Ennis's journey to embracing love reminds me of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha:

"I've had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart had to acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again, and to awaken refreshed again...I had to sin in order to live again."