Jenni from the book

Wow it's been a while since we've been here hasn't it? Well, that's largely due to me driving to work now (no more commuter reading), getting massively in to Gilmore Girls and having 7 whole seasons to binge watch (instead of reading), and really not enjoying the book I was reading (so I put it off a lot). However, we're back now, with another 5 books under my belt, ready to tell you what I thought. Obviously, the routine spoiler alert should be inserted here.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. The blurb describes it as the story of Bea Bishop who is about get married and yet on her wedding day, her universe splits. In one version of reality, she turns around and runs back up the aisle. And in the other version, she gets married as intended. Then as the two versions continue to play out, you see which was really the right decision. From that, it sounds like exactly my kind of book right? I've read ones with the same premise before and absolutely loved them but this one was a big fat disappointment. Let me start by saying that Bea is the most annoying protagonist I've ever known. She's unsure of every decision she makes, she's timid and insecure and tedious and has absolutely no desire to get the life she wants. Part of this reason turns out that she's suffered with depression and other mental health problems, and while I think it's important to shed light on such issues, this book wrote it in such a droney, moany way that I couldn't bear it. The book was also really badly written. The chapters weren't labelled very well so it became totally confusing about which version of reality we were in (a very important part of these kind of books) and everything was so over described and over laboured. Bea is into gardening so you get a 4 page description of the landscape before anything actually happens, and while Bea is going through a life revelation, you get 4 pages of repetitive ideas and feelings being spilled all over the page, when you as the reader knew she would come to this exact realisation 4 chapters ago. In fact, I actually started to skim read it by the end because I couldn't cope with how descriptive it was. It was like the author was writing an essay and was desperately trying to reach the minimum word count. And there was a big mystery event from Bea's past that's hinted at from the start and isn't revealed until the end, but instead of tension and suspense, the build-up created nothing but frustration. As for the actual story though, it wasn't a bad idea (just the execution that was poor). In the version where Bea marries Adam, they start off happy but then cracks begin to show because of his over-busy work schedule and her lack of inner peace and life purpose. In the version where Bea becomes a runaway bride, she moves home to face up to the demons of her past (such as her ex boyfriend, a tragedy from her early twenties, her absent dad and her depression) and begins to see what it really is she wants out of life after all. In both versions she ends up in the same place (the one I thought she'd end up in) and there's a nice message about discovering yourself and letting go of your past. However, the whole book also rams the message down your throat that you need someone by your side in order to be happy, that you need to see someone in order to get closure on them and that your mental health can be changed or controlled by other people. All ideas which I whole-heartedly disagree with. I don't know if it's because I couldn't identify with the main character in any sort of way, or if it was the author, her ideas, her writing style and her lack of ability to focus on the story, but this book was not a bit of me what so ever. It just goes to show, you can't judge a book by its cover (or its blurb).

I just knew that this book was going to be a bit of frivolous relief after the drag that was the last book and I was right. Oh My God What a Complete Aisling is the story of a woman who is sensible and practical and inbetween in every way. She's a comfortable weight but struggles to resist those high-weightwatchers-point items. She'd rather die than miss a good hotel breakfast but doesn't quite understand the over-hyped concept of brunch. And now she's 28, she's desperate for her boyfriend of 7 years, John, to propose to her. But when they realise they want different things, she sends her future in a different direction and heads off from her quiet Irish home town for the bright lights of Dublin. The first thing I'll say about this book is that Aisling was so lovable. Her internal thoughts and notes on today's society pegged her as old beyond her years and a little out of touch, but so funny and relatable. The second thing I'll say about this book is that it was really hard to read. Not because of serious subject matter or a complicated dystopian reality, but because it was Irish. So the names were all weird, the grammar is completely different and I couldn't even work out what some of the words meant. For example, Aisling's new roommate is called 'Sadhbh' but that's supposedly pronounced 'Sive'. So needless to say, the book took me longer than normal to get through. The other blaringly obvious thing about the book was that it lacked a story line. If you read it hoping for explosions, and drama and sordid love triangles then you'll be severely disappointed. Aisling and John break up at the beginning before eventually getting back together at the end (in a satisfyingly sweet and quiet way; no dramatic declarations of love). But that part isn't even really a massive focus through the whole book. Other than that, not much really happens. And yet surprisingly, I still quite enjoyed it. The author's ability to comment on things (like selfies and social media and fashion) that we all think (sometimes without realising it), made for a really fun read. The best way to sum it up would be to say that the book was about thoughts, feelings and people, rather than events. Not much happened, but there were a lot of relatable aspects and I especially liked the way it gently touched on the issue of abortion in The Republic of Ireland (which has since been legalised). Overall, not exactly a must-read and I can't say I'll bother with the sequel, but I did enjoy it.

Oh joy, another book that was virtually painful to get through. I don't know why I seem to have been struck by bad-luck-lightning but I've read a string of books in a row that I really haven't enjoyed. And to make matters worse, this one was basically false advertising. The blurb describes Lizzy, who has just been dumped and is on a mission to find the one when she meets the most cynical man she's ever met. "True love does exist and she's going to find it." From that description, I was expecting funny dating anecdote after funny dating anecdote, with the thorn in her side who ends up helping her and then they realise they were in love all along. Like the films What's Your Number and The Ugly Truth (both of which I love btw). It Had To Be You could not have been further from that and was in fact a very poor attempt at a rewrite of Bridget Jones.  The main character is meant to be lovable and funny while getting herself into some bizarre situations, while the main guy is sensible and serious and the opposite to her in every way. Even Lizzy's mum was written exactly the same as Bridget's mum, with lots of strange assumptions about Lizzy's love life and out-of-touch comments. But while Bridget Jones is timeless, this book was tiresome. The storyline wasn't like the one in the blurb; Lizzy gets dumped and then I genuinely couldn't tell you what happened for the following 200 pages, and then she befriends Elliot, he suggests they go for a singles night and they get together after that. Obviously in the classic "twist" things go wrong about 50 pages from the end, and then they get worse when Lizzy loses her job and then as if by magic, she's a roaring success in her career and Lizzy and Elliot are living happily ever after by the end. Even her single friend has gotten together with her newly-single brother by the end; all tied up in a nice little, totally unrealistic and totally boring bow. The book was doing everything that had been done before and the characters were ridiculous. Seemingly unable to create genuine, relatable characters, the author had the main character as an over-exaggerated Carrie from SATC, and her two friends as over-exaggerated versions of Charlotte and Miranda; the sweet homebird who likes knitting and has an old-fashioned landline, and the heartless career woman who threatens to destroy men if they mess with their friends. Yawn. Plus the relationship with her brother was just stupid; calling each other DJ and fist or chest bumping at every opportunity. The author may as well have established that they were siblings by giving them 'bro' and 'sis' tattoos. Funnily enough me and my brother were laughing at TV and books that do things like that; it's the laziest form of character relations that exists. As for the actual writing style of the book, that was lazy at best and downright terrible at worst. Punctuation was missing, the phrase 'her sister's cousin's son' was used (which FYI would just be her cousin's son), and a 'cloud of nicotine' was used to describe a smokey pub (it's a cloud of tobacco if anything; it was nicotine then we'd all be addicted to second-hand smoke). I don't think the author actually proofread her work, never mind put any actual effort or creativity into any aspect of the storyline. As I've mentioned before, I don't like a "too perfect" ending and this one ended up with Lizzy's struggling PR client suddenly becoming a worldwide phenomenon, Elliott and his life-long enemy making friends and even Lizzy bumping into the guy who dumped her at the beginning and he had gained loads of weight. If you wrote a list of clichés that appear in rom-coms and chick flicks and just threw them all at a blank notebook, then you would end up with this book. If I were a smarter (or less OCD) person then I would have abandoned the whole thing without finishing it.

I am so relieved that it was fourth time the charm. After a string of totally lack lustre or only so-so books, I decided to go with an author that I trusted, having read one of her other books (Maybe in Another Life, reviewed in a previous book post). And Taylor Jenkins Reid did not let me down. Her previous book was not only good on storyline but also on writing style and this one was no different. One True Loves is the story of Emma, who falls in love with, and later marries, her childhood sweetheart, Jesse. After 10 years together, they have travelled the world and are more in love than ever. Then Jesse gets on a helicopter that goes down somewhere over the ocean, never to be seen again. He is pronounced dead and Emma is left as a widow at 25, forced to try and put the pieces of her life back together. After years of grieving, she finds something she never thought she could have again; true love. After reconnecting with another guy, Sam (also from her school days), she ends up engaged. Then she gets a phone call 3 and a half years after Jesse disappeared; he's alive and he's coming back to her. As Emma struggles to work out what this means for both her and Jesse and her and Sam, the author beautifully explores whether or not it's possible to love two people at the same time, what it means to love truly and how to reconcile a heart that belongs in two places at once. BIG spoiler alert: Emma ends up with the person I expected her to, which was Sam. The message of the book is that being truly in love doesn't always mean being truly in love forever, and that the things that happen to us, around us and within us shape who we are as a person. Even though Emma and Jesse had been the perfect couple, surviving on a desert island for 3 years had changed him and losing him had changed her. The author wrote so beautifully and explored ideas about love in a way that was very poetic, articulate and conscientious. But she also explored feelings of grief very convincingly and even though Jesse ended up being alive, Emma's grief during the years inbetween was real and those chapters had me crying real tears. Although Emma had a very jarring choice to make, her inner thoughts were explored to just the right degree, without her ever grating on me or coming across as whiny. I was invested in the characters pretty much from the get-go and by 50 pages in, I was dying to see how it turned out. You got a glimpse of the three main characters as both teenagers, and as adults, and the transition was written convincingly so that the character development seemed legit. I totally got involved with Emma's decision because it was one I couldn't make myself either; I simultaneously wanted her to end up with both guys because both love stories were so captivating. And even though the book ended the way it did, the bittersweet messaging was one that I loved; you can love with your whole heart without it lasting forever and that's okay; you can be glad about it anyway.

Young adult books are always a risk because as far as I' concerned, they can be split into two distinct categories; books about adult topics that contain (or appeal to) young people, or books supposedly written for young adults that actually end up sounding like they're written for children. And you can never really tell which it will be by the blurb! Thankfully, Alex, approximately fit into the former category and it's a book that I think you can enjoy no matter what age you are. The book is essentially a modern day, teenage twist on You've Got Mail; Bailey chats online with a guy called Alex but neither use their real names or share intimate details of their life. Instead, they chat about their shared love of classic cinema and a shared sense of humour. So when Bailey moves across the country to live with her dad (coincidentally in the same state where she knows that Alex lives), she's keen to see if she can find him in real life, without simply telling him she's there. But who she meets instead is a guy called Porter who has a way of pushing all her buttons and riling her up the wrong way. As we all know though (and as You've Got Mail so clearly depicts), there's a thin line between love and hate and soon it's a different kind of button that Porter is pushing. As Bailey struggles with her feelings for the kindred spirit she knows online and the guy right in front of her who sets her soul on fire, what she doesn't realise is that the love triangle is all in her own head. Plot twist: the two guys are one and the same. Which you kind of know from the start but the subtle hints and eventual reveal are exciting rather than frustrating and the ending is just the right amount of happy, rather than fairytale. Although the romance was a central theme, it was far from the only theme though. Like I said, this young adult book covered some very adult topics like drug abuse, addiction, violence and gun crime. It also covered some slightly less shocking but no less important themes like guilt, forgiveness, adjustment, acceptance, ambition and a whole lot of other things that affect us from our young adulthood, all the way to old adulthood. I initially felt like the main character, Bailey, might annoy me because she's written as being pretty self conscious and a lover of slinking through the shadows and never giving her harsh, honest opinion. However, her character was realistic and personable without crossing the line into irritating and you really saw how she healed, changed and grew as the book went on. The book itself was well-written and didn't fall into the usual trap of using short words and short sentences just because it's designed for young people; the ideas and description were well written and I loved the theme about movies and cinema running through the book, with a small movie quote starting every chapter to hint at its upcoming content. Of course, there had to be a quote from You've Got Mail on one of the later chapters; it's a tale as old as time, as they say.