#30TubeReads: Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
Will they/Won't theys are becoming the official #30TubeReads theme.
The Will They/Won’t They trope makes a comeback in the #30TubeReads challenge and if you have read my review of The End of Loneliness you know I have thoughts about it.
I’ll be the first to admit that I can be a snob about the books people read. I have had my fair share of problems with admitting that I occasionally like escaping into the cozy world of romance novels; where the main characters are good-looking, funny, and always have happily-ever-afters. (To be fair, reading a chunky literary fiction book in a cafe just makes for a more compelling picture to someone who very often goes to cafes just for the aesthetic value.) And I am going to preface this entire review by saying that even for my super quick pace of reading books, I went through this one really, really fast. But sometimes you go through a book really fast because you just cannot put it down, and sometimes you go through a book really fast because it has no substance. Unfortunately, this felt like an example of the latter.
Love and Other Words by the author duo Christina Lauren is a love story told in alternating chapters that follow two timelines. One timeline follows Macy Sorenson as her father buys a holiday home to retreat to after the unfortunate death of her mother. On her first visit to her new cabin, Macy bumps into her nerdy, gangly neighbour, Elliot, and the two of them start a friendship, that keeps teetering on the edge of a romance but does not quite tip over, based on their mutual love of books and strange sense of humour. The second timeline picks up 11 years later. After a chance encounter the two estranged friends try to come to terms with a devastating event that resulted in Macy’s decade long silence. While Elliot tries to get to why Macy cut ties with him, she has to decide what matters more to her: listening to her heart or protecting it from more pain.
Oh, if only I could post my annotations for this book! (I cannot promise that there is anything informative in my mostly agitated scribbles but they are quite entertaining.)
I grew up on a steady supply of Wattpad and AO3 stories to supplement my regular supply of books from the library. There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more to be a brown-haired, meek, not-a-step-out-of-the-ordinary girl, who somehow manages to catch the eye of every guy she comes across. More than once I have tried to perfect the messy bun, that is dishevelled enough to show that I am unconcerned by the opinions of others but gorgeous enough that people fall in love with me at first sight. For months, I would try to figure out a way to be the right kind of nerdy (where my glasses and the book I have my nose buried in are acceptable accessories but my intellect is not intimidating), the right kind of tomboyish (where I was cool enough to hang out with but not so masculine that boys forget that I am a girl they can date), the right kind of clumsy (where it is endearing but not an annoyance), and the right kind of approachable (where I could not be labelled a prude or a slut). Despite the most important factor that I studied in an all-girls school and my interaction with boys was thoroughly limited, I strived to be that epitome of a desirable woman: ‘Not Like Other Girls’.
The Wattpad generation has, by and large, grown up. But the kind of stories pushed to us has not gone through a similar maturation. Very little has changed. And this is visible in the books that are the most popular among the romance girlies on BookTok and Bookstagram. The Colleen Hoover readers ignore the romanticisation of domestic abuse. The Jenny Han readers do not see a problem in the upholding of beauty standards. The Julia Quinn readers do not bat an eye at the blurred lines of consent. And countless readers somehow find comfort in blatantly misogynistic plot lines. Each of these deserve a blog of their own but that’s for another time. The thing that has always bothered me about these stories are the simultaneously low, yet unattainable, standards that the characters are held against.
In Love and Other Words, paragraphs on end are dedicated to describing in great detail every aspect of Elliot’s appearance. The first time Macy sees him after their decade long estrangement, half a page is just taken to describe his frame and posture. We are told over and over again that he is large, his hands are large, he is tall, he towers over Macy (even though she is extremely tall herself), he is nerdy but hot, he is smart but sexy, he is everything. If I could draw, I could provide you with a police sketch of the man from the abundance of description provided in the book. Ask me to tell you what colour hair Macy has, and I couldn’t. (Not for lack of trying. I had my highlighter ready in case the authors decided to mention it clearly even once.) To take a page out of the Barbie movie: He is Elliot. She is just Macy.
And yet, she is unforgettable. Elliot breaks up with his girlfriend immediately after seeing her for a second in a coffee shop, even though they hadn’t met each other for over a decade before the chance reunion. He has not been able to be with another girl wholeheartedly ever since she walked out from his life. The most important things the reader is told about Macy are the negative things, and yet Elliot (this perfect specimen of a man) wants to spend his life only with her, even if that means pursuing her endlessly and almost desperately. For fear of sounding a little envious of her lack of trying, I am ready to even accept this aspect of the story. Mostly because I still have much to complain about…
SPOILER WARNING:
As children and teenagers, Macy and Elliot spend almost every weekend and major holiday together. They spend hours huddled together in Macy’s closet library (If I had to be jealous about something it would be this.). Over and over again, the reader is told that these two are perfect for each other. They have feelings and chemistry. Their families get along (As an Indian I might be giving this too much importance, but it matters!). Everything is perfect! And yet, they JUST do not start dating. It is so difficult to point out to the logic that’s behind their refusal to be together… even after admitting they have feelings for each other… even after making out… even after throwing jealous fits… even after almost being caught by Macy’s dad! I have never wanted to shout “Just get together already!” at two characters more than I did while reading the ‘Then’ chapters of this book. The only discerning reason that I could find was the fact that they would have to do long distance for parts of the year. So what? It would have saved them years of hurt feelings, and saved me pages of will they/won’t they torture.
And it was torture because Macy could not stop dreaming and moaning about what is behind Elliot’s zipper! It made me want to throw the book across the room!
Christina Lauren are clearly obsessed with the idea of delayed gratification. If the ‘Then’ chapters just kept postponing their inevitable relationship, the ‘Now’ chapters refused to get to the point. Why was the drama dragged out so much? Macy did not talk to Elliot for over a decade, and then after they meet again you want me to believe that that is not the first thing two normal people would discuss? Instead, the conversation was pushed to ‘next week’, ‘next time’, ‘picnic with Macy fiancé’, ‘after Christmas’, and then finally ‘at Elliot’s brother’s wedding’. I don’t think two people have ever had worse timing.
Even when they start having the conversation, they somehow… don’t. I can understand a conversation being difficult and the one that Macy needs to have must be heartbreaking. But when it comes to writing and narrative structure, it is possibly the most infuriating use of the miscommunication trope!
After all this when the reader finds out what really happened that night when it all went wrong, I was just left confused. To begin with, I thought the justification that Elliot came up with was far-fetched to say the least and the ease with which Macy believes him suspicious. But even if I give Elliot the benefit of the doubt like Macy obviously does, the whole situation is fishy. The lines of consent are blurred. Someone forces themselves on Elliot, and he has obvious lasting emotional and physical trauma from it. And the whole thing is just… brushed away in three lines! I could have done with a little less descriptions of the perfect angle at which his hair falls on his forehead, and a little more description about the more important emotional setbacks that the couple faced. But it was not to be!
The whole experience of reading this book was frustrating. In an attempt to portray a real relationship, the authors give us a highly dysfunctional couple who choose to cling onto each other instead of processing their unresolved trauma. A book that deals with the idea of grief and loss better is Beach Read by Emily Henry, and if you enjoy the friends-to-lovers trope I highly recommend People We Meet On Vacation by the same author.
As a second chance romance, the book does a good job of describing the ways in which two people can drift apart and come back together. But they walk a thin line between pity and infidelity, when it comes to their partners, that made me uncomfortable at several points during the story. The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams is a fun take on this trope. If you are just on the look out for fun romances that are not as frustrating as this one, I would recommend the Brown Sisters Trilogy by Talia Hibbert (Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, and Act your Age, Eve Brown), along with books by Jasmine Guillory. If you enjoy books that have intense descriptions about just how large the male love interest is (Is their height, their shoe size, and the size of the palms meant to be euphemisms?), then you must read The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.
That’s it for this review for #30TubeReads. I really hope the girl (who had picture perfect hair even on a Monday morning, by the way) enjoyed reading the book more than I did. Also I am totally guilty of looking up fan-casting to figure out what Macy Sorenson looks like.