Reading is Therapy

Remise en question de plusieurs valeurs de notre société actuelle.
Oeuvre très pertinante, intelligente et puissante.

I bought this book because i thought it would be about 2 kids learning to like each other despite the implicit rule of school "popular don't go with unpopular". But instead it was about this girl, who thinks like a preschooler, really attracted to this popular guy, who is as interesting as a white page. And that's all that happens. We hear a lot about the grand dad, and quentin, and some other stuff but jessie lou/conrad relationship is absent.

From grade 2 to grade 6, i had this juvenile crush on a boy that was really popular while i was really unpopular and then nothing ever happened, just like in this book.

I can relate on a weird level on the popularity obsession and I thought this book would be really funny and have some kind of action on the romantic side, some fluffiness, some cuteness to it but no, there was nothing and i'm angry now.

Sweet rom com.
Nice easy fast read.
Flawed like-able characters.
A bit of a rushed ending.

But i loved it because :
- Chris. Such a deep character even if the author tried to made him douchy.
-Rainbow Rowell knows how to write about love.

2,5 stars out of 5. (3 stars on GR because of some good lines in this book got me)

I love Rainbow's writing style, story lines, scenery and the general ambiance of her books. I love the freshness and lightness of it. It’s colorful, sparkly almost. I also like her characters because they’re not scroungy or overdone (like the one we see in NA). But even if all of what I like about her style and writing was in this book, I didn’t like the book itself that much.

Characters :
I like how different they are, each with their personality and quirks. But expect for Reagan, I didn’t care much about them all.

The main character : Cath. It was hard to root for her.
The only good point that I saw to her is that she isn’t stupid. Everything else about her and her fan fiction obsession rubbed me the wrong way. . She is narrow minded and judgmental. She is socially awkward because of a supposed social anxiety (Rainbow didn’t go into details so I won’t either), hyper-sensitive, withdrawn, whinny. She isn't "strong". She is rigid, stern, strained. What I hated the most about her is that she is surly to the people that actually care about her and the ones who won't bite back (levi, her absent mother, abel ...) WHILE being diffident in front of the ones who actually give her a hard time (Nick).

Wren, i liked better.
The twin sister was totally a different person and I’d have liked to see more of her evolution in parallel to Cath’s one (if there's any...). But the author choose to cast her away before even starting the story and to only show her the time she got a bit too drunk just to emphasize on how we should root for plain-dormworm-Cath. *rolls eyes*

First half of the book : It felt like nothing was happening.
We saw people, what they liked or not, how they talked but it was going nowhere. It felt very empty to me. I still liked the dialogue and introspection of Cath, but 200 pages of it (50 freaking %) was a bit long (even though because of the style of Rainbow, it was a fast and easy read : I didn’t struggle to read it and I wasn’t even bored, I just left like nothing consistent was happening).
The author should have developed more the aspect of being a freshman in Uni with awkward scenes, meeting people (and not just the one in your room), amount of work, weird parties, lack of money, pressure to become a whole new person. All of that was missing.

On Cath’s college experience : Issues are relatable, outcomes aren't.
What annoyed me is that Cath is relatable to us social awkward peeps, we all had/have the same issues/obstacles in first year of college and some of our intern dialogues were absolutely on cue when Rainbow wrote them in Cath’s voice.
But the thing is, everything went really easy (TOO EASY) for Cath. She literally did the same misanthropy things as me (not talking to the people at her dorm, eating alone,…) but somehow things plays out so well for her : Reagan INSISTS to hang out with her, Levi becomes her BOYFRIEND, professor wants to help her PERSONALLY… Really Rainbow? Really? The first time one of my professors talked to me, I was in third year, with 50 other students and all he said was that we were a bunch of worthless piece of shit.
Also, whatever I faced (classes were hard, dad was sick, my online writing took a lot of my time – yeah, told you Cath’s experience was relatable), I faced it frontally and with my head high, not being a weak brat running home, not even once considering ditching my scholarship or turning down a teacher repeatedly.

In a sentence : Cath is someone i could relate to regarding our experiences (obstacles and our reactions in the beginning) to but it was impossible to connect with her because of her attitude/the way she handled things (alternatively pompous or downer) and how things played out for her (real smooth).

Second half : Too much drama, bits of romance.
Things starts to pick up finally (meaning that stuff happens, not that it’s suddenly hella interesting), especially on the romantic side of the story.
Levi and Cath get together. In Eleanor and Park I was gushing over every lovey dovey scene, but here, except for a few good lines (“are you rooting for me?”) it felt awkward like witnessing PDA and I couldn’t fangirl over them. Why is that? Because I didn’t get why Levi liked her so much. The first 4 months, she was rude to him (apparently that’s the way to go to get perfect boyfriends nowadays) but somehow he started to “liked her a lot” and I don’t see why. If she hadn’t been so rude and cold to him, maybe I would have bought their romance. Reagan was rude too but at least she was spunky! (Reagan is my Queen, I loved her!!) Cath is rude and just austere.
Their relationship was especially weird because out of all the girls on the campus, he fell in love with his ex girlfriend/current best friend’s roommate. The hell?
Also all we know about Cath’s opinion on her boyfriend is that he has hair. We didn’t get the feeling that she loved him, it was more like she loved the new experiences and feelings he brought to her because he is different from what she knows.
Levi’s totally another story : he likes her. A lot. He loves her. He’s mad about her. To the point where it’s not even cute anymore. And it seems like it's all in his head, it has a fantasized image of Cath and he builds up all these feelings around it. He is too nice, so protective, total gentleman. He’s sorry for the weather, he fights to carry her laundry, he checks on her constantly. It’s overdone. I didn’t cringe but I definitely sighed and rolled my eyes.

The problem in the second part of the book is that there is too much drama, and an unnecessary one that is. Cath’s writing partner, Nick, try to steal her work. Wren has a drinking problem, father is hospitalized, mother comes back out of nowhere. This is not even everything but this is what I thought was unnecessary.
The focus could have been more on Cath overcoming her social anxiety since she had now Reagan and Levi at her side, or dealing with the pressure of work at uni when all you care about is your internet social life because it's a gratification, getting to know the good and bad sides of Uni. Those are issues and not drama and I would have loved to read about them.

Too much was going on in this book but Rainbow couldn’t handle it so she picked out a bit of everything, displayed them, and left it at that. I understand that life plays on different levels and sometimes there is just too much going on but for the sake of this book, it would have been better to stay focused on just some part of the story line (adaptation to school, sisters drifting apart and most important of all : CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT) rather than going superficially on so many different problems.

The whole fandom thing and impact on Cath (which rank at second most important thing in this book after the “first year at college” experience) were, again, not well portrayed/addressed.

First of all : My view on fan fiction : "Why not?"
I read it sometimes when I’m waiting for new material of my favorite shows/books or when I’m not ready to be done with a show/book. I use it as a transition, and I don't obsess over it, nor i follow a specific fanfic waiting for the next chapter. All of that means that I wasn’t grossed out about the fan fiction world itself.
But it still annoyed me because Cath crossed the line between fangirling and pathological obsession. Her love for the fictional world was not cute or funny or understandable because she is living for Simon Snow. She isn’t a cute fangirl, she is a pathetic no-life. I don't find it healthy when people escape in another world, it is irrational and weak when it's start taking over real life and responsibilities.

I wish Rainbow would have spent time writing about Cath’s interaction with the fandom (and how really it can take over your life) instead of actually writing fan fiction over a fictive series herself.
Fandom is a big thing, especially when you are some sort of a leader in the fandom, and it’s something time consuming and it would have been awesome to read about it (being part of a crazy community, receiving loads of notifications, hate, love, support, attention, producing content of your own…) but Rainbow chose to throw at us pieces of Simon Snow’s excerpts and to let us figure the shit out.

What I don’t like also is that this fandom thing is what makes Cath “isolated” from others because she uses it as a way to disappear from the world. And it’s legitimated because she has social anxiety. But I think that the whole thing was looked at from the wrong point of view. The realistic outcome should have been to see Cath coming from an place where she was left out (like high school for instance) to a place where she could expend herself over the real world (in Uni, where there are so many new people with different mind sets). Because snow and her fan fiction are so popular, and because everyone is very receptive to it 1)Cath should have made a lot of friends at her campus and 2)Cath should have felt empowered by knowing that her fic gets thousand of likes. Why does she feels it makes her even more ostracized? As if she was the only one in the world/Uni to understand the fandom thing…

And if she feels like fan fiction is such an ostracizing thing, why does she give it away as a paper to her professor? Who would actually do that? Most of the people live their fantasy in their own head, they might write about it, and even share it anonymously. They might talk to it to their best friends, but who the fuck would hand it over to their college professor?

Rainbow made everyone around Cath very receptive to the Gay fan fiction. That irks me too, not that I’m against it in any way, but when I talk about gay fan fiction, people are weirded out by it. NO ONE EVER told me “yeah that’s cool, I read it too/would love to read some”. They’re more like “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

Now about Cath’s realization that she should rationalized her love for Snow, which is in fact the excipit of the whole story. I could write about it but I’ll just say it as it appeared to me : Cath basically decided that “she isn’t going to be like that anymore” and she’s over it, just like that. That was lame.. This whole book makes no sense. What’s more is that we don’t even get to see her growth. We know that Levi, Reagan, Wren are all holding her hands so that she’ll be okay but that doesn’t tell us anything about Cath’s own development. People are here for her, but what is she doing for herself?

I look at others review (the ones giving 5 stars) and most of them are as inconsistent as the book. 2 things stick out : “omg fandom! I love it.” and “Levi is so cute” and that’s basically what Rainbow was aiming for : to get the attention of fandom addicted girls and in contre-partie she treats them with a sweet book-boyfriend. I understand that authors want their books to be liked/loved but it doesn’t justify bullshitting the readers.

Basically it’s refreshing but poorly handled. I wasn’t captivated by it like I was with Eleanor and Park.
-Cather is "uptight, tense, mildly misanthropic" as she described herself .
-The reality of college experience was lacking
-The romance was pushed down our throat
-The fandom theme wasn't developed enough while the Simon Snow fanfic took over Cath’s life, the book, and Rainbow’s writing which wasn’t a good thing (i skipped through some "out-loud" reading session of the fanfic).
-Too much going on with too little addressed.

3,5 stars out of 5.

I think some parts were a bit cliché, the dad part wasn't really explanatory to why he was so cold to his son. I'm not sure i got the right lesson out of each part, but whatever i got, that'll do for me.

I wasn't shattered by this book because I just got out of 12 months of questioning life, death, peace and similar subjects, and i've got my answers already. So if you're on this journey yourself, you might get something from reading it and i think that it's what counts.

This book left me wondering what would my 5 persons be, what would be talk about, stuff like that. I like it.

likeable characters. i personally don't like sport mixed up with romance but i overall still like this book except for the end, where it drags on a bit.

This is my first "lad lit". Basically it's Bridget Jones diary with a male lead.

Because the main character is so whinny, i got really bored and annoyed and i didn't like the book. I even thought at some point that maybe if the main character had been a girl, i would have liked it but there is other stuff that didn't sit right with me, put aside the non-stop whining :

- main character falls in love with a girl OVER THE PHONE and wants to marry her after two days.
- main character spends a lot of time (=pages) "thinking" about his ex. This could have been insightful and interesting, instead it just gets repetitive and lame.
- main character was getting on my nerves all book long. I can't even begin to list everything that he does wrong.
- other characters : the weird-online-unknown love interest, the bitchy ex, the betraying best friend (male), the trying-too-hard-to-mean-something best friend (female). Let me word it clear : hard to like any of them.
- the ending : i'm all for "long time friends falling for each other" but please don't botch it up in the last 3 pages. I say no to that.

Could be improved (especially on the dialogues) but mostly good, cute, nice, quick read.

Nice and fun. Second part of the book is less funny but i still liked it very much because there are all those feelings up and downs in Julie's head.

Story summary : Julie, helped by her best friend Sylvana, takes revenge on her husband Ronan and his mistress Nicole (by destroying their possessions : car, house, cabinet, pets, paints,...) but somehow get close to Nicole (without Nicole knowing that Julie is Ronan's wife). At the end of the book, Nicole is dumped by Ronan (he dumps her because she got pregnant) so she goes away to Amsterdam and Julie fills divorce papers even though Ronan wants her back. Julie and Nicole stays friends.

I liked most of it. It was not ground breaking and I wished the fun had been consistent through the book but it was entertaining.
At times i was slightly annoyed by the interaction between Nicole and Julie (the good naive side of Nicole comes out too strong), and by Ronan's blatant lies (i hate liars over anything else). Also the book could have been a bit shortened.

NOPE.

I bought this book not knowing anything about the author. The cover looked pretty so i took it. I've let it sit a year on my shelf before actually deciding to read it.
This book is so annoying i gave myself one day to read it and then give it away (more like forcing it on someone).

I have nothing to say about the writing style. It's good for the most part (not my favourite style but it's really not bad). But everything else... Oh my god. I don't know where to start.

First of all : the characters. It's a bunch of friends that have known each others for over a decade. Well... The whole team is annoying as hell. There is a lot of characters so i won't go into details but they are self centered, selfish, making dumb decisions, being dependent of each other, emotionally messed up, musician wannabes, drug addicts and what not. Seriously, they are messed up on so many levels it's not even funny. I mean it plays its part on the whole character's development, character's study and psychology but it was tedious to read and impossible to enjoy. And they all have such weird ambiguous reactions to the double murder of their friends that you can't even sympathize with them. Do they even have a soul? or a heart?

By the way, the first half of the book (before they start digging the past) is based on how everyone (and not-so-respectable people) in town has a key to their apartment. REALLY? i mean REALLY? I couldn't get concerned about the murder of such unconscious people. Do they even have a brain?

The main character is Alice because she found the corpses and went to the police. I've rarely came across an adult female character so annoying. I'm sorry for my repetitive use of the word annoying but god, she is. She is supposed to be shy and insecure, when she is in fact childish, immature, incompetent, idiot, irresponsible, stubborn, weak. And the book was centered around her so the whole thing was painful.

Overall, it's NOT atrocious (sorry for my one star rating but i didn't like the book) and some people might even like it but i was not captivated, then i was annoyed then i was totally fed up by the time the murderer/cause of the murder is revealed. DO NOT READ THIS SPOILER : I REVEAL THE MURDERER AND THE CAUSE So the murderer is Susan because she was getting sick of her boyfriend and his adopted brother. Here. Totally fucked up. I mean at least i expected something sordid or surprising or... i don't know! Something. Who kills people because they get annoyed with them? What the heck is that?

I wish i could call it a mystery/thriller book, but it didn't felt like it. I could resume my thoughts on this book by "yeah. whatever."

Oh, I almost forget : there is a love interest for alice. I didn't see the point of the whole thing. So i can't really comment on it.

This book is mind blowing. It touches so many topics that are very thoughts provoking.

It's an old book but it feels so modern. I can't praise Oscar Wilde enough for this book.

Reading this book is like sitting with your butt in the middle of two chairs.
I really like BJD 1 and 2 (yes, the second book too!) and i hated olivia joules. So when i picked this one out of my shelf, i had the intention to read it as fast as i could and to give it away to whoever would be kind enough to take it.
But i don't know anymore. Because even though reading about rich laughable people doing humanitarian work is not something that is entertaining to me, i still think this that this book has some good points. I'll wait to find some thick self centered friend to give this one to, as a hint.

This book is a mix between Bridget Jones' Diary, An imperfect offering and Eat Pray Love.

The thing is, with Fielding, you want to hate her characters because they are a satire of the modern, unsatisfied, urban, love mess, 30-something woman; but because the author is really talented she makes you like the book. Or at least not hate it.
There are issues with going to Africa to "find your true self" and the author makes it clear that she knows it but that's sill how her character is.

To make it short i didn't like the part about Africa. It was realistic, accurate, and relevant but i didn't like to read about it in a book labeled as comedy, i didn't like the romance in it, i didn't like that Nambula is fictional (i can see why the author chose this option but it still irks me), i felt butt hurt when the celebrities got involved in it and i cringed until the last pages of the book, i didn't like O'rourke (irrelevant character).

On the story line itself, i didn't quite like how the 4 years gap is managed. It was not credible to me.

I liked how this book made fun of the famous people, journalists and of Rosie herself but it was still not enough for me. Every time I read something by this author i get mad at some topics that are brought in even when it's clear as day that the author knows what she's doing (she knows that her characters are wrong on such or such thing). I would like for them and their ideas to get strongly bashed by some others characters in the book and not just as an innuendo. I want things to get more pointed at in the book itself. Generally whatever happens in the sphere of the romantic relationship is divided into white (o'rourke) and black(olliver) easily but everything else stay in the gray zone.

The whole abusive relationship part was nice to read because it felt real. It was not as humorous as in BJD because this time, the female lead was really into a bad relationship and it was well portrayed.

The first part of the book (in which the author explains what made her suicidal and what we should change into society) was a bit irrelevant to me because it was focused on (trans)gender's issues. I am not concerned by that, not because i'm cis straight but because sexuality and genders are not something that matters to me. While some people struggle to put a 5 nouns label on themselves, i just don't feel the need to define or categorize myself.

Regarding the writing style, it was not perfect but it was clear enough so the reader could get the point.

The second part of the book is more interesting : it's a list of 101 things you could do instead of killing yourself. Some of them will not appeal to you, some of them you've already done but i'm sure there is at least one reason that you could use for the time being, and i think that if an idea in this book kept your mind away from suicide for even a minute or two, that's awesome.

As i read the 101 ideas, i noticed how many of them i've done, some with the conscious attempt to fight depression, other just because that was all i could do at a certain point. Some of them i've considered but never did and some other i didn't think about.

That's why i think that this book is great, because it has some real talk in it. Also the fact that someone out there took the time to write a book for us with the genuine intention to help us is heart warming.

The main message of this book is : pursue happiness, be the best you can be, don't be mean to yourself and to others.

"Love means not ever having to say you're sorry."
A lot of people consider this quote to be utter crap but I like it more than "That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt" or "It's gonna hurt because it matters" from John Green.

I waited over 12 years to read this book. I remember hearing first about it when i was 10-ish, i was watching a movie (which became my favourite movie ever) in which this book was mentioned.

Yesterday I finally got my hands on it and started reading it right away. I thought it would be something in the lines of "a walk to remember" by Nicholas Sparks : very emotional, romantic, tear jerker and all. But it was not.

Jennifer is not your cute shy little angelic girl. And I really liked that a lot. She is smart, quick witted, funny, strong. I loved her personality.

Even though this book is written in the guy's POV, i didn't really form an opinion on the guy. And somehow, the romance isn't suffocating. In fact, I really don't know what to say about the romance in this book. It was here obviously but it was more in the form of love - simple, obvious love - than sensual love making and cheesy declaration. I guess the way they acted toward each other, how they made little things become important for one another and how they overcome a lot together is what shows us the love between them.

I think that Jennifer was really what made this book what it is. I could write a one thousand words review about her but i'll just say that from her first words to her last, she was awesome and imperfect.

"Les principes sont bons en eux-mêmes mais l'application qu'on en fait les rends souvent mauvais."


In today's view, I consider the content of this book as "common sense" but 2500 years ago, it must have been revolutionary. This and the fact that it's still relevant today is what makes it a master piece in my opinion.

When i first started it, i was a bit bitter because i thought it would be a praise to war and destruction but in fact, this book's message is "don't fight, but if you do, be smart and fight so that the outcome is the best for your people and prize what you gain of it."

This is not about nurturing hatred towards other population nor cruelty but about bringing sense into war so that you can win. War is like a chess game.

What i didn't like is that it gets a bit repetitive but i can't really blame something like that on a book written so long ago and then again, "repetition is the best way to learn" says one of my teacher.
I'm glad I read it but it's not aimed to people like me so i feel like an outsider.

First part of the book was correct.
Second part started to get a bit tiring, since the female lead insecurities really take over the plot.
The direction that the plot took wasn't of my taste but the romance was still nice.