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Love and Other Foreign Words

Erin McCahan (Goodreads Author)

3.84 · Rating details · 7,055 ratings · 1,104 reviews

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 ge ...more

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Hardcover, 336 pages

Published May 1st 2014 by Dial Books

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Lists with This Book

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

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2014 Contemporary YA

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YA Novels of 2014

1,544 books — 9,183 voters

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Jan 07, 2018 Aj the Ravenous Reader rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, lol, physically-owned-books, unexpectedly-good, easy-read, young-adult

Such a fun, entertaining read. I love Josie’s preciseness in every language she chooses to speak. She’s the kind of girl who wants to make sure that she and the other party involved in every communication should share similar language. The moment she doesn’t understand another person’s language is her ultimate tragedy so when her sister Kate announces her engagement to Geoff spelled with a P, Josie resolves to make her older sister see that he isn’t right for her even if it has to take Josie to ...more

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Jun 02, 2014 Aimee ♥ | Aimee, Always rated it really liked it

Shelves: light-and-cute, covergasm, holy-shit-that-ending, this-is-hilarious-stuff, swoony-book-boys, favorites, i-cried

I actually only picked up Love and Other Foreign Words on a whim during a bookstore sale. I had previously read a positive review of the novel (that definitely mentioned a lot of things I think I'd enjoy) and put it in the back of my mind. Luckily, this novel did not disappoint.

First off, I'd like to commend Erin McCahan's different spin on what you'd call a generic story. We've all heard of stories with teens falling in love--but what if one teen didn't understand the definition of love?

Jos ...more

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Apr 23, 2014 Heather rated it liked it

Shelves: ya-contemporary

I enjoyed this book. The whole novel follows Josie who is so insanely smart that it made me feel incredibility dumb. Josie can speak all these different languages such as high school, college, friends and so on but the one language she can't grasp is the language of love.

This book follows Josie navigating through the world of 'love' and trying to understand it. It all begins when her older sister announces that she is engaged to a insufferable man named Geoff. Now when he was first introduced I enjoyed this book. The whole novel follows Josie who is so insanely smart that it made me feel incredibility dumb. Josie can speak all these different languages such as high school, college, friends and so on but the one language she can't grasp is the language of love.

This book follows Josie navigating through the world of 'love' and trying to understand it. It all begins when her older sister announces that she is engaged to a insufferable man named Geoff. Now when he was first introduced I could not stand the guy. He was a huge know it all, cocky and what topped it off for me was when he told Kate's mother that 'There was a little to much basil in the sauce but that's ok, Americans make that mistake often.'

Um, what? I have to give it to Kate's parents for being mature, patient people because Lord knows if I was told that I would be none of those things! Josie is quite upset that Kate is marrying this horrible man and tries to break them up quite often.

Josie is forced to look the language of love and try to understand it. She even gets in a relationship with a sweet boy named Lucas but fails to fall in love.

I liked this book but I wouldn't say I loved it. I found it extremely hard to connect with Josie. That could be me, though. I am a huge romantic and I believe that when you find the right person that 'You just know'. Josie had a hard time grasping the concept of love and how it doesn't matter if someone is completely different for you that love is just that- love.

I did enjoy her relationships with her sisters, but it was another thing I couldn't understand. I only have one sibling, a younger brother so I don't understand the relationships with sisters. I enjoyed reading about Josie & Kate though. I also loved reading about Josie with her friends Stu & Sophie.

I will say I predicted the ending from almost the beginning. I loved the ending, I just wish we got to see it a little sooner if that makes any sense. Overall I did enjoy this book! It will make you look at love and analyze it much like Josie did.

Also props to Erin McCahan for using the band Styx in this book! That is my Dad's all time favorite band! It was fun seeing that in this book! ...more

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May 04, 2014 Regan rated it liked it

Shelves: books-owned-read

4.25

I really really enjoyed the main character and her voice! I personally found this book to be hilarious

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Feb 07, 2016 Jessy MelodyofBooks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Meine Rezension: https://youtu.be/3c-f35sa7q0 ...more

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Aug 28, 2015 Noor ♾ rated it really liked it

Shelves: forever-and-everr

Josie is me. I am Josie. Where has this book been all my life?? ❤❤❤

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Aug 18, 2015 Karmen (readingoncloud9) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

*2.5 stars*

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Mar 30, 2014 Amanda rated it it was ok

Shelves: 04-contemporary, 04-realistic-fiction, 04-young-adult, 07-american, 05-romance, 04-humor, 00-2016, 01-2010s

“I’ll try for Kate’s sake,” I say. “But if he uses the word adolescent again while I am one, I’m going to have to insist they break up. At least until I’m twenty-one.”

Meet Josie. The young adult genre's equivalent of Don Tillman. Gifted with an IQ that grants her genius status. She's quite brilliant when it comes to hard facts. Not so great when it comes to love. When her older sister is getting married to a man Josie declares to be all wrong for her, she insist they break up. And when her sister points out that Joise doesn't know anything about love, that she has no experience to speak from, Joise is determined to find out what it is. While at the same time making sure her sister calls off the wedding.

Josie's character goes from being endearing what with her obliviousness to some social codes to being downright intolerable. Yes, it was cute at first what with her being so obnoxious and rude, but it soon turned into what it was: irritating. A know it all that simply won't shut up. More or less what she is claiming her sister's future husband is.

Love and Other Foreign Words promised to be perfect for fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell. Which I understand, it is about families and pretentious teenagers. To be fair, I haven't read an entire book by either author, but enough snippets and parts to get a grip on their general styles. Why it is compared to those, I don't quite understand. Rowell's portrayal of families are far more intruding with underlying tension whereas there is none of that in Love and Other Foreign Words what with Josie's family letting Josie do as she pleases. No tension. Nothing. Writing wise it could be compared to John Green, I guess, but that is still questionable. Pretentious teenagers, that's the only real similarity there is.

That said, it is obvious from the beginning how the story will end. The moment her friend Stu is introduced as a guy that is not related to her by blood, it is quite clear where things are going. Hell, even before that. The first page. The first sentence of his. Although, Josie's love life isn't the center of the story, but her relationship to her family is. And, again, as said, with the lack of tension the family angle isn't enough to carry this story. ...more

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Sep 20, 2015 Suraya (thesuraya) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-ya-contemporary, recs-ya-contemporary, best-2015-books

Leon suggested me this book few months ago, saying that this is my type of book. "You will love it," he said. I read the blurb and i replied, "Maybe. Maybe not. I dont know." I wasnt interested at the time.

Today, 19th November 2015, I decided to give it a try and now all I can say is, "Leon knows me well."

Josie is a weird girl. She sometimes comes of as a genius & funny but other times shes just plainly irritating but tolerable-and-can-still-be-loved kind of irritating. Sometimes shes rude and ...more

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Feb 16, 2014 Katie Scarlett rated it it was ok

This book irked me and annoyed me so much. There were moments that would draw me in but they didn't last.
(view spoiler) This book irked me and annoyed me so much. There were moments that would draw me in but they didn't last.
(view spoiler)[Was is supposed to be a surprise the Stu and Josie would end up liking each other?? Because the moment it was clarified they weren't related (really, before that too, only the page or two that it seemed like they were) I totally saw that coming. I skipped to the ending to make sure I was right.
Josie comes off as this weird mix of young but super smart that isn't working for me. Like I can see why and what she's trying to go for, but it isn't coming off right for me. And the others seem like they're trying to speak "teenager" but it isn't working for me. And all that omhig*d mess. I don't get Josie's aversion to saying god, because every time you write it he is going to see it? But whatever. (There was also a fuck that she bleeped out as f-ck.) Speaking of "teen speak" the text speak in it, omg NO. It's like when parents try to be "hip" or whatever and try to use all the abbreviations but transition terribly between that and good grammar (side: the grammar! I noticed a few places there should have been commas and one definite place where there should have been semicolons instead of commas). Like it is okay to just text normal without all the text speak and way less annoying. Seriously I was cringing sometimes.
Oh and then there was how Stefan broke up with her and stopped talking to her because she didn't /love/ him. Like, he does know they are in high school and she is 15, right? how long does he expect this relationship to last? does he see them getting married or something??
And their whole family is weird. No reference at all that I noticed as to why her sisters are so much older. Like, about 10 years between her and Kate and who knows how much between Maggie. and she calls her mom Mother, like who does that? Also I sort of expected them to speak SOME different langue at home. So that was misleading.
And then the stuff going on with Ethan. He came off as so inappropriate, asking if she was going out with someone! teachers don't do that! And when he was walking her to class or whatever, the questions he was asking made it sound like he was trying to diagnose her. He should really learn how to make small talk. Because it turns out he was trying to "talk" to everyone in the class about "neutral" topics. If he ended liking Kate and Kate broke it off with Geoff, that would have solved a few problems, but no. Turns out he wasn't so bad anyway. I mean, we have a strong Josie bias influencing us on him, but still. He didn't send off a good vibe for me. Anyway, Ethan and Kate would have been cute. But Geoff did sort of end up redeeming himself in the end. He just said a lot of wrong things before that. A lot. Kate needs to grow up, she reads more 19 than 25/26 (I forgot which she is). How is she already engaged to the guy by the time she decides to introduce him to the family?
Also when Josie says she doesn't like something, can people just NOT do it. like isn't that a weird concept. Example, when she told Maggie to stop calling her Darling, but she went on ahead and kept doing it. Who cares if she's a "child" or whatever, treat her with some respect, especially if it's something easy like that. Someone says don't or stop, like just stop.
There's some word for a super smart annoying kid and I can't think of it, but that's how I feel about Josie and I didn't like her much. I didn't find it funny as others say it is.
I literally kept a going list of rants on my phone as I read this book. (hide spoiler)]

...more

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Nov 18, 2013 Jen (The Starry-Eyed Revue) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, contemporary, feel-goods, library, favorites

Oh, that was ridiculously cute! I completely empathize with Josie...I often feel the rest of the world is speaking a language I'm not privy to. ;0)

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May 30, 2014 Liviania rated it really liked it

Josie Sheridan is very analytical, a bit distant from her own life. She dissects people's words, the way the same phrase can mean two totally different things depending on tone, speaker, audience, and other context. She's pretty good at responding to people the way they expect, since she's so good at breaking down communication. But she's missing a deeper, natural feel for interaction.

Josie's need to understand love comes to a head when her sister introduces her fiance to the family. Geoff is pr ...more

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Jul 22, 2014 Cheryl rated it did not like it

I jumped on the band wagon as I wanted to see what this book was all about. I kept seeing it all over the internet. I picked up this book and started reading it. The first four chapters were a blur. Then suddenly I had put the book down and did not come back to it for a while. In fact, by the time that I did come back to the book it was about 4 more books afterwards. I decided to pick it up and try it again. I only got to chapter 6 and put the book down for good. I realized that I did not care f ...more

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May 10, 2014 Joy (joyous reads) rated it really liked it

There are books where you want to critique it to within an inch of its life, then there books that you want to just appreciate it for how it made it you feel. Love and Other Foreign Words is one of those books that made me feel good; made me grin like a fool. Josie is such a quirky, insightful, unintentionally funny character. She reminds me of Don Tillman (The Rosie Project); highly inquisitive, intellectual being who manages to be funny without fully intending to be so.

This book also achieved ...more

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Apr 28, 2014 Miranda Kenneally rated it really liked it

So hilarious. Love the voice.

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Nov 06, 2015 Yvonne (It's All About Books) rated it did not like it

Shelves: young-adult, contemporary, romance, fiction, humor, coming-of-age, realistic-fiction

Finished reading: November 25th 2015

“In someone else's language, you become a visitor, a guest - sometimes a very welcome guest received with shrieks and hugs - but still always a guest. Because as soon as you stop speaking the native language of the group, you stop being one of the group. And then you're just alone, no matter who you're with.”

(view spoiler)

Finished reading: November 25th 2015

“In someone else's language, you become a visitor, a guest - sometimes a very welcome guest received with shrieks and hugs - but still always a guest. Because as soon as you stop speaking the native language of the group, you stop being one of the group. And then you're just alone, no matter who you're with.”

(view spoiler)[

I'm not sure if it's because I misread the blurb, because I actually studied sociolinguistics back in Uni or because it's simply that bad, but I was more than disappointed by Love And Other Foreign Words. I was especting a story a story about two people not understanding each other because they speak a different language, not what should be called social dialect or sociolect. I thought I would be able to connect to this story since my hubby is Argentinian and Spanish is not my native language, but I was in for an unpleasant surprise. Not only did the many erroneous sociolinguistics references bother me, I was really annoyed by the characters in general. Josie, Kate, Geoff... I'm not sure which of the three wins the prize for most irritating character, because they were all equally frustrating. I even almost came to the point to DNF this novel by Erin McCahan, which doesn't happen often... And I only made it to the end because I let myself skim through the last hundred pages or so. Sure, the prose is easy to read and the pace is fast, but the humor felt forced and the characters are simply unbearable. You can probably already guess I wouldn't recommend reading Love And Other Foreign Words...

Josie and her best friend Stu are gifted and not even Stu seems to fully understand her when she speaks 'Josie'. She lives her life in translation, switching between High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Family and other social groups. Josie feels most comfortable with Stu and her sister Kate, but everything seems to change when Kate gets engaged to a guy that according to Josie is all wrong for Kate. She and Geoff are off to a rough start and Josie is determined to stop the wedding. Kate on the other hand is determined to prove Geoff is the one and wants Josie to change her look to to fit in with the other bridesmaids. Their discussions turn into battles and both want to win... Will Josie be able to find out what the real meaning of love is as well as sort out her own feelings?

The work of Erin McCahan has been compared to John Green and Rainbow Rowell, but honestly I don't see other similarities than all three authors writing (mostly) YA contemporary novels. The prose and character development Love And Other Foreign Words is nowhere close to the same level as the novels of the authors mentioned above. The main characters were simply unbearable and I came really close to just DNFing it. Josie has a horrid character and the way Kate and Geoff treated her was just despicable. I don't like handing out low ratings, but I just couldn't get myself to give this novel a higher rating. If you ask me, stay away from this one; there are so many great YA contemporary novels out there in the first place... (hide spoiler)]

P.S. Find more of my reviews here. ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Anja rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Josie can 'speak' quite a few different languages, for example boyfriends or high school. She knows how to react in all those different situations, what to do and what to say. But only her older sister Kate and her best friend Stu from next door really know how to speak 'Josie'. Then one day Kate presents her new, horrible fiancé and a boy tells Josie he loves her. Josie understands neither of those things - they're not in a language she speaks.
How will Josie cope and how can she escape her con ...more

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Jan 01, 2015 Nadia Uhlenhaker rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2015

Cute story, but pretentious, whiny characters. My favorite character was either Stu or Sophie. And I totally called the bit about Stu in the end. The writing was fine, the plot was cute, but the characters really pulled the story down for me.

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Jun 17, 2016 Melanie Jacobson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: great-friday-night-read, contemporary-ya

Ohhhhhhhhh, this is exactly what I needed this week. Charmed the pants right off me. Funny, smart, it has heart. Five stars based on my pure enjoyment.

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Jun 06, 2017 Noelia Alonso rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2017

Your average YA. A quick and predictable read. Forgettable. Josie and Kate were a bit unbearable sometimes.

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Apr 03, 2015 Deyse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-reads, read-in-english

Review originally posted here.

The only thing that made "Love and Other Foreign Words" not be a total "OH MY GOD, I LOVE IT SO MUCH" read for me was the pacing at the start and the time frame that this story includes, both were connected. I don't remember exactly how much time it passes during this book but I do remember that is more than a year, this unusual on contemporary novel and for me, even when talking about fantasy/dystopian books they usually only include a week or month of someones lif Review originally posted here.

The only thing that made "Love and Other Foreign Words" not be a total "OH MY GOD, I LOVE IT SO MUCH" read for me was the pacing at the start and the time frame that this story includes, both were connected. I don't remember exactly how much time it passes during this book but I do remember that is more than a year, this unusual on contemporary novel and for me, even when talking about fantasy/dystopian books they usually only include a week or month of someones life and events. And this made some of the events of the beginning of the story unnecessary, like some of it could have been cut out to make the pace quicker or made room for others parts of the story (like the actual ship). But still, with my problems with the pace, this was a great book that I devoured on one day and a half.

My favorite part of the story has to be Josie relationship with her family, but specialty with her sister Kate. Josie and Kate have been best friends since always and Kate is one of the few people on earth with whom Josie doesn't need to translate herself and vice versa, so it's obviously that Josie will not react okay when someone - Kate's fiancé - tries to change this dynamic. I think that everyone that loved "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" by Jenny Han will also love the sister relationship in this one, is at times messy and complicated but it's also the one thing that you can count on everyday of your life, on the bad and on the good, and it was a great source of growing for Josie since she hates changes so much.

One other big factor on this book is love on the romantic sense. Josie doesn't understand why Kate changed so much because of one person, one person that for Josie isn't even good enough for Kate, so of course the only possible way of Josie dealing with that is by researching and trying to find an answer of what is love. On this quest of sorts Josie will grow a lot and get to know herself and her feelings even more than she expected, this part of the story really touched me because Josie, as a genius and thinking differently from everyone around her, didn't really expected to find what love is but I do think that she ended up understanding a lot more about human emotions and how much different faces love can have (just like her translation for other words on different groups) but that it will also never stop being something new and different.

Now about Josie's romance I was kind of disappointed, not disappointed but more like I wanted more scenes on the SHIP - because there was a super sweet ship. So yeah, anyway Josie falls in love a couple of times during the book and I get why she needed to have these experiences so she could be ready for THE SHIP and to start to understand her feelings and everything, also it was fun in a kind of masochist way to see all that was right in front of Josie and she never seeing it (and having the confirmation that I wasn't the only one on this ship).

Other things that I enjoyed about this were Josie herself, she was an amazing narrator, hilarious (because she thought and perspective the world around her on such different ways, kind of on the way that Sheldon, from The Big Bang Theory was but more functional) and touching (I cried on a lot of passages), she is definitely one of the most memorable characters that I read so far on my lifetime. Also really loved the way that Josie, despite being a genius, isn't bullied, have friends (both on her college as well as on high school), isn't described as ugly on any part or anything close to it and is part of a sportive active after school.

In case you didn't noticed yet I really liked this book, it was an super fun read but also touching, so I recommended it to you if you like humorous books or contemporary reads or memorable characters or novels that are very character driven or all of the above or basically just read this book, I'm pretty sure you will enjoy it. ...more

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Oct 17, 2013 Brandy Painter rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, young-adult, romance

Originally posted here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

Erin McCahan's Love and Other Foreign Words is a novel I was excited to read. I had heard good things and I enjoyed most parts of her previous YA, I Now Pronounce You Someone Else, particularly the writing and character development. Love and Other Foreign Words had those aspects plus a storyline I as able to love more so I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Josie is a genius but this means she is often out of the loop when it comes to how ave Originally posted here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

Erin McCahan's Love and Other Foreign Words is a novel I was excited to read. I had heard good things and I enjoyed most parts of her previous YA, I Now Pronounce You Someone Else, particularly the writing and character development. Love and Other Foreign Words had those aspects plus a storyline I as able to love more so I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Josie is a genius but this means she is often out of the loop when it comes to how average people interact. She is incredibly gifted with all the quirks that go along with that. She especially enjoys foreign languages and studying them. She does an exercise in her head where she translates people's words into "Josie". High school speak, college speak, etc. She has particular trouble translating love though, a concept that escapes her entirely. The book chronicles several months where Josie attempts to come to terms with her sister's engagement, her love for her sister, and get her own love life. It is a book all about relationship. Sibling relationships, dating relationships, friendship, and parental relationships all play a major part in the story. That's because these are all important relationships in Josie's life. Relationships of any type experience a high frequency of change, and change is something Josie has major issues with. She is having to contend with her much loved older sister getting married to a man of whom she is not fond. In her attempts to understand love she explores dating, changing the dynamics of several of her friendships along the way. The book is so captivating because of Josie's voice, which is so well done. She is super intelligent and odd as a result, and being in her head is truly fascinating. Watching as she sorts out her feelings toward the people around her as she herself grows and changes makes for a great read.

As I said, this is a story about all sorts of relationships, but it is most particularly a sibling story. I love sibling stories and this is a good one. The relationship between Josie and her sister is wonderful. Then there are Josie's parents who are fully involved and engaged in her life. Lovely to see in a YA. I also LOVED the relationship between Josie and her best friend, Stu. Stu is a genius as well and he speaks fluent Josie even though he has a language entirely his own. The rapport between the two of them is perfect and I loved their banter. Seriously, there is some excellent banter between these two. I had a goofy grin on my face while reading them in several places. And I just adored the ending.

Love and Other Foreign Words is a book that really sticks with you. At first I just wrote a quick few word review on Goodreads, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it and felt it deserved the full treatment here on the blog. If you enjoy contemporary YA, this is not to be missed. ...more

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Feb 19, 2015 Jeannette Nikolova rated it it was ok

The point of this book is really lost on me. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what this was all about. Either it was extremely shallow or it was extremely pointless.
Love and Other Foreign Words is a bad copy of any book written by Rainbow Rowell. And by that, I mean BAD. The female characters are disgusting! Josie is snotty little brat, who's hobby is proving everyone that her IQ test told her she's smarter than everyone. Kate is a total bitch and a psychopath. Sophie is so dumb it hurts. E The point of this book is really lost on me. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what this was all about. Either it was extremely shallow or it was extremely pointless.
Love and Other Foreign Words is a bad copy of any book written by Rainbow Rowell. And by that, I mean BAD. The female characters are disgusting! Josie is snotty little brat, who's hobby is proving everyone that her IQ test told her she's smarter than everyone. Kate is a total bitch and a psychopath. Sophie is so dumb it hurts. Emmy is a bitter, jealous hag.
The male characters are perfect counterparts of the females. Geoff is the always annoying guy who walks into a room and announces he's just too intellectual to be understood. Stu is described as freakishly smart and always hungry, though we only see proof of the latter. The high school boys whose names I didn't even bother to remember are just hot. That's it. And Ethan is a jerk.

Honestly, if Josie was here right now, I'd slap her so hard. And it is beyond me why everyone who's review I've read thinks she's so smart. I mean... are you smart if you understand the sociolects of different groups? That's absolutely ridiculous. She "loves" languages so she studies the oh-so-hard-to-understand usages of the words "cool", "sweet" and "hot". Are you joking? If anyone actually assumes being able to understand your peers in high school or in university is hard, this book must be targeting people who are deeply incapable to socially interact. What am I even reading. When did it become "cool" to be an insolent high school hipster bitch? Seems to me too many characters in this genre of literature are just too rude, too full of themselves, too anti-social. Are these the values we aim to possess nowadays? No, thank you. I don't find it sinful in any way to be nice and polite, to dress well and take care of your appearance, to change up your hairstyle, to have friends and to go out. I feel like a bunch of authors who seem like big loners are trying to brainwash today's adolescents into thinking that if you care for anything and especially for your looks and relationships with other people, you are shallow. So let's all have a unibrow, greasy hair and be rude to one another. ...more

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Mar 11, 2015 Aliyah rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 27, 2015 ♡Ann Matalines♡ rated it liked it

“Good becomes perfect, but perfect is an illusion. And illusions are like all spells—temporary and soon broken. And when that happens, feelings change.”

It was nice but predictable. Comparing this book to John Green is something of a stretch. Maybe I'll read this next year because I'm not in the mood for instant romance. ...more

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Apr 06, 2014 Zohal rated it it was ok

Words cannot describe how angry this book made me.

Despite the good reviews I've heard this was so cliche and unoriginal in my opinion.

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Jun 13, 2014 Hallie marked it as to-read

I WISH publishers would stop comparing every book to John Green's books. I'd already rolled right past this one and probably would have kept on rolling if I hadn't seen the rave by Sarah Prineas.

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Aug 30, 2014 Matisse rated it did not like it

I get the appeal for this book. I do. It's well-written, it's got snappy dialogue, and some good insights that teens will eat up. If one has never read a solid YA novel, this is an okay introduction to genre conventions.

For anybody else, run.

The problem is: the author is emulating more popular YA novels without understanding why they worked. McCahan's novel has a sprawling world, a well-drawn family, loads of honest characters, a long period of in-story time for the plot to develop, and a clev I get the appeal for this book. I do. It's well-written, it's got snappy dialogue, and some good insights that teens will eat up. If one has never read a solid YA novel, this is an okay introduction to genre conventions.

For anybody else, run.

The problem is: the author is emulating more popular YA novels without understanding why they worked. McCahan's novel has a sprawling world, a well-drawn family, loads of honest characters, a long period of in-story time for the plot to develop, and a clever protagonist. It *doesn't* have any of the gritty realism other novels have. It makes this story a whiny escape fest at best, and utterly asinine at worst.

For reference! In Rainbow Rowell's 'Fangirl', we have the same massive world-building and family story and character development, but there's an underlying tension to everything. There's the witty family banter in McCahan's work, but there's also some legitimate dysfunction added to Rowell's. Protagonist Cath's father is an eccentric workaholic who cannot function without his daughters reining him in; Cath's abandoned the family and when she returns, it's only once the protagonist's sister contracts alcohol poisoning. She's separated from her twin sister, despite being in the same college, simply because their interests don't mesh for the first time. The list goes on.

In 'Love and Other Foreign Words', Josie has none of these issues. She's got educated affluent parents, she's crazy-gifted, and her angst stems from not liking her sister's fiancè. There's nothing beneath her character to endear us. The family is squeaky-clean.

In the same manner, Josie's friends fail to entertain. We're supposed to care about this character's friends and her love life, but they're just as faux-conflicted as Josie herself.

Another example! In Kody Keplinger's 'The DUFF', heroine Bianca's friends come across as bland for the first few pages, but as the story goes on, we find that each of her friends has her own baggage, and that baggage reflects the novel's theme in some way. Bianca's love interest is the only uncomplicated thing in her life, and that's because he's so painfully alone that he has nothing to complain about. As a result, we enjoy hearing about their lives while the protagonist goes about her way. It's not a distraction, it's following-up on other people. When McCahan has us focus on the side-characters, none of them have any personal conflicts beyond who's dating who. It slows us down. While love *is* the theme of the novel, more could have been done to make side-liners more relevant.

And last but not least, Josie herself is just unlikeable. She's judgmental, she's catty, and she's delusional (such as when she turns sixteen while in college, and makes a battle plan for when the boys come running). Josie realizes this herself in a late-game epiphany, coming far too late to make her bearable. And in a John Green or Rainbow Rowell novel (which this so desperately wants to be!), the protagonists are unlikeable but sympathetic. Eleanor of 'Eleanor and Park' is aware that she's a jerk, but's she's enduring an abusive step-father and has buckets of self-loathing. Pudge spends half of 'Looking for Alaska' trying to figure out what made Alaska tick, and the answers satisfied so well, they built Green's career. Josie, the pretentious girl with a big house and a close family, has no reason to act the way she does beyond her own spitefulness.

'Love and Other Foreign Words' was a slog for these reasons. These faults converged and became the ultimate sin of the novel: I just didn't care about the characters. This was a painful read. ...more

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Feb 08, 2017 Bee rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own-ebook, contemporary, favorites, romance, young-adult, reread-worthy, laugh-out-loud-funny, library, awesome-parentals-in-ya

Quite The Novel Idea ~ Words from the Clouds

Well, this was a nice surprise! Why aren't more people talking about this book?? I would've read it much sooner, which means I would've been able to gush about it sooner too. Honestly, you're all letting me down. Let me pause this review to shake my head in disappointed and tut at all of you. Because Love & Other Foreign Words is absolutely adorable and sweet and heartfelt and funny and you should read it. Let me tell you why in more detail so you real ...more

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Feb 04, 2015 Dezel Marie Ocampo rated it it was ok

Shelves: 50-50-feeling, young-adult, unlikeable-lead-character

2.5 stars

"Relationships are tricky. You need to speak the same language. Or learn each other's, but that doesn't always work."

Initially, I thought I won't be liking Josie that much. And true enough, I was halfway done and she still irritated me for being too smart and stubborn! The fact that she needed to analyze and know EVERYTHING made me dislike her more.

The book follows Josie's story and her struggle to understand why her sister, Kate, is marrying a man named Geoff. Josie hates Geoff be 2.5 stars

"Relationships are tricky. You need to speak the same language. Or learn each other's, but that doesn't always work."

Initially, I thought I won't be liking Josie that much. And true enough, I was halfway done and she still irritated me for being too smart and stubborn! The fact that she needed to analyze and know EVERYTHING made me dislike her more.

The book follows Josie's story and her struggle to understand why her sister, Kate, is marrying a man named Geoff. Josie hates Geoff because he's a 'know-it-all' kind of guy and despite Kate's effort on bringing her sister and her fiancé close, she miserably fails. And so begins Josie's quest on understanding what Love really means that Kate insists that she and Geoff are in love with each other. With the help of her family and friends, Josie tries to navigate different languages just to understand what the language of love really is.

“I can speak the languages of lots of groups and learn others with some ease, but no matter how fluent I am, when I'm not speaking Josie, I am merely acting. We all are when we interact outside of our natural cultures. It is inevitable, because it is impossible to be fully yourself in a foreign language.”

Ugh! Did I mention that I hate Josie? She's just too impossible to like and I give it to her parents for being so patient to her. I didn't connect with her at all! And I don't understand why it was so hard for her to just accept the fact that Kate loved Geoff no matter how different they were. Maybe it was the romantic in me but didn't she know that 'opposites attract' and 'love conquers all'?

What I did like in the book was her relationship with her sisters and Stu. I liked that Josie was close to her sisters and they shared everything with each other because that's what I do with my sisters. We share everything EVERYTHING with each other! And I related when they fought but then forgave each other and even those little threats they give each other when they fought felt normal. I also understand why Kate wanted Josie to like Geoff but Josie was just too stubborn to accept him. It was like once she made up her mind on something, nothing could change it anymore. And Stu? He's probably the only character I liked in the book. The moment he was introduced in the book, I knew what the ending would be. Tsk!

“Stu, you’re my best friend in the world. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You’re the person I see myself with forever. I don’t want to lose that.”

I think Josie was just too much for me that's why I didn't enjoy this book that much. She was fifteen, okay, sixteen and smart but she acted so childish at times. And for me, being smart and childish are not really a combo. So 2.5 stars for this book! ...more

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Young Adult Conte...: #15 Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan	28	19	May 15, 2016 04:02PM

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About Erin McCahan

Erin McCahan

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Praise for THE LAKE EFFECT:

-“Observant, sarcastic, compelling, and very funny . . . this thoroughly enjoyable read is a seductive invitation to relax and let life happen.” —Kirkus Reviews (STARRED review)

"[An] inviting, thoughtful novel." —The Chicago Tribune

"A dazzlingly hilarious trifecta of awkward growing pains, social gaffes, and the romance that will warm your heart forever . . . Erin McCah ...more

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“Good becomes perfect, but perfect is an illusion. And illusions are like all spells—temporary and soon broken. And when that happens, feelings change.” — 42 likes

“I think I'm nostalgic for a time I never experienced.” — 39 likes

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