What does your name mean to you? Does it define who you are, or is it just a label? Is it a distinct part of your personality or just something people used to refer to you? Does it affect you and your life? Have you ever even really thought about it? For Oliver Barrett IV, his name has influenced his life for as long as he can remember. In this novel “Barrett” has been an important and influential last name since America was just 13 English colonies. This is when our hero, Oliver’s, ancestors first set up their family business that would last for generations to come and make their family successful and prosperous. He should be happy living a plush carefree life with all the happiness money can buy you. But the thing is, money can’t buy you that much happiness. Oliver’s relationship with his father, whose heart and soul is in this company, is strained. This is because the business started out as basically a sweatshop, something Oliver is radically against and could never support. This is why he wants nothing to do with it.

Oliver goes to Harvard and is a star athlete (as is Barrett tradition). In an interesting turn of events, one day while studying in the library of a neighboring college, Oliver meets Jenny Cavilleri, a spunky and opinionated student librarian not afraid to speak her mind. She is artistic, creative, and a music major. As can be guessed, they fall in love, but his father doesn't agree. Influenced by the rebellious 60s and fed up with trying to live up to being a Barrett, Oliver goes ahead and marries Jenny. With this Oliver and his father stop talking. Oliver doesn't budge even when Jenny tries to bring them together. He goes to law school and just as he gets a job and they can stop saving every penny, a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching turn changes everything.

This well written page turner by Erich Segal captures very eloquently the moments and people in your life you hold most precious, the most vivid memories, and the actions you would give the world to change. Love story is a novel that you can’t put down from the very first page. Being Mr. Segal’s first novel, it makes you anxious to read the later ones.

The sense of humor and complete open honest between the young couple make you feel as though there is no deeper love in the world. The characters are realistic and relatable in the way they speak, act, and think. Love Story makes you think that maybe the world really hasn’t changed much since the 60s. Maybe 50 years really isn’t that long. Maybe people never really change. Youthful rebellion, your first years on your own scrounging for everything, falling in love, and moments of extreme happiness and sadness are all timelessly captured in this story that boldly states, “ Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.”