e-Audio, 06:18:31
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
Release Date: February 2, 2021
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Read from: May 4-7, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Library (Overdrive)
TW: Bullying, Cheating
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Coming of Age, YASixteen-year-old Ana has just moved to New Jersey from Argentina for her Junior year of high school. She’s a poet and a lover of language—except that now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her, let alone find the words to express how she feels in the language she’s expected to speak.
All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class. And then there’s her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she’s partnered up with in ESL class, who she bonds with over the 80s teen movies they are assigned to watch for class (but later keep watching together for fun), and Altagracia, her artistic and Instagram-fabulous friend, who thankfully is fluent in Spanish and able to help her settle into American high school.
But is it possible that she’s becoming too American—as her father accuses—and what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change? Ana will spend her year learning that the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.
With playful and poetic breakouts exploring the idiosyncrasies of the English language, Love in English tells a story that is simultaneously charming and romantic, while articulating a deeper story about what it means to become “American.”
*MY THOUGHTS*
Hearing that there was a book that mostly focused on languages sounded a bit weird to me (and I say that as a former English minor), but when I read more about it, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. This contemporary has a focus that I never heard of before, so that made me all the more excited to read it!
Ana has moved to the United States from Argentina her junior year of high school. She quickly realizes that her time learning English in Argentina did not prepare her for communication in the U.S. She soon finds friendship (and more) in two very different boys. But can she become too American like her family is accusing her? Is she just settling in like they asked her to?
The thing about this book that I liked the most was a bit weird lol I liked the way she incorporated the Charlie Brown sound when she was mentioning that she didn’t understand. I also liked that the author didn’t go back and explain what it was that Ana may have missed. We got the full feeling of what Ana was experiencing and knew exactly what she felt. It was a concept that I was too privileged to have experienced before, so it was a change to see how others live.
Unfortunately, I did not like the love triangle. I can usually ignore them if they’re done right, but I just didn’t feel like this one was. It was easy to tell who she would end up with because she did him the most wrong lol And (this is a major spoiler) if they were going to end up together, they should have given him more positive screen time.
As for the plot, it just wasn’t memorable. It’s a contemp with a love triangle. There’s nothing besides the language thing that interests me. I did like Ana and her new friend Altagracia, but she’s the only one. And in a contemp, that sucks because it’s like 1 part (sometimes 2 or more) of the book. But in the end, there was nothing besides Ana that kept me interested, but I was already too involved to DNF it.
This wasn’t what I was expecting, but it wasn’t all bad. There were some things I didn’t care for and some things I really hope to see in the author’s next book if we get one!
Overall, I give this
