Book Review: Language of Love by Deborah Reber

Language of Love by Deborah Reber is her debut YA novel and it is terrific! It’s a story about a young girl who loses herself only to find herself again and learns an important lesson in doing so. As you can see by the cover the book is called Love, Love, Love and that is because you get two books for the price of one. Debbie’s book Language of Love is book one and book two is Cupidity by Caroline Goode. I only read Debbie’s book Language of Love and that is what this review is based on.

Language of Love is all about Janna who is sixteen and the lengths she will go to for love. It all starts one afternoon when Janna and her best friend Molly are having coffee and while joking around Janna speaks in a different accent to Molly. Well some boys, Spence and Julian overhear them, and Julian especially seems particularly interested in this Janna with the accent. He’s curious where she’s from and unfortunately at that moment Janna has her mouth full of a caramel treat and can’t say a word so Molly speaks for her and says she’s an exchange student from Hungary. Janna, who is used to being overpowered by Molly, goes along with the ruse and they agree to meet up with the boys on the weekend.

Being Janna from Hungary only escalates over the next few weeks. Janna is used to playing second fiddle to Molly. After all Molly is the pretty and popular one while Janna is just plain old Janna; she’s ok but nothing special. However being Janna from Hungary makes her special, especially to Julian. For Janna, she’s falling head over heels. She’s never had such a cute boy pay attention to her. Yet she can’t help wondering whether Julian would like her, the real her – plain old Janna from Seattle. Is it the accent? Is the fact she’s Janna from Hungary that he likes? She just can’t tell him the truth yet she’ll have to. She can’t go on like this. Will he still love her after he learns she’s been lying to him all along?

Lanuage of Love has so many lessons in it for young girls. While being Janna from Hungary, the real Janna felt prettier, more confident and outgoing. Yet that wasn’t who she was and she knew pretending to be someone else was wrong. Again she had let herself be influenced by her friend Molly and not in a good way. For many teens this is the way of life. They find themselves led in directions they may not really want to go because of their more manipulative friends. In the process they go against what they believe and sometimes end up losing friends that were really important to them like Janna almost did with her other best friend Emmett. One of the quotes I liked came from Janna towards the end of the book…

It’s hard being a teenager and I think Language of Love by Deborah Reber will really appeal to teen girls. I have to say though I’m a 44 year old woman and I really enjoyed this story. It made me think back to my first real kiss and my first real love. It also took me back to all the insecurites I felt as a teen and in reading this novel I could feel what Janna was feeling and wondered what I would have done in her place. Also, don’t you all think we have some little bit of an alter ego hanging out in us just itching to get out?

I think this is a wonderful love story for teens and one for us older folks too. It will take us back to times past and it will make us smile and feel relieved that we’re past all that now. Be sure to pop back in tomorrow as Deborah Reber shares a guest post with us.

You can pick up your own copy of Language of Love by Deborah Reber here in the US and here in Canada. Be sure to check out Deborah Reber’s fantastic website as well!

© 2010, Darlene of Peeking Between the Pages. All Rights Reserved. If you’re reading this on a site other than Peeking Between the Pages or Darlene’s Feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

My copy of Love, Love, Love: Language of Love, Cupidity by Deborah Reber, Caroline Goode was received for review from the author and publisher Simon Pulse.

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