THE CODE FOR LOVE AND HEARTBREAK

High school senior Emma Woodhouse, co-president of the coding club, is all about the numbers.

After Emma’s outgoing sister leaves for college on the other side of the country, Emma is forced to survive high school without her. She doesn’t have any friends besides George—who also happens to be her coding club co-president. Numbers make sense to Emma but not people, and her inexperience with relationships leads her to react insensitively to others, making her come off at times as dense and unfeeling. Emma is the last person one would suspect to create a dating app, as she’s never had a boyfriend and has no interest in one. So she surprises everyone when she writes The Code for Love to enter in the New Jersey state coding competition. While Emma thinks she can quantify love, other members of the coding club aren’t so sure she’ll succeed. At times dismissive toward those around her, Emma experiences growth throughout the novel by making friends and learning to stand up for herself. But when the couples the app matches start breaking up and she begins developing romantic feelings herself, Emma must come to terms with how complicated love can be no matter what her algorithm says. Insufficient character development leaves readers longing for greater depth and feeling a lack of investment in the outcomes of the pairings. Most characters are White. Two love matches, mentioned briefly, are same-sex couples.

A middle-of-the-road retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma.