True Love is a cruel game of love liaisons in the era of Myspace, YouTube and Blogging. It is entertaining to the reader but often dangerous for the book’s main characters, – echoing Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons. It is a contemporary satire of nowadays erotic morals, with most characters in the middle of an existential crisis. The writer Mimis, his friend Sofia, the ads agent Kiki, the graphic designer Dina, Mimis’s friend, Stelios, hairdresser Dazy, and police officer Porfyris clash with each other, showing no mercy, because they all lack the same valuable thing – which they vainly try to find in the wrong places.
True Love is a tale of unfulfilled love from men’s point of view. It is about the longing for a lasting relationship from women’s point of view. It is the desperate quest for the Meaning of Life, in and out of a couple’s life: The long ago perished dreams of May ’68.
The theme of True Love sounds like a romance story. But it’s not. Its romanticism is subversive and the known conventions of the genre can only be read as completely farcical.
True Love is essentially a dark comedy that mocks all those who tend to forget that the mind is not the best counselor in matters of heart; a fact that befits some intellectuals who, even if they have devoted their life to the quest for Meaning, they ignore the possibility that this may literally be, if not within them, at least near by.
Praise for True Love:
Aris Maragkopoulos plays a hardball. In his latest book, just released, romantic relationships become dangerous. Men and women plunged into existential crisis seek the meaning of life, a life that approaches its midpoint. True Love is a book that talks about sex but is really about love. It is cynical and mocking and subversive, just like love.
Athens Voice, Angeliki Birbili
True Love is a literary work that mocks modern life while taking its role and its identity very seriously despite the tackiness that prevails nowadays. Maragkopoulos is disarmingly direct in his narration and makes the reader feel part of it.
Pontiki Art, Xenophon Brountzakis
Read here a sample of True Love in the form of a short story .
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