Published April 10^th, 2018

Genre: Contemporary Romance

My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

First, let me say thank you to Gallery Books for sending me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Although I’ve been hearing about the writing duo Christina Lauren for a while now, this was my first experience with one of their books. I can say with confidence that it will not be my last. I loved this book. It is a sweet, funny, heartbreaking, romantic love story, centering on two people who love to read.

*swoon.*

What more could a book lover want in a contemporary romance?

If you’re on the hunt for something light and happy, but with three-dimensional characters and some emotional weight for your poolside reading this summer, let me suggest Love and Other Words! And if you’re not sold based on that recommendation alone, let me tell you just a little bit about it.

The story follows Macy Sorensen, switching back and forth between present day, where she is in her early thirties and is engaged to a successful doctor, and her teenage years, where she is madly in love with Eliot, the nerdy boy next door. We learn of an event that separates them, just as they admit their love for one another, and when we meet Macy in the present day she hasn’t seen or spoken to Eliot in many years. Can they rekindle what they had all those years ago? Do they want to? And what exactly happened that drove them apart?

Here’s what I loved about this book: the characters felt real. From their nerdy teenage days when they sat in the floor and read books and talked about their favorite words, to their adult selves, I felt like these were real people. Sometimes, for me, romance characters can feel a bit one sided. But Macy and Eliot felt real, complicated, genuine. And their love for one another felt real as well, both in their youth and in their adulthood. It was sappy, but not too sappy. There was enough emotional depth to round out these characters and their story.

And then ending was perfect. A little twist/reveal at the end (that I had partially figured out but still loved) made the book for me. It gave the book just the right amount of emotion, just the right explanation to make it all mean something more.

Be warned, if you pick this book up you probably won’t be able to put it back down again. So make sure you’ve got a good chunk of time set aside that you can dedicate to binge-reading this.

I will undoubtedly be picking up more Christina Lauren books soon (in fact… I may or may not have ordered a couple of them online in the midst of writing this review). If they’re anything like this one, they’ll make perfect romantic summer reads, which is definitely what I’m in the mood for now that it’s really feeling like summertime!