Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell

Synopsis: 

Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there's romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life. 

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible...

This book is the best thing ever. Most relatable piece of YA literature I've ever read. Definitely one of my favorite things these year. It was just... wow. Cath is... me. Like, I feel so identified with every thing she says. All these quotes..., such as "In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't Google)." Everything is so true. 

The book was really unique in its way, being the exact life of a 21st century fangirl and every day problems. Family. Friends. School. Love. The Simon Snow thing is just exactly like the Harry Potter one. I guess that was the point though, and everything was so accurate... The characters are great, every one in their way, from Reagan to Wren, Levi to Nick... 

All the details in the book were so accurate... Creating FanFixx.net for fanfiction.net, the Simon Snow series for the Harry Potter one (all the quotes, the newspaper articles about it, the story itself... so perfectly done), everything had been thought. 

Fangirl has provided me some of the best and most realistic and relatable quotes ever. From "How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying 'I don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge." to "Have you been watching me sleep?" "Yes, Bella. Are you awake?" "No.” (the moment when you know you're a 21st century teenager). I'm gonna use all the quotes from now on. And I can't wait to have more of Rainbow Rowell in my life. I need it. It's addicting and necessary. 

I loved the story. And the characters. And the fact that Cath wrote a gay fanfiction. 

And Levi. Wow. I would definitely fall for him too (besides the fact that the guy I'm in love with in RL is exactly like him in almost all the details... Like, who else speaks of bisons?). Levi was a real guy, as in not too fairytale-like, but not too movie-like or unreal. Not too perfect. His behavior was true, it was real, and that's what I appreciate the most in this book. How there's always an outgoing sister, and there's the fangirl one (who I am). There's always people who disappoint you, people who surprisingly friend you and are there for you, no matter how different you are. People who don't look like they are. People you need to care about. People you need to let them care about you. 

Fangirl is a book about life. Just like I said about Eleanor & Park, so I guess that's what Rainbow Rowell writes about. In its better way. Being a teenager nowadays is something special, something different. And, if like Cath, real life is something happening in your peripherical vision, that's being a fangirl. And you should be proud.  

The Fault In Our Stars movie

I finally got to watch TFIOS a couple of weeks ago, and it was everything that I had expected, or even better! :) I was so excited about it, and it did not disappoint me a bit. I am really glad that's happened, because usually almost everything disappoints me... 
The movie, overall, was pretty loyal to the book, and the only things they missed weren't that important, even though I would've loved to see the "Lonely, vaguely, pedophilic swing set seeks the butts of children" scenes :) But I was watching the movie, and I fell for Augustus Waters all over again... Ansel Elgort was great, with his smile and his performance. The cigarette metaphor, all the scenes with Hazel (Shailene did an awesome job too, in my opinion)... I loved it. 
I loved the fact that I finally found out how to pronounce Lidewij's name, which was something I was dying to know while reading the book.
The movie was beautiful... I am so happy about the adaptation to the big screen. John Green should be proud :) And the trip to Amsterdam, and Birdy's Not About Angels in the soundtrack, and Ansel with Shailene... It was great. I was watching, and I suddenly found myself in the part when they're leaving for Amsterdam, and that felt too soon, and then they love each other, and then he says he's sick and then... I started crying in that bench in Amsterdam that morning... And even if everything was sad from that point on, it was beautiful. And the quotes... 
So yeah, it was a great movie, and even if it's sad, which is why some people refuse to watch it, it is so beautiful that deserves us seeing it over and over again. 

Just One Year, by Gayle Forman (Just One Day #2)

Synopsis:

When he opens his eyes, Willem doesn’t know where in the world he is—Prague or Dubrovnik or back in Amsterdam. All he knows is that he is once again alone, and that he needs to find a girl named Lulu. They shared one magical day in Paris, and something about that day—that girl—makes Willem wonder if they aren’t fated to be together. He travels all over the world, from Mexico to India, hoping to reconnect with her. But as months go by and Lulu remains elusive, Willem starts to question if the hand of fate is as strong as he’d thought. . . .

While I was really, really excited to see the story from Willem’s point of view, this one was sort of a disappointment. I expected Willem to be much more of a deep character, one of those I love and will always remember, but, even if there were many things in his life that seemed to be trying to help him become one, the way he acted was too… shallow? I don’t know how to find the right word. The first example of awful behavior in my opinion is the fact that he didn’t even ask Lulu for her real name. Really? And then when they are pushed apart by another accident, he decides all he wants to do is find her?

I loved the way he travelled the world looking for Allyson, from Mexico to India. But I’m not a fan of the way he treats women in general, all there in his way to Lulu, important and useless at the same time. His mother was an interesting character, with a beautiful name and love story as background, and then mysterious attitude in her relationship with Willem. I like Kate, but I don’t think her relationship with Willem is realistic. Meeting in Mexico, and then talking again months later and with all that trust and like they knew themselves since forever? Sort of weird, but nice. Willem meets so many people during his journey, and he grows sort of attached to everyone. Everyone that seems distant (his mom, his uncle) at first, ends up perfectly happy with him. The ending is too perfect. When he gives up, finds something to do, fixes his relationship with friends and family, Allyson suddenly appears. And they kiss. Out of nowhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these books. A lot. I’m really grateful to Gayle Forman for writing them. But these cannot end like this! After a year, they find each other. And then what?? I need to know. I really need to know. I see myself in a couple of years acting like TFIOS Hazel and Gus and sending letters to the author for answers. But it’s also a good ending; it makes me think that the purpose of the story isn’t them as a couple, them loving each other, but all the accidents that happen and bring them together or apart, all the small things that happen in life, coincidences and all, that change the path we follow. 

Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Synopsis:

Two misfits.

One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

I ran into this book by pure chance. I was looking for Fangirl, but I couldn’t find it, no matter how many bookstores I checked, so I decided to meet Rainbow Rowell by Eleanor & Park instead. And it didn’t disappoint me a bit.

Eleanor & Park is a story about life. It shows us the worst part of it, but also the best one, and it’s both depressing and hopeful at the same time. Eleanor and Park are both so different, but also similar in so many ways. This book made me smile a lot, but it also made me sad so many times. There are all those hopeless scenes when you think everything, no matter how unfair it is, can’t be helped and I don’t know what to do about it. But then there’s another scene where everything, no matter how awkward, is better only because Eleanor and Park are together. They are just so brave, fighting to be together no matter what.

But then the ending arrives, and everything just breaks down into pieces. I don’t understand Eleanor. Then I cry. Then I still cannot understand. Why does it end like that? And then, last sentence, a trace of hope. The end. It’s like the whole novel had a pace, a getting-to-know-each-other pace, and then suddenly she’s gone and everything comes crashing down to the ending.

But I loved the book so much… Hope, dreams, disappointments, tears, laughs, music, comics, family, friendship, love…; the story is life. And we should all read a love story as hopeful and realistic as this one. 

Just One Day, by Gayle Forman (Just One Day #1)

Synopsis:

Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.

This book was the best thing I’ve run into for a long, long while. I fell in love with it in the third page, when my mind had processed how beautiful Gayle Forman’s writing is. Even in the first scene, where Allyson and Melanie are just waiting there in line to see a play, everything was told really naturally, really gracefully and with complete honesty. And that’s the kind of writing that I enjoy reading the most.

About the characters... the secondary characters, meaning everyone who’s not Allyson or Willem, were pretty strong in the novel, allowing the main characters to express themselves with other people who reflected different characteristics of theirs. Céline was a part of Willem that he didn’t show to Allyson (or Lulu), just like her friends, both Melanie and the ones she met at university, and her family helped developing the character. Since the story was focused on Allyson, Willem was sort of an unknown character to us readers; we only knew what Allyson knew, which was interesting. He remained sort of a mystery throughout the whole novel, and that’s why the second book in the bilogy is about him, about his life and his feelings.

The story didn’t have much of a plot, since it was mainly about finding that guy Allyson spent a day with. But I like the idea. I don’t think it’s feasible in real life, I mean, it’s only one day; that many things and feelings and obsession happening in a day? I find it beautiful that she spends a full year looking for him, but I don’t see it that realistic. But the thing about the book, how I interpret it, is that the important thing is not the stuff that happens, meaning the action is not the main thing. It’s a story about hope, memories, love, and, above everything else, accidents.