Review: Isla and The Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins.

Isla and The Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
Series: Anna and The French Kiss *3
Published: August 14th 2014
Publisher: Dutton

Goodreads Summary

Love ignites in the City That Never Sleeps, but can it last? Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart. Featuring cameos from fan-favorites Anna, Étienne, Lola, and Cricket, this sweet and sexy story of true love—set against the stunning backdrops of New York City, Paris, and Barcelona—is a swoonworthy conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.

What a beautiful way to finish an amazing journey. Did I mention my wonderful boyfriend managed to get me a signed copy of this book for my birthday? I did. Well you can hear about it again!

I didn’t want to read this book, I didn’t want to say goodbye! It wasn’t until I reread Anna and The French Kiss (because my boyfriend got it for me for Christmas after I complained that I didn’t have my copy anymore) a familiar name popped up. Isla. She was in Anna and The French Kiss; which yes I do realise that it’s a really stupid discovery of mine but as soon as I saw her name pop up I knew I needed this with me right away. Hopeless (I would not have called her that) romantic Isla who has been in love with Josh, the moody artist since their first year at the School of America in Paris. After a rather embarrassing encounter back in Manhattan between the pair love is soon to be followed back to the city of love. (I just read what I wrote and I want to puke) Hell why doesn’t Isla deserve to be with her crush? Good for her! You go girl!
I like to hide my lovey dovey side away and pretend like I don’t have a weakness when it comes to cute romantic stories. But to hell with it. I loved this book. It’s a close second to Anna and the French Kiss with Lola and the boy Next Door being shortly behind.

Maybe it’s a Paris thing. I read a review that labelled Isla as the stalker and Josh as a self-centred artist, calling them horny rich kids. I couldn’t agree more. Isla would have been the perfect example to show kids of the dangers of stalkers, and Josh is so far up his own ass that it’s ridiculous. However that doesn’t mean the book was bad. I think these two characters were perfect together. A little bit sad and extremely surprising that Isla actually managed to get with the boy of her dreams that she most likely had wet dreams over every night. Some of the things that girl did were such a red sign that I was cringing in between pages.

They managed to make it long distance! Hooray. Happy endings for everybody involved. It’s in the title. This has been the best thing to up my spirits. There is nothing better than reading a soppily cute story with a happy ending for all the characters, especially Anna (spoiler). Then theres Kurt, he’s annoying and he’s Isla’s best friend. I think that’s all there is to his character. (not saying he wasn’t developed by Stephanie, but his character is seriously
just a backdrop to this story)

I would describe each story as if it were a cute, fluffy puppy. You can’t help but love it

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (Second Review)

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Published by: Speak
First Publication: 2nd December 2010

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 not too pleased 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 friends, 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 been waiting for?

I read the book back in July 2011, wow. I’m getting so old. The love story was the most incredible thing that I have ever witnessed in a book. Stephanie’s writing was so fresh to me and so unbelievable.

This is actually the first book that I have reread, and I’m glad that it’s this one. I want to just point certain things out that I guess I was too immature to realise before and now having grown up a bit I understand more and my views managed to changed.

The romance in this book is still incredibly cute and I loved it. I more than loved it. I fell head over heels for St. Clair and Anna’s romance once again. However, the younger me seemed to cheer on their romance while St. Clair was still with Ellie. I despised him for even thinking about Anna while he had a long distance girlfriend (while reading the book this time around). I guess for his character in that situation was a bit difficult and he needed both of the girls but I will not forgive him for that. He did however break up with Ellie as soon as he and Anna kissed; but I would have murdered my boyfriend if he did that to me. I guess that I wanted the romance to be so perfect when I first read the book that I didn’t care about the other characters.

Anna is still a great character and the only thing that bothered me were the shenanigans between her and St. Clair. I know that this is a story of friendship and first time love and blah, blah, blah but she fully knew that he was in a relationship! However, once again she did keep telling him to end it and chose (in a harsh way but she pretty much did) and I guess she couldn’t help the fact that she was falling for someone that was taken. Once again I am siding with my younger self on the fact that they are the best couple ever, even though as soon as I read it I was enraged about this situation.

The romance. I wish it was much more realistic! I long for a book by Stephanie that will feature a romance that is not over the top and extremely girly and gushy. Although I do enjoy her over exaggeration in the romance department I think it went far too far. There needs to be a sense of realistic romance, just like she managed to capture the real friendship between all the  characters, she needs to be able to do the same with the romance part. 

My old review...

I wasn't expecting this book to be good, well I wasn't expecting to like it at all. This isn't a type of book I would normally pick up and read, or so I thought. My friend let me borrow this book after she praised it so much I wanted to read it and she was right it was amazing. Also a certain quote from Stephanie Perkins that's in the book made me what to read it even more ;) Anna is a great character, she's just like any girl but she won the heart of Etienne St. Clair the perfect guy. And when I say perfect I mean like pretty much perfect in every way. This was the best book I've read that didn't involve any paranormal characters or anything like that, and it didn't have any attacks, any huge secrets no saving the world all the time. And that's the reason why I wasn't so sure about this book but I was wrong and I wish I came across it sooner, I could read this book every day and not get bored at all. I wish someone like St. Clair would swoop me off my feet, but a girl can dream.

Oh god can we just appreciate how much better I have gotten at punctuation and grammar? This is proving to be a nice little recap to the kind of reviews I used to write. Although I do not remember the quote that I was referring to in my old review I am assuming that it is something rather perverted as I was just that kind of 14/15 year old. How incredibly embarrassing that I have not changed one bit.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Date Published: December 2, 2010
Publisher: Dutton
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris – until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he’s taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near – misses end with the French kiss Anna – and listeners - have long awaited?

(this review was written right after I finished the book hence the rambling and the fan girling)

When I started reading this book I wasn’t sure what to expect. A whiny female lead who does nothing but chase after the random guy? The random guy being a douche bag? I don’t know.. everything that makes me dislike YAs from time to time? Well let me say this. I am SO glad I read this despite all my prejudices. It’s such a GOOD BOOK!!!! Like the kind you are awwwing at and you feel happy, like you’re high on sugar.

The title of the book made me vary and after reading the reviews for the millionth time I finally gave in. I don’t read Chic lits that often.. and in my opinion chic lits are usually like movies. So I don’t bother with them.

But OMG! I love Anna. I love St.Clair!

They both are so realistic. I mean I was so happy with the characters. Although YES I wanted to smack Anna at times but you understand her decisions because you can relate to them (at least I can). I kept on thinking about her decisions and realized that half of the time I would half made the same decisions.

St.Clair… could be annoying.. but I understood why. I don’t like change either. Sometimes change terrifies me. Maybe not as much as it does St.Clair but still. In the end though, I think we all are scared of being alone and sometimes our fear is so great that we don’t realize how much it influences our decisions.

I was really glad that Anna wasn’t taking every chance she could to hit on him or anything because she knew that well hey friendship is better than nothing. She realizes his fear and she lets him go on being like that until well it’s time for him to do something.

And the scene where he was drunk and told her he liked her.. I was so freaking proud of her.
Okay I am rambling but I feel so happy about this book that I don’t know what to say.
Like how much I loved the romance. How much i loved the characters. How much i love St.Clair (did I mention that already?).

The best thing is that there is character development and not in the clearly obvious way.. but in the way that it happens in real life. We don’t become totally different people in a year but we learn from our experiences.

The only reason I didn’t give this book a 5 (technically it is a five, I rounded it up because. because. how can you NOT round it up?) was because I wish there was more happening in the plot. I mean I loved every single minute of the book but what was really happening other than relationship issues.
Well I suppose that’s what this book is about. See that’s why I don’t read a lot of chic lit.