Patrick and Nathaniel were really close because Patrick had a love for Nathaniel because he was Nina's son. I thought about the other more minor characters but none of them fit at all.
Then in the very last two pages of the book I finally got it. It was a relationship that I had sort of skipped because it didn't seem to stick out much. But on the second to last page you find out how Father Gwynne really died. Caleb poisoned him ! I was really surprised because Caleb seems like the sweet law abiding person in this story but he kills someone. Nina and Caleb both killed to protect their son; Nina killed Father Glen and Caleb killed Father Gwynne. The two that murdered out of love end up together, what a completely perfect match.
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