Review : Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan
Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan
Pages : 336
Genre : YA, Contemporary
Stand alone
My Rating : 4/5
About the Book :
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 :
First, a disclaimer to the general public – and particularly authors; then, a review of the book!
Dear Authors,
If you choose to include in your novel other languages, anything from French to Russian to Klingon, kudos! A little diversity goes a long way, and adding a touch of strange words certainly spices things up. But please, please, please have a native (or, in Klingon cases, an expert) review these parts of your text.
Love and Other Foreign Words features Josie, a teenager fascinated by languages; so, it is a bit ironic that some of the French included is really… bad. Luckily there wasn’t too much of it, but I get a little irked when I feel like the author/editor/whoever’s in charge of this, didn’t do more than put the words in Google Translate, and then insert it into the book as is. There was a sentence from a French woman at the end of this book, that featured a word (“san”) that does not even exist in French! In a different grammar, sure; but not written like this. Plus the sentence made so little sense, I had to reread it. So, yeah. And it’s sad that it is not the first book I have seen where such, ehm, mistakes are made.
But!
Let’s pretend the horrible French did not happen, and let’s talk about the book’s actual content! Because Love and Other Foreign Words was really, really fun, entertaining, quirky, and full of positive goodies. I am really surprised it hasn’t received more positive attention, because it’s one of the best contemporary YA fictions I have read this year.
Josie is such a great narrator. I absolutely loved how balanced and realistic the author wrote her. Josie has a high IQ, which shows mostly in her academic interests and smart observations; but despite sharing her time between highschool and college classes, she’s also a teenager. She’s a bit naive and full of herself and not yet aware of how people really relate to each other.
I absolutely adored Josie and books need more characters like her. Yes, she’s smarts, loves books and school and learning, and yet, she’s not that friendless bookworm YA books seem to feature so often. She has friends, she plays sports, and while she doesn’t really like big gatherings, she tries to participate a little. Brain aside, she was just so… normal! In a really good way! And she had humor, enough to make me smile as I read.
Josie is also big into her family, and I really loved her relationship with her parents. They were present just enough, had their own quirks, related well of her. Her relationship with Kate was more complex and that’s probably my only other complaint (aside the French) about this book; I really wish someone would have put Kate in her place more often, or earlier. She was being very narcissistic about her whole wedding and I had a hard time believing their parents wouldn’t say anything when she tried to insist on Josie wearing contacts, padding her bra, piercing her ears…
I liked her fiancé Geoff though. He was a bit annoying, but it was easy to see that Josie’s perception of him really affected how we saw him. He brought something different in her and by the end of the book, I thought he was a great fit to be his brother-in-law.
There’s also a bit of romance, but the book is about so, so much more. It’s also very light on its themes, which makes it a really cozy read. If you’re into contemporary YA, then you must give it a try.
The whole language angle is definitely intriguing to me. I like that the characters come across as normal instead of a projection of what an author thinks YA girls want to read. That’s definitely refreshing.