REVIEW: Isla and the happily ever after

Title: Isla and the Happily Ever After (Anna and the French Kiss #3)

Author: Stephanie Perkins 

Published: 2014

goodreads 

Isla has had a crush on Josh since freshman year. This year, Josh notices her but is their relationship meant to be?

Stephanie Perkins is great at writing fun, easy to read contemporary romances. I finished Isla and the happily ever after in about one evening. It's a short read. Nothing extraordinary but good if you need something to fill a boring evening in. 

I'm not going to lie, the story is fairly predictable. You can always guess where it's going. However, something that set Isla apart from other YA romance novels is that Perkins explores what happens after a two people get together.

If you've read Anna and the French Kiss or Lola and the Boy Next Door, the writing style is not a huge departure from the two books. Personally, I believe that Perkins writing has improved. The description in this book is far superior to Anna. Maybe this is just me but sometimes in Anna and the French Kiss, Anna's descriptions of things/people around her make her seem really vapid? Here, Perkins has really done her research for this book. I'm excited to see how Perkins's writing flourishes!

The two main characters are Isla (duh) and Josh. Both these characters are explored well enough. I would say pretty much the whole book centers around these two characters, so if you hate the characters then there' a higher probability of you disliking the book. Lucky for me, I really enjoyed Isla and Josh! 

Out of Perkins's three protagonist, I find Isla the most relatable. Anna, I found her kind of vapid and bland. (sorry!) Lola was way too over the top for me. Isla is more of your average girl. She's reserved and has no clue what she should be doing in her future. Josh is also more my type of guy. Etienne was just way too charismatic for me. Ha ha. Warning, Josh has that brooding artist persona going on. 

As I've said, Perkins is darn good at writing romance stories. She somehow always manages to get the readers to yearn for the two characters to get together. There was still conflict that the relationship has to go through, but it wasn't soap opera level problems, more realistic in my opinion. The resolution of the conflict at the end was very rushed, I feel like one more chapter would have helped. 

The two main characters are developed enough. However, the supporting characters remain cardboard cutouts throughout the book. Side characters are barely given any time in the story which would explain their lack of character development. I don't even get why certain characters were included. The story would have been fine without yet one more two-dimensional character. 

So, if you enjoyed the two previous books, then you've probably already read this one . If you've been hesitating because you were disappointed with Lola and the boy next door (like me) then give this book a try as I believe that it's much better than Lola. Also, Anna and Etienne are featured much more in this book than in Lola. 

Vivian apple vs. the World by Katie Coyle; a review (of sorts)

Okay, so I just found this sitting in my notes app on my phone. I read it at the start of the year. Here we go:

My thoughts right after finishing Vivian Apple Vs. the World

• Who renames them self Gallifrey?!?!? Like the planet. Okay. Sure Mr. Planet. 
• Harper and Vivian are #friendgoals
• Also, how amazingly strong is Harper. 
• It's 100% totally plausible that people would do some crazy sh*t in the name of God. I'm also 100% terrified.
• OMG Goliath is so comical
• Is the author a socialist? or just very anti capitalism?
• I'm not ecstatic that everything boils down to this one giant evil corporation. 
• Some crazy ass fanatic Christian would have murdered Fick because of his interpretation of the bible. 
• why is the ending so ?????
• Probably going to be a sequel
• I'm probably not going to read it 

In short, the premise of the book is promising. However, the execution leaves something more to be desired. It's very unique though. I haven't come across a story like this one in the YA dystopian genre yet which is impressive considering there's so many recycled plots in said genre. 

The Arrival by Shaun Tan (review)

I am very much a list oriented kind of person. When I write a list, it gives me great satisfaction to cross something off that list. So yeah, when I wrote this Top Ten Tuesday post, I made it my mission to read most of the books on that list. I've gotten through 4/10 of the books on that list! Go me!! Woooo!!!

Today I'm only going to review one book.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Title: The Arrival

Author: Shaun Tan

Date published: 12 October 2007

My rating: 5/5 stars

*goodreads

*This review will contain spoilers. However, in the case of this book I don't think the spoilers I mention will detract from your enjoyment of the book nor are they very 'spoiler-y'. 

I love this book. I really do love this book. I want to show this book to every single human being on the planet. This graphic novel has no words, it's told entirely in pictures so language won't be a problem -you just have to be able to read facial expressions! If you're not very good at reading facial expressions, then I will explain the whole thing to you!!! 

Every single picture in this book is beautifully illustrated, take your time to look at each drawing. The book has a very vintage feel to it. The drawings all have a slight yellow tint to it reminiscence of old photographs.

This book affected me emotionally. My parents are immigrant as I mentioned in the aforementioned Top Ten Tuesday post. To a certain extent I am also an immigrant because I wasn't born in Australia but I'm young and malleable, I adapted with a lot more ease than my parents. I don't quite understand the hardship they went through and my parents aren't particularly keen on sharing. I don't resent them for that at all! But this book did help me understand them a little bit more; the struggle of leaving your family behind for a country where they screen you and ask you personal questions, a completely reasonable thing to do but does leave a person feeling emotionally and mentally drained; the struggle of experiencing a whole new culture -new food, new language, new everything; the struggle of finding a job; the struggle of missing your family.

Being an immigrant is hard which is the number one reason I want everyone to read this book -so they realise just how hard it is and that they'll be nicer to them. I want to punch every single person who rolls their eyes and gives an exaggerated exasperated sigh when talking to someone whose first language obviously isn't English.

However, being an immigrant isn't all bad as Tan reminds us. There are good people you meet along the way. People who invite you to dinner, who open up their family to you. People who tell you stories of their life and what they've been through and why they too left their country just like you did. The best feeling of all has to be being reunited with your family. Tan captures this emotion or should I say, emotions, perfectly. 

So pick up this graphic novel. It's a short read, it's all pictures but I guarantee that those illustrations will stir something deep within you. It's a story about immigrants that everybody, immigrant or not, will be able to relate to as the world Tan depicts is familiar yet strange. 

Is everyone hanging out without me by Mindy Kaling [audiobook] (review)

Title: Is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)
Author: Mindy Kaling
Narrator: Mindy Kaling
Length: 4 hours 37 mins // Num of pages: 222 pages
Publisher: Crown Archetype
My rating: 4/5 stars
*goodreads
*audible





I love Mindy Kaling. I truly truly do! I first heard of Mindy Kaling through The Mindy Project. I highly recommend watching The Mindy Project. Why? 1) it's hilarious and 2) it's hilarious. The show is really really funny!

Anyway, after watching The Mindy Project, I decided I was in love with Mindy Kaling. I needed to watch everything she's ever done. So, during the last winter break, I sat and marathoned all 9 seasons of The Office (US). Honestly, The Office is amazing.

Back to the audiobook. I've actually read this book before! This is my second time reading it. The first time, I read the physical copy. It's great as I've mentioned in this post. I've seen reviews that said the audiobook is great. Since my love for Mindy Kaling is so strong, I decided to try out the audiobook as well.

This is the first audiobook I've ever listened to and 'Is everyone hanging out without me?' is a great start to the audiobook world. It's narrated by Kaling herself. It felt like Mindy (yea, we're on first name basis) is my super cool, older best friend while listening to this book. I've seen people complain that they didn't enjoy Mindy's narration, and that her voice is 'screechy'. Personally, I didn't have a problem with Mindy's voice but give the audio sample a try before buying the audiobook.

The book details Mindy's life, from childhood right to her experience working in television. She sprinkles in advice here and there. Her book is filled with hilarious anecdotes. I should also mention that Mindy Kaling references a lot of things from popular culture. So, if you don't really immerse or consume popular culture, many of these references will be lost on you and as a result, your enjoyment of the book might be affected.

The writing of the book is simple. It reads and listens like a friend talking to you over an extensive catch-up session. It's not poetic writing, nor is it factual writing -it's just casual. This book is an easy, lazy afternoon read.

Again, I highly recommend this book if you are a Mindy Kaling fan, enjoy funny books or are looking into getting into TV comedy. (Is TV Comedy the right phrase???)

My questions for you:

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts on it? Do you have any other audiobook recommendations as I want to get more into audiobooks this year?

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (review)

Title: Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #2) *goodreads

Date published: 12 January 2014

My rating: 3 stars

Firstly, let me say that I am not a huge fan of the first book – Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. I thought that the first book was lacking in plot, it seemed like the plot was made to fit the pictures. As if the plot was more of an afterthought. That was the gripe I had with the first book, that and the characters were flat. However, Hollow City, the sequel, is in my opinion much much better.

Let me start by talking about the plot. The plot is phenomenal. It had me hooked from page one. One thing though, Hollow City really picks up where Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children left off. So I suggest you do a reread beforehand or do what I did which was to google the plot. Jacob and the other peculiar children are off to find a way to turn their ymbyrne, Miss Peregrine, back into a human. Off they travel to London in search for a solution. Along their journey, they discover that their loop is not the only one that has been attacked.

As mentioned above, my main complaint with the first book was the plot. However, in Hollow City I felt like the plot took centre stage and the accompanying pictures were just there to accompany the story. The pictures added to the story and not vice versa! This is true except for one part, the part where the children find a lady with a note stuck in her shoe followed by a picture of that description


It felt like Riggs stumbled upon this cool picture and tried to wriggle in a way so that it would fit into the book. Maybe that's not really what happened, but that's the feeling I got when I read it.

Next, the characters. Oh my god yes. In Hollow City most of the characters gets a moment to shine. While in Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children it was all about Jacob and Emma and Emma and Jacob. Hollow City allowed the other children to display their peculiar abilities! I am all up for that. There were characters that were not developed but I can forgive Riggs for that because they weren't in the story much. I can't say why without risking a spoiler. My favourite character has to be Millard (the invisible boy) and Olive (the paper light girl).

Since nothing in the world is perfect, I still have something to complain about regarding the characters.

Emma, Emma, Emma. I want to love you, I really do but you read a little bit like a 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl'. We read the book through Jacob's eyes and through Jacob's eyes you were the reason that he is "truly living". Emma, I'm sorry to say but you have been reduced from being a complex character to simply the motivation of male character to do this or that. Emma, you are first and foremost, no not your own person, but Jacob's ~dream girl~. At one point of the book, I thought 'wow this is it, Emma is going to break out of the MPDG mould'. However, to my disappointment Emma remains a MDPG at the end of the book.

Another thing that I don't really dislike but more I find really weird is the relationship between Emma and Jacob. Like is it weird for Jacob that he's hooking up with the girl who used to hook up with his grandfather? Also, is it weird for Emma to be "in love" with the grandson of her ex-lover? In addition to that, Jacob is always compared to his grandfather and how they are so similar. So when Emma looks at Jacob does she see Jacob as Jacob or does she see Jacob as his grandfather "but more". It's a weird relationship those two have. I want a good discussion between Jacob and Emma at some point in this series.

Now on to the writing. Ransom Riggs's writing doesn't blow my socks off, it's just meh most of the time. But I think that good writing or whatever depends a lot more on the individual, it's subjective! So, what may be your cup of tea might not be mine and that's a-okay! The bits where Jacob kept going on and on about how much he loves Emma made me cringe a little. Maybe I'm older and know better that Jacob who is still a kid. At that age, love tends to be the end all, be all. However, I will hands down pick my family over a boy any day of the year. So, yeah it made me cringe how Jacob justified his actions of leaving his parents to think that he was dead because he's infatuated with a girl. 

The photographs in the book are still as creepy as they are in the first book. They really add something special to the story. It also makes you wonder the thought process that went in the heads of the people who took the photographs. What makes them go 'Oh, I know! I'll just take a photograph of a suit sitting on a chair in front of a mirror with NO body!!! How cool would that be?!?!'. Other than that, I also wonder who the people in the photographs are. Who is this little girl or that little boy or that man … will (s)he find it insulting that (s)he is now being described as such and such?

To summarise, if you have read Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children then I definitely recommend you picking the sequel up even if you didn't enjoy the first book. Also, I wouldn't read this book without knowledge of the previous one because it does rely heavily on events that have happened in the first book. All in all, Hollow City was an enjoyable read and is much better that its predecessor! I am absolutely reading the next installment of this series!

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han (Review)

Last Saturday was such a hot day, it was a top of 42C! One thing about me is that I hate hot days. I much prefer cold days; I like layering up, I like wearing jumpers, I like wearing scarfs and coats, I like having numb fingers, I like wrapping myself in my blanket and reading a nice book. Needless to say, I become a lot grumpier when it's hot out.

I am currently reading the 4^th Harry Potter book. I was feeling overheated and grouchy and didn't want to associate those feelings with the wonderfulness that is Harry Potter. In my mind I was thinking 'So, what should I read then?'. I needed something cute and light to read. If we live in a cartoon world, there would be a light bulb over my head when I remembered that I had checked out To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han (goodreads) from the library.

To All The Boys I've loved before was the exact right book I needed to make me less grumpy!!! I honestly love the book so much. Right after I finished it, I decided what the heck let's just re-read it again and that is exactly what I did. Initially, after I read it I gave it a rating of 3 stars but then after a few hours and the book was still in my head, I decided to change it to a 4 stars! I stand by the 4 stars.

Why should you read this books? Well, if you're looking for a:

1. Cute and easy read that can be done in one sitting; and/or
2. Romance novel because this book is a romance novel from start to finish dashed with a little bit of family drama; and/or
3. Book that has Asian characters where their Asian culture are not erased nor are they the sole basis of their entire character; and/or
4. Book that will just make you smile! Honestly, this book made me chuckle!

The basic plot is that Lara Jean (yes they will always always call her by her first name and middle name) writes love letters to, as you can guess from the title, all the boys she has loved before. The letters are a way she exorcises her love for them. One day, it turns out that someone has mailed those letters. Cue dramatic music.
If you are thinking of checking he book out, actually even if you are thinking this book ain't my thing, please please pleaseee read the prologue of this book which can be found on amazon before your write it off completely. The prologue is just beautiful but don't expect that same quality of writing throughout the entire book. The prologue has the best writing in the whole book in my opinion, the rest of the book is just a notch below it.

What I didn't like about the book:

• There were a few underdeveloped plot lines but there's going to be a second book so this might be remedied
• Many characters are well written but there are some who are just cookie cutter characters
• Lara Jean is sixteen. However, there were times in the book where she sounded a little too immature for her age.
• The plot was kinda cliché as well
• I really didn't like the whole dating your sister's ex thing.
  I just cringed every time I read a romantic scene between Josh and Lara Jean
• The main love interest was slightly possessive. What's with YA books and possessive lead romantic interest? Am I supposed to be in love with guys who would rather dominate me than let me be me? However, in this book the possessiveness was really only in one or two scenes.
  When Peter gets mad at Lara Jean because her Halloween costume accidentally matched Josh's. And getting angry at Lara Jean for how she reacted to the whole sex in a hot tub debacle. Totally uncool

What I did like about the book:

• As I've said this book is funny! It made me laugh out loud a few times. There was this line in particular that made me laugh so hard, "Thank God and Jesus for Christmas break". In context, it's a lot funnier.
• Other than the little bit of possessiveness mentioned above, the relationship between the two lead romantic interests was quite healthy
• I enjoyed the main romantic couple a lot. They might make it to the list of my favourite literary couple! If they do, they will be joining the likes of Ron/Hermione, Elizabeth/Darcy, Anne/Wenthworth, Patroclus/Achilles (the song of Achilles one because the Homer one has pederasty insinuation) and Pippin/Merry.
• I'm a sucker for the "I didn't love you at the start but now I think I do' trope.
• I really enjoyed the dynamic of the relationship between the three sisters! I think Han capture that aspect accurately. My younger sister and I have more of a Lara Jean/Kitty relationship. Margot is the kind of sister I wish I could be though.
• I'm going to reiterate: the writing. The book has good writing throughout. The kind of writing that makes me feel stuff in my stone-cold heart.

If you are still on the fence about this book, check out this video that's sort of a fan adaptation/book trailer of this book by the amazing Yulin Kuang.

I also have a little letter of my own to write:

Dear Americans,

Can you please clarify the American Education system to me. What the heckie is middle school? And what is Junior High? And why do you do internship when you're still in high school? What is elementary school? Is it like primary school? What's the difference between junior and freshman, which one comes first?

Another thing that I'm curious about is the clique culture in American High School. Is the whole clique thing as prominent in real life or has that just been exaggerated for the movies? And are guys in the (American) football team really treated like celebrities in school? Do the cheerleaders wear their cheerleading uniform in classes or just when they are cheering?

And, um, when is Thanksgiving? Also, what's up with Turkey and Thanksgiving?

Yours gratefully,
A very confused Australian.