Love and Other Forgein Words by Erin McCahan

 

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. 

This book also achieved being romantic even if the romance was subtle. It's sweet and awkward, which to me is the perfect combination in a teen contemporary romance. 

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 pretentious and awkward and Josie just knows she can't let Kate marry him. I liked that we were clearly getting a biased view of Geoff (and Kate), although Geoff did make a genuinely bad first impression. At the same time, Josie's biases muddled some of Kate's character progression. Geoff stays about the same, but Kate becomes needlessly cruel. It's a fairly abrupt character change and I didn't really buy the resolution. It wasn't earned.

The family dynamics is surreal, almost. They're a close-knit bunch. Though the Bridezilla sister will probably annoy you, as well, Bridezilla's fiancé. But in the end, you'll probably forgive them anyway.