Tuesday, November 1, 2011

50 Books in a Year: Book #45 Love Story

You know a book is good when you know the ending and when you get there you still cry like your favorite person in the world just died anyway.

You know a book is good when you've grown up hearing about it, you know a movie exist about it, you know the soundtrack and the characters and the ending and it can still make you cry.

That's how I feel about Love Story by Erich Segal.

I love this book.

I even went into the book trying not to love it. I mean what girl doesn't love Love Story? I didn't want to be one of those girls. I didn't expect to like the characters so much. Ollie sounds like a great guy, a little young and, because of this, irrational, but loving and earnest. Jenny sounds like the most perfect girl. I'm sure that she and I could have been friends. I love her parents and his parents and they're friends.

The words are so sparing.

And, the plot so fast-paced.

He meets her, they move in together, she is the perfect wife, she get leukemia and dies. I'm not giving anything away here, the book opens with Ollie talking about her death, and well if you didn't know she died, you've lived in a dark cave for the last 30-plus years.

Along the way, Ollie gets into a huge fight with his father, Ollie and Jennifer get into a huge fight and we learn that "Love means never having to say your sorry." Until I read this book, I thought line was the dumbest line in a book ever. I thought that love always meant having to say your sorry, that good-hearted people don't mind apologizing...hmmm...I also thought the ending of this book would not get to me. I did not think that I would be sniffling on the corner of the couch.

I still haven't seen the movie, I doubt I could like it more than the book.


"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me."

Yeah, that's the opener, but I promise you'll want to read on.

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...