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Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

Release date: April 10th, 2018

Series: / standalone

Pages: 432

Genre: Romance

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 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.

I feel like I should've enjoyed this story a lot more than I did, but I didn't, so I kind of feel bad right now. But this is also another reminder for me why I don't like reading second-chance romances.

I had a hard time finishing this book because it was boring and it was stupid. I saw no point in all those throwback chapters when Elliot and Macy were young, there was no point in there being so many of them because most of them added no significant meaning to the story and they were absolutely boring and awkward, so I started to skim past them.

And then the thing with Macy and Elliot meeting for the first time after so many years: Elliot confesses his love to Macy and Macy is engaged at the time, but the moment she sees Elliot, she starts second-guessing everything and (surprise, surprise) starts realising her perfect relationship isn't so perfect after all. I don't know where she was before Elliot came around, but apparently, our Macy isn't the smartest girl out there.

But at 60 %, Macy is still with her fiancé and this is where the story completely lost me. Macy and Elliot come together at around 80 % and it's really nothing memorable. I didn't feel much of the chemistry between them, I didn't even care for them. For all I cared, they didn't even have to come back together - I'd feel absolutely nothing if they didn't, that's how uninvested I was.

There was also this bullshit excuse why they broke up so many years ago - it's truly a typical one, the most cliché ever (with the exception of I thought it was you, baby! which just made me want to throw up).

While I loved some of C. Lauren's story, this was definitely not my thing. The writing was average, nothing special, I didn't even highlight one line in the whole book that would actually touch me.

Just not my cup of tea.

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of long-time writing partners/besties/soulmates/brain-twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. The coauthor duo writes both Young Adult and Adult Fiction, and together has produced sixteen New York Times bestselling novels. Their books have been translated into 30+ languages. (Some of these books have kissing. Some of these books have A LOT of kissing.)