Abducted by The Lover's Dictionary

In the last two years, I have been introduced to the writing of David Levithan, and he has come to be one of my favorite authors of all time. I love that he challenges the way a story is told, for himself and for his readers. 

One thing I have learned about Levithan that really makes me love him, is why he writes the majority of his stories. In a lot of the interviews for him that I have read, he talks about the fact that most of the time he starts out writing stories only with the intention to give them out as Valentine's Day gifts for his friends and family. And it is only with their love and encouragement that he goes on to the develop the stories into full novels. 

Seriously, how completely charming is that!?!

Upon learning this, I have since made it my mission in life to read everything he has written! And what is a better time to start then February, the month of Valentine's Day!?!

I am officially declaring February as the month for a...

Levithan Love-a-thon!!!

Every Wednesday I will be posting a new review for each of his books that I am going to read this month. I have set aside The Lover's Dictionary, Are We There Yet?, Marley's Ghost, Every You Every Me, and Boy Meets Boy. 

And it all starts today with The Lover's Dictionary!

God, I love this book! I started reading it today, which means that it counts towards my goals of books to read this year and pages to read this year, but also one day reads and rereads!

When I first marked this book as "currently reading" on my blog this morning my friend Steph commented; "You're rereading this already?" And all I could think was; "Well, yeah! Why not? And hey, July was 7th months ago!!!" 

The Lover's Dictionary is David Levithan's first adult novel (he usually writes Young Adult) and is written in the format of a dictionary. Levithan selects specific words for each letter and uses their definitions to share a piece of the puzzle that makes up relationships.

What I love about this book is that it is honest. It is honest about the big romantic gestures and it is honest about those small more intimate moments. There are moments when the narrator is deliriously happy, but other moments when we find him fearful and angry. Everything is right there, all contained within these 200 pages! I love it!

I gave this book away at my book club's book exchange at Christmas (and I am so glad that Tracy got it and loved it!) and I already bought another copy to give to yet another friend of mine that I know will appreciate it. I think I might make that a tradition, every time I reread this one I'll have to buy a copy to give to yet another friend. I will never loan this book out, I will always just make sure they have their own copy to read. 

-- Okay, wait a second. Breath, Courtney, breath!!! You might be crossing the line to where you are getting too excited and building the book up way too much. You might start scaring people away! Take a step back and reel yourself in! --

...yeah...*shrugs*...I mean this book was alright...you'd probably like it...you know...whatever...

Originally when I rated this book I only gave it a four because I was unsatisfied with the end. But upon my rereading of it, I can see that I actually just mis-interpreted it. So this time around The Lover's Dictionary get's an abduction rating of...