The Lover's Dictionary: A Novel (Kushiel's Legacy)

This was a beautifully written novel full of wit and a silent heartbreak that only stems from one who has experienced the pain of not being the only desirable existence to someone who is for you. I loved this novel and its quirky yet powerful writing.

I have read several books by this author and while I loved them this was by far my favorite. It was an easy read but but also very compelling. The format was new to me entirely but was perfect for the way this story unfolded. I recommend highly.

Although English is not my first language, I was able to not only understand but to deeply identify myself with this book. I guess we all speak the same language, the same unspoken words when it comes to love.

I was really looking forward to this book but there wasn't much to look forward to. The plot was sloppy and there was no climax. I loved the idea of the book, of using the letters of the alphabet to describe one's love but the execution definitely wasn't what I was expecting. Because the author doesn't follow a chronological order of the characters lives together it makes the book hard to follow. One page they're together and on the next it looks like their on the verge of breaking up. There isn't a strong enough foundation to keep up with what is presently going on and what things happened between them in the past. In the end I was basically still wondering do the couple really have a happy ending?

This book was sensational. Every time it gave me a new word and story, I realized the double meaning, or perhaps the double feeling of the short story. It was like I was reviewing a dictionary of my past relationships.

picture that came to mind: a child desperately trying to catch the firefly with a net. firefly is caught. stays for a while (for whatever reason). then bites a hole through the net and flies away. because it's not meant to be caught. not in this way, not by this net

it wasn't love
mismatched souls
life's cruel joke

i felt pity and annoyed after reading it. i may be biased, however

I really enjoyed this book. Even though some of the entries were short, I found myself completely pulled into the book and able to relate. This was hard to read/sad only because it reminded me of so many of my past relationships. However, I loved it, I loved the format, the layout, everything.

From reading the reviews and seeing it included on the list "Best of 2011 so far," I had higher expectations then this book delivered. It was ridiculously short, and I don't see how it could even be called a novel. I read it in about an hour. There was nothing wrong with the writing itself, and the concept was neat, but there just was not enough meat to this book to begin to sink your teeth into. Had I come across this story in a collection of short stories I would have liked it fine. Considering I paid the same price for this that an actual real book costs, I felt gyped.

I've never written an the store review for anything before but this book has inspired me to do so. I've read a lot of the reviews saying that the story is gorgeous or beautiful or touching but I didn't get that at all. The unnamed narrator is so unsympathetic that, had this book been longer than a novella, I wouldn't have read it all the way through. I bought the book because the concept was interesting but the execution was really disappointing.

Also, based on the many positive reviews, I originally bought this book as a gift for my boyfriend, who is big a sucker for love stories, but even he hated it.

I just finished David Levithan's THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY and thrust it into the hands of the nearest person I saw, so they could love it, too. (Don't worry, I knew them, so it's okay. But I'd still probably give this book out to random people...) I don't usually post the store reviews but I had to talk about this book. Like, yesterday. Now, I'm familiar with David's young adult books, NICK AND NORAH, WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, etc., and, as a children's book professional, was very curious to see how his writing would flow for the adult market. As he said at the ALA conference this past weekend, there's absolutely no difference: his are all just words in the service of a story. And the story in THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY is a great one.

Told in dictionary entries, topped by words that set the tone, DICTIONARY is about two people, one self-conscious, the other sometimes painfully not, and the course of their relationship and cohabitation in New York City. Some entries are poignant, some hilarious, some coy, some painful. From these snatches of memory and thought and feeling, a rich tapestry begins to emerge. It charts very accurately the swell of love, the pangs of betrayal, the small mishaps of the unexciting everyday moments, the lonely and numbing void left behind when feelings, and people, change.

My favorite thing a writer can do is something David did literally dozens of times in DICTIONARY. It's when a character has a thought or does something or feels a certain way...and it's so close to one of my thoughts or feelings or actions...that I have to look over my shoulder, because I swear the author has somehow reached into my head to grab a very private piece of me. Maybe it's the fact that, like his characters, I'm twentysomething and have marked my relationship status "It's Complicated" a few too many times on Facebook...maybe he's just a damn good writer...but THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY is one of those rare gems that threaten to keep me up all night, deep in thought.

Young adult author Mitali Perkins likes to talk about good books being both mirrors and windows. Mirrors, because they show you parts of yourself, something for you to relate to. They're also windows that show a reader another world or slice of life or outlook on the world. THE LOVER'S DICTIONARY was both window and mirror (but not a full-length mirror...read the book to find out...), and I give it my highest praise. My only criticism is that it was too short. I would've kept reading, with pleasure, if it had been the length of a real dictionary.

*NO SPOILERS*

“Remarkable… Levithan does the dictionary a great deal of justice, showing that the right words really can say it all, and doing it with an effortless grace.” - The New Yorker

There really is no better way to explain it. This book was a light, quick read that puts into perspective the things that go on in a serious relationship. From the constantly changing emotions to the private vs public relationship. From how it all starts to how it can all end in an instant, and how there can be a shift in feelings that one isn’t fully aware of. I loved the format of this book and all of the new words I learned just from reading these ‘dictionary entries’. Although I had to stop multiple times to look up a word I didn’t know, and stop my flow of reading, it was worth it. I wouldn’t recommend tabbing words you don’t know to look them up later, because you really need to know the definition of the words before reading on to understand the story better. The creativity and thought that went into this book is crazy! I want to know how he came up with this idea and how he made it work. Did he pick out the words he was going to use first? Or did he write bits and pieces of the story then go back and associate a word with it. I didn’t know what to expect from this book and couldn’t predict what would happen. These are little excepts from a bigger story, and it isn’t told as a full and cohesive story. I had no connection to this story and didn’t really understand it sometimes because I haven’t ever experienced something like that, or ever really been in love. I think this will be a great read to come back to when I’m older and can understand love better. I also love to award bonus points for having beautiful covers, and this cover is stunning! I like how he used words from the book to make up the heart on the cover. I won’t do a spoiler section for this book because like I said it’s just parts of a story and I think it would be better to go into this book blind.

Geez! I don't write reviews very often, but this book just really irritated me, and it irritates me even more that so many people like it, haha! I just felt kind of gypped after reading it- both because I couldn't stand the main character, and also because it was soooo short! It barely even would qualify as a novella- more like the length of a long article. And the publisher's price of $18.00?? Ludicrous! This book took me maybe an hour and a half to read, and by the end I mostly just wanted to take the main character, tell him that I'm not at all surprised that the relationship had so many problems since his entire personality was one big "issue", and pay for his therapy!

He was just narcissistic, self-absorbed, whiny, clingy, insecure, and an all around emotional wreck. No wonder the relationship wasn't healthy and didn't seem to be working! Apparently everyone else reviewing it thinks his whiny, emotional ramblings were "art", but I just didn't get it. I don't know if it was supposed to be autobiographical at all or not, but I hope for the sake of the author's sanity that it's not. It all just goes back to the whole mantra of "if you can't be happy with yourself, you're never going to be happy with someone else."

Anyways, that's just my two cents! Didn't see enough negative reviews here, and was noting this stuff just in case anyone else shares my views.....

The Lover's Dictionary is definitely one of the more differently formatted books I have ever read. It is written as if it is a dictionary. This makes each page a different word, a different definition, an different piece of the story.

The Lover's Dictionary details a relationship. The ups and downs. The ins and outs. Not necessarily in order.

It is actually quite brilliant if you ask me.

Something I really liked about this is that the relationship could be between two anyones. A male and a female. A female and a female. A male and a male. It doesn't really matter. David Levithan writes it in a way that you just never really know.

This is actually something I realized part way into the book. I realized that I just placed genders on the two individuals involved in the love story. I based them off of a passage that I misread. Then, when I went back to that particular passage, I realized that they did not say what I thought. This was actually a quite eye opening moment for me.

Oh. And the ending of this story? IT TOTALLY PISSED ME OFF....but it was totally brilliant at the same time.

This one is also a super quick read. You will easily have it done in a matter of hours.

Find more of my reviews here:
[...]

With the appetite for something different, I grabbed a copy of ‘The Lover’s Dictionary’ knowing it was narrated in a unusual layout – each chapter written as a definition of a word. All of it pertaining to a relationship.

What a novel idea (pun intended).

It felt like flipping through someone’s photo album, getting snippets of people’s lives, each frame a small story in itself, of just a brief feeling or word…

I liked the concept, it made it an engaging read.

There was a lot of humour and emotion interspersed throughout, and some half- conversations planted to mislead, and then back track, so you are never quite sure what really happened. It changes time and POV to really keep you on your toes.

On the whole it is really a bunch of moments of a young gay couples encounters eloquently told in tiny entries (say that fast 10 times).

I garnered a lot of insight about the characters and their relationship, and even their views on the world. But what I didn’t get was a story line, this is more like a stream of consciousness.

At the end I felt like I missed the pay off. Although it does wrap up nicely, it is anything but a traditional book. A welcome break in my usual diet, but a little disappointing. Commendations on the work as a whole though.

It’s a quick read as some chapters are only a word or sentence long… could be completed in an afternoon.

"The Lover's Dictionary" tells the story of two people and how they fell in love. It's not a retelling of how they met but rather a collection of quick moments in their lives that, some more, some less, shaped them as a couple.

Due to the fact that the story isn't told in a linear way, it is somewhat difficult to keep up with the story and it takes some getting used to. Levithan manages to make the reader connect emotionally to the narrator without even revealing his name. This is actually one of the best cases of extremely sporadic but great character building I've read about.

I imagine this to be of essential help for aspiring authors - this is how you build characters, you give them personality and not appearance, you give them quirks and not a tragic backstory. I was engaged in the story and invested and I wanted desperately to know what was going to happen.

I rooted for the story to continue the traditional way, marriage, kids et cetera, but again Levithan stays far away from the norm. That's what I love about his novels, that he doesn't try but always ends up on the unconventional, unexplored pathways. The special thing about this novel isn't the fact that the two proatgonists remain nameless, but the format. It's told in dictionary entries. While this might sound extremely strange and make people back away from this novel, I can assure you that you're missing something. When I discovered it in the bookstore and saw the name of the author on it, I just knew that I had to take the risk - because Levithan knows what he's doing and hasn't disappointed me so far.

"The Lover's Dictionary" can't really be described, it's not a story, it's more of a feeling. It's not your typical everyday novel that's why this review is lacking individual ratings. It can be read in a day or over the course of weeks, the effect stays the same. I fell in love with the characters the way they fell in love - entry after entry. Levithan uses mostly difficult words in this, I was lucky to be reading the novel in a foreign language anyways, so I didn't have to look anything up, because it was all translated from English. Some of the words I never would have understood because they're sometimes extremely old-fashioned and even pretentious, but the effect stays the same.

I was a bit sad that the entire plot revolves only around their love, not because it's boring to read about, but because I longed for being able to dive in more into their world. This is defnitely worth a read, maybe even multiple. Some passages were so poetic and probably even foreshadowing and I think that it is impossible to get all the references during your first read.

Overall: Do I Recommend?

Yes I do. I know this novel might not be for everyone, this is why I don't explicitly put this on my recommendations page, but I know that for everyone that is a risk-taker - this might be exactly what you're looking for. "The Lover's Dictionary" is poetic, it's more an artwork than a novel and it leaves you wirh a weird feeling.

Title: The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan
Publisher: Picador
Release Date: January 17, 2012
Genres: Contemporary, Drama, Romance
Medium: Ebook, Bought

I read my first novel of David Levithan a couple months back, when I received an ARC paperback of Two Boys Kissing from Random House Publishers. Then, just a few weeks ago, I bought a paperback copy of Every Day, and it became one of my favorite novels ever. Now, I found the ebook of The Lover's Dictionary, a novel I wish I could have purchased a paperback of instead (since I am trying to buy all of his works) but haven't been able to buy it yet. This novel has also become one of my favorites, as I read it in one sitting, partly because it was such a quick red and mostly because it was that good. Of course, Levithan has yet to disappoint. This novel is unique, original, and unforgettable. And definitely one for the years to come.

The plot was exceptional. Told through the unique and memorable prose of dictionary entries, each beginning with a word and a relative story entry. Levithan tells the story, each page and each vocab word assigned to an intimate and emotional part of a relationship. Before your eyes, these dictionary entries reveal a love story. Unlike the fairy tale romances and unjust stories of incomprehensible 'love,' this novel instead puts a real relationship under a microscope, telling everything from troubles with trust and making it work, to those little instances of real love, when you see something normal in that person that you can't help but love unconditionally. This novel has it all.

As usual, David Levithan's brings emotional and real writing to the table. He's not only skilled but phenomenal in the way he seems to know just what to write. It's amazing how he knows just exactly what will hit you in heart, just what will make you happy or sad, what will make you smile or frown, laugh or cry. His writing is deep and intimate, and surely whole and personal, since nothing this emotional could be faked. His writing delves deeper than just words on a page; it hits you write where it hurts, or, right where it matters. Either way, it hits you in your heart. I cannot wait to read more from this exceptional author. Five stars.