Review: Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: April 10, 2018

Format: eARC

Source: Gallery Books/NetGalley

Find it here: GoodReads

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 teen 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 reading 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.  

Macy and Elliot met as teenagers, spending summers together and discovering like souls in one another. Becoming the best of friends over the years, sharing a love of reading and words and absolute honesty, friendship turns to something even deeper. Until one unforgettable night that changes everything. Until Macy disappears and cuts off all contact. Until a chance meeting eleven years later.

Now a doctor, and engaged to an older, single father, Macy's life is carefully constructed to avoid any emotional loss or upheaval. Her relationship is easy but lacks any real depth. Seeing Elliot shakes her very foundation and has her questioning her choices. With a supportive best friend urging her to open up to Elliot and tell him the truth about what happened that night over a decade ago, Macy has to decide if she is willing to risk her heart for another chance at a love that meant meant everything to her.

This is what Elliot does to me: he pulls

honesty from those scrambled parts of my brain.

I tumbled hard and fast into Macy and Elliot's story - hurting for them in the present-day chapters and reveling in the past chapters, even though I knew something devastating had to be coming. These were two special people who found one another early in life... until circumstances bisected them. Teenage Macy and Elliot had this delicious push and pull, where they both knew they had feelings that exceeded the bounds of friendship, but were hesitant to jeopardize the special bond they shared. As they spent summers and random weekends together, I could feel their emotions intensify, their curiosity, and their want for that one special person to become even more. 

"You're my best everything."

The dual timeline worked so perfectly here. Macy and Elliot's past was doled out in bits and pieces and we get to watch as their friendship grows and deepens and evolves. Everything seemed so right. So knowing that in present day they were not together and had not spoken in over a decade had me itching to know what happened. Their story, and the story of what happened that changed everything, was perfectly paced and I found myself reading every chance I got and thinking about it when I had to set the book aside.

"Why can't everyone be like you?"

"I can be enough of your world that it feels like everyone is."

I fell in love with Love and Other Words. This is a coming of age story, a story of second chances, of grieving and coming to terms with the past. But, above all, it's a love story. And it's one you don't want to miss.

4.5/5 STARS

Note: An advance reader copy was provided by Gallery Books. This is no way changes my opinion of the book or the content of this review.