The Wrong Order

I made a mistake… a terrible, terrible mistake. I read Giovanna Fletcher’s SECOND novel BEFORE her first. Here I shall post my formal apology because after having read her first one, my friend who completed this task correctly, sent me a text explaining how there was a reference from her first book in her second. It’s a disappointing feeling knowing you weren’t the one to notice it and star shouting to the world. Needless to say I am now prepared for her third book!

Billy and Me – Giovanna Fletcher

I will tell you now, if you are a person who appreciates a love story that grips you, reduces you to tears and makes you feel like you are the main character then listen closely. If however, you are not, I don’t recommend you read on.

Giovanna wrote this book in such a way that with each character you came across you instantly felt the way the author intended, some filled you with a mild hatred, (others a major hatred) but other characters you poured your heart into and didn’t ever want to let them go. Whilst some of the book can be predicted due to the ‘fame’ nature of it, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the book took me by surprise.

For obvious reasons I was more drawn into the book from the fact that the protagonist was called ‘Sophie’ however the book is truly wonderful. Billy is everything you’d want in a man; Kind, caring, loving, thoughtful, endearing… most importantly he doesn’t give up on the girl that he loves no matter how much the press and the public try to intervene. I suppose Giovanna’s message portrayed here, given that she is married to a pop star herself, would be to show what life is like behind the limelight of the one you love. Particularly in that sense, there will be people who don’t like you and will try to get rid of you but it really is no one’s business to intervene.

Believe it or not, celebrities do have the right to a private life and a relationship, even if you promised your grandmother’s dog that one day you’d marry them!

For my boyfriend if he is reading this… I don’t want to marry that celebrity anymore... I actually text my friend wishing you were here to give me a cuddle because as your soppy sod, my heart couldn’t cope with the cuteness of it all! 

Unrequited love

The second of my naughty purchases of this month was one that I have had my eye on for a long time!

You’re the one that I want – Giovanna Fletcher

I have heard nothing but praise for this author and having heard that it’s all about love and soppiness, I couldn’t help but choose this as my next book of choice. Revision has properly taken hold of my life at the moment therefore I have had to reserve reading time as my unwind time just before I sleep in the evenings, therefore I get about an hour or so per evening to read. That makes me a little sad as I have loved throwing myself into reading this year to the point where if I’ve made a significant dent in the book, the majority of my thoughts are trying to decipher where this adventure will take me…and yes reading is an adventure! It’s as though you create a world in your head and you grow to love and befriend the characters and it’s certainly safe to say that I befriended the characters in this book.

I would like to note here that next to ‘Evermore’ By Alison Noel and ‘Eleanor and Park’ which I read earlier on this year, this is in my top 3 books. (Don’t worry; I shall be revisiting my favourite book  ‘Evermore’ at some point this year as it can’t not hold a special spot in my blog.)

‘You’re the one that I want’ is a tale of unrequited love between a trio of best friends ‘the tripod’ as they call themselves. 2 boys and 1 girl; Ben, Maddy and Robert, you could simply say that throughout the course of this book Maddy is torn over who of her two guy best friends hold her heart. However, there is absolutely nothing simple about this story! Mrs Fletcher truly had me gripped throughout the story. As the story progresses, a series of events get thrown into the mix driving the decision of love further and further from 'easy'– another girlfriend, a cheating boyfriend, engagements, life decisions – Maddy was never given a fair opportunity to make her choice without hurting someone.

It's a question throughout as to whether fate will control the situation, or if her heart will decide which path she wishes to take. All the while she wonders what life would be like next to the other guy.

The typical falling in love and it's fire being lit in the iconic place of love; Paris... I couldn't help but let my heart pour into this story therefore I could not put this book down! 400 pages, 4 nights, complete! I am passing it onto a good friend of mine so I can have an in depth conversation about how this book moved me to tears yet left me with a warm and happy heart throughout. I will be moving swiftly onto her debut novel next as she is a fabulous author and I can’t see myself ever wandering far from her named books on the shelves in a bookshop.

‘Three squeezes’ … ‘I’ he said as he squeezes my hand, ‘love’ with another squeeze, ‘you’ he finished with the third squeeze. 

Irrelevantly Relevant

I’ve been rather naughty this month with my pay check; I’m supposed to be saving up for my holiday in the summer also for a laptop. However, I went on a spree and purchased 4 books! Oops! This book only took me the weekend to read (It was a 5 day weekend as I was away, school teacher training day and being unwell.) I actually bought it for the totally sum of £2.51 - £2.50 of which was postage and packaging! Spending a penny for a book was a bargain I simply couldn’t refuse! Whilst I am very lucky in the fact that I am 18 years old and I have never faced a breakup (nor do I think that my current relationship is on its way out,) this book has had many good reviews and I thought that it would be an interesting read;

‘It’s called a Breakup because its broken’ by Greg and Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt

I will say this now, just to clarify; my relationship isn’t on its way out which I am very pleased with. This book doesn’t have to apply to a breakup between you and a partner, after disappointingly losing a very close friend of mine it actually helped with the process of forgetting about them. I suppose my boyfriend and my current best friend are my 2 ‘breakup buddies’ for getting over that friendship that really did let me down when I depended on it.

Its a witty and very well mixed book with different boxes and categories and different layouts on pages with various fonts…this may sound really odd but this excited me a lot! It makes reading more interesting in my opinion and for this book it really did work! Whilst adding in tips and motivating you to become a ‘superfox’ it also motivated me to become a better version of myself for myself. And what’s better than setting motivations with baby steps….today I will get out of bed, today I will leave the house, today I’m going to go for a walk and so on so forth. Hey you don’t need to have had a breakup to use certain mechanisms in this book to move on, you need a life setback in whatever way it comes for you to realise that you need to be strong and move on. This book gave me ways to help me to move on from certain things that have been happening in my life lately and it was a good swift kick up the bum! Thank you Greg and Amiira!  

One thing I found most interesting in this book was all the stories of bad break ups and the confessions of the lengths people went to get their partner back. I really shouldn’t of, but I did giggle a little too much. Oops again! I loved this book even though it was irrelevantly relevant, a wonderful read and I can see myself passing this one around to those who need a little motivating. 

What’s the corniest cliché that you live by?  ‘Messy bed, messy head.’ 

A friend recommends ...

When starting a reading challenge for a book a week, you soon realise that you don’t have nearly enough books to cover an entire year… you also realise that you don’t have enough time to visit a local library when you’re trying to tie in revision and the likes. This is when friends who also like books become very handy as one good friend kindly lent me her favourite book;

'Submarine' by Joe Dunthorne

Whilst this book wasn’t massively my cup of tea as it took me a while to be immersed in the plot and one of the characters I truly disliked. Once I had started reading it on the train (reading on the train is fabulous pass time as it allows you to get massively attached before getting to the interesting bit 2 minutes before your stop) I found myself growing very fond of the main character and becoming very attached to the witty projection of his interestingly normal mundane lifestyle. Set in his school years this young lad endeavours to go all the way in his new relationship and also fix his parents’ marriage after encountering some unexpected circumstances of his mum and another chap all the while tackling depression in the family.

It’s a very witty book that left me laughing through the awkward moments and when paired with the film (that really didn’t run alongside the storyline of the book as such) the witty nature of it and the cleverness makes it very loveable even though it wasn’t quite to my taste.

On another note though, it was refreshing to read a book that wasn’t in the clouds with a happy ending and everything falling into place. Every now and again it’s good and certainly healthy to read something with somewhat of a realistic vibe that not everything in life works perfectly but you can certainly make the best of what you do have, if not it’s certainly a good adventure.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s good to get your head out from under the water and see life for what it really is.