Jane Austen's Emma is one of my all-time favorite books, so I was really excited about the chance to read a modern re-telling. The Code for Love and Heartbreak was an adorable and light-hearted quick read. In this version of the classic story, Emma is a socially awkward math and computer nerd who creates an algorithm to match-make her classmates in order to win a coding contest. I thought this was such a clever way to bring the classic Emma's meddling into modern times. I enjoyed Emma's awkwardness, and her lack of experience in relationships was a perfect explanation for her misunderstanding of human emotions. I had a great time comparing the modernized versions of all of the characters to their original counterparts. They all had a fun, contemporary twist while staying true to the essence of the classic character. The relationships felt realistic and romantic, and I appreciated the diversity in all of the couples. The story was sweet and enjoyable to read, and while it isn't the deepest of plots, there was still a nice journey and growth for our characters. The Code for Love and Heartbreak is a solid YA Rom-Com that both new readers and Emma fans alike will enjoy.

So this book is a modern adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma set in high school with Emma as a socially inept math genius who loves coding. Some characters got their names changed and some even changed genders and relationships with the original characters. This was a great modern adaptation of Emma and I would love to see the author do more of the Jane Austen books in the future.

What an enjoyable story! I couldn't put this book down as it took me through a range of emotions from bringing a tear to my eye to making me laugh out loud – a story that defines love while exploring the social psyche that defines most teens.

What I Loved

I loved all the more profound messages in this story. In a world of swiping right, The Code for Love and Heartbreak takes a candid look at what romantic love is and is not. I have often wondered if this truth about love has gotten lost in the quest to find dates through an app, and I found the exploration of what people in a committed long-term relationship love about each other intriguing. It is a good reminder of what is essential.

The main character, Emma, stole my heart with her reliance on numbers and her inability to understand much of what is taken for granted by society. She has a sincere heart that cannot fathom lies and deceit with an enviable focus. She is determined to go to Stanford even if it means coming entirely out of her comfort zone to make it happen. And, she does come out of her comfort zone and grows more in one year than she had in all the years she has been alive.

The romance in the story is believable and the epitome of pure and genuine. I loved that most of the relationships made within the story's frame are more about compatibility and not gratuitously taken to sexual places that too many teens have in their minds as to where they should be. This story is about respect as much as it is about love.

The story is so relatable and made me laugh out loud many times. It even brought a tear to my eye as Emma is faced with a reality that rocks her world to the very core. The relatability takes you through a gambit of emotions as it touches on pieces of your own life, your own love, and your own fears.

Lastly, I loved that it is a modern retelling of Emma by Jane Austin. She is one of my favorite authors, and it is nice to have her writing brought to the forefront. I hope that it will make more people discover and appreciate such good works from hundreds of years ago.

And also, a quick note about the portrayal of the school counselor, Ms. Taylor. I have seen many examples of school counselors portrayed in a just incorrect light, as many people do not truly understand what they do. Yet, in this novel, the role of the school counselor was wonderfully spot on.

To Read or Not to Read

If you are looking for a quick read to remind you of what is essential in life, then this is the one for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Emma Woodhouse is a whiz at math, but utterly clueless when it comes to human interactions. People can be unreliable, but numbers will never let you down. When her older sister leaves for college making Emma completely friendless, she plans to dedicate all her time to the coding club she's co-president of. With the national competition looming, the club must brainstorm an idea that will take them to the top, and Emma has a rather unconventional project: an app that will mathematically match students up with their perfect partners within the school called The Code for Love.

The rest of the coding club, especially George, Emma's co-president, is hesitant, to say the least. They believe nothing good can come from meddling in people's love lives, but the more excited the student body gets about the matches, the more they have to admit maybe Emma is on to something. But when couples start breaking up, and George is matched with someone else in the club causing certain feelings to stir in Emma, she has to face the facts that maybe math can't solve everything.

I'm always a fan of a Jane Austen retelling, and while I did enjoy this, it felt a little young. There was all the typical high school drama you'd find in a YA, so I do think it'd be well-suited for someone who is actually in that age bracket of the characters. Like the original material, Emma is headstrong, stubborn, and a bit childish at times. She is dead set on the fact that math is the answer to everything that she gets very defensive and lashes out when things don't go her way. I did like her and George and felt he brought out a nice balance to her, and they were cute together. I did also have a few issues with the writing itself. There were times where Cantor felt very repetitive and wordy. The highlight for me was all the actual coding references. I know nothing about that, so it was interesting to see how in-depth and complex it all is. Despite not fully clicking with this, it was a quick read and kept my attention for the most part, and I'd recommend if you're into retellings and YA contemporaries.

Oh my goodness!!! This book was so cute! I loved the story, I loved the characters. I loved how Emma was able to open up at the end. This was just adorable.

Review Part 1
Sister Izzy has left for college, leaving Emma a little bereft for her senior year since Izzy and her boyfriend John have pretty much constituted Emma’s social life. Taking Izzy’s advice, Emma tries harder to make friends, especially at Coding Club which she co-chairs with George, who is John’s younger brother and a long-time friend. Emma’s idea for their Coding Club project is a dating app; wrestling messy emotional decisions into a mathematical algorithm provides at least the illusion of control. So why is it that, even after all the debugging, Emma’s is disappointed when George’s optimal match is a coding club friend named Hannah and not Emma herself? Interesting supporting characters and the coding club competition is a good plot device to drive the action.

Review Part 2
Readers who love Jane Austen are usually pretty happy in the semi-fan-fiction world of Austen retellings - I still have most of the dialogue in “Clueless” memorized. Most of the author’s choices in this resetting of Emma are interesting and the license used to make the story work in a contemporary high school cause the reader to remember the original and appreciate the update. However, I wrestled with the depiction of Emma as someone who might be described as on the Autism spectrum. Her unease with friends and unsocial nature was so opposed to the character of Emma as I imagined her from the original work and also from other retellings that it created a distraction in a story I otherwise enjoyed. EARC from NetGalley.

Emma had always loved numbers more than people, and one big reason was because numbers would never up and leave her on her own the way her sister and only friend, Izzy, had. But, Emma had a plan. She needed to focus - on school, on winning the coding competition, and on getting into Stanford. She believed she could use her penchant for numbers to help her team come in first place this year. How? By developing the code for love. However, Emma soon learned that not everything in life could be quantified.

This book delighted my STEM girl heart! I felt as though I found a kindred spirit in Emma. I used to teach chemistry and physics, and I was known to tell the kids, that people were complicated, science was easy, predictable, and beautiful. So, yeah, Emma and I definitely had a lot in common right there, and because of that, I found myself so invested in seeing things work out for her.

She often tried to play off her sister's cross country move, but it was obvious that there was an Izzy-sized hole in her heart. However, there was an upside to the whole situation. Izzy's absence forced Emma to make her own way. Via the coding club, she was finding new friends, expanding her social circles, and simply growing in many ways.

One of my favorite parts of this book was seeing the relationship between Emma and George grow. They had always been in each other's lives, but Emma never realized the importance of George in her life. She didn't see or recognize all the little things he did, the way he supported her, and how comfortable he made her feel. He was sweet to her, but also challenged her, and towards the end of the book, these two had me a big sappy mess.

There was a great supporting cast of characters in this book too. At first, the coding club seemed like a bunch of misfits, but friendships and more blossomed among them, and they formed quite a fabulous friend group. Cantor may not know me personally, but she made my heart grow a size or two by also including a grandmotherly character, who was simply wonderful.

This was a fun and fresh twist on a classic tale. Emma was meddlesome, as expected, but her love of numbers, tech savvy, and general awkwardness made her so lovable to me. I had a fantastic time with Emma and her friends as they tried to find the code for love, while also falling in love, making friends, and planning for their futures.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jillian Cantor, and Inkyard Press for the opportunity to not only read The Code for Love and Heartbreak in exchange for an honest review, but to also be invited to the blog tour for this book!

To see my full blog tour review, including Q & A with the author, please visit my blog (Scheduled Post 9/29/2020): https://teresacrider.wordpress.com/2020/09/29/the-code-for-love-and-heartbreak-can-love-be-quantified/

This book follows the plot of Emma in the sense that Emma Woodhouse plays matchmaker but can't seem to see that her own match is in front of her all along! Emma and George are the co-president's of their coding club. They are seniors in high school and it is their last chance to try for first place at nationals with a coded app. Emma is a bit socially awkward and always seems to say the wrong thing or interpret situations the wrong way. When her sister leaves for college, she suggests maybe Emma should find the code for love. This sparks Emma's idea to make a matchmaking app as their coding club contest entry.

Statistically speaking, math should be able to match the right people together, right? Emma tries to find out what kind of match-making criteria to add in the app, working through the kinks as she has students test out the app. A new students and member of coding club, Sam, matches with a girl names Laura, which makes Emma mad for some incomprehensible reason. And when her best friend George matches with Freshmen coding club member, Hannah, Emma experiences further feelings that she isn't sure how to sort out. She has perfected her algorithm, so her app must be working perfectly when it comes to matching, right?

Emma has never experienced the feelings of love before. Love is a concept that isn't exactly straight-forward, and if it cannot be quantified, there must be something off...

This is an enjoyable book for teens. I love the writing style and the quirkiness of Emma as she reflects her original character of inspiration. This would be a fun comparison book to teach alongside Jane Austen's Emma, a great book club book, or just a fun contemporary novel for teens. Highly recommend!

I've never read the original Emma by Jane Austen but I know the gist of the story, so I knew what to expect from this book. The Code for Love and Heartbreak was a really nice read! It started out slow and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but after a couple of chapters the story picked up and it got more interesting!

It was a light and fun book. Emma is this math genius who doesn't quite understand the way emotions and people work. Math is something she understands and she tries to figure out the way human relationships work in mathematical terms. When her sister moves across the country, Emma learns to navigate life on her own. The way Emma grew and understood human emotions, love in particular, was a really great journey to witness and be a part of!

One thing that did bother me was that the writing felt stilted at times. It was a little jarring when I first started it, but after a while it got better. There were still some parts in between where I felt like there were some abrupt transitions where things could have flowed better.

The book definitely became more enjoyable as Emma came out of the shadows and opened herself up to the people around her. This was a really nice retelling of the original Emma and I would recommend it if you're looking for a light and sweet ya novel!

This book is great! I would just stop there, but feel like I should explain. Realist fiction is not a genre I gravitate toward (for myself or for suggested reading for my students) so when I was approved for an ARC I was excited, but hesitant – unfortunately I had very low expectations. How wrong could I be?

'The Code for Love and Heartbreaks' was such an enjoyable read; one of the few 5-star ratings I will probably give. The story follows Emma and her code club on a mission to win the regional coding competition, with an app called Code for Love. How bad could building an app that hooks up high schoolers on potential matching criteria be?

The author, Jillian Cantor, captures life as a high school adolescent; the awkwardness, characters who do not “fit in” with the mainstream, and how an app that matches people based on common interested would ultimately work out. Overall, the characters were enjoyable and I especially like Emma’s maturity at the end. The storyline is light and you find yourself rooting for the characters; in their feelings for each other and in their app development. As a former science teacher and techie geek, this book was extremely fun to read! Will definitely be purchasing it for my library when it is released.

Thanks to Inkyard Press and Netgalley for giving the opportunity to access this ARC. I really enjoyed it and look forward to adding it to my library when it is released!

"The Code for Love and Heartbreak" by Jillian Cantor is an enjoyable retelling of the Jane Austen classic, "Emma". As Emma Woodhouse's sister, Izzy, travels across the country to go to college, Emma has to learn to fend for herself for the first time in her life in the halls of high school.

This is an interesting adaptation of the novel, as from what I could tell Emma from the original novel was always fairly social and seemed to enjoy gatherings, if only to gossip and people watch. While the Emma of this novel seems a little more reserved and feels much more comfortable staying home with a mushroom and olive pizza with her laptop. It isn't a bad change, it just makes for a fresh dynamic that was a little surprising at first.

She and George Knightley are co-presidents of the code programming club, which I didn't even know was a thing in schools but I wish mine had had one. The characters are all there from the original story, and the issues are well updated for the modern times. The match-making app was an interesting concept, definitely different from other dating apps out there, and I liked the idea of using statistics and commonalities to find someone that you are compatible for, even if it sounds a little less romantic. It makes a little more sense than Emma just seeing two people and thinking that they should be together for sure.

The book still has some really sweet moments, and can feel romantic without even having to have a huge make out or sex scene to show intimacy. There is a moment in the book where someone is holding Emma's hand during a rough moment, and just stroking their finger across the back of it. It seems almost more private than anything else, because it is such a gentle gesture and it is such a quiet moment. Definitely something that I appreciated.

This book does a great job of modernizing a favorite book while keeping the aspects that are enjoyable, and would be one that I think anyone who loves Jane Austen would enjoy, while still being a book that you can read if you haven't read the original. I highly recommend

**Received as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity.**

I loved this retelling of Emma! I thought it was so cleverly done, and hit the balance between being a new take and faithful to the original so well. I loved the author’s take on each of the characters and how it wove into this new and original story.

It would be easy to incorporate this into a lesson about Emma as a side-by-side comparison, but could also be read on its own by teens who aren’t aware it’s a retelling. It works on both levels.

Coding of course is a major theme in the book and I found that very interesting.

I too believe that a mushroom and olive pizza is one of the best topping combinations one can find.

I look forward to reading more from Jillian Cantor!

This was good, just didn’t woah me.

I enjoyed the coding aspect a lot and wish more time was spent at the competitions. I liked George a lot, and Jane both seemed like well developed characters! However, the main character was all over the place, idk if that was on purpose or the writing caused that issue.

Some, places in the book felt like we skipped over a big piece of the story line, or like I missed something. I'm curious to see if any changes were made in regards to this.
Overall, cute and a good quick read.

3.5 ⭐️

When Emma’s sister moves away for college, leaving her to finish her senior year of high school with the social skills of a hermit, she does what she does best—bury herself in academics. With eyes set for Stanford, she convinces the Coding Club to work on a matchmaker app for the school’s students exclusively, for a fighting chance at winning a state coding competition. Emma truly believes everything, including love, is quantifiable, but will she succeed at solving this as a mathematical proof?

This was a typical YA story with typical YA angst and the inner workings of a typical high school student. The spin on coding (and I’m talking moderate to high levels of detail) stood out for me. I found it fascinating, and with two potential love interests thrown into the mix, it did leave me guessing on how it would all end for Emma. It was an enjoyable read, but more geared toward the same demographic as the characters. Tbh, I felt the story plateaued at the 30% mark, but being in single 1st POV, it was easy to remain invested. As I was reading, I totally pictured this as a @disney channel movie with Laura Marano as the heroine (lol, so specific).

Emma has always liked numbers? Izzy is going to college in california. Emma is part of a coding club. Emma plans to go to Stanford. I liked the characters. I liked the dialogue

Emma decides she'll perfect the algorithm for an app that can match the students in her school, but can she find the code for love when she hasn't even got any will to have a social life?

3.5, for effort of trying something not too different but not overdone either, but the result isn't enough to be rounded up.

This was a cute read that was also very quick too. It was interesting how it was about finding out what determines if you'll love someone but it wasn't very focused on developing the main romance, to a point I even wondered if I was cheering for the right boy (not that there was really another serous option). That can be a good aspect if you're tired of romantic clichés, but I confess I craved for more moments. Especially since, because it all happens from Emma's point of view, we hardly see George's feelings grow, except for rare moments. And those were the best moments for me.

George is probably a good book boyfriend, but again due to the POV thing, I feel I didn't get to know him enough. I'm sure I guessed right what went in his head throughout the book, but I can't say there was definite confirmation for everything. And so the romance fell a little flat even when I'm sure the two characters have lots of chemistry.

Another problem for me was with the side characters. At the same time I liked them, I couldn't help but feel they were too shallow. I'm sure they'd be perfect if deepened, only that never occurred. In the end, they formed all too predictable pairings simply for forming pairings.

I think this was a nice book but missed the opportunity to be great. It was definitely enjoyable, so any fan of contemporary YA should like it even if just a little. I can't help but put this on the perfect comfort read tab. And yet, I still feel the loss from its potential.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Devastated when her older sister leaves for college, high school senior and resident brainiac, Emma Woodhouse, throws herself into the only thing she can trust: numbers. So, with the state competition on the horizon, Emma teams up with coding club co-president, George, to create a fantastic project that will definitely win them a first place medal. In the process, Emma creates a dating app that matches fellow students based on their similarities in various areas. While George isn’t crazy about meddling in other people’s love lives, the app actually works. That is, until it doesn’t, and Emma learns that, despite her perfectly calculated algorithm, love is a lot more complicated than she thought.

In her newest release, bestselling author Jillian Cantor breathes new life into Jane Austen’s Emma, retelling the classic novel as a delightful contemporary YA rom-com. THE CODE FOR LOVE AND HEARTBREAK combines the matchmaking shenanigans of the original work with a witty, modern tale of computer programming and young love. Cantor layers complex sibling relationships alongside intense coding competitions and plenty of mutual yearning—a staple of any Austen-inspired story. Full of stolen glances and tender-hearted moments, THE CODE FOR LOVE AND HEARTBREAK is perfect for life-long Austen fans or anyone looking for a smart and utterly romantic new read. With a deft hand and light touch, Cantor crafts a story that explores the enigma of the human heart, because when it comes to falling in love, some things just can’t be quantified.

This was an absolutely adorable book. It took a while to find its pace but once it does, its fantastic.
I love that it is a retelling of Emma (which is probably my favorite Jane Austin book) although, I'm sort of tired of retellings, but this one worked really well. I love the socially awkward of Emma and will be giving this to my teen to read also. Overall a quick, cute, light hearted read.

Thank you #Netgalley and Inkyard Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinon

Cute story and love retellings! This one was well done. It’s an easy read, pretty predictable, but the characters were fun and I loved seeing the matches play out. The idea for the app was pretty cool too!

I found this retelling of Emma to be endearingly effective. I loved Emma and George after I got to know them more. The interpretation of Austen's novel was clear and I actually liked that Cantor kept everyone's names the same. It would be fun to book club this with my younger high schoolers to compare it to the original. It would make for a refreshing and light lit club read.
Thanks for the ARC!