It’s time to resign myself to the fact that I will never love anything like I love this series.
These books made me INTO WHO I AM. (Which explains why It’s time to resign myself to the fact that I will never love anything like I love this series.
These books made me INTO WHO I AM. (Which explains why I am such a negative and unpleasant person.)
Other series may contain things I love, but those series will never be why I love those things.
A Series of Unfortunate Events can be thanked for my love of: secrecy, darkness, snarky humor, silliness, puns, literary humor, orphans, illustrations, crime, libraries, mnemonic devices, chewing gum, mystery, secret societies, battles between good and evil, grammar, journeys, riddles, villainy, moral enigmas, problem-solving, disguise, and murder.
This installment in particular contains most of the above list, as well as submarines, creative cooking, deathly mushrooms, large pasta used as a weapon, betrayal, hidden identities revealed, and underwater monsters shaped like question marks.
Maybe it is not a perfect book, but would an imperfect book contain words as perfect as these?: “People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”
I think not.
Bottom line: I would never want to live inside this book, but at the same time, I would very much like to live inside this book.
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the time i took before picking up this book was a Very Foolish Delay.
at the same time...I NEVER WANT TO FINISH THIS REREAD.
review to come / 5 stars
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suddenly unable to remember why i ever read anything other than this series...more
Once again I get the chance to say (write?) the most glorious words in the English language: This is a particularly fantastic installment in the GREATOnce again I get the chance to say (write?) the most glorious words in the English language: This is a particularly fantastic installment in the GREATEST SERIES OF ALL TIME.
In case you're new here or somehow able to ignore me doing the internet equivalent of nonstop screaming about this series: I LOVE THESE BOOKS SO MUCH.
This one is, as mentioned, particularly next-level at putting all other excuses for literature to shame. It breaks from the typical format. Our lil gang grows up. There's an exploration of moral absolutism, a questioning of whether anyone is truly good or evil, and whether evil acts can be motivated by pure intentions. There's a condemnation of normalcy, one which points out (TO A MAIN AUDIENCE OF CHILDREN MAY I REMIND YOU) that no one is normal and everyone's got something freakish about them.
Also, there are fortune-tellers and inventions and disguises and Thai food and page repetition to mock déjà vu and, as always, some of the best world-building and narration of all time.
IT'S A GREAT BOOK AND I HAVE A MIGRAINE SO I NEED TO STOP LOOKING AT A SCREEN NOW.
Bottom line: If you haven't read these books yet and don't plan to in the immediate future, clearly you don't care about me AT ALL....more
I love this series - which, in case you live under a rock or have been up to this point blessed enough to have a GoodOH HELL YEAH BABY.
OH. HELL. YEAH.
I love this series - which, in case you live under a rock or have been up to this point blessed enough to have a Goodreads feed untouched by my screaming, is my favorite in the world - for so many reasons.
These reasons include: - the characters - the world - the language - the precision of the secrecy - the mystery - EVERYTHING, BASICALLY.
And this book is standout in all of those categories even in the realm of this series!!! Like, can you believe. Lemony Snicket really out here blessing us in ways we didn’t know we needed.
The characters introduced here are so fun, and the Baudelaires and Olaf and his troupe are at some of their respective fun peaks!!! The settings, including the city and the auction and the endless apartment and its building, are particularly AMAZING. And everything else is as always better and better, BECAUSE BASICALLY THIS SERIES JUST GETS BETTER AS IT GOES ALONG EVEN WHEN YOU DIDN’T THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE WITH VERY FEW BLIPS AT ALL.
Yes, technically this is the fifth book in the series, but to me, it is the very first.
This is the book when I really start to love tAND SO IT BEGINS.
Yes, technically this is the fifth book in the series, but to me, it is the very first.
This is the book when I really start to love this series, which, in case you are new to my reviews or have been otherwise purposefully ignoring my Snicket-related screeching, is my favorite in the world.
This book introduces V.F.D., my favorite combination of three letters in the universe. Over such fan favorites as "eat" and "bye." This book also introduces the Quagmire triplets, who, in addition to being completely great on their own merit, in turn introduce a complex world of fatal fires and imperiled fortunes. The setting of Prufrock Prep is great. The cast of characters is great, and, with a few notable exceptions, pretty nuanced.
Count Olaf is probably at his most villainous here, because he is a Gym Teacher Who Forces Children To Run Laps. What could be more completely godawful than that??????? Full-on evil.
Also, "austere" has been my favorite word for years, and I learned it from this title. Mad bonus points for that.
Bottom line: I LOVE THIS SERIES I LOVE THIS SERIES I LOOOOVEEEEE THIIIIIIIS SEEEEEERIEEEEES....more
I love Uncle Monty. I love his coconut cake. I love the Incredibly Deadly Viper. I love the movie theater and the popcorn and ZombiI love Uncle Monty.
I love Uncle Monty. I love his coconut cake. I love the Incredibly Deadly Viper. I love the movie theater and the popcorn and Zombies in the Snow; I love Monty’s house and his shaped shrubs and his plans to voyage to Peru.
I love the Reptile Room (the place) and I love The Reptile Room (the book).
It is unusual for me to be so teeming with love. I’m not well adjusted to it. I may overdose, or my body might reject the chemical reaction in my brain, or something. BUT I LOVE THIS BOOK.
The Bad Beginning is so great, but it is only a fraction of the level of Varied, Full Detail this series will reach. This book kind of hints at it. AND YET IS STILL NOT QUITE AS GREAT AS THE SERIES BECOMES. Which is why my rating for this book is like, a 4.75, technically speaking, or something ridiculous like that. Because it’s all uphill from here, folks.
Well, generally. Not exactly. The Wide Window is not as good as this book. But whatever; you get what I mean.
Bottom line: I CANNOT WAIT to go home for break so I can continue my reread of this series. I am more excited to reunite with these books than I am to do so with most friends and family. #Priorities, people.
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oh my GOD i love this series so much.
so much so much so much so much so much so MUCH.
what a sequel, am i right? what a follow up. if you think about it this is one of the more important books of the series.
anyway. four to five stars. not my favorite of the series but far from the least. maybe in my top 5 of the books. (how ridiculous that this series is so immense that being in my top five is fairly elite.)
I’LL GIVE THIS BOOK THE SUN. FIVE SUNS. More than that, if Goodreads had ever answered my impassioned plea to add a sixth star (which I sent by pony eI’LL GIVE THIS BOOK THE SUN. FIVE SUNS. More than that, if Goodreads had ever answered my impassioned plea to add a sixth star (which I sent by pony express after one too many perfect books). (Pony express means mail, right? I’m a fan of that.)
How do I love thee, book? Let me count the ways. (That’s both a reference to this book and an illustration of how difficult it will be to put my intense adoration of it into, like, a semi-coherent review.) (Sidenote: I’ve never strived for anything higher than semi-coherent.)
Let’s start with the characters. God, do I love the people in this book. They are so, so, so imperfect - imperfect doesn’t even begin to cover it. They should suck, honestly. I should hate them. In fact, I should hate this whole shindig for the things that happen in it. In any other context, they’d give me second-hand embarrassment cringes so hard it’d shoot this book down to two stars. But NOT HERE. This sh*t is different.
These characters are so human. They’re so lovable and deeply good that you’d forgive them for anything. Seriously. All of them do at least one thing (and mostly more than one) that should be, like, narrative-shatteringly awful, and instead manages to make them even better. I can’t explain it. YOU JUST HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK.
This book has alternating perspectives between 2 twins: Noah when he was 13, and Jude when she’s 16 (which is the present). Noah is so creative and talented and amazing, and Jude is such a badass and so interesting and equally amazing. Their mom’s a whirlwind, which has its ups and downs, and their dad starts off not great but becomes the best. There’s Brian, who loves space, and Guillermo, one of the greatest sculptors ever, and Oscar, who I’m not going to try to put into words. (Hands down the most inherently confusing character.) They’re all so wonderful and I wish I knew them in real life and could join their lil ragtag group of pals.
The character development is just unreal.
Also, the depiction of family is pretty amazing. (I’m going to use the words “great” and “amazing” a bajillion times in this review, AND I’M NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE.) They can mistreat each other and fight and generally seem toxic, but they all love each other and they’re all good people. SCRATCH THAT - MAGNIFICENT people. (You thought I was done talking about how much I love these characters? Ya burnt. I’m going to spend the rest of my life talking about them. Every review from now on? Name-dropping Noah and Jude. Get used to it.)
What else, what else...the writing was just really beautiful. I’m always really happy to see that in YA. It’s pretty rare for a young adult contemporary to just be genuinely, no-holds-barred gorgeous.
And y’all know I love when my books are filled with fun facts. I wish every book had some character just inserting cool information in every once in awhile. This book? EVERY CHARACTER IS DOING THAT. There’s so much fun sh*t about superstition and art and sculpting and space in this book. Ugh. God, it’s perfect. It’s like Jandy Nelson read my mind and made this book to check all my boxes. WHAT A DREAM.
I thought there’d be one major downside. That’s the discussion of fate and ~true love~ in this book, neither of which I believe in and both of which I pretty consistently find dumb in like, every YA contemporary ever. But this book, no surprise at this point, IS DIFFERENT. It’s so well done and just makes you feel all warm inside and root for the characters. Hurray, hurray. I miss this book already.
The cherry on top, you ask? The best fictional encapsulation of and response to slut-shaming I’ve ever seen is contained within THESE VERY PAGES. When thirteen/fourteen-year-old Jude and her mom are fighting about everything, including Jude’s clothing and makeup choices, mommy dearest always asks if she reallyyyyyy wants to be “that girl.” Pretty yuck, right? The only blemish on the perfect record of this masterpiece.
But then. But then! Blemish surgically removed, or whatever. (That was really gross. I’m so sorry.) Jude has a realization. A great, perfect, better-than-cherry-on-top epiphany. I like cherries, but this is more like the lottery ticket on top, or the Zac Efron in Baywatch (a bad movie) on top. Jude realizes: “Maybe Mom was wrong about that girl after all. Because that girl spits on guys who treat her badly. Maybe it’s that girl who’s been missing. [...] I didn’t bring the bad luck to us, no matter how much it felt that way. It brought itself. It brings itself. And maybe it’s that girl who’s now brave enough to admit [it].”
A little bit of editing to remove minor spoilers, but how amazing is that?
Your clothing or your makeup don’t change who you are. They don’t prevent you from being a badass, or a good person, or brave.
God, I love this book. Read it in a couple days, and miss it already.
Can you believe how genuine this review was? That’s a testament to my loveeee for this book.
Bottom line: This is going on the all-time favorites list. EVERYONE: READ THIS PLEASE. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Even better the second time around.
* because if i don't enjoy it i might finally lose my marbles once and for all
(those invested in my mental health will be delighted to know that this is still 5 stars. less delighted to know that it made me tear up and threatened to send me spiraling anyway, but you can't win them all.)...more
Okay. Sorry about that. I just remembered the words "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more," and any time that happens I'm obliged to find the nearest abyss and scream into it for the next 3-5 business days.
Now that we've wrapped that up, let's get to it:
This is a perfect book.
Is this the first Jane Austen book I've rated five stars? No. Is this the first time I've wished there was a sixth star I could apply to a Jane Austen book? Also no. But is this the most INTENSELY I've ever wished that? Hard yes.
This has EVERYTHING a Jane Austen book could possibly have. And also more. (Ignoring the fact that it is possible, since this book has it. Stop undermining my enthusiastic if illogical points, hypothetical person reading this. Meanie.)
It has: - the beautiful writing, social commentary, and biting wit of all her books - the actual hilarity of Persuasion - the - and I hate to use this phrase, a phrase which makes me want to die of cringing, but it's necessary - swoon-worthy (gag) hero of Northanger Abbey (yes, Mr. Tilney is my favorite Austen hero, what about it) - the I-am-going-to-scoop-my-heart-out-with-a-spoon level romance of Pride & Prejudice - the perfectcomplicatedlovely family dynamics of Sense & Sensibility - and the nothing of Mansfield Park, because that book is not good and we should all live to forget it.
On top of that, we have a heroine that makes all of our pal Janie's other protagonists look like cardboard cutouts of Girl Scouts. Just flat, nice girls. No depth to them. (This is a great simile, don't you think? I'm proud, personally.)
Emma is complicated, bratty, spoiled, a little dumb sometimes. She should be hard to like...and yet...
I loved her from page 1. Give me every stubborn but well-motivated funny girl with a sharp tongue. I'll take all of them, thank you.
And it's not name bias. Years of being in elementary school classes that forced me to be called by last name due to sheer number of Emmas has ensured that I will NEVER be predisposed to someone I have a first name in common with.
Ever.
Bottom line: I want to reread this already. And I'm actually writing reviews lately, so it hasn't even been that long.
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two things: 1) emma is a nightmare. 2) i'm not sure if i want to be her or marry her.
review to come / 5 STARS!!!!!!!!!!
---------------- currently-reading updates
okay, NOW it's time.
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me: i love jane austen anyone: me too!! don't you love Emma?? me: uh... (long pause) i haven't read it anyone: ...but - me: yes, i know anyone: your name - me: yes, it's emma anyone: ... me: i'm saving it to be the last austen i read anyone: ... me: to me this is a normal, logical thought anyone: ... me: imagine living in my head anyone: *collapses*...more
Please read the following sentence as if I am singing it, joyfully:
IT’S THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLDDDDDD.
Also, I hope you mentally gave me a beautiful Please read the following sentence as if I am singing it, joyfully:
IT’S THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLDDDDDD.
Also, I hope you mentally gave me a beautiful singing voice. I’m not saying I have one but I am saying that’s the polite thing to do.
Anyway: THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I love it so much oh my god. Unless you are new here (in which case, welcome and you have made a grave mistake), you know how I feel about middle grade. How I feel about middle grade is this: I LOVE IT.
Middle grade is like young adult if young adult wasn’t so dramatic, and didn’t have a million boring/dramatic/unnecessary subplots, and wasn’t legally required under the jurisdiction of the United Nations to contain a romance.
In other words, if everything that sucked so hard about YA didn’t exist.
A utopia!
Middle grade adventure is especially good, and this book is the most especially good example of the most especially good of the most especially good.
Even just writing about it makes me so happy I can barely type out rational thoughts!!! (Don’t say what else is new. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s nice. See: the beginning of this review.)
The Mysterious Benedict Society is action-packed. It is also riddles-packed, and mystery-packed, and excitement-packed, and friendship-packed, and character development-packed, and knowledge-packed, and everything that is wonderful in this world-packed.
I loved it when I was ten. I loved it when I reread it in early high school. And I love it now, when my opinions are actually trustworthy. (Ten year old me liked every book she read and early high school me wore like 18 layers of mascara every day so don’t go around listening to either of them.)
Rereading this was a pleasure even while I was in the midst of a reading slump for the ages, which is proof that it’s good all the time no matter who you are!!
It’s also pretty shockingly diverse, for 2007. Like, could give most YA fantasy published in 2018 a run for its money.
The friendships and family in this are so wonderful, and the characters themselves are lil sweethearts you just want to hug, and the whole thing is such a tension-filled action-packed mind-blowing event that you’ll never want it to end.
Now I want to reread the sequels.
Bottom line: THIS BOOK IS THE BEST BOOK AND I RECOMMEND IT UNIVERSALLY. Also, by “recommend,” I mean “will foist it upon you by force if necessary.”
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IS THERE A BOOK IN THE WORLD I LOVE MORE THAN THIS BOOK?
I am physically unqualified, because I could write infinite words about how much I love this book, and I I am so unqualified to write about this book.
I am physically unqualified, because I could write infinite words about how much I love this book, and I type in a weird way that makes my wrists hurt so infinity is simply not going to happen.
I am emotionally unqualified, because I lack emotional intelligence when it comes to my own feelings and the idea of trying to explain how I feel about this book is overwhelming.
I am spiritually unqualified, because of the aforementioned overwhelmed-ness.
I am also unqualified generally, in the grand scheme of things, because so many people have written so intelligently about the wonderfulness of this book and I have nothing better to add.
Just more rambling like this.
I read a lot of romance, and if you want to venture a theory as to why, I’d love to hear it. I very seldom like it, so maybe it’s a masochist tendency. Maybe I’m a glutton for the attention that writing negative reviews of popular books gives me. (Definitely not that one, since the few mean comments always outweigh the far more numerous nice ones in my stupid brain.) Whatever.
I read a lot of romance, but I almost never feel anything about it.
I LOVE this book. It gives me...uh…(everyone stop reading this to save me the embarrassment and allow me to preserve my rough and tumble reputation)...butterflies.
I know. I’m cringing forever. But it’s true.
This is a lovely book. It’s beautifully written, it’s funny, it’s filled with characters who feel full and real and different from one another (even though half of them have the same name), and it truly is the best love story ever told.
What more could you ask for?! Spoiled rotten, the lot of you.
Bottom line: A dream.
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i am currently being paid to reread this book. highly recommend that everyone works in publishing
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starting a fundraiser to raise money for a monument in honor of Jane Austen's brain
review to come / 5 stars obviously
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my heart has space for exactly 435 pages. the entirety of my heart is made up of Pride & Prejudice. nothing else....more
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
i fin“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
i find it almost impossible to write on this book at all, let alone extensively enough to constitute a review. it's just so lovely and wonderful, and it really seems like one of those books that reveals another facet with every reading.
(it was just as delightful the second and third read as the first, and nearly as great in english as in french.)
And if you like any of those things, or all of those things, or several of them or none of them, or if you find any of them exciting, or compelling, or curiosity-inducing at all, then you simply have to read it.
This is one of those extraordinarily rare cases when the film adaptation sometimes prompts people to say the uncommon phrase “The movie is better than the book.” Those people are wrong, but less wrong than those who usually say it.
The movie is funny, and exciting, and brilliantly casted, and truer to the book than anyone has any real right to expect (thank you, William Goldman, for adapting your own work).
But here’s a by no means exhaustive list of what it’s missing: - the full extent of the author’s wit - character backstories so rich you’ll feel their trials and tribulations intensely - a fictional history so convincing that I spent most of my childhood (and some of my adolescence) believing that Europe included long-warring countries called Florin and Guilder - masterful themes on the meaning of storytelling and truth in literature - the chance to be awestruck by a book over and over and over again
So yes, you should watch the movie. Sure. It’s great.
But more than that, you should read the book.
(I’ll even say it’s okay if you’ve seen the movie already. Your fun won’t be spoiled in the slightest.)
Bottom line: I truly and sincerely pity anyone who has not read and has no intention of reading The Princess Bride.
It’s the best thing in the world, after cough drops.
Is this the cleverest book of all time? I think this is the cleverest book of all time.
I so deeply enjoyed rereading this. When I was younger, I wouldIs this the cleverest book of all time? I think this is the cleverest book of all time.
I so deeply enjoyed rereading this. When I was younger, I would only keep books that I would reread over and over - and I would pick up each one, seriously, an average of 4 to 6 times. I believe this absolute insanity is why I was unable to reread for the subsequent, like, 6 years. But now we're BACK. And it's been a mixed bag, but rereading this was just the greatest.
There were so many puns and allusions and metaphors I didn't understand the first (eleven) times I read it, so they made rereading this like a whole new experience. I read it in a sitting! It was such a blast.
And - it thrills me to be able to state - THAT SETTING THOUGH!!!!! God, I want to drop a visit to the Lands Beyond so badly. Don't you guys wish you could jump into books, just for a hot second? Or, at the very least, a mysterious tollbooth would be given to you to grant you passage into a mysterious kingdom filled with puns. I mean, come on.
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This is only going to be a mini review because I don't even know how much I can joke about this book. I have a major soft spot for it, okay?! We all have our things.
Bottom line: Totally give this book a try. It's compelling, and clever, and short, and the characters are so cute, and the setting is so fascinating and creative and fun and amazing, and the whole thing will stick to ya like glue. I'll never be able to escape this book, and I'm not mad about it....more
YES!!! The least fascinatingly detailed book in my favorite series! It just keeps getting better and better, folks.
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So, for the three misguided YES!!! The least fascinatingly detailed book in my favorite series! It just keeps getting better and better, folks.
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So, for the three misguided people who haven’t read this series - first off, get ON THAT. What are you doing? There is nothing so important in your life that you can’t put it off in order to read this series.
Second, we follow the Baudelaires - Violet, Klaus, and Sunny - through what can only be Very Foreseeably Described as a series of unfortunate events. I can’t put it better than Lemony Snicket himself, so I’ll just shoehorn in his words: Within these pages, “the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.”
[image]
So the things about these books...the setting is amazing. Lemony Snicket creates this almost-reality wherein even the smallest, most mundane occurrence is Veritably Fixed & Deliberate.
This phenomenon becomes more and more clear as the series progresses, which is why the first book is the worst one. (Or maybe the last one is, depending on how many questions it answers.) None of these sneaky, behind the scenes things are a Visibly Forceful Development in the first book, so it’s not as fun.
But I loved this series so much in my childhood. Lemony Snicket taught me the power of books, and of words. Most stuff, when you’re a kid, makes you feel like anything you could do would be nothing more than a Viciously Futile Diversion. But I have vivid memories of being a fairly small child and intensely poring over the pages of these books, looking for clues and ways to help the Baudelaires and, as this book says, “the people who liked them.” And I felt like I was doing something, even if it was fictional.
I have Lemony Snicket to thank for a lot of things.
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Anyway. I’m getting almost...dare I say…emotional, so I’m going to wrap this up. These books are funny, exciting, dark, and teeming with clues and Easter eggs for those who care to look. On top of it all, the TV series is a pitch-perfect adaptation, and if you ask me about the movie I’ll look you right in the eye (but not actually) and ask what movie you’re talking about.
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Man, I love these books. I could reread them every year and never get bored. (I know this because of a very scientific process wherein I reread them pretty much every year.)
Bottom line: READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT READ IT!!!!
Does anyone have access to a rooftop? Preferably in a big city, or at least a town of reasonable size. High enough for it to be noticeably a rooftop, Does anyone have access to a rooftop? Preferably in a big city, or at least a town of reasonable size. High enough for it to be noticeably a rooftop, but absolutely NO higher than that because I have a mildly-to-seriously debilitating fear of heights. Maybe you’re an electrician, or a building super, or simply a very sneaky person with a skill for discovering high-up places. Whatever. I just need temporary roof access.
Because, ahem…
I LOVE THIS BOOK AND I NEED TO SCREAM IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS.
This is creepy and exciting and beautifully written and filled with wonderful characters and settings and scenes. I love Neil Gaiman, as of recently, and I most especially love Coraline (both book and character). I love it enough to read it multiple times, and also read the graphic novel at least once (possibly more), and also see the movie several times over (including in theaters with my whole family, including my very very small and very very scared brother).
I saw the movie before I read the book, and for that I repent.
There are so many little things from this that have stuck in my memory: the character voice of the cat; the talking terriers in Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s apartment; the all-knowing circus mice; the fact that when Coraline had to feed herself, she went to the grocery store and bought herself a bag of apples and a whole chocolate cake (the biggest mood ever).
Also, that reminds me that this is the best book ever for talking animals.
I just love this story. I love everything about it. It is, for me, a perfect book.
Now I want apples and chocolate cake.
Bottom line: I love fairytales, and this is my favorite one.
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nothing in this world brings me comfort and joy like this book
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i have to read 4 books in 4 days to finish my reading challenge and i'm stressed and today is the first day i don't feel sick in 2 weeks and there's so much to do and i have no motivation to do it and yes in conclusion i'm reading coraline for the second time this year.
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this is a top to bottom perfect book.
review to come
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i love this book so much i want to absorb it into myself, but that is physically impossible.
so i'm rereading it, which is the next best thing....more
i genuinely, truly, from the bottom of my cold and shriveled heart where very little other than hate and vitriol can possibly exist...love this book.
ai genuinely, truly, from the bottom of my cold and shriveled heart where very little other than hate and vitriol can possibly exist...love this book.
and it just seems that no matter how old i am or where i'm at or what i want from it, i still do. i first read this book in 2013, a time when i had braces and an enduring appreciation for a variety of teen pop sensations. neither of those have anything to do with why my feelings on this book would have changed, but i firmly believe they both had a significant impact on my evolving personality.
in 2013 also, notably, i was young and full of life. while i was still very tall, i was also little. emotionally speaking. and nice. i liked everything i read. (can you imagine.)
so suffice it to say that 15-year-old me and current me have very little in common. my teeth are metal-free. my heart is empty of celebrities. and i have one starred countless books that once were five stars.
but not this one!
11 years passed, i changed as a person, i apparently have all different cells or something, but guess what stayed the same.
if you guessed "my love for this book," you're today's winner.
ostensibly this is a YA contemporary romance, a subgenre which i used to read exclusively and now, despite my best efforts, seem to abhor. we follow allyson, who at the beginning is in a snoozefest teen tour of europe. she is one pair of glasses, a haircut, and a dream away from the 2000s movie style makeover that will reveal her to be hot the whole time when willem appears, a hot european guy who takes her on a Life Changing Weekend Sojourn to paris.
all of that is fun and fine and involves crepes, but it's not the good part. the good part is allyson.
she starts off the book very play-by-the-rules, very shy, very...boring. and her little parisian love story is nice and all, but it only takes up a fraction of the book. the rest of it is about allyson learning to take risks, to stand up for herself, and to live the life she wants to.
so maybe this book isn't perfect, but...i'm not open to that concept. because (CHEESY ALERT, I ADVISE YOU TO STOP READING HERE BEFORE WE BOTH GET EMBARRASSED): it is pretty goddamn inspiring. i hate to be emotional ever at all, both because it's off-brand for me and also just unpleasant, but...i can be the kind of snoozefest person allyson starts the book as. but all the best times of my life have been because of times that i wasn't!
as in, have happened when i was drunk. (just kidding! (kind of.))
i will finish by saying: willem is pretty hot in this book and all, and that’s a nice bonus, but what is really cool about this book is allyson.
bottom line: if you don't like this book you're wrong; allyson is my daughter; let's all go get drunk in paris and land some willems.
----------------------- project 5 star reread
welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, an undertaking in which i reread my favorite books and dare the universe to smite me by proving them lacking.
this one is especially auspicious as i read it (a book about a trip to paris) ahead of my own trip to paris.
AND IT REMAINS FIVE STARS.
(updated review to come)
----------------------- reread pre-review
AMAZING NEWS: I loved this book just as much rereading it as I did in twenty goddamn thirteen.
Like, 2017 me: Bitter vessel of hatred; one stars books she used to love; in the midst of a Reread Extravaganza that is going, on average, quite badly.
2013 me: Fifteen, enjoys the simple things in life, still has braces I think, mentally rates every book highly (doesn't have a Goodreads yet).
But those two selves form a lopsided Venn diagram. And in the needlepoint-small cross section of that diagram: a love for this book. And also for sweets.
I legitimately, earnestly, worry- and sarcasm-free can't wait to read the sequel.
Review to come!!!
----------------------- rereading updates
me most of the time: there's no cure for depression me when i remember this book exists: there's one cure for depression
I have, in one way or another, been in the midst of rereading this series for several years.
Which is just fine with me. If there’s a way I can somehowI have, in one way or another, been in the midst of rereading this series for several years.
Which is just fine with me. If there’s a way I can somehow read these books forever, hmu.
You may be tempted to say “Well Emma, there is. You could read a page of it every day for the rest of your life, or something like that.”
But I urge you to resist that temptation, because you will sound very very foolish. In fact, I dare you to so much as TRY to read a page of any of these stories and put it down. You can’t. Impossible. THEY’RE TOO FUN.
This is a particularly good installment in this very good series (and ignore the fact that I say that about just about every installment in this series) for reasons including the following: - everything is starting to come together!!! - Sunny is becoming a real character, rather than a bundle of sharp teeth and baby-talk jokes - SECRETS are REVEALED (and the only thing I love more than secrets is the reveal of secrets) - JOKES are HILARIOUS (this is always true of this series)
Mostly I am very pleasantly surprised, because I don’t remember this being a section of the Baudelaire story I’m especially fond of and here I am, fond.
What a treat.
Bottom line: Will I ever continue this reread?? Who knows! Probably! Three books to go!
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i couldn't encapsulate my love for this series with all the adjectives in a Verbose, Fond Dictionary.
(more of a) review to come / 5 stars, obviously
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yes, i'm confidently continuing this reread i began two years ago and put on pause one year ago. what about it...more
And now, nearly 10 years after first reading it, I'm giving it 5 stars.
I am old and curmudgeonly. I am essentiallyThis is the best Morgan Matson book.
And now, nearly 10 years after first reading it, I'm giving it 5 stars.
I am old and curmudgeonly. I am essentially an elderly grump shouting at ornery kids to get off his lawn. But I love this little number anyway.
This book has everything. (Please go back in time and read that in a Stefon voice if you didn’t the first time.) Road trips. Heart-shaped sunglasses. Bucket lists. That thing where characters have significant others but only to add a bit more spice to the will-they-won’t-they (even though the answer is clearly of course they will) and yes there’s cheating but actually it’s okay because the unseen girlfriend was also done with the relationship. Summertime. Pizza. Fun banter-y groups of friends. Playlists. The classic contemporary plot format in which everything starts out okay but with definite room for improvement and then gets good and then gets PERFECT and then gets so so so so so bad like even worse than the beginning but then turns perfect again and actually perfect-er than when you thought it was perfect because character development. And also romance, of course.
It is, in other words, as if someone took all of the best contemporary tropes and wrote them on lil pieces of paper and then tossed them in the air and then they floated down like confetti or snowflakes onto Morgan Matson’s angel head and she wrote this book.
I am a sucker for road trips and for bucket lists and for playlists and for snack descriptions and for summer and for banter and ESPECIALLY for when the friendships are more prevalent in a book than the budding romances.
And this book nails all of that. It is the most fun thing ever.
To give a touch of synopsis: We follow Emily, who has literally one friend. (Sounds like every character in every other book, am I right? It’s funny because most authors are too lazy or romance-focused to build realistic worlds populated with full, human-seeming individuals!) The friend’s name is Sloane, she is fun and adventurous and superhot, and she full-on disappeared a couple days back without telling Emily where she was going. AND NOW SHE’S NOT ANSWERING HER PHONE.
AND HER HOUSE IS EMPTY.
AHHHH.
Instead of worrying about whether ol’ Sloane and her parents got Mafia murdered, Emily focuses her boundless attention on a list of tasks that gal mailed her. Emily is very shy and introverted, where Sloane is extremely...not that, so the list is stuff like “skinny dip!!!” and “kiss a stranger!!!”
In her attempts to finish the list (in the hopes it’ll give her some Sloane-related answers), Emily makes friends and has fun and learns it’s not the end of the quest but the friends you make along the way and blah blah blah it’s cute. It’s fun. It’s summery.
It’s the best Morgan Matson book! (So far.)
Bottom line: This is essentially if mad scientists gathered all my favorite clichés and mixed em all together and published them in a 500 page hardcover with a reversible collectible cover. In other words: PERFECT.
------------------ pre-review
in a well-ordered universe, morgan matson would just write every contemporary???
she is the only one that seems to recognize that the ideal contemporary is a careful mix of friendship + banter + road trips + bucket lists + summer + snacks and then a liiiiiiiil bit of romance.
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