Not what I expected at all. So much more than I expected. Yeah!

I went into this book thinking I would be getting a romance. Nope. This is more like realistic fiction. Josie is gifted, straddling two worlds: high school and college, fitting into neither of them well, and like many gifted kids, she overthinks things. Her sister is getting married to Geoff, who makes a poor first impression on Josie. Josie then decides he is not right for her sister, and she proceeds to try to prove it to everyone, at the risk of alienating her whole family and favorite sister. In her zeal, she manages to discover the difference between crushes and love, what role family plays in our lives, and see an old friend in a new way. ( )

Wonderful book by an Ohio author (scenes set in the Columbus area make it cool for local readers to recognize places). Fifteen-turning-sixteen year old Josie is a gifted senior in high school, very smart academically, attending college classes alongside her senior classes. But she's immature socially, and the charm of her character is seeing how she learns about love and acceptance and adapts to her changing family relationships, making some mistakes along the way but coming out of it okay. She is very close to her older sister Kate, but their relationship changes when Josie meets Kate's fiance, and decides she doesn't like him. And that she is going to do everything she can to get Kate to drop him. Josie's also dealing with a crush at college, and completely oblivious to some other obvious things going on with the people in her life, such as her best friend Stu. I found her a very interesting character, because she is so brilliant, is a real know-it-all, relates better to older adults than to her peers, loves languages--real foreign languages and the strange English of what to her are the unknown languages of other teens (she calls that language "OHMIGOD") or college students--and is pretty clueless about a lot of little things, just like teenagers are. And she has quirks like "Sensual overexcitability," which is similar to what some people on the autism spectrum experience: not able to tolerate scratchy clothes or repetitive sounds, etc. She's also very funny! I also loved the parents and other adult characters; nice to see supportive yet quirky parents in a YA book. Great book, I look forward to reading more from this author. Good for middle school (7th and 8th). ( )

I LOVED IT! I swear Josie is one of the loveliest book characters. It's an easy reading and entertaining at the same time...one of that type of books that you can predict the ending from the start. ( )

This author spices up a very predictable plot with entertaining snappy dialogue.

Josie Sheridan is 15 and intellectually gifted. She takes classes at both high school and the local college, as does her best friend and neighbor, Stu Wagemaker, who is 16. Stu dates a lot of girls but never stays with one very long; gee, maybe he is secretly in love with is best friend. But Josie doesn’t notice; she is preoccupied by the fact that her beloved older sister Kate is about to get married to a guy Josie doesn’t like. Josie admits she doesn’t understand about love - it’s one of the few “languages” she doesn’t speak. (On the other hand, she considers herself adept at the language of high school, which she calls Ohmig*d, and the language of college, which she labels Ohmig*d 2.0.)

Then Josie and Stu get a new instructor for Sociolinguistics at the college, and Josie is instantly smitten. Is this what love is, she wonders?

Josie gets exhausted trying to work all this out, while also navigating all the subcultures in her life, “constantly shifting from one language to the next….”

Her delightful and witty parents try to help, but eventually it takes radical actions by both Kate and Stu to give Josie insight into the language of herself.

Evaluation: This is a fast cute read, and a good break from books with devastating psychological, social, medical, or environmental problems. It’s just a nice story about nice kids in nice families. ( )

Love and Other Foreign Words is probably one of the best books I've read this summer. Josie is a sixteen-year-old girl who is determined to find out what exactly romantic love is. How two people who seem so different could fall in love. When her sister, Kate, brings home a boy that Josie finds unsuitable for her sister, she makes it her mission to try to make Kate see the light. However Josie is too smart for her own good and makes many blunders along the way.

One of the things that I love about this book is that it's funny. Not just a little chuckle here and there, but a laugh out loud, have people look at you in a strange way kinda funny. Josie is not your average teen. She's a genius that tries to relate to people her own age, while also living in a world of academia. She, in a sense, has a different language for both groups. And love to her is a foreign language.

This is a story that people of all ages will enjoy and relate to. It's funny, witty, and is definitely worth your time!

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

Read more at http://www.toreadornottoread.net/2014/09/review-love-and-other-foreign-words.htm... ( )