A review by beckyyreadss
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was gifted to me by my friends for my birthday last year. Yes, I'm embarrassed with how long it took me to getting round to read this book. However, I usually enjoy Christina Lauren’s books, but I was just bored. 

This book is based on Macy Sorensen, and she is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: word hard as a new paediatrics resident, planning her wedding to an older, financially secure man and keeps her head down and heart tucked away. But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulou – 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.  

I enjoyed Sabrina and the fact that both of their friends and family basically called them on their shit and that they hadn’t gotten over each other so Rachel and Sean were just collateral damage. I loved the friends-to-lovers trope, and I would have liked it if it grew from childhood to adulthood without the eleven-year break.  

The main issue I had was the switch between the past and present, like I would have loved to know what the conflict was before the back and forth. It was giving me a headache. I just think the passion could have been more as well. Like I get and liked the innocent childhood romance that was blossoming but as adults, I was just bored of them. Being in Macy’s thoughts was exhausting, how does that woman look after children because she was miserable and usually doctors who work with children have a talent of being caring and not boring. The whole conflict and resolution happened in three chapters, so this book could have been cut by 100 pages and it wouldn’t have made a different. There was just no character development between the two of them and they both needed to move on eleven years ago.  

I think this is going to be the last book I read by Christina Lauren for a while because I struggled with this book and if it wasn’t for the case of me reading multiple books at a time this probably would have put me in a reading slump. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings