Review: Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Contemporary fiction
Four stars

Anna's life is going well: she's headed to senior year with her best friend and crush/possible boyfriend. Then her parents ship her off to boarding school in Paris. Thrown into the unfamiliar, Anna struggles with language barriers and adapting to a new city and culture. But she soon finds friends, and among them is Etienne St Clair. With his British accent and bright personality, she falls hard and fast. The only problem is his girlfriend. Conflicted between these new feelings and her sort-of-relationship back home, Anna's journey is filled with romantic tension, betrayal, and honesty.

Here comes the cheese. I realize this book isn't going to get any awards for originality, but I just loved reading it. The writing is pretty simple, but there's a depth to it too in her observations and interactions. The characters aren't particularly developed, especially the secondary ones, but I really didn't care. It's not distracting enough to take away from the overall plot. I just enjoyed it - I was grinning and laughing with the characters, I understood Anna's struggles and dilemmas. Her relationship with Etienne was quite realistic in that sense, the awkwardness and frustration and pacing. And there's another level to the story, it's not just a cheesy romance novel. It's about experiencing new things and growing from them and learning to adjust. It's about friendship. Also, it just made me really want to fall in love with a British guy.

“How many times can our emotions be tied to someone else's - be pulled and stretched and twisted - before they snap? Before they can never be mended again?”

Some Things I Find Beautiful

I think there are a lot of ugly things in this world. There are deaths, battles, fears, lies. They gather around us, sink into the air, spill over our feet. We are fallen.
But I also think that we are surrounded by beauty. I think that it can be found anywhere if we know how to look. I think we can draw it out from the darkness and surround ourselves in it, become lost in those hidden moments. So here are some things I find beautiful:

1. Words. There is beauty in the combination of words, in their patterns and expression and meaning. Words are language, they are how we communicate. We communicate to learn information, to inspire, to create relationships. And having a relationship, building a connection with someone, is at the very core of what it is to be human.

2. Trees. I use them a lot in my writing because they are such a symbol of strength, of growth. We become so desensitized to them, but when you actually stop and just look at one, it's incredibly complex. The way they unfold and expand outward, how there are so many sections and crossings. So many individual leaves. How they change throughout the seasons, blending colours and adapting. It's just crazy.

3. Children. They have such amazing creativity and imagination. They are not held back by logic, by responsibility, by social norms. I feel like we lose something as we grow up, some part of us that believes the floor is lava and capes can make you fly. There is beauty in that, the freedom.

4. Actions. Our acts can be beautiful, how we respond to and treat other people. Being aware and open-minded, realizing that we are all humans with our own stories and experiences. Beauty is not limited to visual stimuli, it is in the things we do. I am inspired when I see this, when someone smiles back or offers directions or lends me some change if I don't have enough. Beautiful actions make beautiful people.

5. Laughter. I love the laughter that just explodes deep in you, that creates sounds you never thought you could make. I love the ache in your stomach after, the soreness in your cheeks. I love how contagious it is.

6. Rain. Whenever it rains I just want to run outside and dance in it. I want to feel it against my face, let it run down my spine. It's like thousands of diamonds streaming from the sky, feeding the earth. There's just something so magical about it.

Another Little Poem

I twist the ring around my finger,

pull it off then put it on again.

I sit down on the grass

beside you. I tell you about

my day, how I

saw an old friend

bought a new shirt

found a penny on the ground.

The wind comes then and

I swear I can smell your

perfume, the one that smells

like daisies and red candy.

I stop talking and silence folds

around us. I keep playing with

the ring, but when I try to put it

back on it won’t fit.

I feel it then,

a tear running down my cheek

and then more come and

they won’t stop and it’s so

cold and my fingers are

trembling and I can’t get this

damn ring back on.

I close my eyes and

fall back against the grass

right beside you. I tell you about

my day, how I

stayed awake for hours

smelled your perfumes

stared at old pictures of you

until I had them memorized.

And I lie there next to you

and imagine you are

holding my hand. 

Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Contemporary fiction
Five stars

This book is about a girl named Hazel who has been diagnosed with a severe form of thyroid cancer. She's been surviving off of miracle pills, but she knows her illness has always been a terminal one. Limited by the oxygen tank she carts around, Hazel spends her time attending college classes and reading. And prompted by her mother, she attends a cancer support group where she meets the sexy, in-remission Augustus Waters. As their relationship develops, they will push and guide each other through pain, discovery, and love as they examine what it means to live and leave a mark on the world.

I usually don't buy books that I haven't read yet (from a friend or library), but I took a chance with this one. It just had such good reviews and the praises on the back are from three of my favourite authors - Markus Zusak, Jodi Picoult, and E. Lockhart. I had high expectations, and even though it was different from how I thought it would be, I fell in love. I fell in love with the writing, with the characters, with the pure rawness of the novel. This is my first John Green book, and he is just ridiculous. He manages to capture the spirit of a teenage girl so well in his writing, and he does it with such amazing depth and insight. His observations are striking in their beauty and realness, in their ability to evoke power in truth. I just read his words over and over. And his writing allows for such a connection with Hazel, for the way she sees the world and the people around her. The relationships are so realistically portrayed and developed, not only between her and Augustus, but with her parents as well. The dialogue between the characters is both hilarious and devastating. Picoult says it perfectly: "Filled with staccato bursts of humour and tragedy." I was literally laughing in the middle of my sobbing. But what really made the book was just the reality of it. The idea is not particularly unique, with the terminal illness and everything, but Green manages to bring such originality to it. You see the characters at their worst, you see the effects cancer has, not only on their life, but their family's. The cover calls it "irreverent," which I think is the perfect description. It is not some cheesy story about acceptance and coming to terms with death. It is about suffering and fear and finding meaning where you can.

I just want to keep reading it forever.

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it - or my observation of it - is temporary?”

Also recommended: How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford. This just reminds me of it.

Those Perfect Stars

Well it took me long enough, but I finally finished my short story. There comes a point in writing where you have to stop editing and just be done with it. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope it makes you feel something, helps you find meaning. That's all any writer can ask.

Please read it here. 

Review: Fall for Anything

Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers

Contemporary fiction

Four and a half stars

Eddie Reeves's father has committed suicide and she is left reeling in the aftermath, surrounded by questions that can never be answered. Her father was a brilliant photographer, full of life and inspiration and love. What could cause him to leave everything behind? Distancing herself from her friends, she soon becomes acquainted with one of her father's old students, Culler Evans, who reveals things about him that she never knew. With his help, she tries to uncover explanations, but their attraction grows and the relationship takes a dark turn. Eddie is shaken from grief but she needs Culler's help, and she must decide what she is willing to do for answers, and if they are truly worth knowing.

Courtney Summers is one of those authors I hate. I hate her for the way she touches subjects so deep in so few words, for how she captures the rawness of emotions so beautifully, and basically for her outrageous writing. She has been one of my biggest inspirations, and I am so envious of her talent. Her style is very distinct, very abstract and fragmented. This adds a powerful imagery to her writing. You become so engaged with the story and characters, so consumed in their emotions and struggles. Eddie's loss, not just of her father, but of herself, paints the whole novel, and there is an incredible connection between reader and character. Summers is so talented at developing her characters, making each one unique and giving you such a strong sketch of their personality. The relations and tensions between them are magnetic, explosive, beautiful. You are drawn in. And although the conflicts in her writing tend toward the dark, they are lightened by moments of laughter, joy, discovery. It's just a magical novel about death and friendship and letting go.

Just read it already.

“This is awful. This is so hopeless. We're all lost in different ways, so how do we even help each other find our way out. We won't. We can't. We'll just stay lost forever.”

Also recommended: Some Girls Are and Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers 

Review: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Dystopian fiction
Three and half stars

Dashner's book begins with the main character, Thomas, waking up in a dark lift with no memory of anything other than his name. When it's opened he is helped by a group of young boys living in the Glade, a section of land surrounded by large stone walls. Every morning the walls slide open, leading to a seemingly impossible maze that the boys have been trying to solve for years. And every night they close, sealing anyone outside from getting back in - and no one's returned alive. Thomas' arrival is no surprise as a boy is sent to the Glade once a month, but when a girl shows up the next day bringing a message, everything changes. As the group rushes to solve the maze and the way out, Thomas must search for answers of his own, starting with the ones locked beneath the surface of his memory.

So Dashner isn't one of the most poetic writers, but he definitely knows how to keep a reader interested. The book is very action-motivated, very straightforward in its delivery. There is a mood of suspense throughout it, which is frustrating at first because the reader is given little information, but becomes more exciting as the plot moves along and discoveries are made. Also, the writing style can create a lack of connection with the characters at times, an impression of flatness. But you do experience the sense of community between the group of boys, you understand their fear and desire for escape. It was fairly realistic in terms of their interactions and the way they organize themselves. There are moments of humour, pain, anger, anticipation. It's hard to put down because of the fast-paced plot, and I was legitimately terrified at a few places. Dashner's novel is adventurous, a little gruesome, but ultimately a story of survival.

“Just follow me and run like your life depends on it. Because it does.” 

Finish the series: The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure by James Dashner