Nitheeshreddy Gaddam’s autobiographical exploration in Two Hearts & Two Bodies follows him on a journey through love, both cerebral and carnal. Interspersed throughout the text are simple, but moving poems inspired by the most genuine human emotion, a young man’s first love. Like the experience of most young men, Nitheesh’s love becomes his whole universe, She carries the fire of the sun/ in her eyes,/and the kindness of the moon/in her heart. And with all the innocent trappings of youth, he projects all the beautiful potential that he has within onto his girl until her abandonment overcomes him. How do I know what love is/ when people tied my hands/ and threw me in the middle of an ocean? After time passes and he recovers, a second dazzling figure moves into his life. His heart once again opens and his trust is once again lost in a sad betrayal. Struggling with a gambling habit and the wavering moods that accompany him amidst the testing time of the relationships and employment changes, he manages to pull his life into order and reflect on all that has transpired in his two romances. This book is his reflection that brings with it a coming-of-age triumph of forgiveness, self- forgiveness, and the hard lessons of surrender and self-respect. This story is punctuated with creative poems that earn their stunning epiphanies only by the passage through pain. Choosing self-betterment over bitterness, Nitheesh teaches the art of letting go in the face of our deeply human obsessions and vulnerabilities, in order to triumph in spiritual knowledge. After I survived my pain/ . . . I cried like how a bird cries/ after it spreads its lost wings. /I cried, but with happiness this time.