Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss #1) by Stephanie Perkins

"You ought to stop listening to stereotypes and start forming your own opinions."

—Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Title: Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss #1)

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Page Count: 372 (Paperback)

Synopsis:

Can Anna find love in the City of Light?

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her coworker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her affection. So she's less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year.

But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he's taken —and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the French kiss she's waiting for?

Thoughts:

Read for Arithmancy Prompt for O.W.L.s Magical Readathon 2020 (Magical qualities of number 2: balance/opposites - read something outside your favourite genre). My favourite genres are horror, thriller, psychological and mystery but I find that I still reach for contemporaries and family oriented ones. I would very much like to read classics too, I just don't know where to start. What I'm not much drawn into are fantasy and romance but I read a lot of fantasy last year so I opted for romance for this prompt.

As much as I enjoyed majority of the book (thanks to the setting, I learned some new things), I sometimes can't help but be annoyed with Anna Oliphant and Étienne St. Clair. Throughout the book, I try to convince myself that Anna has redeeming qualities when I read about her thoughts and doubts but still! Ugh she became more and more unbearable towards the end, I wanted to cry out of frustration. She abhors the people that bullies her at school but her thoughts mimic their meanness anyway. I quoted the line above, but boy was there stereotyping in this book! XD Blond girl crushing on your love interest? Definitely a B. Main-girl-doesn't-know-she-is-attractive/beautiful trope is also present. So if you are one of the people who are so done with this, it will add to the reasons why you would roll your eyes while reading this book. And St. Clair! I don't even know where to begin. POOR ELLIE! Even if their relationship isn't working anymore and she has moved on with life outside the circle of friends she once had, she still doesn't deserved to be cheated like that. And honestly? Anna and Étienne could've ended friends and I wouldn't mind. They were cute as friends minus the lusting for each other. I think Meredith also has problems but it's forgivable compared to the two main protagonists lol. At least she admits to her mistakes. Oh well, at least the story was light enough and is still educational so I wasn't mad about it to rate it low.

Final Verdict: I still like it but I'm not ecstatic about it. It was an okay experience but I'm pretty sure I won't be friends with the likes of Anna. I'd rather have Rashmi--i don't know. Will I check out the other books tied to the "series"? Maybe. I'm kind of interested what's in store for Isla.

Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz

"I think we create our own reality, our own truths.If we believe it to be so, then it is so."

—Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Title: Bleed

Author: Laurie Faria Stolarz

Page Count: 240 (Hardcover)

Synopsis:

Nicole has a not-so-secret crush

on her best friend's boyfriend.

Robby would kill for true love . . .

he's done it before.

Joy hates boys,

and today they're going to pay.

Derik  can get any girl,

except the one he wants.

Kelly has two boyfriends,

but one's in jail.

Sean just wants to do the right thing . . .

or does he?

OVER THE COURSE OF A SINGLE DAY, the lives of ten teenagers will intersect in powerful and unexpected ways.

Among them are Nicole, whose decision to betray her best friend will shock everyone, most of all herself; Kelly who meets the convicted felon she's been writing to for years; and Maria, whose definition of a true friend is someone who will cut her. Derik discovers his usual good looks and charm won't help him get the girl he really wants, while Joy, a fifteen-year-old waitress, hoping for intimacy, narrowly escapes a very dark fate.

Seamlessly woven together, this collection of interconnected short stories paints an authentic portrait of today's teen experience that is at once funny, moving, and haunting.

Thoughts:

Had the book a long time ago, decided to read it for the Ancient Runes Prompt for O.W.L.s Magical Readathon 2020 (Heart Rune: heart on the cover or title). 

I kind of expected it to have at least an extra chapter to "tie all the stories up" but there wasn't really one by the end of the book. Maybe i read too much of what it promised in the synopsis, but I expected that the intersection of their lives would have a group impact rather than just individually. The intersection I'm mostly satisfied about maybe is that of Mearl and Maria's. That at least, I feel, had a closure and clear effect to it for both of the characters. 

Although reading the stories just felt like reading a gossip and can be an easy read to fly through, I just wish there was more. A purpose to why we were introduced to the characters. The book was too open ended, like it gave you a peek of the characters when they were introduced to you one by one then poof "That's it folks, that's the story! You can't have a deeper relationship with them anymore." The synopsis made it sound like there would be some thrilling twist in store for the characters but nope! I shit you not when I say that the synopsis is even a major giveaway. After reading it, I realized I expected too much because I was hoping for even a bit of a thriller-ish twist.  There was so much potential for that when you read the synopsis that it was kind of a let down when I found out there wasn't. Meh, at least it is a light and fast read. *shrugs*

P.S. Eww, me. I used "synopsis" AND "character" on a single paragraph thrice!! XD Apparently, my word bank is dwindling.

The Dante Club (The Dante Club #1) by Matthew Pearl

"Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked."

—The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

Title: The Dante Club (The Dante Club #1)

Author: Matthew Pearl

Page Count: 372 (Paperback)

Synopsis:

Boston. 1865. A small group of elite scholars prepares to introduce Dante's vision of hell to America. But so does a murderer. 

The literary geniuses of the Dante Club - poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell and publisher J. T. Fields - are finishing America's first translation of The Divine Comedy. The powerful old guard of Harvard College wants to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of such foreign superstitions will prove as corrupting as the immigrants invading Boston Harbor. The members of the Dante Club fight to keep their sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realises that the gruesome killings are modelled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the police baffled, lives endangered and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find a way to stop the killer.

Thoughts:

Very interesting read. There were definitely some slow parts which made it hard for me to finish the book quick but I still enjoyed the book. I haven't read The Divine Comedy yet although we have it at home for years lmao so I don't know how that could affect each person's reading experience. I thought it was brilliant to incorporate real people and some happenings to the novel. Even though I know some of the people in the story, I am not too familiar with how they were in real life so, in my case, I was not confused nor irked if some liberty were taken by the author to develop his story. I got intrigued with how the characters actually were in real life but as I was reading, I just took the story and the characters as it was told.

Aside from being slow at times, my only concern were some bits and parts where I wonder if such remarks and actions were necessary to represent a group (e.g. Patrolman Rey always being looked down on. I can understand that the purpose is to show readers what it was like during those times and how disgusting the treatment is but I feel like Rey didn't get even enough with those people and I hated that. I know that that is often how it is in real life but you have power in books. I mean, Dr. Manning was kind of redeemed so wouldn't you think Patrolman Rey deserved better? When he was at the height of the investigation, I thought he would be together with the Dante Club to finish the mystery but he was AGAIN mistreated! IN THE HEIGHT OF IT ALL! And when that was over, the climax was also over. Wasted opportunity for Rey when he worked so hard and was the only police to actually look into the case. It made me so sad because after all the judgement he endured HE DESERVED BETTER *cries*. Another is a remark Field's made about himself about his weight. Was that necessary? What's the purpose? Was it meant to be funny?).

Overall, I still really like and recommend the book. It's very entertaining and made me want to read The Divine Comedy which I think is a plus because it shows how effective the story was for me as a reader.