BEACH READ as a netflix original series (x)

For January,  I don’t care how the story ends as long as I spend it with you. 

“you don’t start anything you can’t finish. you’re not the person who buys the stationary bike as part of a new year’s resolution, then uses it as a coatrack for three years. you’re not the kind of woman who only works hard when it feels good, or only shows up when it’s convenient. if someone insults one of your clients, those fancy kid gloves of yours come off, and you carry your own pen at all times, because if you’re going to have to write anything, it might as well look good. you read the last page of books first—don’t make that face, stephens.” he cracks a smile in one corner of his mouth. “i’ve seen you—even when you’re shelving, you sometimes check the last page, like you’re constantly looking for all the information, trying to make the absolute best decisions.”

— book lovers by emily henry

and that's the way I loved you jeremiah's version | cam's version

The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel

"You can be different, free, opinionated, be all those things but be a good person."

Tʜᴇ Sᴘᴀɴɪsʜ Lᴏᴠᴇ Dᴇᴄᴇᴘᴛɪᴏɴ

"You feel complete in my arms. You feel like my home."

books I’ve read in 2021 📖 no. 091

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

“I realize your default energy level is Cardboard Cutout, but I can’t get to know you if you don’t speak.”

MALIBU RISING, by taylor jenkins reid as a netflix original movie

how were you supposed to change – in ways both big and small – when your family was always there to remind you of exactly the person you apparently signed an ironclad contract to be?

(TEMPLATE)

daisy: it’s an album about needing someone and having them l o v e someone else.

billy: it’s an album about the push and p u l l of stability and instability. it’s about the struggle that I live almost every day to not do something stupid. is it about love? yeah, of course it is. but that’s because it’s easy to disguise almost anything as a love song.

You’re the only thing on this planet worth worshiping.

Evelyn Hugo’s aesthetic (from The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo)

Books (re)read in 2021:

You think this is a big deal because, no offense, you’ve had a lot of people in your life who claimed to care about you but didn’t act like it. That’s not me. I can cook, and right now, you can’t. So I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps. Don’t think about it too hard.

GET A LIFE, CHLOE BROWN by Talia Hibbert (The Brown Sisters, #1) ★★★★

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

And we are gonna be okay. We’re gonna be better than okay. ‘Cause we got each other. Mm-hmm. Forever. Oh, yeah. Until we die.

Book review: The Party by Elizabeth Day

“That’s the problem with charm. It means you get away with stuff. It means you never have to develop a real character because no one remembers to look for one. They’re too busy basking in the glow of your attention. They’re too busy being impressed.” 

When outsider Martin Gilmour wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School he meets Ben Fitzmaurice. Charming, rich and popular Ben. Nothing would please Martin more than becoming Ben’s best friend and so he does everything he can to make sure that they do. 25 years later, Martin is being interrogated by the police about an incident at Ben’s 40th birthday party. This isn't his first encounter with the police and both times involved Ben.

The book was recommended to me by a friend. I’ve been exploring different genres lately. Because The Party wasn't a book I would pick up before, I decided to give it a shot. I was immediately intrigued because the story is told from two different point of views, set in four different timelines. Normally the different point of views would annoy me but in this case, it just made me want to read more. I liked how you, as the reader, grow into Martin and Ben’s friendship and, like Martin, see the red flags but decide to ignore them because they are supposed to be friends. The friendship also reminded me of the painful, awkward and embarrassing moments in you can have in your relationships (platonic or not). We all ignore red flags.

The title of the book has a double meaning, which you don’t realise until the end. I read the book in Dutch, where this double meaning, unfortunately, gets lost in translation. While the book shows that the elite are different from us regular people, it also shows that people, in general, don’t change. Ben was charming but had an empty character. He lived in his privileged world. Martin, on the other hand, doesn’t change either. I think Lucy undergoes the biggest character growth and yet, even something in her remains the same. I’d like to believe that the author is trying to say that some people don’t change and some do but your character, the core of your being, that doesn’t change. 

I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

“But my feet are rooted to the spot. I can’t bring myself to move. Because as soon as I do, it will be time to be polite and matter-of-fact and back to normal. 

And I can’t bear that. I want to stay here. In the place where we can say anything to each other. In the magic spell.

Sam pauses, right behind me. There’s an unbearable fragile beat as I wait for him to shatter the quiet. But it’s as though he feels the same way. He says nothing. All I can hear is the gentle sound of his breathing. Slowly, his arms wrap round me from behind. I close my eyes and lean back against his chest, feeling unreal.” 

Young Adult trilogies I enjoyed reading the most (disclaimer: in no particular order)

After not posting anything for ages, my hands have been itching to type something, anything. Truth is that I haven’t only not been posting much, I also haven’t been reading a lot. Partly because I’ve been busy with my fulltime job, partly because I have a household to run (doesn’t matter if it only consists of me, it’s still a lot of work) but also because I have run out of inspiration. I’ve been happily observing the world, thinking about a lot of things. Now I wanted to write, post something, and I thought, why not put some blasts from my reading past into the spotlight.

Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse  A soldier with unexpected powers that could change the entire war and future of her country. The Grisha trilogy was hard to put down every time after starting a new book. The world Leigh Bardugo had created was astonishing. You're rooting for Alina, for Genya, for Ravka, but you're also spellbound by The Darkling. You hate him but you also find him very charming. After the original three Shadow and Bone books, Leigh expanded the Grishaverse with two Six of Crow-books, King of Scars and multiple short stories. The best thing that has yet to happen? The books will be adapted into a series by Netflix and production has already started! We'll have Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov and Ben Barnes (my youth crush after seeing Narnia and I'm sure I'm not the only one) as The Darkling.

Jenny Han’s To All the Boy’s I’ve Loved Before I'm not sure if Jenny Han had spent hours and hours on Pinterest or if it's just her, but she managed to create to cutest, most fluffy, love story. Lara Jean Covey writes letters to boys she has had a crush on and one day, those secret letters are sent to said boys. To cover herself, she convinces Peter Kavinsky to play her boyfriend. And Peter Kavinsky. . . how to describe a boy like Peter, huh? Normally, I don’t think it’s necessary for a love story to consist out of three books but with this trilogy, I never had the feeling that it was too much, that the author was dragging things. To All the Boys is also a film on Netflix, starring Lana Condor and Noah Centineo.

Kerstin Gier’s Ruby Red trilogy German author Kerstin Gier is one of the most hilarious writers I’ve ever come across. The Ruby Red books were her first Young Adult fantasy trilogy. It’s about Gwendolyn (Gwyneth for US/UK readers), who has inherited time travel genes and has to save the world from an evil time travelers. She has to do this with Gideon, a charming albeit annoyed fellow time traveler. I think it’s wonderful how Kerstin created a great mystery, used history and on top of that, it’s genuinely funny. I also believe this is one of the most underrated trilogy’s abroad (it was very popular here in The Netherlands). This originally German trilogy is adapted into a film series.

Michelle Hodkin’s Mara Dyer  What would happen if you have a bad thought about a person – let’s say they die a horrible death – and suddenly it comes true? That’s Mara Dyer’s life, and Mara isn’t the only one with special powers. To figure out what is happening to her, Mara has to dig into the past. And who better to do that with than a smart, arrogant boy named Noah Shaw? I remember how long I had to wait until Michelle Hodkin had written a new book but every time was worth the wait because of Mara and Noah. After this trilogy, Michelle continued their story with the Shaw confessions, three books written from Noah’s POV.

Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me  Am I cheating by including these books? Maybe, but the Shatter Me series originally was a trilogy. Tahereh Mafi added another three books much later after the publication of Ignite Me. In these books, Juliette Ferrars is a girl whose touch could kill someone. She has been treated like a monster because they wanted to turn her into a monster they could use as a weapon but she decided to fight back. There aren’t many authors who have that special ability to use words in such a beautiful way as Tahereh Mafi. It’s almost poetry.

Stephanie Perkin’s Anna and the French Kiss trilogy Equally fluffy as Jenny Han’s TATBILB trilogy but slightly different. Stephanie Perkins's books are set in the same universe but each book is about a different person. We have Anna, who is sent to Paris by her parents and falls in love with the city and a charming French/American/British boy. And we have Lola, who is confronted by her first love and her feelings for him, a boy named Cricket. And then we have Isla, who finally has her chance with the boy she’s been crushing on forever. I enjoyed crawling into this world so much that I did it multiple times. I’m still waiting for Stephanie to write another love story.

Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s trilogy Another highly underrated trilogy! Kestrel Trajan is the daughter of a general. She’s been brought up learning how to be strong and strategic. But then she meets Arin, a slave she buys at an auction. Arin has some secrets that could turn her world upside down and Kestrel will have to pay the price. What I loved about this novel is that it doesn’t sugarcoat the situation and the actions the main characters have to take for their goal. If you have to choose between two evils, which one would you choose?

Book review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Blurb: If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds. [Goodreads]

Review: As little children in New York City, the Gold children visit a fortune teller who tells them the date they will die. At first, they rub it off as nonsense but each of the four siblings deals with their upcoming date in their own way. Simon escapes the pressure of running the family business by eloping to San Fransisco. He is joined by Klara, who wants to become a magician and is obsessed with the fortune teller's work in her own way. Daniel suffers from guilt because it was he who convinced his siblings to visit her. And at last, there is Varya, who carries the weight of the past with her.

After forgetting to pack a book for my Barcelona holiday, I quickly purchased one at the airport. The tagline is what grabbed me: If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? I think the book beautifully showed the difference between each sibling. Simon's acceptance of his fate, Klara's obsession with defying the odds, Daniel's guilt and the weight Varya carries as the oldest sister. Some of the storylines were predictable but that didn't make the story less gripping. I was especially invested in Simon's story, and his story was probably most predictable. Klara choice was intriguing and left me hungry for answers. What I missed was a little bit of closure after each story.

I wouldn't mark this book as a fantasy novel. There is the fortune teller aspect but apart from the prologue and a little bit of her background story, the story mainly focusses on the Gold siblings. I do wish we got to know more about the fortune teller, though I know it's part of the literature mystery.

Book review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Blurb: At school, Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. [Goodreads]

Review: Marianne and Connell start dating at the end of their high school, but no one knows. Despite being the rich girl, Marianne doesn’t belong in the popular social circles. Connell, on the other hand, is from a poor, single-mom household, but is the star of the school soccer team. At college in Dublin, they switch social status. Marianne is a popular girl with many friends, while Connell has no one but Marianne. During these years, their relationship on and off, Connell and Marianne are best friends, lovers and sometimes not friends at all. They have feelings, explore new things with and without each other.

Marianne and Connell really are nothing special and that is exactly the thing that made me like them. I could feel how hurt Marianne was when Connell wanted to keep their relationship a secret and how she agreed because that's what he wanted, but not what she wanted. It was so typical of Connell to not understand what he did wrong because she never told him. A lot of misunderstandings were born out of a lack of communication. But isn't that what we all do? We hide our feelings, afraid of being hurt, and set off a chain of reactions.

I had seen the cover of Normal People so many times, I eventually gave in and purchased the book. The lack of quotation marks was something to get used to but eventually stopped bothering me because I was so invested in this story and rooting for Marianne and Connell to find their happiness.