4 stars

Review: How Hard Can Love Be?

07:00



How Hard Can Love Be?
By Holly Bourne
Series: Normal #2
Source: Waterstones
Format: Paperback
Page count: 480
Published: 1st February 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, 

All Amber wants is a little bit of love. Her mum has never been the caring type, even before she moved to California, got remarried and had a personality transplant. But Amber's hoping that spending the summer with her can change all that.

And then there's prom king Kyle, the guy all the girls want. Can he really be interested in anti-cheerleader Amber? Even with best friends Evie and Lottie's advice, there's no escaping the fact: love is hard.


I’ve loved all of Holly Bourne’s books, so obviously I was really excited to read this book. I love Holly’s writing style, so one day when I wasn’t feeling too good, I thought I’d pick it up. 4 hours later, and I didn’t expect to have read it so quickly! It was the perfect spring read, and really made me excited for summer. It’s such a fun and quick read, yet still holds some important messages, which I adore!
There was nothing I didn’t love about this book, but my favourite aspect was Amber, the protagonist. I loved her in Am I Normal Yet?, the sequel and companion novel to this book, but I loved her so much more in this one. From the very first page, she was so funny, sarcastic, and fierce, yet was greatly flawed and had weaknesses too.
I was also really impressed with the way feminism was introduced in this book. I didn’t think the Spinster club would be able to meet as much - and Lottie and Evie weren’t in this book much - but there were still aspects of feminism. I think it’s so well done, and I’m really glad that the important issues will be introduced to readers who may not have known about ideas like this before.

I was surprised to find I loved the romance! It wasn’t complicated, and the love interest was such a lovely guy. Usually in contemporaries, I find the boyfriend is often a bit of an arse, but Kyle wasn’t like that at all. He respected Amber 100% (which I’m so here for), and was also a feminist!

The setting was so dreamy. In this book, Amber’s visiting her Mum in America, so the entire book is set in San Francisco. I’ve never visited America, but I’ve always wanted to, and this book makes me want to even more! It sounds so sunny and fun (such a change from England), so I hope that one day I’ll be able to visit!
I was really impressed with the family themes explored in this book. Like in every family, Amber’s relationship with her Mum and Step-Dad are complicated, but out of everything, the love they show for each other shone through, which made me so happy. Alcoholism is not explored in books often, and usually it’s not done very well, but in this one it was shown to not be the addict’s fault, which is an important lesson.

This book made me admire and adore Holly Bourne even more. She’s one of my favourite authors, and from following her on Twitter, she seems so cool. I can’t wait for the final installment of this series, and to read other books from her!

4 stars

Review: Am I Normal Yet?

18:20

Am I Normal Yet?
By Holly Bourne

 Source: e-book
Page count: 434
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Romance, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list...

 But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

 My review:
As soon as I heard that Holly Bourne had a new book coming out, I knew I had to have it. I pre-ordered it on my kindle, and even payed for wifi when I knew I was going to be away (it wouldn’t deliver until I was connected to the internet). I think it’s fair to say that I anticipated this book to be amazing!
Thankfully it was everything I hoped it to be. Not only was it a harshly accurate representation of mental-illness, it had themes of friendships and loyalty, which made the book for me. It made the book lighter (and less intense), so I was able to enjoy it much more.

The thing that let the book down for me were the bits on feminism. Not only were they unrealistic (what group of friends randomly starts talking about all these issues?), the ideas discussed were unoriginal. The reason I feel this way may be because of the strong opinions from Tumblr, so I’m open to new ideas that most people haven’t thought about. Though I am still very pleased to see an author include this (more than any book I’ve read before), I would have preferred for them to be more daring and that pushes more boundaries - things I’ve never even thought about before.


Evie’s mental illness and the parts about OCD made this book more original. All other books I’ve read about mental illness glossed over the gritty parts, only to focus on romance or something that readers would be ‘more interested in’. This book definitely did not do that. It exposed the reality of OCD, and was dealt with extremely well. It is a real eye-opener, so I’d recommend this book to everyone who doesn’t have much experience in the topic.

I already liked Holly Bourne as a writer, and this book has just made me love her even more. All of her books are on very important issues, so teach me something from reading them (but not in an annoying school-book way). Not only are they enjoyable, they tackle important and relevant issues, and I recommend her to everyone (especially this book).

 My rating:

3 Stars

Review: Soulmates

16:00

Soulmates
By Holly Bourne

Source: Library, paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:
Every so often, two people are born who are the perfect matches for each other. Soulmates. But while the odds of this happening are about as likely as being struck by lightning, when these people do meet and fall in love…thunderstorms, lightning strikes and lashings of rain are only the beginning of their problems.
Enter Poppy, the 17-year-old cynic with a serious addiction to banana milk, and Noah, the heart-throb guitarist; residents of mediocre Middletown, and sometime students. After a chance meeting at a local band night, Poppy and Noah find themselves swept up in a whirlwind romance unlike anything they’ve ever experienced before. 


I have such mixed views on this book - it’s a real guilty pleasure. It was very engaging, and I constantly wanted to read on (Holly Bourne’s writing is so addictive!), yet I hated the romance and the characters. I wanted to hate this book, but I really couldn’t. Although I may dislike the writing style, I can’t deny that I really enjoyed reading it.

The thing that bugged me the most was the whole ‘cliche’ thing. Poppy - the protagonist - was obsessed with not becoming a cliche - so much that the whole story became a massive cliche. It annoyed me because it was so obvious what was going to happen (I’ve seen 10 Things I Hate About You, I do know how these stories end...)

The plot was extremely predictable. I didn’t even read the goodreads synopsis before reading this book (which totally gives the whole book away - that’s why I’ve shortened it for on here), but I still knew what was going to happen. I don’t think we were meant to be able to guess so easily the entire plot, but the way it was written made it feel like we definitely were.


Although I really didn’t like the writing style, I constantly wanted to read on. It flowed really well and made the story an easy read. It was very plain and simple, so read more like a middle grade book, yet I found it really addictive and constantly wanted to read on. I found myself rolling my eyes every other page, yet still really enjoying the book.

I hated the characters. They weren’t well written at all and seemed a bit 2D. Although Poppy irritated me the most, Noah was also really annoying too (and can every YA love interest please stop being called Noah?!). He acted strangely and was very unlikeable (everyone in this book was unlikeable!). I hated them together so didn’t enjoy any of the romance (which is unfortunate because the whole book is romance!). Also, all of the character’s behaviour felt immature at times.


It picked up towards the end. Everything was explained well, and at the right pace. The ending came at a natural time (though the book could have been shortened quite a lot) and wasn’t rushed. I enjoyed it more because it got more science-fiction, and the characters were acting much more rationally.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, even though I definitely shouldn’t have. I would recommend it to fans of The Selection because the writing and romance is similar, but if you didn’t enjoy that you can still enjoy this (like me)! The plot was an unoriginal idea and the characters bugged me, yet I found it really addictive.


My rating:


4 stars

Review: The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

13:55

The Manifesto on How to be Interesting
By Holly Bourne

 Source: Personal purchase, paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Coming of Age, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 Apparently I'm boring. A nobody. But that's all about to change. Because I am starting a project. Here. Now. For myself. And if you want to come along for the ride then you're very welcome.

Bree is a loser, a wannabe author who hides behind words. Most of the time she hates her life, her school, her never-there parents. So she writes.

But when she’s told she needs to start living a life worth writing about, The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting is born. Six steps on how to be interesting. Six steps that will see her infiltrate the popular set, fall in love with someone forbidden and make the biggest mistake of her life.

From the bestselling author of Soulmates comes a fearlessly frank take on school, cliques and crushes.

 My review:
I picked up this book for 3 reasons:
  1. The cover is really cool, and the outside of the pages is neon orange
  2. It’s about blogging
  3. It seems similar to Mean Girls (who doesn’t love that film?)
I had really high hopes, because - obviously - it looks really good. It’s also UKYA, which made me want to love it even more.


I really liked this book. Bree was a great lead - she was real, and very relatable for practically everyone in high school. She got a bit annoying at the beginning, as she made bad decisions, and moped around a bit too much, but she wasn’t too bad. She was definitely what I was expecting.
Bree really developed through the book. She became much tougher at the end, and wasn’t as irritating. The thing I liked about her the most was that she stayed true to herself. Although she did go against what she would have done at the beginning of the book, it didn’t bother me because she was developing. The main thing that she did stay true to herself in was her guts - she was still as sharp-tongued as she was at the beginning, which I really enjoyed.
The plot was good. It wasn’t very original, but I didn’t really expect it to be. I knew where is was going, but I still enjoyed it a lot. The characters were all so unoriginal they actually made it original and much more readable, and the school setting was a really accurate representation. This book was quite addictive (as you can tell by the short amount of time it took me to read it).
One thing I really hated was the romance. It made me cringe so much, and the bit about “true love” just made me want to be sick. It was so cheesy and boring - I didn’t ship them at all, and in my opinion, they fell in love a bit too quickly. That bit definitely could have been cut out - the story would have been perfectly fine without it.
This book was obviously meant for teens to read, and for them to learn ‘important’ messages from it. This was really clear throughout the whole book, and in my opinion, it was a bit too blatantly obvious - if I knew I was going to learn something, I wouldn’t want to learn it!
One thing I definitely did learn is that you should trust your Mum. Bree’s mum helped her so much in this book - she was a really unique character, and made the whole book a lot better for me. She was so kind, and really helped Bree a lot, even if Bree didn’t quite see it.


Overall, this book was a really fun read. It was quick and easy, and taught us something too. This book gives a great name to UKYA!

My reaction:


Rating: