Love and Other Words

Why I waited so long to read this, I have no idea. I ADORED this book. Christina Lauren has crept up into top five favorite romance authors this year.

This one tugged at the heartstrings while also featuring a few plot issues and frustrating character moments. I had high hopes for this due to the characters' shared love of reading and words but unfortunately it did not quite live up to my expectations. Of the many CL books I've read, this was not the best. My biggest problem with this was the heavy lean into the miscommunication trope. I can certainly understand and relate to the ways grief can interfere here and make it difficult to communicate, but it felt like the life-changing element of Macy and Elliot's relationship was that they could ultimately be honest with one another - yet they fell apart because of dishonesty. Additionally, I felt 11 years was a long time to be apart then have them both return to the same feelings of deep love; I personally would have appreciated a little more time spent on them each falling back in love. 11 years means a lot has changed; they -- and I -- needed time to reacclimate to one another. I also felt deeply uncomfortable with the circumstance that caused their rift. Frankly, the suggestion to me was of SA on Elliot via Emma and this was never addressed. It's not often you see victim blaming of a male who has been SA'd, but I read that here. I would have liked to dig deeper into the nuances and emotional trauma there. The focus was instead only on Macy's trauma (which was deserved, yes!) following that incident and Elliot was just left alone with his own trauma AND no support from Macy. The writing, as usual, from CL was emotional, wry, and did affect me, but overall the story problems minimized my enjoyment.

Such a perfect book I was wondering about if I should give it 4 or 5 because of some tiny things of the ending but BRO this is the most beautiful book. I wanna live in it so bad

Loved this book!! I thought the back and forth of past and present timelines would be confusing but it was easy to follow without getting confused. It was just perfectly written. It was like a medium/slow burn for both of the timelines. I cried for a couple of pages but couldn’t peel my eyes away the entire book. After finishing this, I immediately texted 4 people recommending it and offering them to borrow my copy.

Going to come back to this book to finish it at a later date. 90/432 pages read.