Love & Other Words

Written By Tanya Ahmed

Love & Other Words by Christina Lauren

Reviewed by Tanya
📙📙📙📙📙

First of all thank you to my friend Maria for gifting me this book…I absolutely loved it. I’ve annoyed myself by not pacing it and I couldn’t help staying up until 2am to finish it, I was hooked! I can confidently say that even though there’s still 2 months until the end of the year, Love & Other Words is my favourite read of 2022!

This review is definitely a tough one. There’s just so much to say and unpack, and not enough space to do it!

Love & Other Words follows the story of Macy and Elliot, two people with an incredible friendship which blossoms into more. After a misunderstanding, Macy and Elliot lose contact for 11 years…and in chapter 1 they find each other again. As with most second chance romances, Christina Lauren subtly keep us guessing at what caused the rift in Macy and Elliot’s story. Yet the authors strike the perfect balance where the need-to-know doesn’t overpower the journey to finding out.

The story is told fully from Macy’s POV but it’s so engrossing that I never once felt bored or like the book was dragging. The book also follows a dual then/now narrative. This allows us to watch Macy and Elliot meet and grow their friendship in the ‘Then’ chapters, and reconstruct their relationship after 11 years apart in the ‘Now’ chapters. This really allowed me to get to know and connect with the characters better- it was like I’d known them for years.

Honestly, this was such a beautifully written book. In particular, the way Elliot was written was so perfect 😫 I love him! From childhood to adulthood I found myself rooting for him. His relationship with Macy was an open and honest friendship, especially considering they were teenagers. Plus the way he was so in tune with Macy’s feelings and was so caring towards her made my heart melt. We stan fictional men written by women lol!

Overall, I can’t recommend this book enough! All in one it’s a coming of age story and second chance romance with characters you can’t help but love.

Tanya Ahmed

Soy Tanya. I’m the youngest of the group...and I don’t really know what to say except that I find these things really awkward. When Linda first came to me with this idea of an online bookclub/review page I was 100% down, although I was a little worried and felt like backing out on many occasions as I felt like my reviews were awful - I’m not good with words at all. If anyone was to ask me a year ago how I found a book, I’d reply: “good” - that’s my review done. But being part of this club with such amazing girls has really made me a lot more confident and comfortable. So I’ll forever be grateful. It’s always a laugh when we’re together, we are guaranteed to get side-tracked but our meetings are always productive and a lot of fun. This is just the beginning for us. I like reading all kinds of books from different genres but prefer romance/YA. With work being full on I like feel-good books that are light and easy. I’m currently in the middle of reading a few books lol but sticking to The Zanzibar Wife by Rebecca Rodriquez. Reading for me is a form of escapism, just getting away from the stress of real life and getting lost in book and falling in love with characters. I can’t list my top 5 or even top 10 so here are a few of my all-time favourites: The Sicilian by Mario Puzo To all the boys I’ve loved before by Jenny Han, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hoseeini, The Forty Rules of Love by Shafa Kelif Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith and Moonlight Over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan.

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