review: isla and the happily ever after

From Goodreads:

From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But as they begin their senior year in France, Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever.

Their romantic journey is skillfully intertwined with those of beloved couples Anna and Étienne and Lola and Cricket, whose paths are destined to collide in a sweeping finale certain to please fans old and new.

This book, guys. 

I kid you not, when I finally turned the last page and closed it I had happy little tears in my eyes. And there are not a lot of books I can say that about. I was extremely late to the whole Stephanie Perkins bandwagon - I only read Anna and Lola at the beginning of the summer - but I swear, the wait killed me just as much. And once this book was in my hands, it was squeals all day. I actually was lucky enough to get the book early since I preordered it and it just ended up at my house way before expected, so that was awesome. 

If you're looking for a cutesy romance that will fill your tummy with warm fuzzies and make you smile, look no further. Stephanie Perkins has a way with teenage romance, and I am all for it. She's an expert on capturing the feeling of first loves and everything that goes along with it, good and bad. About 60 pages in I got that excited, falling-in-love feeling that only a really well-written book can give - you know, butterflies, giggly, all that jazz. I was actually reading at work and started smiling to myself so much that I had to stop and just put the book down. It's that captivating. 

A huge part of this book, as well as Anna and Lola, are the descriptions of settings. When I was reading, I could see Paris. I could see Kismet Cafe, a boy drawing in his sketchbook. I could see the streets of Barcelona. Every detail comes to life. This is the secret ingredient of a great book. 

I have to say, even though a lot of people had issues with Isla and her enormous crush on Josh, I found it endearing because girl, I've been there. I've been that girl with an irreversible, inconsolable crush on a boy. I'm dating that boy now. I think the fact that I identified so strongly with Isla is a huge reason why I loved this book so much. I could see so much of myself in her, and I understood her thought process down to a tee. 

And Josh. Oh my goodness, Josh. I just couldn't get enough of the artsy, kinda mysterious, romantic type. The graphic memoir. The fact that he rewrote it. The fact that he makes mistakes and fixes them. I just. Sigh. I won't lie, he's might just be my new book boyfriend. 

One last thing that I absolutely love (and there are way more, but I just can't sit here and list them all day because we'll end up with a novel-length analysis and nobody wants that): the cameos. THE CAMEOS!!!! They made my heart so happy and I just smiled so huge for that entire scene. Even the references to St. Clair and Anna throughout the book made me smile, but that part near the end of the book... 

And the thing.

You know. 

The thing. 

With St. Clair and Anna.

I might have shed a tear or five million.

I think this is a good stopping point now that I've gotten a good deal of my fangirlish squealing out of the way. If you haven't already guessed, I adored this book and I will read it over and over again. This is the most bittersweet thing because I know this series is over and that's so sad, but it is such a good series. And this final book is just the icing on the cake. Utter perfection. If you haven't picked this up yet, please do yourself a favour and sprint to the nearest bookstore. I promise you won't regret it.

top ten books i'm not sure i want to read

Welcome back to Top Ten Tuesday on Thursday! Because I suck at doing things on time! This weekly feature is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and this week is all about books I'm not entirely sure I want to read. A vast majority of the books on my list were bargain books - mostly hardcovers for $5. I have a problem with taking advantage of sales, and end up buying a bunch of books I know nothing about. OR, books that have received a lot of hype, both positive and negative, that I'm not completely sure are my style.

1. Elixir by Hilary Duff - I grew up completely worshipping Hilary Duff. Like, 100% loved her. If I read this book and hate it (which, according to reviews, I might), the whole perfect illusion of her is shattered. 

2. You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis - This sounds so intriguing - a girl trying to figure out the mystery behind her mother's death. Unfortunately, I've heard a ton of complaints about the MC in this book, and I'm not sure how much obnoxious teenager I can handle right now. 

3. Hold Still by Nina Lacour - I actually really want to read this but it sounds depressing as all hell, so we're gonna put it on the backburner right now. 

4. Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan - Picked it up because I really like the books I've read by David Levithan, from what I've heard this is an instalove story, which I'm really not a huge fan of. 

5. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling - Ugh. This is probably the book I'm most torn about. On one hand, it's J.K. Rowling and she is queen. But on the other hand, what if? What if it's not on the same level as Harry Potter? What if I hate it? We're back to the Hilary Duff thing again - this could potentially ruin my love for an author.  

6. Between The Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer - At first I thought this sounded good, and I really like what I've read from Jodi Picoult. But in all honesty, I don't remember what this story is about. It just doesn't stick out to me as something that I need to pick up. 

7. The Here and Now by Ann Brashares - Such a pretty cover! But such terrible reviews! 

8. Gone by Michael Grant - I feel like there was a ton of hype about this series a while back, but I don't know. I picked it up and it's been sitting on my shelf forever. I don't have a reason other than the MCs are too young for my taste. 

9. Catching Fire/Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - I KNOW, I know. I read The Hunger Games and loved it, and got about 20 pages into Catching Fire before putting it down. I want to finish the series because I'd like to see the movies and be part of the big following, but I'm just not sure. 

10. Insurgent/Allegiant by Veronica Roth - Basically the exact same reason as above. Also, I've heard a TON of complaints about these books, the last one in particular, and I'm just not sure I want to subject myself to those kinds of feels. 

What do you guys think? Any books on this list I need to pick up? Let me know!

top ten books i'd recommend to people who haven't read contemporary

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a feature hosted at The Broke and the Bookish! This week's topic is books we'd recommend to people who are new to a certain genre. Obviously, since I'm a total contemporary junkie, I had to go with these ones. So, without further adieu, here we go! 

1. All of Morgan Matson's books. I really tried to narrow it down to just one. I really did. But, the fact is: she is queen and I worship every word she writes, and I love them all equally and unconditionally. As far as I'm concerned, she's the perfect contemporary YA author. 

2. Audrey, Wait! by Lauren Benway. If you love a hilarious, spunky MC, you're going to adore Audrey. She's one of my favourite characters in all the books I've read just because of her no-bullshit attitude. Be warned, if you're heavily opposed to swearing you might want to stay away from this one. 

3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. For all the slightly antisocial bookworms, Cath is your girl. She's such a relatable character and it was incredibly easy for me to put myself in her shoes. Not to mention the family dynamics in this book are awesome. Everything in it is just extremely realistic.

4. The whole Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephanie Perkins. Honestly, I'm sure anyone who has the slightest interest in YA contemporary will have heard of these fantastic, wonderful books. I'm currently in post-Isla-reading bliss after finishing it a couple hours ago, and I couldn't be happier. Such a fun, romantic, funny, and sweet series. 

5. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. This is such a heartbreaking, sobering story of mental illness and suicide. It's definitely not a lighthearted read, but I recommend it as something that does a great job of tackling a really hard subject. 

6. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Sticking with the theme of heavier books, this one focuses on  a girl who struggles with an eating disorder. It's really chilling to see the thought process involved with these kinds of illnesses. Not necessarily a fun book, but definitely worth the read. 

7. Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher. Just. FEELS. I really liked how complex the characters were, without giving anything away. It's just good. It'll make you hurt. 

8. Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. Ohmygod. I can't even describe my love for this book. It sounds really cheesy from the title, and that kind of made me hesitate to read it but it's really an amazing story that isn't nearly as shallow as it looks. 

9. Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen. Obviously Sarah Dessen is very well known in the world of contemporary, so it wouldn't feel right not mentioning her! Someone Like You is one of my favourites by her, if not just for the amazing friendship between Halley and Scarlett, and how they stick together to deal with a really tough situation. 

10. Paper Towns by John Green. I mean, of course he had to be on this list, too. I didn't really want to mention TFIOS because everyone's heard of it by now, so recommending it would kind of be useless. This is a really amazing book as well, and if you haven't read it now you definitely should before the movie comes out! 

So, there we have it. I'm sorry for being so late on this (again)! Please forgive me. :) 

Recommend some books for me, any genre! What do you think I need to read?

top ten authors i own the most books from

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, we're talking about the authors we own most books from. Now, while I'll admit that compared to a lot of people I do own a lot of books, I don't have nearly as much as other book bloggers and booktubers do. So while some of these are authors that I really do own a lot of books, a good amount of them are instabuy authors - those authors whose books I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO READ as soon as they come out.

1. J.K. Rowling - 12 books

I have the entire Harry Potter series, with doubles of the last four books, and A Casual Vacancy. Haven't picked up her Robert Galbraith books yet! 

2. Sarah Dessen - 8 books
Sarah Dessen is the first YA contemporary author I really got into, so I owe a lot of my obsession to her books. I'm missing 3 of her novels, but I'm sure they'll be added to my collection eventually. 

3. David Levithan - 6 books 

I have the books he co-wrote with John Green and Andrea Cremer, as well as four of his own works. Most of them are still sitting on my tbr shelf at the moment.

4.  Stephenie Meyer - 5 books 

Don't even judge me, you know you have them, too.

5. John Green - 5 books 

Obviously an instabuy author. I don't have Let It Snow, but I'll probably end up getting it closer to winter.

6. Gayle Forman - 4 books 

This might be cheating because I technically only have Just One Day at the moment, but Just One Year, If I Stay, and Where She Went are all currently in transit on their way to my house. So there. (Also, she really has a thing for three-word titles, doesn't she?)

7. Rainbow Rowell - 4 books 

Total instabuy. Attachments is on its way to me right now, too, and I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT.

8. Sarah Ockler - 4 books

Loved Twenty Boy Summer and instantly had to read everything she's ever written. I've gotten really lucky with her books in the way that I'll go to the bookstore not even looking for something of hers and just  find it out of nowhere. When The Book of Broken Hearts came out in paperback I just randomly stumbled across it and almost peed myself in excitement. True story. ALSO, if #scandal is in stock at Chapters when I go tomorrow I'm totally gonna snag that, too. 

9. Morgan Matson - 3 books
I will literally read every word this woman writes, ever. Hands down. No questions asked. Bye.

10. This is a total cop-out and cheating and doesn't even count in my opinion but R.L. Stine - upwards of 20 books
Just because I have a giant bag of Fear Street books that I'm too lazy to bring to the library even though I'm never going to read them.

So, there we have it! There's a lot of other authors I have 3 books from but I feel like that's a lot of effort to list them all just for 3 books. Because it really isn't that impressive to have 3 books from the same author.

What about you? Any authors you immediately have to buy books from? 

booktubeathon recap

I just wanted to write a quick little post about my experience with BookTubeAThon 2014. If anyone saw my tbr for the week you might actually be slightly impressed by the reading I did, just not by my total lack of updates throughout the week.

So, without further ado, here are the books from my list that I finished last week and the challenges!

The Lightning Thief - I read this on Monday and Tuesday and got COMPLETELY hooked, and now I really just want to buy the rest of the series. Seriously, I don't know why I didn't get to these books before. And I watched the movie after, so that completes the challenge of a book to movie adaptation.  (377 pages)

A Monster Calls - After I finished The Lightning Thief I was kind of on a roll so I jumped on this one right away and finished it in about 2 hours. I might have to read it again because I just kind of flew through it and didn't get to experience the whole thing, AND I kind of want to get the other version that has pictures in it but we'll see what happens. But the version I had was the one without it and I just read it for the book with red on the cover challenge. (224 pages)

Just One Day - Read it in - you guessed it - just one day. And I loved it and my plan was to read the sequel, which would take care of the start and finish a series challenge, but hardcover books are expensive and I'm cheap. (400 pages)

The Duff: Designated Ugly Fat Friend - I basically counted all the books on my tbr shelf and got my boyfriend to pick a number, and ended up with The DUFF! Super quick, easy read, although the MC kind of pissed me off at times. But this one took care of the book someone else picks out for you, so we're all good! (280 pages)

The Little Prince - I might have cheated because I read the original French version of this in high school, so I already knew the story. Basically skimmed through it in an hour to complete the book with pictures challenge. (85 pages)

So those were the five books off my list that I completed. I also read half of The Catcher in the Rye (124 pages) and picked Going Bovine (480 pages) to take the place of Just One Year.

SO. The challenges I completed were:
A book with pictures.
A book with red on the cover.
A book someone else picks out for you.
A book to movie adaptation.
A book from the genre you've read least of this year (attempted - halfway completed?)

In total I read 1970 pages during the BookTubeAThon, which averages out to 281 pages a day. So, not quite 300 a day, but I'm pretty happy with how I did! Especially considering the fact that I worked every day and was busy with a summer class. :)

How was your BookTubeAThon experience?

top ten characters i'd want on a deserted island with me

Let's just get this out of the way before we start: I suck. I know it, okay? I really did plan on posting daily, or at least every-other-daily BookTubeAThon updates, but the whole work/school/social life thing got in my way. I'll be posting a recap for the week tomorrow (hopefully) and until then, here's a little something to make me look like less of a failure. 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish is all about being stranded on a deserted island and dragging some poor, unfortunate fictional characters along with you. I feel like a lot of these could solve everything realllly quickly so I'm gonna be creative with this. 

For Survival: 

Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) - Girl can hunt, okay? And if I'm stuck on an island for God knows how long, I'm gonna need some food. 

Molly Weasley (Harry Potter) - What's the law about how creating food out of nothing is magically impossible? I feel like Molly's the kind of person who can pretty much make a delicious meal out of anything, and the magic helps, too. Plus: she can put up all kinds of protection spells and clean up with just a wave of her wand! Yes, please. 

Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) - With Hermione's brains, I'm sure we'd be home safe in about 3 seconds. Even if we're not, she'd figure out a way to make life on the island awesome, not to mention her never-ending pouch that WE COULD FILL WITH ALL THE BOOKS!

Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - She's just a total badass and if any supernatural beings tried to mess with us, she'd be on that. 

For Getting Off the Damn Island: 

Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter) - Because ACCIO GILLYWEED. See ya never, island. 

Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) - I'm pretty sure the whole breathing underwater thing would come in handy when you're stuck on an island. He could just swim over to the nearest boat or wherever civilization is and get someone to come save us. Or better yet, get his dad to split the water so we can walk home. 

Galen (The Syrena Legacy) - I mean, he's a hot mermaid. He's got this.

Elsa (Frozen) - She could just turn the ocean into ice and problem solved, just like that. 

Just Because: 

Audrey and Victoria (Audrey, Wait!) - I'm 1000% sure that these girls are my fictional soul sisters. And if we were on an island together I'd definitely join their best friend group. 

Etienne St. Clair (Anna and the French Kiss) - He's my book boyfriend forever, okay? He needs to be there. 

Who would you want to be on a deserted island with you? Let me know in the comments!

booktubeathon tbr!

I decided to take part in this year's BookTubeAThon to get me a little bit more involved in this little community here. This year's BookTubeAThon is hosted by a lovely bunch of Booktubers and challenges us to read a shitload of books in one week! YAY. 

 There's a few challenges set in place for the week, so here's how I'll be fulfilling these challenges.

1. A book with pictures.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

2. Start and finish a series.

Just One Day & Just One Year by Gayle Foreman 

3. A book with red on the cover.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (it has a little bit of red on the flowers, okay?)

4. A book someone else picks out for you. 

The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger 

5. A book from the genre you've read the least this year. 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (I haven't read any classics yet and this one's been laying around for about a year, so it's a perfect opportunity)

6. A book to movie adaptation. 

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (bonus points because I need to read this for school anyway!) 

7. Read 7 books (or 300 pages a day). 

If all goes well, this'll be 7 books! Fingers crossed, guys.

The BookTubeAThon is running from July 14-20. What will you be reading?