Book Review: Love Story

ISBN-13: 978-1444776966

Author  : Erich Segal 

Year     : 1970

Pages   : 216

Price     : Rs.76/- (Kindle version)

Love means never having to say you're sorry

-Erich Segal, Love Story

Love Story book cover

Obsessed with love stories, I now wanted to read one of the classics. Love Story made the cut since I'd come across a review of the book on bookgeeks.com (Click here for the review). Promptly I found a copy on Amazon delivered directly to my Kindle and it just stayed there. I was keeping busy trying to strike off books from my TBR pile. And then on this fateful rainy Monday in May I had to make a train journey, and I had decided for Love Story to keep me company.

I am relatively new to the romance genre of books, but I'm thoroughly enjoying this stint. Let me start by saying that I'm not the mushy, hopelessly romantic kind. I like my crime thrillers and my non-fictions alike. But something in me changed since I read The Fault in Our Stars. I've begun to appreciate the genre and I couldn't have asked for anything better than this masterpiece. I run the risk of singing paeans for this book, but can't help it; this could very well be the father of all modern love stories.

Oliver Barrett IV is an all-Ivy Harvardian law student, with a multimillionaire couth upbringing, who hates everything about his upbringing-including his surname and the weight it carries. Jennifer Calliveri, a Radcliffian of Italian-American descent, is a musician in love with her family-with a passion Oliver terms as an 'Italian-Mediterranean' syndrome of paternal love. The cliche of the rich boy and the poor girl falling for each other at first sight ends right there. This story takes off with the unique chemistry between them. I instantly fell in love with the slightly snobbish, yet loving and considerate Jenny. Oliver too is perfectly adorable with all his imperfections. And the moment her dad Phil is introduced you can't help but fall for "the ever affable Mr.Cavilleri."

This is my first Erich Segal book and what I loved about the story is the romance embedded in playful humor and it's frank simplicity in defining love in it's pure sense. I finished the book in 2.5-3 hours flat and I stress that by the time I was done with it I felt like a marshmallow in hot chocolate- all warm and mushy inside. Now I really want to set hands on Oliver's Story, but not without fear. What if I don't like it as much? What if it doesn't live up to my expectations? Fears set aside I will read it soon enough. But before that, I really want to watch the movie Love Story, also written by Erich Segal. (Fun fact: Erich Segal has first written the screenplay of the moview which was turned down. So he was suggetsed to make it into a novel. He then re-wrote it into a novel which also then became a motion picture.) The theme song of this movie, by Francis Lai, has haunted me for years. Listen to it yourself.

 So, that's all about the book. You may wonder why I'm not getting into ratings for the book. I couldn't. I can't get myself to rate such a timeless classic that was written way before I was even born.

Verdict: A must read even if you aren't the hopelessly romantic kind, but just someone with a kind heart.

So time to move on to the next book. Keep reading and let me know what new stories you read.Ciao!