Reviewer: Kate
I received a copy of Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
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.
Review:
Cruciferous. Any author who allows their adolescent teenage character to use the word cruciferous correctly gets my full vote. Love and Other Foreign Words is rebellious in its refusal to use words as just words. Through Josie’s watchful, brilliant eyes Erin McCahan reveals a truth that so many people disregard (to the detriment of true communication)—words are imbued with meaning both denotative and connotative, and every person uses them just a little differently. We all speak our own language; my father dubbed mine Katinglish when I was just about Josie’s age.
Enter my love of cruciferous—it’s a punch line here, and it made me laugh out loud (full belly laugh in the middle of a dock with many people around me staring with great interest). Love and Other Foreign Words will make you that person who bystanders either envy or think might be crazy. This is a brilliant journey, and Erin McCahan is a brilliant writer.
Seeing the world through genius Josephine’s teenage eyes is painfully awkward and blisteringly truthful, even in her self-awareness of her own biases, faults and abilities. Josie is not your typical teenager, and yet she is. While her IQ may be higher than most, her stages of human development mirror everyone’s. And here we see her fall in and out of “love” (quotation marks purposeful—read the book) and we see others fall in and out of “love” around her. It’s a wonderful commentary on the cyclical nature of life and the cyclical nature of growth. Josie grows here in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with her smarts and everything to do with her heart.
Love and Other Foreign Words translates a little bit the nuances of love languages (yes, there are many) and gave me a number of ah ha moments as McCahan puts word and description to ideas that had been lingering listlessly around my mind for decades.
It may sound odd that this thirty something is exuberant about a teenage novel, but it isn’t. It’s an every person’s novel from the unrelentingly honest perspective of a teenage girl trying to understand love. And aren’t you still trying to figure out love? I know I am. And Miss Josie has given me some wonderful things to think about. Thanks Erin McCahan.
If anything is perfection, Love and Other Foreign Words is. (My only wish is that McCahan had made Josephine Kate and Kate Josephine–personal bias.) Can’t wait for the next revelation!
Rating: 5 Stars
