Ummm..
I did not love anatomy when i first started learning it.
I didn't enjoy the feeling of being overwhelmed by how little I knew and how much of anatomy was based on rote memorization (at least for me - at the start). Didn't jive well with my type A personality. It was more of an acquired taste. Like everything else in medicine, it was an acquired skill, similar to trying to learn a new language. the speed with which they expect to you learn fluency is breath taking though. Literally. I did horribly on my first spotter exam. they gave me pity points if I wrote "tendon", my exam. it took a huge chunk of my time to improve my grades in this area (I would say effort too..but the concepts to anatomy are fairly simple, again i found it to be more based on rote memory compared to physiology anyway. i.e. that is nerve Y, or that hole is in the skull is hole X and is Latin for "hole"). It wasn't until later after i'd become (forcibly) familiar with it, that i began tolerating it. we're all built a bit differently, I had friends who loved anatomy from the start, because they loved how they could work with their hands (to no one's surprise, they ended up down the surgical track).
It was during my surgical rotations that I actually began to like it, years after first touching anatomy. The context helps a lot. Also being around people who love anatomy as much as many surgeons do. It comes through in how they teach you. Your surgical rotations are indeed, as someone commented above, a great way to learn anatomy. Better than any textbook in some ways. Granted you have to go through textbooks or other materials to build a foundation first.
there was no particular 'beginner' textbook that I found particularly helpful either. Everyone has their own particular poison. I also used the Acland videos. Otherwise as a reference, I used Gray's too, but by no means did I love Gray's. Neither replaced gross anatomy labs with cadavers, as much as I hated that back in the day, I needed that "3D"ness that a 2D image couldn't give me. Acland's was close though. I went through a lot of trial and error to find anatomy resources that suited me.
In the end the textbook I maybe enjoyed the most was
Last's anatomy: Regional and Applied, 9th Ed. by McMinn.
A UK text that was written for surgical trainees/residents in preparation for their surgical anatomy exams. That's what I used as a text during my surgical rotations. I wouldn't recommend it as a 'intro' textbook, it has very few images for example. But it made anatomy in the context of surgery, easier for me to understand. I resorted to Netter's atlas for images (i didn't come to appreciate Netter's until surgical rotations once I had a better handle on anatomy).
also, there's a couple of ways you could interpret the title of your thread.
(to answer your other q)
Love anatomy?! could mean:
Or in the sense of..don't you love it too?!
which is initially what I thought you meant. ha.
