Rachel’s Creative Critical Analysis Of Lit. and [sometimes] Movies!

Oh so many four letter words with such impact. I LOVE YOU. I HATE YOU. I WILL GIVE  you everything. I WILL TAKE everything FROM YOU.

“Love and other four letter words” was a one day read for me. In other words, I couldn’t put it down. I picked it up in a thrift shop somewhere a few years back.

It’s everything any teen can relate to, loving the family and friends around you no matter what they’re like. And appreciating their difference and that which makes them unique.

Despite a divorce between her parents, new friends, and a new living environment(our protagonist moved from a comfortable home in the suburbs to sleeping on a couch in a one bedroom apartment in New York City) Sammie manages to rise above adversity and find love in the most unlikely(and cliché) place.

I totally fell in love with Sammie’s friendship with Phoebe as it was not unlike quite a few of my friendships with my friends. Making up stories about people and giggling over their resemblances to objects or other creatures.

This book quenched my thirst for fun literature, and was a refreshing glass of glacier spring water in the sea of dud teen lit. out there. Though I can hardly say that about the other books Carolyn Mackler put out. Sammie was a vegetarian hippie kind of girl which was fun to read about.(since I’m neither, though I dabbled in both in my teen years) However; after I read “Love…” I craved MORE quirky characters and fun people, so I promptly went out and purchased “Vegan, Virgin, Valentine” and “Guyaholic”. Bad move. “V,V,V” was a let down and I made it most of the way through before putting up on my bookshelf indefinitely(I think I”ve since passed them off onto a friend). And due to the fact that “Guyaholic” is the continuation of a character from “V,V,V” and I didn’t particularly care for the storyline or characters of “V,V,V” … well I guess that pretty much goes without saying that I didn’t even crack the spine on the $15 dollar book I’d bought. Sad but true.

I hate to find awesome authors who turn out to be one-hit wonders. Especially since “Love…” was a fun read and I’ve since read it multiple times, not to mention I loan it out to my friends whenever I can. I definitely recommend “Love, and Other Four Letter Words” however maybe borrow the other books by this other, from the library.