Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of stalking, mental health conditions, substance misuse, sexual assault, arson, and imprisonment, as well as references to incest.

Rather than highlighting love’s healing power, Endless Love explores how love can distort relationships and destroy lives. By highlighting different forms of love, all of which end in sorrow, the novel implies that one’s identity and happiness must be found outside of love in other meaningful pursuits.

Referenced in the novel’s title, David and Jade’s obsessive relationship is the clearest example of love’s destructive nature. David describes their connection as “more real than any other world, more real than time, more real than death, more real, even, than she and I” (27). This may seem like an idealized teenage love, but it distorts reality for David. Ann remarks that “the energy of [David and Jade’s] connection was strangely overpowering” (148). Arthur uses their love as a catalyst to leave his wife Rose: “[Y]ou reminded me that I once had [love] and that I never felt as large and important as I did when being in love was everything” (119). Even David and Jade’s former classmate, Stu Neihardt, acknowledges the relationship’s significance. David’s failure lies not in his romantic idealization but in his lack of an identity outside of his relationship with Jade.