A review by siijayreads
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I've been waiting for you to come home for eleven years. I'll go anywhere you go.

This book has been sitting on my shelf for months now and I regret not starting it sooner!! As I was nearing the end I immediately knew that I was SO not ready to say good bye just yet. And yes, in fact, I let out a curse when I turned the page and the acknowledgements greeted me because I so badly want another chapter with them!!

I cannot even begin to describe how much this booked has affected me. Love and Other Words is a beautiful, touching, tragic, and emotional story that perfecly narrates a story of love that begun in adolescence and bloomed and transcendent into adulthood. The use of words is such a substantial thing to this story which beautifully mirrors the book's title. This is told in a past and present perspective and I love how cohesively it is done that naturally progresses the story. The writing is eloquent and beatiful in its way of conveying the developing love between Macy and Elliot and it does the story justice! Their story felt so real that, if this wasn't advertised as fiction, I would wonder if their love story was borrowed from a real life couple. Reading this one allowed me to feel a plethora of emotions. I was SO invested and was SO hooked! I cannot put the book down and I finished it TWO days which is such a rare thing for me 😭 The writing is so good that I was able to connect with the characters thus allowing me to feel what they feel.

From the moment Macy and Elliot met, I was already in love with them. They have engraved a space in my heart and have truly redefined for me what loving someone entails. It defies time, hurt, space, grief, and it comes back stronger. The fact that they have been so much together since they were teens made everything that they've been through together more meaningful. Their shared love for books (which I adore so much) is one of my favorite aspect of their relationship 💕 Their sweet moments and milesstones they shared together was so wholesome and sweet I love reading and connecting their past as much I love reading their present selves. I love how this story touched on love in its many forms. Love shared between family, friends, and lovers. A love that was lost and then found, the grief that comes with love, and how love, as much as it can give us everything, can also have the power to destroy us once its gone. At one point, the scene was so intense that I physically reacted to it, my heart was pounding, my hand was cold and numb, and my mind was like a livewire anxiously predicting what would happen. 

I was supposed to give this one 5 starts, in fact, halfway towards the book I was already dead set on giving this one five stars. However, the ending kind of felt rushed. I thought there was still a lot to unpack in terms of what really happened that ultimately led to their many years of distance from each other. Without giving too much away, I wished the authors expanded more on *that* certain event and didn't labeled it that way to explicitly clear a misunderstanding between the characters and also to give light to such a serious issue. I was so happy to know though that there's a bonus epilogue released with the SE ver of this book and I'm glad it touched on that. Aside from that, this book has become dear to me and I can't believe a book can simultaneously give me life and destroy me all at once. 
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