Love Story

I reread this classic love story that begins, "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old-girl who died?" for the first time since I was a kid when when I wore out the paperback by reading it repeatedly. It's a short novel; a fast but powerful read. Oliver Barrett IV, a star hockey player/law student, descends from a line of high achieving, old money Harvard alumni, and is struggling to define himself away from the constraints of his judgmental, micromanaging father. Jennifer Cavilleri, who attends Radcliffe on a music scholarship, is the only child of a loving father, a widower who owns a small bakery in Rhode Island. She calls her father Phil. These two, Jennifer and Oliver, (nicknamed Preppie by Jenny), couldn't be more different. show more The book is in part heavy on dialogue and sparse on descriptive text. Erich Segal makes brilliant use of the verbal volleyball between the two main characters. I like the wit in their flirting. It's that age old tale of boy meets girl, they experience conflict, and then they fall in love. This story turns tragic when Jennifer is diagnosed with leukemia. That part of the story seems to have some logical problems with the doctor not telling her of her diagnosis at first, and then very quickly it seems she's dying. Segal does his best work showing how this couple from such disparate social and emotional backgrounds come together in love. He also shows what a profound impact these two had on each other and their respective families in the limited years they were together. This book struck a chord with me as a kid because my father died young. Also, the relationships feel absolutely authentic to me. Love Story is a masterpiece. show less

I inherited a bunch of Segal books from my grandmother when I was a teen and quickly fell in love with a few of them. I wanted to give this a re-read in adulthood to see if it'd be worth keeping and actually decided to listen to the audiobook which is read by Segal and has backing music from the film. It was so short and incredibly enjoyable. I've read the book, I've watched the film, Segal tells us she's gonna die with the first line, yet I still got all teary and weepy when it happened.

When I was a teen, I used to think the line that quickly became a tagline for this book "love means never having to say your sorry" was an extremely silly, misguided line. But as an adult, I realize that I've never really exchanged serious apologies show more with the people I love most in the world. We simply don't do things to each other that require apologies. We also know each other's intentions and hearts so well that the forgiveness is already assumed. At the moment Jenny utters this line, neither her or Oliver are owed an apology because their words and actions were completely consistent with who they were when they first met. They are who they are and an apology for their actions would mean they'd have to apologize for their identities, which one shouldn't have to do in a loving relationship.

When Oliver utters this line at the very end, it initially didn't sit as well with me because I felt Oliver owed his father an apology for the entire length of the book, something Jenny and I agreed on. But that actually reinforces the truth in Segal's line. Oliver's father feels he owes his son an apology because he knows his son doesn't love him nor accept the type of father he's been. And as a reader I think Oliver owes his father an apology because I don't understand how a parent can completely love and accept someone who's been so ungrateful. The relationship is so strained that they're practically strangers to each other, so apologies feel very necessary.

None of this is important though, because I actually hate that this line became what everyone remembered from Love Story. The most important line to me was from Jenny alone: "Screw Paris. Screw Paris and music and all the crap you think you stole from me." At its core, Love Story is really a story about holding on to the good things in life because you have no idea how long your life will be. Going out with no regrets is the major aim of living. If you have to let go of money and stability and success to hold onto something that really lights you up and makes you happy, then that's something you should probably do. Be happy and hope you live long enough for all that other stuff to come back around to you. show less

I woke up to my sister weeping. To my amazement, she was reading a book, not something she did often unless required for school. I reached across the space between our twin beds and pushed the book up enough to see the title - "Love Story." I rolled my eyes and pulled my tattered baby blanket over my face. Through her sobs, my sister insisted that I read this, the "best" book she ever read. Grumbling that it was the ONLY book she ever read, I tossed it on my bookstack.

Some time later, "Love Story" came off the bookstack and into my hands. I read it quickly, and recall making fun of my sister for deeming this the best book EVER. Maudlin, predictable, and way too gooey for my taste at 14 (and at 58).

Yet I remember this story above so many show more others that I would deem better plotted or written. Is it because my sister woke me as she cried her way through the end of it? My shock that she was actually reading a book for the pleasure of it? Or that Love Story became something of a cultural icon of the 1970's, a tale everyone talked of (mostly because they saw the movie) and mooned over? Or did it really do that thing that few books do-stick in my head so I can take it back out and examine it as I try to understand why this particular tale stays with me when others are gone the moment the last page is turned.

OK, I cried at the end, too. Don't tell my sister! show less

Che cosa si può dire di una ragazza morta a venticinque anni?
Che era bella. E simpatica. Che amava Mozart e Bach. E i Beatles. E me. Una volta che mi aveva messo specificamente nel mucchio con tutti quei tizi musicali, le chiesi l'ordine di preferenza, e lei rispose sorridendo: «Alfabetico.» Sul momento sorrisi anch'io.

I thought this story was brilliant. It’s short and easy to read. The characters are stereotypical rich Harvard boy, Oliver Barrett IV, meets poor girl, Jenny Cavilleri, and yet it’s so much more than that. It is a love story, where the love is something simple and true and the characters and their situation are the complication. Two people meet, and despite their opposite natures and backgrounds, fall in love. When the love is tested, it shows a refreshing honest feeling approach to how individuals come together to express their needs and problems within the relationship.

It’s also a story about a different sort of love, the love that a father has for their child and that which a child has for their father. The two children each show more have different relationships with their fathers, and with their partner’s fathers. Each has its own problems and each has a different solution. To me, it is this dynamic that makes the book.

The style of writing is refreshing. Short chapters capture single events drawing a pattern of emotions. Each emotion builds on the one that went before. Each scene is relevant. It’s light and amusing, and yet gets deep inside you.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody who has loved. show less

As a professor of Greek and Latin literature, Erich Segal is too smart and too educated to think that "Love Story" is anything but sentimental dreck. Writing a bestseller that gets turned into a popular movie means you never have to say you're sorry.

This book feels like a rough draft, not a finished novel. The characters are weak and underdeveloped and the central relationship is totally lacking chemistry. Short as it is, this book is riddled with profanity, which, in general, I don't have a problem with, but in this book it seemed forced, just a desperate attempt to make a mediocre story seem "hip" and "gritty." I heard this book likened to Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" and all I can say is, "Not even close." It's more along the lines of "Go Ask Alice" or "Perks of Being a Wallflower," i.e. hackneyed and predictable. The characters are rude and mean to each other and their relationship is built on such shaky foundations that, if this were a true story, they would undoubtedly end up show more in divorce court very quickly. Finally, the catchphrase, "Love means never having to say you're sorry"....???? Maybe I don't get it, but it seems to me the phrase totally flies in the face of everything we're told adult relationships are built upon. I couldn't finish this book quick enough so I could donate it and never have to think about it again. Yuck! show less