REVIEW: Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

OUR REVIEW:

We've read several Christina Lauren novels but I.WAS.NOT.PREPARED. for how I'd just completely sink into the story of Macy + Elliot. I deliberately drew out my reading experience because I was a) really enjoying their friends to lovers story and also because b) I was a complete wuss when it came to getting to THE PART where all the bad stuff is revealed. It's not like I didn't know it the shit was going to hit the fan...that's just a part of romance...but daaaaang, I didn't want it to happen. I wanted to skip right to the HEA. But, to be honest, the heartache part was what made all of the other things that much better. Truly. The build up to the OMSHIT moment was so deliciously slow and interesting--the past and the present woven together really worked for the story of Macy and Elliot--so by the time I got to THE PART I was ready for it and yet still so sad. And then so happy.

If this were an issue driven book, I might want to see more explored about what happened with Elliot at THE PART of the book that was gah!gah!Gahhhhh! because I feel like there were some things there that went unexplored. This was more Macy's story than his, though, and I understand why going in that direction would've taken this novel in a completely different place. So, while I wish we could've gotten to the bottom of that a little more (that shizz just did not feel right!), I was ultimately satisfied with how everything was resolved. Scratch that. I was elated to see how their story ended and normally this is were I bemoan the fact that the story has ended, but I like to believe these two have the best HEA ever and I'm happy to leave it at that. 

I love this writing team hella much and am eager to read whatever the write next.

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SYNOPSIS:

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 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.