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Lose your heart to the novel that defined a generation then...and now.

Love Story

Love means never having to say you're sorry...

He is Oliver Barrett IV, a rich jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law.

She is Jenny Cavilleri, a wisecracking, working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe.

Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny immediately attract, sharing a love that defies everything ... yet will end too soon. A love that will linger in your heart now and forever.

User Reviews about Love Story

Love Story, by Erich Segal

This is Oliver's story about his love and life with Jennifer. Oliver is a smart Harvard student who is on the hockey team; he is from a wealthy family and had all the advantages. Jennifer won a music scholarship to Radcliffe; her father is a baker in Rhode Island. They meet in a library and fall in love. Does the difference in background affect them? No, they are influenced by the style and culture of the Ivy League. Oliver's father objects to the marriage, but they go ahead. After graduating with honors from law school they move to New York city and live in the upper East Side. But Jenny has a problem, it turns out to be incurable. The best doctors can do nothing. There is a sad ending to this story. Is it a throwback to some of the movies of the late 1930s, like "Dark Victory" or "Pride of the Yankees"?

The story of Cinderella ends with them living happily ever after. Was that realistic even then, given the life of the Medieval and Renaissance eras? This was a very popular novel in the early 1970s, perhaps because its ending defied popular conventions. Erich Segal wrote a simple tale that is sparse in details. Its as if he outlined the story to arrive at a predetermined ending. "Fairy Tales" were stories that taught some lesson to listeners. They have been banned and lost to the modern generations. If you ever see the opera "Hansel and Gretel" you will see how scary and gruesome they were. Or the other Grimm Fairy Tales. They warned children that the world wasn't perfect. Note how the story avoids the real problems of that era. Both Oliver and Jenny seem to have no prior involvements before meeting.
-- A Modern Fairy Tale

Coincidentally, I was thinking of Love Story right around the time I heard Mr. Segal has died; I was thinking how many different ways we love each other, and what a true Love Story is, in light of Valentine's Day. I loved the book and the movie as a young girl, and while I am wiser now and some of the ideology I don't agree with perhaps anymore, I do believe in a love that is as strong as Jenny's and Oliver's. [...] -- Made an impression that has lasted nearly 40 years

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. -- Liked but did not love this story

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. -- Tear jerker