[REVIEW] To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Summary: Lara Jean’s love life gets complicated in this New York Times bestselling “lovely, lighthearted romance” from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series.

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once?

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control. 

---

Rating: ★★★

---

General Thoughts: The series is overall overhyped, but it's still a cute and fun read for a day when you have nothing else to do :)

Plot: I thought the concept was very original, but also some things were just too convenient for the plot to be a coincidence. I do like the fake dating trope but I feel that it was lacking here :/ I also got a ton of second-hand embarrassment from Lara Jean :')

Writing: Nothing extraordinary, nothing awful. Just average and unmemorable.

Characters and Romance: I really liked Lara Jean and related to her. Some people say she was too childish but I didn't really see that. I also liked her dynamic with her two sisters. In the first book, however, I'm not at all a fan of Peter. He's honestly just a mean person with almost no redeeming traits. I like the romance in the sequels, but in the first book it was kind of meh.

Diversity: Good! Lara Jean and her sisters are biracial, Korean American. Not much relationship diversity, though, except for one token gay guy.

Do I Recommend?: Yes, but not as priority. The sequels are better.

Explanation + Exams are Evil

Hey!! So, I haven't posted in just over a week. But I do have a reasonable excuse, since I'm taking exams rn and they're Evil Villains Who I'd Love To Kill. I'll be back in a few days hopefully :)

[REVIEW] Daughter of Smoke and Bone Series by Laini Taylor

Summary: Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

The books in order are: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight, Dreams of Gods and Monsters.

---

Rating: ★★★★½

---

General Thoughts: Daughter of Smoke and Bone was truly amazing. It was the series that kickstarted me back into reading basically every day again and restarted my passion for YA. It's a very enjoyable series that will get you totally absorbed for days.

Plot: The plot was very wild and intriguing. The first book starts off in Prague but then we get transported all over the world and then mostly in whole other kingdoms in the later books. At a few points, it was difficult to follow and some things didn't seem to make sense but everything would then fit together and you would have many aha! moments. I loved all the twists and turns.

Writing: Laini Taylor's writing is AMAZING. Like, wow. I have no words to express how perfect it was. As well, the worldbuilding was so well done and intricate and compelling. In the third book, things dragged occasionally because it was so long, but not as much in the other books.

Characters and Romance: I love every single one of the characters, both main and supporting. Karou was so awesome and I want to be her, and I also adored Akiva, Zuzana, Mik, Liraz, Eliza,

 and everyone else. Except for that evil chief guy and Kaz (not from Six of Crows, lol). 

The romance was really well done as well. Akiva and Karou had a ton of chemistry, and I also loved Zuzana and Mik together. I grew to like Liraz and Ziri by the end, too.

Diversity: DoSaB actually had quite a lot of diversity, most notably Liraz being asexual which I haven't seen before in mainstream YA. Akiva and his whole family are POCs as well. Eliza in the third book is an amazing WOC.

Do I Recommend?: Yes, if you're into high fantasy! :)

[REVIEW] The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Summary: Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

---

Rating: ★★½

---

General Thoughts: I have so many mixed thoughts about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed it and I liked Charlie, but I also have beef with it, especially about how unrealistic it was.

Plot: The plot was an extreme mess. I guess it was supposed to be snapshots of time with Charlie's letters, but not much got resolved. There were so many important issues brought up and then gone again in three pages. Highlight to view spoilers: Charlie's sister got pregnant so they both just went to get an abortion and then they both forgot about it in three pages. Also, Charlie took LSD and there were no consequences afterwards, like with withdrawal? I'm a freshman in highschool myself and the events in this book were just extremely unrealistic and unlikely. Everyone knows that having senior friends is the worst decision you can have, especially if they're shady af. But the thing that most ticked me off was Charlie getting straight As even though he was never stressed, never did his work, and goofed around so much and got high all the time??? And the ending chapter was unnecessary and frustrating. Chbosky could have easily ended the book at the previous chapter, especially since this is a standalone.

Writing: I actually did like the writing, and Charlie's voice was unique and enjoyable. He's so brutally honest about things without realizing it. The formatting as a letter to an unknown friend was cool.

Characters and Romance: I liked Charlie but he kept making really stupid decisions. I also liked Patrick but his arc was barely resolved. I honestly couldn't stand most anybody else. The romance was also weird, since there was that big age gap, and the characters never had any chemistry, in my opinion.

Diversity: The diversity was meh with this one. It was published in the previous century, so I wasn't really expecting it to be super diverse. Everyone was white, but Patrick was gay. He dealt with a lot of homophobia and there was the trope of him dating a guy who would bully him in front of others. So, meh.

Do I Recommend?: I guess if you're one for reading classics, you shouldn't miss this one. But it's not really one for everyone. Pick it up if you want but it's not a priority read.

[REVIEW] I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Summary: Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

---

Rating: ★★★½

---

General Thoughts: This book was very beautiful, and the writing was my favorite part. In general, I preferred Noah to Jude.

Plot: It was certainly an original plot. Jude's story was very uninteresting for me, compared to Noah's, and her point of view was a bit too spiritual and Christian for me, especially with the grandmother's ghost. I also thought it connected together in very cool ways. The sideplot with the Sweetwine parents was interesting and also sad. One particular scene I loved was when Noah and his dad went out to dinner together, and the scene that came right after that.

That being said, I thought that the pacing was a bit off. We got the first week of Noah and Brian when they first met, but then the rest was told in about two pages plus that last party scene, and so we didn't get to see the relationship develop. I think that it could have been improved by switching POVs more often between Jude and Noah.

Writing: As I said before, the writing was my favorite part. There were many beautiful and quotable lines. The voices of Noah and Jude were very distinct and unique.

Characters and Romance: I really loved and related to Noah, more than I did to Jude. As I mentioned before, it would have been nice if Noah and Brian had had more time for development, but it was still a very good pairing. I also felt really uncomfortable with the romance between Jude and Oscar, because of the age gap. The book started to go on a path of "okay, you're too young, let's wait a few years and meet again" but it then went on a path of "I don't care, we can make this work now because I love you" which I didn't like.

Diversity: It was nice to see the diversity relationship-wise, but also, everyone was white. There wasn't even a token POC in the story. Also, there was some slut-shaming in Noah's POV towards 14 y/o girls. They were, in fact, mean binches, but Noah wasn't shaming them for that; he was shaming them for having relationships and dressing how they wanted to.

Do I Recommend?: Yes, if you don't mind metaphors.