Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan {A Book Review - Summer Reading Challenge}

This post is sponsored by BookSparksPR in honor of their 

4th annual Summer Reading Challenge. Check out all the details here.

Hi okay. So I'm really excited to bring you this post. So summer is coming. And I get most of my reading during the summer. So when I heard about BookSparksPR Summer Reading Challenge I knew I had to join in. I will be participating as a reviewer of 13 amazing books, from today all the way to August. So excited, it's my first time. And you know me, I love books, and I especially love to recommend books. So here is the first one up. 

Title : Love and Other Foreign Words

Author: Erin McCahan

Publisher: Dial

Release Date: May 1, 2014

Summary 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

Quotes:

So what is love...? It is a connection, almost like a private language between two people, or an invisible dance. It is an invincible force that binds us to one another and can never be broken.  Stretched and tested, even worried about, but never temporary, never fleeting, never broken.

My Take: I really enjoyed the book. And I think it was mostly because of Josie. Josie is funny, witty, smart, sarcastic and she had me giggling throughout the book. 
The book follows a very smart high school student who is also a sophomore in college. Her family calls her the "gifted" because she is very smart, and pretty much questions everything about life, and knows everything about life, well almost everything. Except about one thing.. Love. 
When her closest sister, falls in love and gets engaged, Josie freaks out and sets out a plan to break her sisters engagement apart. She didn't understand that her sister was really in love, all she saw was that her sisters fiancee, a guy names Geoff, whom Josie cannot stand, was taking her confidante away from her. 
When her sister tells her she knows nothing about love, Josie sets out to try to find out what love is. She goes out with a boy named Stefan but fails to fall in love with him and ends up breaking his heart. She then has this out of body connection with Ethan, which she claims was love at first sight, but realizes that it is not so.    Josie realizes that everyone has their own language. And she has become a pro at translating different modes of speaking when she is with different groups of people, from her Volleyball friends, to her best friend Stu, to the language of high school and college, to her home's language. She has been able to translate all of them to her own language, Josie. But the one language she fails to translate is that of Love. She has a hard time grasping it. But who doesn't, I know I have had and still have a hard time grasping the idea of Love and I'm 24. 
At the end, this over-thinking, witty, sarcastic teenager, realizes that Love is a language on its own. Love has multiple meanings. But most of all it is a language between two people. She admits, which by reading the books you will know that Josie will hardly admit that she is wrong, that she doesn't understand what love is, but is open to explore it. 
I liked  the book. Like I said it was witty and smart, and funny. Sometimes Josie frustrated me by being a little selfish, and other times I sided with Josie and agreed with everything she said. I think this book would be a great for Summer Reading. 

4 out of 5

Find my other reviews here: Book Thoughts Thank you again to BookSparks for letting me be a part of this Book Blog Tour for amazing books. 

What does love mean to you?