Review: Just One Day (Just One Day, #1)

Just One Day (Just One Day, #1)

Author: Gayle Forman

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay.

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

Published January 8th 2013.

Allyson is self-effacing, and if anything, ordinary. LuLu is enigmatic, and if anything, attractive. If Allyson rouses bland uninspired prose composed by pimply laboratory nerds, LuLu inspires an epic modern-day romance-- at least, enough for a striking boy-actor who can sprout Shakespeare to offer to bring her to the City of Lights (or Love. Or Fashion.) on the spur of the moment.

Well, here comes the interesting part, Allyson and LuLu are the same person.

I think the reason why this novel is such a tour de force in the contemporary genre is simple: it hits all the right notes with the readers. As I honestly can't find any other coherent way to convey how much I adore this book, I shall aim to do so in the most empirical way possible.

In terms of rhetorics, if Gayle Forman had aimed to persuade me to root for Allyson/LuLu and Willem, she succeeded beyond her wildest imagination with only half of the book -- the first half of the book is titled "One Day" and the second part, "One Year" -- using pathos and kairos.

In terms of pathos (appealing to my emotions), I almost cried at two points in this book. This isn't just some frothy novel about "a privileged girl having an epiphany away from home". No. It takes a philosophical and nuanced look at what it means when a girl finally comes of age in a transformative day in Paris -- understanding the differences between falling in love and being in love, surrendering herself to the accidents of fate and saying "yes", grabbing freedom at its knees and finally, realizing that the key to feeling always a little less than the whole of herself has never been about not knowing who she is, but knowing that and not wanting to be that person anymore. 

The messages packed here in that one day in Paris are just so powerful and self-empowering that Allyson's growth into LuLu and sudden loss of her newfound identity jars me. Her scenes with Willem make me dreamily doodle invisible hearts all around the book, but the abrupt end to the "One Day" section of the book is painful.

And that brings me to kairos, a look into the timeliness of plot lines, in the subsequent "One Year" after that fateful day in Paris. There are some magnificent flashes of Shakespeare in this section that cement my belief that Shakespeare must have been a most epic lover. Along with that, Allyson's transition into college life and her inner struggle between letting her parents down versus letting down herself pushes her to come to terms with that one day in Paris and how much she is willing to let it change her.

He showed me how to get lost, and then I showed myself how to get found.

I had thought the "One Day" section a triumphant portrayal of Allyson's growth, however, Allyson only truly blossoms in the second section of the book as she heads back once again to Paris, then across Europe, in search of Willem and a lost part of herself. And the way she collects clues to find her way back to him and misses him closely each time had my heart knotted into tangled strings -- oh, Gayle Forman, you have me in the palm of your hands.

Gayle Forman has the knack for looking into the hearts of her readers and showing us a side to us that we didn't know we had with astonishing simplicity. Undoubtedly my favourite contemporary of 2013, let me tell you one thing: if you have to fall in love with one book this year, let it be this one.

“You're just trying on different identities, like everyone in those Shakespeare plays. And the people we pretend at, they're already in us. That's why we pretend them in the first place.” 

Source: From the bookstore

Mini-Playlist

1. She Will Be Loved Maroon Five (here)
2. Clarity Zedd ft. Foxes (here) 
3. 사랑은 벌이다 (Love Is Punishment) K.Will (here) 
4. Crazy In Love Jisun (here)
5. How Long Will I Love You Ellie Goulding (here)

Hopefully, it seems quite obvious where each song fits! If you want to know specifically, feel free to email me!

Did you guys get wanderlust from reading this book? 

xoxo,
Sel

Review + Playlist: The Promise of Amazing

The Promise Of Amazing

by Robin Constantine

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Release Date: December 31st, 2013

Wren Caswell is average. Ranked in the middle of her class at Sacred Heart, she’s not popular, but not a social misfit. Wren is the quiet, “good” girl who's always done what she's supposed to—only now in her junior year, this passive strategy is backfiring. She wants to change, but doesn’t know how.

Grayson Barrett was the king of St. Gabe’s. Star of the lacrosse team, top of his class, on a fast track to a brilliant future—until he was expelled for being a “term paper pimp.” Now Gray is in a downward spiral and needs to change, but doesn’t know how.

One fateful night their paths cross when Wren, working at her family’s Arthurian-themed catering hall, performs the Heimlich on Gray as he chokes on a cocktail weenie, saving his life literally and figuratively. What follows is the complicated, awkward, hilarious, and tender tale of two teens shedding their pasts, figuring out who they are—and falling in love.

This book promised something pretty amazing (at least to me, the Cinderella-esque premise of the sweet poor girl and bad rich boy romance never gets old), and I write this review with a relatively simple message: it delivered its promise. 

But, one thing for sure, it most definitely didn't go the way I expected. I was readying myself for a sweet, fluffy tale of first love with little emotional strings attached on my part, and expecting the most complicated thing in the story to be the Arthurian-themed catering hall which Wren worked at. It went the exact opposite way. The backstory of Grayson was dark, bordering on the gritty, with many surprising nuggets of information that were thrown onto my path as we went along. The complications along the way were not only numerous, but also, extremely real troubles that made their love much more tumultuous but gratifying for me since I love me some good drama.

As for Wren, while her character arc certainly was solid, Grayson's parts of the story (the novel was in two P.O.V.s) stood out more for me, hands-down. Much of Grayson's history before he met Wren made this novel so much more than just a regular contemporary romance, his growth into a boy that Wren could be proud of was heartwarming-- it included coming to terms with his divorced parents, his friends (goodness, Luke was one hell of a character) and perhaps, some sort of closure for his multiple identities as a brain, an athlete and a criminal.

More than all of the above, at the end of this book, I chose to see it as a strange sort of discourse on modern teenage love: There's no one convenient time for falling in love. Sometimes, it just happens. It's quick, redolent of insta-love. Yet, at the same time, it's intense, gorgeous and beautifully alive. 

As we watch Wren and Grayson amble into a fragile love built on rocks, we know that their ending would be a happy one. That's the solace of reading books like that. 

There's always the promise of something amazing. And for me, that's more than enough.

I think everything about you is amazing, Grayson Barrett. -- Page 100, Uncorrected E-Proof

I'd go anywhere for you, Wren. -- Page 140, Uncorrected E-Proof

Source: From the Publisher (HarperCollins) for review purposes 

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A Playlist (in chronological order; once you've read it, you would know where each song fits, hopefully)

1. Catch My Breath Kelly Clarkson (here)
2. Try P!nk (here)
3. Promise Me Beverley Craven (here)
4. Let Me Love You Glee (here)
5. Say Something A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera (here)
6. Unconditionally Katy Perry (here)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Constantine is a born and bred Jersey girl who moved down South so she could wear flip-flops year round. She spends her days dreaming up stories where love conquers all, well, eventually but not without a lot of peril, angst and the occasional kissing scene. 

Her YA debut, THE PROMISE OF AMAZING, will be released in 2014 by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Tumblr

The book: Goodreads | Amazon Paperback | Amazon eBook | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | The Book Depository

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Lots of love,
Sel

Review: Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Summary:

"Bono met his wife in high school," Park says.

"So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers.

"I’m not kidding," he says.

"You should be," she says, "we’re sixteen."

"What about Romeo and Juliet?"

"Shallow, confused, then dead."

''I love you," Park says.

"Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers.

"I’m not kidding," he says.

"You should be."


Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.


Published February 26th 2013.

I think I fell in love with the cover at first glance. The truth is, you don't often see covers this simple and straightforward on the shelves. But, for Eleanor & Park, this cover encapsulates the essence of the novel perfectly-- just the right clean and sweet tone for a story about the blossoming of young love.

This is the story of Eleanor -- red-haired, awkward, big-boned and with certain family scandals which keep her in fearful rebellion.

This is also the story of Park -- black-haired, aloof, lithe and the son of a perfect American family.

However, beyond their seemingly stereotypical images, they are different -- not just from each other, but also from the rest of the world.

Park is a half-Korean and half-American sixteen year old kid-- lover of punk music, taekwondo-practicing and a comics extraordinaire. And he loves with a heart-wrenching kind of impulsiveness and surety. When Park meets Eleanor, the new girl on the bus, their foray into young love is slow and raw, glazed over by the innocence that comes with their era-- the 1980s. 

Eleanor, on the other hand, is an outright misfit.  

      Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

She lives and breathes and pulses with a vibrancy that inspires a million quote-worthy moments. As they grow from love to love, my heart was warning me that nothing good can ever come out of it (after all, Romeo and Juliet was the best testament to the tragedies of young love). 

But something beautiful did come out of it. For after Eleanor meets Park, there can never be two people who will ever love each other in the same way again. And Rainbow Rowell's gorgeous purple prose finally made me cry in the end (something that was pretty much inevitable from the very beginning), 

         “Nothing before you counts," he said. "And I can't even imagine an after."

She shook her head. "Don't."

"What?"

"Don't talk about after."

"I just meant that... I want to be the last person who ever kisses you, too.... That sounds bad, like a death threat or something. What I'm trying to say is, you're it. This is it for me.”

In essence, this was both the most heart-wrenching and the most heart-warming book I've ever read in my entire life. It made my heart swell with love and then carved out a tiny piece from it. Because of that, there will always be a part of me which can never forget the aching emptiness after reading this book and the memory of the sweetest, truest and most glorious first love which fulfils, hurts and ultimately, heals. 

This is a book that will love you-- hard to find, hard to keep & hard to forget. Don't let it pass you by.

Source: From St. Martin's Press for review purposes
Via Netgalley.

xoxo,
Sel

Author Interview: Ashley Elston (author of The Rules for Disappearing)

Welcome to my stop on THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING blog tour organized by Shane @ Itching for Books! She has some amazing tours so do check her site out.

Today, I have an interview with Ashley, in which she mentions Etienne St. Clair (awww) and Julia Roberts and gives us some exclusive information about the book.

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She’s been six different people in six different places: Madeline in Ohio, Isabelle in Missouri, Olivia in Kentucky... But now that she’s been transplanted to rural Louisiana, she has decided that this fake identity will be her last.

Witness Protection has taken nearly everything from her. But for now, they’ve given her a new name, Megan Rose Jones, and a horrible hair color. For the past eight months, Meg has begged her father to answer one question: What on earth did he do – or see – that landed them in this god-awful mess? Meg has just about had it with all the Suits’ rules — and her dad’s silence. If he won’t help, it’s time she got some answers for herself. 

But Meg isn’t counting on Ethan Landry, an adorable Louisiana farm boy who’s too smart for his own good. He knows Meg is hiding something big. And it just might get both of them killed. As they embark on a perilous journey to free her family once and for all, Meg discovers that there’s only one rule that really matters — survival.

Expected Publication: May 14th 2013

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Purchase: Amazon

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YOUR BOOK

You are advertising your book on TV, come up with a catchy tagline!

Never tell anyone your secrets.

Describe Meg and Ethan in three words each.

Meg: Strong, loyal, determined

Ethan: Smart, trustworthy, adorable

Which fake identity did Meg had the most fun with? (Maybe something to do with the hair color?)

Without giving too much away – probably her time in Florida. Who wouldn’t want to spend every day at the beach?

If your characters had the chance to talk to you face to face, what would they each say?

I can’t believe you did this to us.

What was your inspiration for this book? And, why write about the Witness Protection Program?

I wanted to tell the story of a girl who had to hide her true identity and how tough that would be. I’ve always been fascinated by the Witness Protection Program and thought it made a great backdrop for a thriller.

What was one unexpected thing that surprised you in the process of writing this novel?

What surprised me the most was how many talented people it takes to get a book out into the world.

YOU

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

Ummm…I guess Julia Roberts because I love her smile and she always seems so happy.

If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

Titles are so hard! I guess… Laissez le bon temps rouler

(For any of you wondering, that means "let the good times roll"!)

Tell me about the worst date in your life.

A boy from another high school invited me to his prom. It was on a riverboat and he was the only person I knew. Once the boat left the dock, we were stuck there. It was the longest four hours of my life.

If you could travel back and forth in time, which era or time period would you choose?

Roaring 20s! I would love to be in a flapper dress listening to jazz music in a dance hall.

Kiss. Kill. Marry. (Your choice.)

Kiss: Etienne St. Clair

Kill: King Leck

Marry: Etienne St. Clair (Love him!)

THIS OR THAT

Heels or sneakers? Sneakers

Thrillers or Romantic Comedies? Both – depends on the mood!

Big Bad Wolf or Prince Charming? While the Big Bad Wolf might be exciting, Prince Charming wins for the long haul

Thai food or Chinese food? Yum! I love both but eat more Chinese food since there’s not a Thai restaurant where I live.

Twilight or Harry Potter? Always Harry.

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ABOUT ASHLEY

Ashley Elston lives is North Louisiana with her husband, three sons and two cats. She worked as a wedding and portrait photographer for ten years until she decided to pursue writing full time. Ashley is also a licensed Landscape Horticulturist and helps her husband run a commercial lawn and landscaping business. They also custom harvest pecans and have cows. Yes, cows.

ashleyelston.com | twitter.com/ashley_elston

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xoxo,
Sel