Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan (review)

Hyperintelligent Josie has had to work hard at maintaining relationships with the average kids at her school. She poses her problem as one of code-switching between the various languages she has had to learn, and she can speak Josie without translation only with her tightly knit family and her long-time neighbors. When her beloved sister, Kate, informs the family that she is engaged, Josie is horrified at Kate’s choice of a seemingly insufferable know-it-all twit, but her attempts to sabotage Kate’s engagement are hilarious disasters, as Josie has met her match in Kate’s fiancé. Meanwhile, her own love life is getting interesting, and she approaches it in the manner of an anthropological experiment, overthinking every feeling and analyzing every conversation. Laced through the rich humor are fascinating insights into the social functioning of the intellectually gifted but emotionally immature and muddle-headed; sensitive readers won’t need to be as gifted as Josie to feel repeated shocks of recognition as she parses the exhaustion of having to constantly translate other people’s language into words she understands and vice versa. Her remarkably tolerant and longsuffering family and friends act as perfect foils and/or buffers for her sharp-tongued, sharp-witted excesses, creating an enviable community of support as her heart catches up with her head.