Love and Other Words is another Christina Lauren collaboration. I've read a few other Lauren books, including The Unhoneymooners, Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, and Holidaze. I've felt very on the fence about these books - most of them are fun and the characters are just quirky enough to be real, but there's always *something* that keeps the books from being something I would wholeheartedly recommend. So you can imagine that I sighed heavily when I saw that this book was available at my local library. What will another Christina Lauren book bring me?
This is a classic second chance romance. Macy and Elliot lived next to each other as teenagers, falling in love while reading books and discussing favorite words. Honestly, if I'd found another nerd who read as much as I did when I was fifteen, I would have fallen just as hard as Macy did. But a misunderstanding sends Macy fleeing from Elliot and when they meet as adults years later, their passion has not abated.
Interesting characters: Wouldn't I be a brat to say that I found bookaholics with complicated family relationships to be uninteresting? Ha! I liked them both and I rooted for them the whole time.
Believable conflict: Eh, not so much, to be completely honest. They characters say that they didn't hear about each other's tragedies in the past, but, eh, I thought this was a weakness of the book. If they had cell phones (and they did in the timeline), this would not have happened.
Emotional tension: Oh, sure. They're each with other people and then they weren't and then they were together, but the past stuff just kept coming up. I mean, this book was almost as good at the whole just missing each other as One Day in December.
Happily ever after: Oh, these two are going to be just fine. I know it.
After miss after miss after miss with Christina Lauren books, they finally nailed it for me! This book is quite good! I would recommend it, especially if you were a nerdy teenager looking for another nerdy teenager to fall in love with.
I love our different opinions! I am glad you liked this one, it dragged for me. And yet, I've enjoyed other books I've read of theirs (the Soulmate Equation was one that I really liked!)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendation…sometimes I want a nice romantic comedy instead of a heavier tale. I enjoyed One Day in December, though the contrivances seemed a bit much. I just gave it to my step mom for Christmas, I hope she likes it.
ReplyDeleteI get so tickled by our different opinions on books, especially romance. This is my least-favorite Christina Lauren romance; it was just rather boring to me. But I'm really glad it worked for you! This book has one of their highest Goodreads ratings, so apparently, I'm in the minority with my opinion, haha.
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