Oliver's Story - Erich Segal - ★★

AUTHOR: Erich Segal

SERIES: Love Story, #2

GENRE: Romance.

PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 1977

RATING: 2 stars.

Though I was apprehensive about "Oliver's Story" because of its really low rating on Goodreads, I was inquisitive to find out how Erich Segal furthered Oliver's life after such a big tragedy at such a young age. Now that I'm done with the sequel, I honestly regret taking it up.

As most people may not have read the sequel, I won't reveal much of the plot except that it is exactly what you would guess it to be: Oliver struggling to regain his happiness after the loss of the love of his life. There are girls, there is a therapist, there is family, there are friends... All predictable so far. The crucial difference being that while opposites were attracted to each other in the first, the second book couple seems to have more points in common. Both hurt by past relationships. Both rich but independent of families, both successful, both desperate for love. Does this relationship work out? Well, read OS if you are really an Oliver fan.

Where the sequel fails miserably is in Segal's story development. The humour is natural in LS but artificial in OS. The repartee between Oliver and Jenny in LS seemed so instinctive and organic, like actual fun verbal sparring between lovers who are opposites in nature. But in OS, it seems like Erich Segal was so forcefully trying to recreate the same adroit conversation between couples that a part of his desperation creeps in the book and messes it up. Oliver just sounds whiny and idiotic. His decisions don't make any sense (which you might excuse because of his supposedly broken heart but which is not at all convincingly written).

OS is about a 100 pages longer than LS, and this further kills the charm. It just feels tedious and long-winded. I skipped through quite a few paras of the book because they were too boring and irrelevant.

The only saving grace in the book is a character returning from the first one: Jenny's father Phil. An already beloved character in the first, OS makes you fall further in love with him.

A reader friend had praised the last lines of this book as really beautiful. I agree. I can't reveal those lines here as that would be a huge spoiler. But they are the only truly beautiful lines in an otherwise totally mediocre book.

Recommended only for serious fans of Love Story.