Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
Genre: NA Realistic Fiction
Blurb (on back of book):
The story of the heart can never be unwritten. Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.
But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man w
ho coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother...only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.
Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.
Love, loss, friendship, and the betrayals of the past all collide in this first fiction novel from New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Autoboyography, Dating You / Hating You).
MY OPINION: ***
I really wanted to love this book. I tried to get into it. Everyone else (my friends, Booktube, BookTok, etc) seems to be obsessed with it. I honestly tried my hardest to see what everyone else seemed to be seeing but I never quite understood it. I think the ending made up for a lot of it but overall, it was very mediocre and honestly quite boring at times.
I hate friends-to-lovers. I'm sorry to all you randos out there who love (childhood) friends-to-lovers but it's one of the worst tropes in my opinion. There's no angst, no tension, none of the spice that comes with enemies-to-lovers. I also think about all my friends and I personally never want to fall in love with any of them so it just doesn't really resonate with me. No hate to anyone who likes the trope, but it really isn't my cup of tea.
Still, I decided to try this one out in the hopes that it would be different. I have liked some f-t-l tropes when it's done well and while I don't think this book was bad, per say, it did feel the entire time as if it were missing the chemistry and angst that I've come to love in the romance novels I read.
This book is told in alternating timelines from past flashbacks to the present about Elliott and Macy. They were childhood friends and then suddenly had some sort of unknown fight and then stopped being friends for eleven years. It felt VERY resonant of Emily Henry's
People We Meet on Vacation, which, contrary to popular opinion, I was not a huge fan of (it was one of the first rom-coms I read, but I would go back and change my rating now that I know more about the genre). It had the same tropes, the same "I will always love you" garbage, and the random fight for reasons unknown until the end of the book. If someone had told me this was going to be like PWMOV, I would not have picked it up.
I don't like books told from alternating timelines. It goes against my belief in show-not-tell, in a way. I personally should not have to be reading your entire life history to understand you. I would have preferred if we had seen the younger scenes first and then built up to the present, which may be a more traditional format but is more commonly used for a reason. Also, I hate when books just gloss over the MAIN part of the reason why we have to read flashbacks in the first place. I shouldn't have to be bribed to keep reading your book with your ominous "we had a fight and stopped being friends" reveal at the end. Just tell me from the beginning and I'll decide from there whether or not it was good enough to keep reading. (I know, unpopular opinion)
I don't personally see any chemistry between Macy and Elliot. If anything, he seemed overly attached and a little obsessive and she did not seem into it half the time. I don't care if you claimed you would always be in love together as kids. That is not how life works. It felt very unrealistic and laughable that this man waited his whole life for her, blah blah. I don't like cringy, saccharine, romance. I want something that feels real with angst and pain and tension stemming from the chemistry, not some 11-year-ago drama from your CHILDHOOD.
I liked the ending and seeing how everything came through and I even prematurely rated this book four stars just after finishing it before taking a step back, one week later, to realize that it really did not deserve such a high rating. I was promised pain and pleasure and I got neither. Instead, I was simply bored through most of this book and found it hard to keep reading. It took me almost a week to finish it when usually I can finish a good romance novel in two to three days. I personally just did not like the tropes, the characters, or the plot line of this book and sadly it did not live up to my expectations that were set for me by all my reader friends.
I liked Elliot and think he deserved better. I understand that Macy went through a lot but her reasoning was honestly kind of stupid. I don't think she was a good friend or partner to Elliot and the way she treated him unsettled me. We also didn't even get to see Elliot's perspective of the big blowup that caused everything to collapse and I hated that his feelings in the whole situation were never truly validated in this book. I get that we are supposed to feel bad for Macy and understand her side but I personally can't really support her without knowing both perspectives.
Macy and Elliot as children felt very weird to me. Yes, they were each other's first real friends and yes, they grew up with each other basically. However, they really only saw each other a couple of times a year which I guess is supposed to make it more endearing and heartwarming whenever they met up but I personally found unrealistic. Long distance relationships don't usually work for a reason. Additionally, some of the conversations they had felt like TMI. I don't care if you share everything with each other; there are some things that you should keep to yourself. I felt rather disgusted and unsettled by some of the things they would share with each other and wish that fi they were gonna say it that we at least did not have to read it and hear it too. What was supposed to be cute ended up feeling very weird to me.
Eh. Overall, I was not impressed with this book. I think I may just not be a Christina Lauren person because every book I've read of theirs hasn't been the jawdropping, earthshattering novels I was promised. I'm open to reading more of their books in the future, but I wouldn't say I'm the biggest fan. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a heartbreaking second-chance romance novel.
Main Character: Macy, Elliot
Sidekick(s): Friends, family
Villain(s): Misunderstandings, miscommunication, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was all very real to life.
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