What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

Not something you'd expect to see in the romantic genre, right? Well, my group and I are reading Love Story by Erich Segal and this is what the story is about.

With such a typical title, one would expect the book to be like most romantic stories, where the boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl; boy and girl live happily ever after. However with the first sentence beginning with, "What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died?", you can see the book isn’t going to go the way you expected.

The story follows a wealthy, college student named Oliver Barrett who falls in love with quirky, witty music student Jennifer Cavalleri. The relationship between the two is interesting, especially when both consider words like 'bastard' terms of endearment.

I like the fact that Jennifer is snappy and always quick with a response, which always seems to surprise Oliver, and it’s funny how it’s because of this that he probably fell in love with her. You see in the beginning how she is so independent, and afraid to let herself be vulnerable and too open with Oliver.

 Its weird how you see a character as one thing: strong, spunky, then in the end see them in a totally different state. This fact that Jennifer doesn’t want to seem vulnerable is something both Oliver and Jennifer share in that he is fearful of letting her know the heartless relationship between him and his high-achieving father.

Just when everything seems to be settling for Oliver, he his wife, a new job, and his release on the burden given from his father, things take a turn for the worse. Jennifer is unable to conceive and with that comes the discovery that Jennifer is dying slowly but surely.

The extremely sad thing is that Oliver knows this but doesn’t seem to make as much as an effort as one would think, but his love for her regardless is completely genuine.

Hence the first sentence, Jennifer dies, and the book ends with Oliver and his father speaking in the hospital literally minutes after her death, which is something Jennifer wanted: Oliver and his father rekindling their relationship.

Initially thought I wouldn’t like the book because i had the perception that it would be like any other love story, like I said before, you kind of expect the twist of events though, so I wasn’t totally surprised. But I loved the diction Segal used in the death scene that placed you in the room with the characters. Even though Segal doesn’t go into description on emotions the emotions seem to peer through the words, which attract me to the book very much.

One thing very memorable to the text other than the use of words to represent their love for one another is the slogan that "Love means never having to say you're sorry." which is portrayed in the book clearly.