Review: Love and Other Foreign Words

Title: Love and Other Foreign Words
Author: Erin McCahan
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: May 1, 2014
Publisher: Dial Books

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Perfect for fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell, Love and Other Foreign Words is equal parts comedy and coming of age--a whip-smart, big-hearted, laugh-out-loud love story about sisters, friends, and what it means to love at all.

Can anyone be truly herself--or truly in love--in a language that's not her own?

Sixteen-year-old Josie lives her life in translation. She speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue -- the only people who speak that are her best friend Stu and her sister Kate. So when Kate gets engaged to an epically insufferable guy, how can Josie see it as anything but the mistake of a lifetime? Kate is determined to bend Josie to her will for the wedding; Josie is determined to break Kate and her fiancé up. As battles are waged over secrets and semantics, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boyfriend who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word -- at least not in a language Josie understands.

My Thoughts

The most interesting part of Love and Other Foreign Words is probably its main character Josie, who's extremely intelligent and sees words rather uniquely, separating them into different "languages" like Ohmigod (high school) and Ohmigod 2.0 (college). But there's one language that she lacks familiarity with, and that's love. 

It was fun to read about how Josie tried to analyze love; I caught myself laughing at her thoughts a lot. What made it even better is that she was never even trying to be funny, yet she still managed to be. I loved Josie's close relationship with her family, which was both endearing and realistic. The love aspect of it all never became cheesy either, making me like the novel all the more.

With great writing, great characters, and a great story, this one is definitely something that's hard not to love! :)

My Rating