Review: "Isla & The Happily Ever After"

Isla & The Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
4 out of 5 stars

I don't know why it has taken me so long to review this book, maybe because I can't say much other than "I loved it". I am in love with Stephanie Perkins' world she has created around these three girls...Anna, Lola, and Isla. It's not just the plot but the scene she sets in each city, each book. So I decided not to bother with a normal review and just give you my favorite lines. Obviously, this will have all kinds of spoilers but I figure you've either read this already or never heard of it. So if you've already read it, enjoy and share your favorite parts below! And if you haven't read it, stop here, go read my review of Anna & The French Kiss, and get thee to a bookstore! :)

...it opens with the delicious crack of a hard spine being tested for the first time.<--This is exactly *exactly* how I felt opening this book.

Whenever he enters a room, an unmistakable mass of chaotic energy enters with him. It rattles the air between us. It buzzes and hums. And every time we surrender--every time our eyes meet in a flash of nerve--a shock wave jolts throughout my entire system. I feel frayed. Excited. Unraveled.

But when someone who knows him doesn't even want to try to understand him? No, I can't forgive that.

"You read a lot."
"Safer than going on a real adventure."

"I like that you're tiny. I like that I could carry you around in my pocket."

"Mon petit chou." My little cabbage.

"I feel like this...awkward giant around you. You're like this perfect porcelain doll. Delicate and sweet and pretty."

I'm covered in garden roses, spinning compasses, falling leaves, desert islands, Joshua trees, and intricate geometric patterns. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful.

"I love you. I have *always* loved you."
"There's no story. I saw you one day, and I just knew."

"I like the temple's reflecting pool. I kind of just wanted to sit beside it and make out with you."


Josh is a beautiful, messy, passionate work of art, and I'm...a blank canvas.

"...for once in your life, Isla, take a risk. Take a fucking risk. If you keep playing it safe, you'll never know who you are. I know who you are, and I love who you are."

How do people even make friends? How does that happen? (awesome poster by Kitkat Lastimosa)

Silver-white flakes catch in our tangle of red hair.

"Something better is about to happen."
Anna and St Clair are standing on top of Point Zero.
Anna's entire body lights with shock and joy and love.

My Favorite Bits: "Anna & The French Kiss"

So, I purchased Anna & The French Kiss on my Kindle last weekend when it was on super sale for $2.99 and I decided that I needed to reread it. Immediately. It's funny, I read it the first time on my phone with the Overdrive app from my library and then I bought the paperback because I needed it, and now read it the second time on my Kindle. So I haven't actually opened the paperback. But I still maintain that I needed it. :) Annnnyway...I read it this week at work and adored it just as much as the first time. And my favorite part of reading it on my Kindle was getting to highlight all my favorite lines/parts in the book! (I promise this isn't a Kindle advertisement lol) So I decided to share them with you on this lovely Friday. Consider any of these spoilers btw. Also, would it be weird to collect all the different covers of a book? Because I really love this cover too. Also, also, check out this drawing Stephanie posted of Anna, drawn by SiminiBlocker, so cute! (And the one of Cricket Bell! Adore!)

...and no one will invite me to watch the mimes escape from their invisible boxes, or whatever it is people do here in their spare time. pg 9 (on Kindle)

Boys turn girls into such idiots. pg 35 TRUTH!!

"Fo' shiz," he replies in his polite English accent. pg 57

It sucked balls. Dirty balls. Like I-ran-a-mile-in-July-wearing-leather-pants balls. pg 62

"That was pants."..."Pants?" "Rubbish. Crap. Shite." Pants. Oh heavens, that's cute. pg 81 I'm going to start saying "pants" instead of crap. :)

I wish for the thing that is best for me. pg 87 I like that. That is a good wish.

How can one person make me so confused all of the time? pg 180

Holy crap. I just slept with St. Clair. pg 181

It starts drizzling, so we pop into a bookshop across from Notre-Dame. The yellow-and-green sign reads SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY...But it's not like a chain, where everything is neatly organized on shelves and tables and end caps. Here books totter in wobbly stacks, fall from the seats of chairs, and spill from sagging shelves. There are cardboard boxes overflowing with books, and a black cat naps beside a pile on the stairs. But the most astonishing thing is that all of the books are in English. pg 183-184 I NEED to go there!! Like for real.

Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place? pg 250 My all-time favorite quote. Ugh, it kills me.

How could I have ever for a moment believed I wasn't in love with him?...I love Etienne. pg 253 & 259 I'm annoyed I can't figure out how to do the accent mark. :(

"Whyareyougivingawaythecookies?" pg 269 Seriously, never give away Girl Scout cookies.

I wish friends held hands more often, like the children I see on the streets sometimes. I'm not sure why we have to grow up and get embarrassed about it. pg 310 My second favorite quote. :)

I want to breathe him, lick him, eat him, drink him. pg 311

"You said on my birthday that you were afraid of being alone, but I've been here this whole time. This whole time." pg 337

"You love him, and he loves you, and you live in the most romantic city in the world." pg 343

"But you once told me no one chooses their family." pg 350

But he bought me love poetry. pg 355 I love Pablo Neruda. I need to read him soon I think.

"I'm saying I'm in love with you! I've been in love with you this whole bleeding year!" pg 363 Le sigh.

"I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul." pg 363 Stephanie Perkins, you are magical.

Review: "Lola & The Boy Next Door"

Lola & The Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
4 out of 5 stars

Yay! Another Perkins book! I was so stinking excited to start reading this and it did not disappoint. Okay, just a teeny, tiny bit compared to Anna & The French Kiss, but only because nothing could have been better than that in my opinion. :)

Lola on the cover kind of reminds me of Tibby from the Traveling Pants books. No? Maybe it's just me. Okay, so obviously this is a story about Lola and that guy next door. (What's with the plaid shirt, cover guy?) Lola is a pretty awesome girl. She's way into fashion design and wears outfits that would rival Miss Claudia Kishi in kookyness.

I don't believe in fashion. I believe in costume. Life is too short to be the same person every day.


Lola is 17 years old and lives in San Francisco with her two gay dads. They are super over-protective, especially when it comes to her 22 year old boyfriend, Max. I get that they don't like the age difference, but they seem to be waaaaay on the extreme side of hating it. I liked Max as a character...he put up with her dads' questions/interrogations, he came over for brunch every Sunday, he obeyed her curfew, he was a good guy. There's really no reason for them to be so hard on her about him (as far as they know, spoiler: there was some teenage sex going on whoops!). I guess their only justification is that they don't want her to end up like her mom, who is a drug addict and abandoned Lola when she was little.

So, Lola is happy with her 2 dads (does anyone remember that TV show? My Two Dads? No? I'm dating myself again, aren't I? Darn.) and her rocker boyfriend Max and BFF Lindsey. Until her old neighbors, twins Cricket (male) and Calliope (female) Bell, move back in and everything goes up in flames. I just have to say, I found their names very distracting. I wish she had chosen different ones. Anyway, when the Bells move back, Lola is suddenly reminded of the not-so-distant past crush she had on Cricket and freaks.

As she tries to deal with that and the possibility that Cricket might like her back, we get an honest look into her life. Yes, Lola is selfish at times. She's prone to tantrums, doesn't know what she wants in life (except to be a designer), and she expects to get her way a lot of times. In short, she's a teenager. ;) Cricket is...really cool. I loved Cricket. Not as much as Etienne, but almost. Cricket is an inventor, a descendant of Alexander Graham Bell, a snazzy dresser, a lover, a poet, etc...he's the reason I draw stars on my hand randomly now. *Swoon* He has his flaws too, namely listening to his controlling sister too much.

While I loved the book on the whole, it did have its not so great moments. I feel like the denigration of Max was completely unnecessary. He starts out as this super-boyfriend and then suddenly he's a big ol' rhymes-with-pouche. I agree that Lola needed to figure out her feelings for Max & Cricket, but this was not the way. It kind of made it cheap, if you know what I mean.

I loved that Anna & Etienne were in this one as well. I actually didn't even know they were going to be, so I was completely surprised when I read that first scene with them. However, they were almost sickeningly lovey-dovey throughout most of the book. They didn't seem to have that spark from Anna.

I loved Lola's crazy outfits and the bit of her and Cricket working on her Marie Antoinette costume, although I think maybe her dads should sit down and have a talk with her about why she wants to hide her identity all the time lol. The parts with her mom made me super sad. The part where Cricket crawled into her window and held her hand when she was depressed made me cry. The ending made me sigh in happiness. And also made me really want to read Anna again. Like a lot. Mostly because (I'm ashamed to admit) I don't remember who Isla is and I want to be ready for her book next year. :)

Review: "Anna & The French Kiss"

Anna & The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
5 out of 5 stars (formally 4)

This is the last book (non-series) that I'm going to review from 2011. I read it at the end of November (on the Overdrive app on my phone) and I just fell in love with it. Seriously, I haven't felt this way about a new book in a long, long, long time. I mean, there are definitely books that I have liked a lot and really enjoyed and that I would call a favorite. But nothing has grabbed me or enchanted me the way this one did. Well, then why didn't I rate it 5 stars, you ask? Honestly, I don't know lol...maybe I didn't want to seem too needy. :) That's it, I'm changing it to 5 stars!

I'm kind of mad I read this on the app now though, because I want to go buy it and reread it over and over and hug it and squeeze it til it's eyes pop out. O.O But that's okay, I will get it eventually and I got her newest book, Lola & The Boy Next Door, last weekend. I started it last night and I was hooked by page 28. Like, I stopped to tweet that I was in love with this book already lol. I'm so excited to find a new author!! I hope she continues writing for a long time.

"Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?"


Okay, I'll stop gushing and tell you about the dang book now. :) Anna is all set for her senior year in Atlanta, GA until her dad drops a bomb and ships her off to a boarding school in Paris. And not Paris, Tx lol...we're talking croissants, menus and movies all in French, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, French bookstores (omg I so wish!!), berets (okay not really). Anna is a bit peeved to say the least, but she quickly finds a new group of friends including a swoon-worthy young English American French (yep all 3) boy named Etienne St. Clair. He's got floppy hair, speaks French with a British accent, and shows Anna how to live and survive in Paris. There's just one catch: he already has a girlfriend. *le sigh*

You would think this is going to be a typical YA, romancey, pink book but it's not somehow. I mean yes, there's the teen angst and drama along with some hand-holding and longing looks. But Anna is also a smart, sarcastic girl who loves movies and plans to become a director or producer or something. And yet, she doesn't know France is like the movie capital of the world? That was the only thing I found hard to believe. St. Clair (as he likes to be called) is a witty, short guy afraid of heights and with some family problems.

I've probably made this book sound totally cheesy now and you're sitting there thinking, "geez Jenn, why would I try that when you've hyped it up so much? It's probably going to totally suck." And maybe it will for you. But what if it doesn't suck and it's totally awesome and you fall in love with it and Perkins just as much as I did? :)

And my (2nd) favorite quote from the book...I so wish this was true. I try to hold my sister's hand (at home) sometimes but she won't let me.

“I wish friends held hands more often, like the children I see on the streets sometimes. I'm not sure why we have to grow up and get embarrassed about it.”