Love and Other Words
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 who 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.
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Readers say *Love and Other Words* is a tender, addictive second-chance romance with a nostalgic dual-timeline narrative and strong chemistry that man...
(SPOILERS)
Elliot is a great character, a very rare type of guy and at times, very unbelievable yet ultimately very lovable. Unfortunately I did not find Macy to be an admirable or relatable character (even as someone who has lost their father at a young age, suddenly). Macy and Elliot work well together as teenagers, but as adults she is bland, and all her thoughts are undeveloped, bordering on childish. I would have loved to see Elliots point of view (like in the Beautiful series) to better understand Macy - if even possible. Reading her thoughts and inner dialogue felt like a chore.
Again, the chapters that took place during Elliot and Macy’s teenage years were wonderful. They were better developed, rounded, and fleshed-out in these chapters. When we would go back to the present it just felt like completely different people (and not in a good or enlightening sort of way, given that 11 years passes). For me it felt so obvious that Elliot was a made-up character in the present chapters because he’s written and described as someone who popped out of thin air: he randomly runs into Macy as soon as she moves back, then magically is related (by marriage) to the receptionist, who conveniently works at the hospital Macy works at in decent sized city, and then proceeds to never work or do anything but have time to call, text, and meet up with Macy at all hours. To top it all off, Elliot then forgives Macy after ghosting him for 11 years, and immediately has sex with her without even discussing the whole reason they’re estranged (until the LAST chapter).
Going off of that, the book moves so slowly, yet the last three or four chapters are like a slap in the face. Of course in the end - a perfect, happy ending. The entire book does not set up for the ending. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a happy ending, or for the book to mislead the audience, but Macy does a complete 180 in terms of mindset from beginning to end. Macy has no idea who she is - the entirety of the book. What’s a happy ending if the MC doesn’t even have some inner revelations. The only “revelation” she comes to is that she shouldn’t marry a man she’s known for 3 months and even then she just sums it up to “wow my friend is right about this situation.”
Also, it bugs me that Macy is supposed to be of mixed decent, yet she’s written like a basic, white girl. If she’s going to be the child of a South American, and a Dane, they need to be written as such. Mentioning Danish words here and there doesn’t cut it, at least for me.
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