Published: April 7, 2015 

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Author: Becky Albertalli

Pages: 303

Genres: Romance, Young Adult, Contemporary

 

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.

With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

Wow, I really enjoyed this story!

The characters were very real and relatable. The writing was exquisite and on point. The music choices were more than perfect (eg. Elliot Smith, Lennon, McCartney) and I want to hug Beck Albertalli for the effort and because this is one brilliant debut novel.

Book Review: Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss #3)

Published: August 14, 2014 

Publisher: Dutton

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Pages: 400
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last?

Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.

Featuring cameos from fan-favourites Anna, Étienne, Lola, and Cricket, this sweet and sexy story of true love—set against the stunning backdrops of New York City, Paris, and Barcelona—is a swoonworthy conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.

Maybe my expectations for this book were way too high. I am still having trouble with how to rate this.

Book Review: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Published: September 1, 2015 

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Author: Nicola Yoon

Pages: 320
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

 

My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

 But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

 Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.

Received from publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

 2.5 - 3 stars? 

Book Review: The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Published: January 4, 2011 

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Author: David Levithan

Pages: 211

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Young Adult, Contemporary

 

A modern love story told through a series of dictionary-style entries is a sequence of intimate windows into the large and small events that shape the course of a romantic relationship. 

How does one talk about love? Is it even possible to describe something at once utterly mundane and wholly transcendent, that has the power to consume our lives completely, while making us feel part of something infinitely larger than ourselves? 

"The Lover's Dictionary is told in the way as it sounds - it's essentially in a dictionary format and the uniqueness come from the fact that the story is told within each of the word's definitions.

Even if you didn't necessarily know what a word meant in the beginning, you get the entire picture within the snippets of story that were told.

Book Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss #2)

Published: July 9, 2013 

Publisher: Speak

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Pages: 338
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Lola Nolan is a budding costume designer, and for her, the more outrageous, sparkly, and fun the outfit, the better. 

And everything is pretty perfect in her life (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend - Max) until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighbourhood. 

When Cricket, a gifted inventor, steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

Stephanie Perkins is life!

I want to start off by saying that you can read this book separately, it doesn't contain major spoilers from Anna and the French Kiss, although Anna and St. Clair are seen throughout it.

This is a light, cheesy and summery book. All the characters are very well developed and every single one of them brought something to the story.

Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Published: September 10, 2013 

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Pages: 433
Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Contemporary

CATH IS A SIMON SNOW FAN.
Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan... 
But for Cath, being a fan is her life--and she's really good at it. 

She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving. 

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. 

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath that she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilised world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words...and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

 For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

I loved this book most of the time. All the FEELS. 

Cath is a huge introvert, she's socially anxious, she feels lost and alone. Her social anxiety paralyses her on a daily basis and she's unable to do normal things like go to the cafeteria or, you know, talk to her roommate. And I think that's pretty normal. Even though not all of us get social anxiety, we all do that when we go to a new place and are thrown in a completely new environment.
Watching her go through that not only makes her relatable, but also interesting. 

All of the characters in the book were very distinct, each one had a unique voice and their own motivations and you could definitely tell the difference between Wren and Cath, who are twins and initially, they have a lot in common.

It's important that characters have flaws because that's what makes them real and Fangirl does that really well.

Like Cath we love our family but sometimes we don't like them and sometimes they do or say weird or mean things to us, but that's all a part of life and relationships and nobody is simple.

So, I really can't stress enough how great the character in this book are. 

And I really like the story. I think that Cath's journey though freshman year is typically a rocky one and her relationship/friendship with each person changes dramatically over the course of the year. Which is important because the story is really about Cath figuring herself out, figuring what shes doing where she's going and she's figuring her friend out, her family. 

Something that I really liked about this book is that even though Levi is the love interest he's not the only person she finds out she's attracted to. 

It was great that she interacted with that other person Nick that she felt a connection to. He was different form Levi which I think helped her to better understand how she felt about him. And herself. 

Recommend this to:

Teenagers, girls getting ready to go to college, people who were in college, if you like fanfiction or YA and or haven't read this yet, GIVE THIS ONE A TRY! :) 

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