Book Thoughts: Just One Day

Title: Just One Day
Author: Gayle Forman
*Imported from tumblr*

This book taught me three things about myself: 1) I want to be the kind of person who says yes. 2) I’m lucky to be studying something that I actually love. And 3), I always knew I wanted to travel Europe, but now I extra-special want to travel Europe.

In Just One Day, good girl Allyson Healey is in Europe for a student tour. On the last day, instead of heading back to London with her best friend, she spends just a single day in Paris with a Dutch actor she’s just met, and she falls a little bit in love with him. It’s just one day, but it turns into a year of self-discovery, finding out who she truly is and who she is capable of being. Also, some seriously cool tie-ins to Twelfth Night and As You Like It, but not hitting you over the head with it.

Europe and sassy friends and adventures and well-incorporated Shakespeare and a deeper understanding of life. Definitely, definitely read this one, guys.

Book Thoughts: Anna and the French Kiss

Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins

I read this looking for a quick, fun, light-hearted read, and I was not expecting the emotional intensity that I found.

This book is fantastic. Absolutely freaking fantastic.

Anna is at an international boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school. She misses her best friend and maybe-boyfriend back home, she misses the way she always thought her senior year would be, she misses home. But Paris has its draws -- including clever and charming (and taken) Etienne St. Clair.

I was expecting a cliched and cutesy story of girl-meets-foreign-boy. While it is definitely an adorable story of girl meeting foreign boy, it is not the cliched and cutesy read I was expecting. The characters seem so realistic and they have genuine emotional depth and I really love Anna as a narrator and it was so much fun to read about her. I cannot say enough good things about this book! St. Clair is awesome, Anna is a fantastic narrator and protagonist, the other cast of characters is fun too, and that's just the characters. The writing is brilliant, the story is engaging and endearing...

I was looking for something light-hearted and uplifting when I started Anna. I was worried for a little that there was going to be way more depth and genuine emotion than I was expecting but I could not stop reading. I was so engaged I'm pretty sure I actually cried at one point. But when I finished, I was able to put it down feeling the sense of lightheartedness I'd been looking for (and wishing for more adventures of Anna and St. Clair. Fortunately, they make a guest appearance in Lola and the Boy Next Door!).

I definitely recommend this one.

Book Thoughts: Die for Me

Title: Die for Me
Author: Amy Plum
Series: Die for Me #1

Okay, bear with me, because this one is going to get long and rambly and a little more literary-analysis than I usually do. Also, if you read beyond the first like two paragraphs it gets a little spoilery, so be warned.

So, I really enjoyed Die for Me. I did. It was well-written and I liked the characters and I loved the story Amy Plum created with the revenants - very cool supernatural creature that isn’t written a whole lot - and the story kept me engaged and reading; I read the whole book this afternoon. 

But.

I couldn’t help but draw some parallels to Twilight. And that’s weird, because I am not one of those people who compares every single paranormal romance to Twilight. I had that fangirl phase, sure, and then I broke up with a boy and he told me that he was going to kill himself if I didn’t get back together with him, and after that I kind of realized that I had some major problems with the plot of Twilight, and then I realized that, upon closer inspection, Edward and Bella have a really unhealthy relationship.

I don’t compare everything to Twilight. But when something is really close to Twilight, that is usually a bad thing. Die for Me forced me to think about Twilight — but I still really enjoyed the book. It’s sort of, I think, what Meyer’s series would be with no vampires, more action, better characters, and a much healthier romantic relationship (with one exception, which I’ll get to).

The parallels I noticed were these: 

-the girl is immediately attracted to a guy and can’t really explain why, and he seems to share the mutual affection (although Kate approached the situation rationally and did not throw herself into an overhasty relationship, and she was adequately freaked out by Vincent’s true nature, unlike Bella, who was like “oh, a vampire? I love you even more even though I’ve known you for two weeks!")

-the girl does not seem to have any friends outside of the mish-mash family of her supernatural boyfriend, but said family loves her because she has been able to capture the heart of the long-single Vincent/Edward (although Kate does maintain a close and healthy relationship with her sister, Georgia, and her grandparents, whereas Bella totally neglects all the other people in her life)

-they temporarily break up for the girl’s safety and both parties mope and regret the decision and eventually get back together (although Kate was the one who did the breaking up, and nobody became suicidal, and they handled getting back together in a much more cautious and sensible way than Bella and Edward)

-stalking. I think the real reason, quite apart from the others I just mentioned, that I compared Die for Me toTwilight was the fact that Vincent, like Edward, seemed to have a penchant for watching his human girlfriend when she didn’t know about it, and when said girlfriend finds out about it, she seems to accept it as normal. CREEPING IS NOT AND WILL NEVER BE OKAY. Taking an interest is a good thing. Standing outside your girlfriend’s window watching her when she doesn’t know you’re there is creepy and bad and very not okay. What saved Die for Me in my opinion was the fact that Kate did seem disturbed at least a little by the stalking, there was very little of it, and Vincent offered an explanation that Kate, acting on her own judgment, deemed reasonable, which was the only reason it was okay at all. Still though. Just…

Why do fictional girls find stalker guys attractive?! Like, okay, really? I love it when my boyfriend texts me without warning during the day to let me know I’m on his mind; I would NOT love it if those texts included things I hadn’t told him about my whereabouts (ie if he had known my address before I told him, that would have been a red flag). I love spending time with him; I would NOT love being unknowingly watched by him (or by anyone else). Even romantic relationships are allowed to have boundaries. Too many fictional relationships don’t seem to recognize that.

I do appreciate that in Die for Me, they make the effort to take their relationship at a slow and healthy pace. InTwilight, the only reason they waited until they were married to have sex was at Edward’s insistence that he behave like a gentleman. In Die for Me, both Kate and Vincent are very respectful of each other’s boundaries; they are both aware that they would be okay with taking things a step further physically, but they know that emotionally they are not prepared for that and they feel they haven’t been together long enough to take that step, so they wait. They talk to each other about what they want out of the relationship, they’re completely open and honest with each other, they don’t start throwing around the word “love" after a couple of weeks, they acknowledge their passion but don’t completely forego rationality for the sake of passion. Aside from the minor stalking fiasco and the fact that I think Kate could really use some other human friends, I think her relationship with Vincent is a fairly healthy one. And that, I think, more than anything, is why I was able to thoroughly enjoy this book despite the fact that it called Twilight so much to mind.

(I really did thoroughly enjoy it, though. I wouldn’t say I’d recommend it to just anyone, but if you are a fan of YA fantasy/paranormal, then I do recommend it to you, absolutely. Although if you’re reading this far and youhaven’t read the book, I just spoiled a fair bit of it…) 

tl;dr: This is paranormal romance done RIGHT.