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Love Story
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Love Story
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Love Story
Ebook121 pages1 hour

Love Story

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this ebook

“Funny, touching and infused with wonder, as all love stories should be.”—San Francisco Examiner

The basis for the 1970 film starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw, Erich Segal's Love Story is an enduring classic that has captured hearts for almost 50 years.

It is the story of Oliver Barrett IV, a rich jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law, and Jenny Cavilleri, a wisecracking working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe.

Oliver and Jenny - kindred spirits from different worlds - meet, talk, question, answer and fall for each other so deeply that no one, themselves included, can understand it. So instead of trying to understand it, they accept it and live it as best they can.

This is their story - a story of two young people and a love so uncompromising it will bring joy to your heat and tears to your eyes. It is the story that told the world, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Editor's Note

Tender & tragic…

“Love Story” is a slim volume, but that doesn’t stop it from punching you straight in the heart with a pair of brass knuckles. It’s tender and tragic. Sassy and sensitive. Much like love itself, it feels like a fever dream.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateNov 1, 2011
ISBN9780062130099
Author

Erich Segal

Erich Segal was an American author, screenwriter, and classics professor. His first three books, Love Story, Oliver's Story, and Man, Woman and Child, were all international bestsellers that became blockbuster films. Segal received numerous awards and honors including a Golden Globe for his screenplay to Love Story as well as the Legion d'Honneur from the French government. He died in London in 2010.

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Reviews for Love Story

Rating: 3.395053531818182 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

748 ratings27 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 starsOliver is a hockey player at an ivy league college. Jenny works in the library. Oliver is rich; Jenny is not. Yet, they still fall in love. However, we know from the first sentence that Jenny will die young. This was surprisingly short! I thought I’d seen the movie years ago, but now I’m not sure; it’s possible I only saw bits and pieces. I think it would have been nice if things hadn’t moved so quickly in the story, if the reader had more time to get to know Oliver and Jenny. I thought the end would devastate me, even knowing how it ended, but it didn’t. It was still a good story, overall, but I guess I just expected a bit more.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A little basic and simplistic, but a heartfelt yarn nonetheless.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What can you say about a twenty-five year girl who died? That she was beautiful. And Brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me. loved this book. short, concise and utterly heartbreaking. i thought i'd end up mocking the story since i knew it would be some sort of cliched tearjerker - two people in love against all odds with the girl dying of an incurable disease. cliched or not, the story did make me cry (a lot), as i guess all great love stories tend to do.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mildly agreeable, highly popular bittersweet college romance; reading it in Korea long after its initial burst of popularity, I was more struck by the emphasis on the hero's bad relationship with his father rather than his relationship with the heroine.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Segal really knows how to pull strings and push buttons. A good "rich man, poor girl" romance. I did cry (didn't everyone?) - but sometimes I felt manipulated.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book moved me! This story has made me cry. It is easy for me to read. I want to watch this movie. If you read this book or this movie, I recommend you take a handkerchief.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a love story. A rich man, Oliver Barret, and a poor woman, Jenny Cavilleri, fell in love. Their first meeiting was in the library of the university, and soon they loved each other deeply. They dcided to marry, but Oliver's parents didn't admitted. So Oiver and Jenny lived together without Oliver's parents' help. The marriage life never advanced easily, but they ware happy because there was love in their life. But the end of this story is something sad... I think love is happiness, but is also very difficult. And I think their love is true. I felt like watching a drama about love when I read this story! So I think this story is something unreal. But I enjoyed this story. And I was moving the end..
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A classic tragic romance...I believe that even though the book is old many of todays teens would enjoy reading and crying over Love Story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My generation's version of "The Bridges of Madison County", this is actually a fairly readable and not horribly written love story about two Ivy League students who fall in love, get married against his father's wishes, and suffer tragedy. It was the source of a pretty awful line and sentiment ("Love means never having to say you're sorry", and a pretty maudlin opening and closing line. But it was readable, held my interest and stirred some emotions. I can't blame it for taking the world by storm in the early 1970's.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I woke up to my sister weeping. To my amazement, she was reading a book, not something she did often unless required for school. I reached across the space between our twin beds and pushed the book up enough to see the title - "Love Story." I rolled my eyes and pulled my tattered baby blanket over my face. Through her sobs, my sister insisted that I read this, the "best" book she ever read. Grumbling that it was the ONLY book she ever read, I tossed it on my bookstack.Some time later, "Love Story" came off the bookstack and into my hands. I read it quickly, and recall making fun of my sister for deeming this the best book EVER. Maudlin, predictable, and way too gooey for my taste at 14 (and at 58).Yet I remember this story above so many others that I would deem better plotted or written. Is it because my sister woke me as she cried her way through the end of it? My shock that she was actually reading a book for the pleasure of it? Or that Love Story became something of a cultural icon of the 1970's, a tale everyone talked of (mostly because they saw the movie) and mooned over? Or did it really do that thing that few books do-stick in my head so I can take it back out and examine it as I try to understand why this particular tale stays with me when others are gone the moment the last page is turned.OK, I cried at the end, too. Don't tell my sister!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A 5-star rating from me because I go all sentimenal and teary just thinking about this book and my own first love, both in 1970. Erich Segal is an easy target for ridicule, but not from me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My favorite love story.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Oddly enough, I don't think I saw the movie; although I did attend a gathering for college editors where I got to meet Ali mcGraw, Ryan O'Neal and Ray Milland. I may have read an abridged version -- I was visiting a roommate and her mother had a copy of the Ladies' Home Journal or some similar magazine in which the story appeared. What a weeper! I'm not sure why this rather formulaic romance (rich Harvard guy meets not so rich beautiful girl, they fall in love, she dies) would be on a must-read list except that so many people did read it and see the movie and it spawned the false motto, "Love means never having to say you're sorry."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So short but so packed.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This book feels like a rough draft, not a finished novel. The characters are weak and underdeveloped and the central relationship is totally lacking chemistry. Short as it is, this book is riddled with profanity, which, in general, I don't have a problem with, but in this book it seemed forced, just a desperate attempt to make a mediocre story seem "hip" and "gritty." I heard this book likened to Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" and all I can say is, "Not even close." It's more along the lines of "Go Ask Alice" or "Perks of Being a Wallflower," i.e. hackneyed and predictable. The characters are rude and mean to each other and their relationship is built on such shaky foundations that, if this were a true story, they would undoubtedly end up in divorce court very quickly. Finally, the catchphrase, "Love means never having to say you're sorry"....???? Maybe I don't get it, but it seems to me the phrase totally flies in the face of everything we're told adult relationships are built upon. I couldn't finish this book quick enough so I could donate it and never have to think about it again. Yuck!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Love Story" is about a young, rich college jock attending Harvard University. He meets a pretty Radcliffe music student, Jenny, in the library one day, and develops a deep attraction for her despite her temper and continuous snide remarks - all aimed at him. The two fall in love, and after a rather boring and un-romantic proposal, they agree to get married. They live together happily, until it is discovered that Jenny's life is being threatened by cancer.The plot was not original or surprising, but it was put together well. It wasn't the love story contained in this book's pages that made me enjoy it so much - it was Segal's way of writing.His dry, lightly humorous style reminded me of Evelyn Waugh. I loved Oliver and Jenny's relationship - which is certainly not the usual star-crossed Hollywood romance. I really liked that about the book. Jenny was not described as some sort of goddess descended from heaven; she was simply an ordinary, pretty girl who worked in a library. Also, I loved the mock "romantic" scenes in which Jenny and Oliver's dialogue consists mainly of insults and jibes (most playful and even flirtatious, but some serious). Don't expect this book to really contain any romance - there is almost none. Yes, it is obvious that the characters care deeply for each other. But no one is swept off their feet. Even Oliver's proposal is the most un-romantic one that I have ever heard.But, I actually liked this aspect of the story. It allowed me to focus more on the characters, instead of on romantic sub-plots.I loved Jenny - main character Oliver's love interest. Though her lover is the one attending Harvard, she seems a level above him on the intelligence scale, and he is always losing battles and arguments with her because he can't keep up with her comebacks. She is snippy and sharp, but somehow likable.Oliver is one of those rich prep boys who has a roman numeral after his name. His father has entire buildings at Harvard named after him, and lives in a multi-million dollar home complete with servants who insist on calling Oliver "master." However, Oliver's attitude toward his elitist upbringing is that he never asked for it. An interesting side to his relationship with Jenny is that a part of why he loves her is that she is poor, and thus disapproved of by his family. She is an outlet for his rebellion.Oliver's father is a minor character, but I felt sympathetic for him even when our main character was not. I saw him as a strong, accomplished man who wanted the best for his son. His only flaw is that he more than a bit of a snob, and this has caused Oliver to become embittered against him.The characters in this book were well drawn and memorable, and I loved the dry humor and brief wording that Segal used.The only things that I did not enjoy about this book can be viewed as minor or colossal, depending on what type of book you wanted this one to be.First of all, (spoiler alert) Oliver does not seem very surprised when the doctor breaks to him the awful news: Jenny has cancer, and does not have very long to live. I would expect at least some amount of sorrow here. However, we only see Oliver feeling short of time. For example, he is desperate to take Jenny to fancy dinners and go out and do things, or give her a trip to Paris. But besides this, we are left in the dark as to what other feelings he is going through.Also, Oliver does not tell Jenny that she is sick for awhile. The exact reason for this is not given. How selfish! I was shocked by this, and liked Oliver a bit less for it.And lastly, I didn't feel as if Oliver and Jenny's relationship had seemed deep enough. Though there is not necessarily need for passionate exclamations of undying love and dramatic swooning, the two main characters here often seemed like mere best friends, or even brother and sister at times. I found myself thinking that they shouldn't have gotten married, because their relationship seemed to characterize an obsessive fling rather than a grounded, solid, lifelong love. And so, at the tragic ending of the book, apparently meant to be a tear jerker, I was unmoved. Oliver seemed sad, yes, but not devastated. I don't think that this is the proper response that a reader should have to an ending such as this.So, in short, I loved the characters and dry writing here, though the author fell short in terms of actual feeling and emotion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tear-jerker.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In just a few words (like the story), this was too short. I did not feel a connection to the love between the characters or the characters. I thought it was a good story line, but it was so fast paced and short I felt no loss or sadness, nor romance. I liked it though, and wished it had been more detailed.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    it was really a heartbreaking love story..it's not the usual 'happy ending' type like in fairy tales but it was good. if you're a cry baby, better lock yourself in a private room so that no one can see you crying while reading it. :)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was good, loads better than the movie. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty peeved that the doctor lied to Jenny at first and then, after being caught in the act, was like, "Oh, right, the truth... that thing. I might use it." The seventies, clearly a different time. Overall good book. don't regret reading it, will likely not reread it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Love Story, by Erich Segal, is a book about two people who have nothing in common but love. I would rank this book 4 out of 5 stars.This book contains 144 pages. I like this book because it talks about young people who fall in love and face obstacles in their relationship in order to be happy. This book is about a jock and Radcliffe music major, who first meet in a library. Later on in the story, but start to talk and fall in love and decide to get married. Unfortunately, Jenny is rushed to the hospital because she has cancer and Oliver is by her side. In the end, Jenny dies, and Oliver cries because he can’t believe someone he truly loves is dead. I would recommend this book to people who fall in love with each other and need to face obstacles in order to be happy as a couple.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book within about 2-3 hours. Which says both that it is that easy a read and it is that good. Somehow I’ve gone through life without knowing well this story. Which is unusually sad and I bless the little old lady at the goodwill who told me I should read it for it would break my heart. It was excellent…and she was right, it was heartbreaking. It is, simply, a love story. One you should therefore be forced to read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    My rating: 2 of 5 starsSource: Library Checkout*I plan to discuss parts of this book in detail so spoilers!*Oliver Barett IV is a rich jock from a well-to-do family. Jenny Cavilleri is a poor, wise ass sorta chick. This is definitely a case of opposites attract with a touch of Romeo and Juliet syndrome; they were destined to fail from the beginning. But they meet; they fall in love, etc. etc. And as the summary so eloquently puts it: “…sharing a love that defies everything yet will end too soon.”“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”That is the very first line of the book so right off the bat you know you’re in for an emotional tale. But that’s the funny thing... it all seemed very impassive to me. Vapid. Insipid. And that’s the furthest from what I was expecting to feel from such a renowned and supposed emotional tale. The thing that really bothered me the most about this story was I never fully believed those two actually loved each other; it felt far too contrived. Oliver’s father’s declaration that he is NOT to marry Jenny otherwise he would basically disown him seemed like the catalyst for Oliver’s proposal and nothing more. To me, it wasn’t a proposal that was emotionally charged but rather a petty attempt to do the opposite of what daddy tells him just because he can.“Love means never having to say you're sorry.”Of course I had to include/discuss the most famous line of the book since I don’t quite agree with it. I think love means you’re more likely to be forgiven but I don’t think that should excuse you completely from an apology. But if love means never having to say you’re sorry, then that would mean that any future actions are automatically forgiven and following that same vein means you could do whatever you want because it’s okay, he/she loves me. Honestly, we all fuck up at one point or another in relationships because this shit is no cake walk but love doesn’t automatically excuse you from wrong. Love means you can fuck up, you can apologize, you can talk about it if need be and you can behave like mature adults and grow and learn from the experience. Love means never having to say you’re sorry? No. That’s a total cop out. There was also a ton of cussing, which I don’t have issue with considering I cuss like a sailor, but the dialogue sounded like a 6th grader trying to include cuss words in their everyday speech and ends up overdoing it. It was very forced and awkward feeling. Oliver and Jenny even replaced cute nicknames for cuss words as well. At one point he casually referred to Jenny as “my wife, the bitch” and I think he frequently called him a bastard. Or an asshole. Possibly both? I can accept that they obviously had a ‘different’ sorta love for each other and that’s just how they expressed themselves but it was very off-putting. The other issue I had was with the doctor and Oliver’s decision not to tell Jenny of her own illness, but I realize since this book is 43 years old there are customs that occurred then that I’d never be able to fully grasp and understand.Erich Segal was the Nicholas Sparks of his era with his tales of epic love. He’s not known for his literary masterpieces but he was a prominent name a few decades back and it was just one of those that I had to try out for myself. Plus, I was told that this book would absolutely make me cry (which books don’t make me do often) so I had to accept that challenge. I won by the way. Will I try more of his works? Maybe. Sappy tales aren’t normally my thing but every once in a while when I’m dealing with a chemical imbalance in my brain it makes me want to pick up this kind of stuff, so maybe someday. Have you read Love Story or any other novels by Segal? If so, are there any you would recommend?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    diya
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It has been a long time since I was able to pick up a book and read it in a day (not necessarily a lack of shorter novellas in my library, but a lack of peace in the household and the freedom to just read). Love Story by Erich Segal broke my streak of 3 weeks spans between book completions.Yes, it is a story of love, and I am a chick and cried at the end. But not only is it filled with pain, it is filled with a true sense of love that makes the pain that much more difficult to bear. Given that the opening line of the novel is a huge spoiler to the rest of the story, and that within the last 20 pages, it is obvious what the ending will entail. I still found myself completely wrapped up in Oliver and Jenny's love, their banter with one another, though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this story ... Also loved the movie ... This is a favorite of mine ... and always will be!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    quick read. good story.