After a decade apart, childhood sweethearts reconnect by chance in New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren’s touching, romantic novel Love and Other Words…how many words will it take for them to figure out where it all went wrong? 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 … 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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This was a delightful book about two young people whose lives collided, came apart and then came back together as adults. The format of present/past in alternating chapters works and is not at all hackneyed as I thought it might be. The writing is amazing, considering that two authors are functioning as one voice.
This book was beautifully written with a perfect balance of past and present. I loved everything about it. It is a fabulous tribute to both second chance love and how we grow and mature in our relationships. This book had me laughing, crying and all the other emotions that one goes through when growing up. An absolute must read!
Holy emotional feels Batman! I didn’t realize that this was categorized as Women’s Fictional. I guess I don’t pay too much attention to stuff like that, so I’ll just categorize it under amazing story. This should be made into a movie. I’d buy a ticket with a large tub of popcorn and watch ever minute of it.
Macy Sorensen and Elliot Petropoulos met when she was 13-years old after her father bought a weekend cabin, located next door to Elliot. That started an ongoing weekend relationship that spanned the next five years until a single event wrenched them apart for the next eleven. A chance meeting at a coffee shop suddenly forces them to reconnect and open old wounds and resurface some really great memories.
The story transitions from past to present from the onset and that is incredibly effective. It’s not a new device but Macy & Elliot’s story can’t be told any other way. I loved following their journey through self discovery, friendship and ultimately to all-consuming affection for each other. It all leads to an emotional climax when we learn what caused their separation. I fell for these two, the people they became and the unique bond they formed between them. Hated when the story ended.
It’s cleverly written and the narration was just excellent, so good that I thought a separate person was performing the male voices (she’s that good). This would make a wonderful movie!
½
Love and Other Words reminded me a great deal of a Colleen Hoover novel … or maybe CoHo’s novels remind me a great deal of Christina and Lauren. I can’t answer the ‘chicken or the egg’ question since this was my very first experience with Christina and Lauren, but the best thing about this being my first is now I’ve got plenty of these co-authors’ reading material waiting for me to catch up on. Lucky, lucky me!
Although I found Love and Other Words to be frustrating at times due to character choices and crucial revelations being provided at a painfully slow pace thanks to alternating timeframes (think Ugly Love and November 9), I ended up enjoying the story overall. There was definitely a jaw drop that I didn’t put together before the big moment and I enjoyed Christina and Lauren’s writing style. I wasn’t crazy about these characters in general but humans are flawed and the co-authors showcased that element here. If you are a Christina Lauren newbie like me, I guess this is as good a place to start. Check it out!
This was something unique and new from Christina Lauren. Full of emotion and heart I was on edge reading each page. I adore a second chance romance, even more, if they make me cry and these two authors delivered that and so much more. I hope they continue to venture into this women’s fiction field because they did an amazing job.
Loved the easy flow of the book
I loved this book so much. In fact it may be my favorite book by this duo next to Autoboyography. This is a book about a second chance at love. It is nostalgic and beautiful from beginning to end. I had so many emotions running through me reading about Macy and Elliott finding each other again after so many years apart while learning about their time spend together as kids, how they fall in love, and what broke them apart. Christina Lauren have my emotions twisted up like a tornado and had me fighting back tears. The amount of loss and pain that Macy feels hit me so hard.But the love Macy and Elliott share filled my heart with so much warmth and happiness.
The best parts of this book is the time Macy spends with Elliott at their summer home. That’s not really what I’d call it, its more a home they bought as a retreat. Elliott lives next door and quickly formed a friendship with Macy over their love of books. Elliott is exactly what Macy needs after losing her mother and kinda shutting herself from her friends and she’s struggling with navigating life after losing her mom. They become so comfortable with each other and it seriously melted my heart reading about them growing up together. They shared everything with each other and eventually an attraction between the two. I was so giddy as Macy and Elliott navigated their friendship that was clearly morphing into more, into love. I rushed through pages just to get to their past.
Their time in the present is also very significant because Macy realizes how much she still loves Elliott when she runs into him. So much so that she reevaluates everything else in her life. I cheered for Elliott throughout the entire book because he made well known how much he was still in love with her and that he wanted her and only her. The moments between them in the present were even more impacting because for each chapter that they spent in the present you got a chapter about their past.
This book was written flawlessly. It was excellently paced and I loved the back and forth of the now and the then. Macy and Elliott are such lovable characters that their story still makes me teary eyed even as I write this review. Love and Other Words may be my new favorite second chance romance novel and definitely favorite of Christina Lauren. I highly recommend this book.
A coming of age and being of age story with slices of before and now. The characters were so well drawn, so real, and so positive. Well written!
I’m a lover and a teacher of words, so I definitely understand the power they can wield. Words can both harm and heal…both uplift and destroy. Their effect on people is based on the decisions of the speaker and the reactions of the listener, and as Joyce Meyer explains, ‘words are containers for power, you choose what kind of power they carry.’
As childhood friends, Macy Sorensen and Elliot Petropoulos bonded through their love of words and all that came with them, and the more time they spent together, the easier it became to transition from friends to lovers, but as the saying goes, ‘sometimes love just isn’t enough,’ and for reasons, unbeknownst to readers, their love and bond couldn’t last, so when we first meet Macy and fate puts Elliot in her path, the boy she hasn’t seen for more than a decade, all we can do is trust in the words that Christina Lauren use to tell Macy and Elliot’s story because it’s more than apparent from that singular moment in time that their journey together never completely ended, and that’s exactly what the writers give readers, and as we travel back to the whys and hows of Macy and Elliot forming a friendship and then a romantic relationship, we constantly question what went wrong…what could have possibly happened to create a divide that left two people so in love from speaking to one another for over 10 years, and then as readers come back to Macy and Elliot’s present and witness their reactions to one another and how easily the memories of their time together plays out in their minds, the need to understand what happened and push for them to fix it overpowers us, and while readers’ patience will definitely be tested, when the details do come out and the extent of what occurred is revealed, it’s difficult to truly know how Macy and Elliot move forward, knowing that the past unequivocally brought them to their knees.
Love and Other Words is an emotional journey told completely through Macy’s POV, and while Elliot’s perspective probably could have shed light on why Macy has spent the last decade crafting a carefully constructed and ordinary life, I feel like it has to be Macy’s story to tell because that’s the only way she’ll be able to heal and perhaps feel like she’s ready to shake up her routine and uneventful life.
Christina Lauren is such a dynamic duo of storytellers; all of the words they choose to create their stories allow readers to transport themselves to the setting of the book and to place themselves in the minds of the main characters, and even though some readers might find it a bit confusing to switch between then and now when it comes to Macy and Elliot’s story, Christina Lauren uses seamless transitions so that it’s clear why the scenes from the past are next to the scenes from the present, and for a story like Love and Other Words, it is paramount that Macy and Elliot’s history be shared because without it, readers wouldn’t understand why their present turned out the way it did or why they have to fight against their past in order to give themselves a real shot at a future.
4.5 Poison Apples
A great book! Hard to stop reading once you start.
Love and Other Words is one of the most poignantly beautiful stories I have ever read! My heart is still reeling, and I want to both laugh and cry at the same time.
Full review on my blog: https://unconventionalbookviews.com/review-love-words-christina-lauren/
5 popped!
Authors Christina Lauren… you broke my heart, in a delightful way.
Swoon factor is off the charts with this book.
Macy & Elliott friendship and how they came to be in love was superb!
This book has many emotional feels to it. You get love, heartbreak, a bit of mystery, tragedy, with a happily ever after.
I enjoyed stepping back and forth with the characters from their past and present lives.
Go Grab this book and fall in love with the words.