Book Review - The Lover's Dictionary

I chose The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan for this month's Teen Literature Club Book. There are a few reasons I chose this novel. One, it was an ALA Alex Award winner for 2012 and since everyone in my book club works or has worked with literature and students, this perfectly fits into our adolescent book genre. The second reason is because of its structure. The novel is written like a dictionary, hence the title, and I was interested to see how I would like this sort of organization. Thirdly, I have yet to finish a book on time for the book club and since I chose the text, I needed to finish it. This is a short, simple read because like I said before, it is written in brief entries. Some are just a few sentences while others are a few paragraphs.

I recommend The Lover's Dictionary for mature teens and adults alike. Although the title includes "lovers", do not be misled. This is not a mushy, fairy tale ending love story. It is real. They have ups and downs, annoyances, quirky jokes, extreme happiness, and anything else a normal couple would experience. As the gender of the narrator's partner is unclear, the reader is left to imagine it as they want. And does it really matter if we know the gender of the unnamed partner? Possibly, what should matter is the idea that feelings are universal in relationships of all kinds. The idea that we all experience relationships in similar ways pleasantly shines through and it is a much needed lesson amongst a world where bullying and hate run rampant.

Another area of discussion at our TLC was the emotion behind the word choices. Levithan did not define the words but created examples of the words. Figuring out the connection was enjoyable and added depth to the storyline. Numerous time I found myself chuckling because I absolutely understood the emotion he was trying to convey in such a small amount of words. It would be interesting to find out whether Levithan wrote the stories and then found words to fit them or thought of words and created stories that way. Whichever it was, this is a book which should be part of your home library (or at least borrowed from the public library).