Book Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

On her senior year of high school in Atlanta, Anna's father decides to send her to a boarding school in France so she could experience life. Anna is furious and does not want to leave her friends especially Toph, who is showing interest in her.

When she arrives in France, Anna realizes that life at the boarding school is different from the life at her old school. Anna becomes afraid that she won't fit in and that she won't make any friends until she meets Etienne St. Clair. Meeting St. Clair shows Anna that life in France is not too bad after all.

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This book was highly recommended and was raved to be one of the best love stories out there, so I had pretty high hopes. Unfortunately, it was not the five star I was expecting.

The book was cute but too predictable. It's pretty much the whole young girl meets handsome boy with British accent, falls for him but unfortunately he has a girlfriend, but hey they fall in love. Though the story wasn't as original, I couldn't help but smile at many parts.

I liked how Anna grows up in the book and comes to learn that people need second chances. I also enjoyed the fact that even though she was in France, she still stayed "innocent." I really enjoyed her character.

In all, this was a very delightful summer read.

It's Friday and It's Book Blogger Hop Time!

Crazy-for-Books is running this Book Blogger Hop to help connect book bloggers with other fellow book bloggers. Here's this week's question:

If you could be a character from any book, who would you be?

My Answer:

After lots of thinking, the character that I would like to be is Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. During a time when women were expected to be weak and submissive, Scarlett was an incredibly strong and determined woman who did not let anything stop her from getting what she wanted. I also love how mean she was yet still had a heart.

Will I be able to marry three times to get what I wanted like Scarlett did? I don't know. But if I were desperate enough, then yes. What I do know for sure is that I would have realized how important Rhett was to me before it was too late.

Book Review and Giveaway

The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club

by Laurie Notaro

“I’ve changed a bit since high school. Back then I said no to using and selling drugs. I washed on a normal basis and still had good credit.”

Laurie Notaro is a journalist who has entertained many readers of the Phoenix newspaper with her humorous tales. The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club is her first book. The book is set up of different essays talking about different points of Laurie's life.

This is my second Laurie Notaro book and I thought it was hilarious! Yes, there were stories there that I did not need to know but she was able to save the story with a funny punch line at the end of each chapter. You get to learn so much about her and makes you want to come to meet her, when she's not smoking of course.

The essays go from the time she went to the doctor with a huge hole in her tights right on her crotch, to the time she was stood up by a date and how she got revenge, to her dreadful high school reunion, to her nightmare of "taking care of" two neighbor girls who would not leave her alone, and to eating at a fancy restaurant where she kept ordering bread rolls. There were many stories in this short book, but each one made me chuckle. It's a great summer read.

****The giveaway is CLOSED

Random Acts of Kindness: July

RAK (Random Acts of Kindness)is hosted by Book Soulmates  and you can join the fun here. RAK is a monthly event where you sign up and share your book wishlist. Then you can view other's wishlists and send them a Random Act of Kindness. Isn't this neat?! This is my first time doing it so I'm pretty excited!

COMPLETE RULES RE-CAP:
Please read carefully & follow all rules! Thank you!

• Please sign-up each month that you can participate (and by participate, we mean give as well as receive).
• Show off your participation by grabbing our RAK button (code is in the right sidebar).
• Create a wish list (on Amazon, Goodreads, or your blog, etc) and post it in the Google Doc located in each R.A.K post for the month.
• If you choose to do a R.A.K for someone, check out their wish list and contact that blogger directly for their information.
• Once you receive a RAK, send us an our new email to [rakbybooksoulmates @ gmail . com] so that we can update the Google Doc. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU SEND EMAILS TO THIS ADDRESS!
• E-book participation is limited to files being gifted directly to a person from the e-book store. Amazon's Kindle Store is set up to allow this, as well as the Kobo store and we believe Barnes & Noble with Nook as well.
• At the end of the month, SHOW US YOUR R.A.K by making a "RAK Wrap-Up" post. This post should include who you SENT gifts to as well who you RECEIVED gifts from :)

OPEN TO EVERYONE including all our International brethren!

Remember, there's always the Book Depository and they offer FREE shipping!

Easy peezy!!

 

Here's my wishlist.

Teaser Tuesday #3

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB from Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here are my teasers:

"They left me. My parents actually left me! IN FRANCE!" ~page 9 from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.

"And that doctor saw it! Why the hell aren't you wearing underwear?"~page 16 from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Lauri Notaro.

Audiobook Review: The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

Read by Dennis Boutsikaris

"What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down?

That’s what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

Kevin Garvey, Mapleton’s new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin’s own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin’s teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she’s definitely not the sweet “A” student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he’s distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start."

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The premise of this story was quite interesting. What would happen if all of a sudden thousands of people disappeared all of a sudden around the world? How would I react if my whole family vanished in thin air and I was the only one behind? These questions were constantly in my mind when listening to this audio.

The book follows different characters on how they deal with the affects of the Sudden Departure. Out of all the stories, Nora's was the one that caught my attention the most. I felt sorry for her and just wanted the best for her. I was deeply glad for the way the book ended for Nora.

Though the book was full of crazy events and humorous moments, I did find myself having a hard time focusing. The reader did a wonderful job portraying the characters and narrating the story, but I did find myself being lulled to sleep. The constant change of characters did not help keep me focused either. Maybe this would have been best as a print book?

Musing Mondays (June 2)

A weekly meme hosted by MizB from Should be Reading.

This week's musing asks:

When you’re stuck for a book to read next, what do you do?

My Answer:

I used to get stuck for my next read all the time until I joined Shelfari online. Back then, I was not aware of the many different authors out there or the types of genres that I would like. Shelfari was able to introduce me to the book world.

There are many challenges through Shelfari, and this has kept me on my toes as to what I would read next. I am co-administrator for a group called Bibliophile on Shelfari so I have to read some of its BOTMs and post discussion questions. Then I also participate in Play Book Tag and Booktivity. Play Book Tag has a monthly tag theme where you are suppose to read a book with that tag. Booktivity has a montly book characteristic theme where you are suppose to read a book with it. These groups have made it easier for me to come up with my next read.

I also go to Barnes and Noble and the library, or I simply go on Youtube to watch some book vloggers. I like browsing through books so going to the library or a book store helps me see what interests me. Watching book vloggers introduces me to the what's hot out there or what books are really interesting. It has actually increased my TBR list :/