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Segal´s Love Story is just kitsch literature

The element of death increases the emotional effect for the reader

Love Story by Erich Segal was written in 1970 and it was a big success. It was also made into a film and a second book followed.
All in all it is a book with a lot of problems. On the one hand there is a conflict between Oliver Barrett, who is rich and an upper-class student, and his father, on the other hand there is a nearly impossible relationship between Oliver and Jenny Cavilleri, who is a lower-class girl suffering from leukaemia.

I think that this story is more a love story than a death story, because there are only five out of 22 chapters which describe the problem of Jenny's illness and her death.
Although there is an uncommon depressing ending, which therefore is an important part of the story, it is more important that Jenny and Oliver fall in love. There are more scenes having to do with love (for example: the first meeting, the row because of the telephone call, the marriage, and so on) than parts about death (for example: Oliver's concealment of Jenny's disease and the last sentences she said).
Certainly, the author did not choose the title "Love Story" just for fun. If he had wanted to write a death story he would have chosen that title.
The whole story is written in a very simple way. It is not a complicated text. One reason is the colloquial English. From that you might conclude that the author did not want to confuse and mislead the reader. So the title "Love Story" should be taken seriously.
Jenny's death does not surprise the reader because her death is anticipated on the first page. So there is not any unexpected ending. The consequence is that everything you read about should maybe be a lesson to you: How should you act when you know that your beloved person will die soon?
Perhaps it would be a death story if you did not know anything about Jenny's leukaemia. In that case the ending would be really surprising and shocking. At the beginning you are also told that they are going to marry but that might anyway be clear in a book which is called "Love Story". In stories like this it is often so that love comes first, then marriage, then death divides the two persons. It is not important to be sure if it is a love or a death story. All in all it is more satisfactory to read such a book without a happy ending than a story which only describes pure love. Nobody would believe a story like that I think. Death even increases the romantic effect for the reader and the big love between these two young students. In "Romeo and Juliet" there was nearly the same ending and it is not a death story either.
But, all in all, in my opinion this novel is just kitsch literature.