Review | Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Leah on the Offbeat

by Becky Albertalli

My Rating: 

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat - but real life isn't always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she's the only child of a young, single mum, and her life is decidedly less privileged. And even though her mom knows she's bisexual, she hasn't mustered the courage to tell her friends - not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn't know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It's hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting-especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

Amazon | Book Despository | Waterstones | Wordery | Penguin Books

Check out my reviews of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and The Upside of Unrequited here and here!

I don't read much Contemporary at all, but I always make an exception for Becky Albertalli since I read and loved her debut back in 2015. Then her second novel was released and I managed to love that one even more, so it was only natural that I was excited to pick up her third novel - especially as it was returning to a character from her debut who I wanted to know more about.

High school is coming to an end and college is approaching, and Leah Burke is starting to think that maybe it's time she lets someone other than her mother know that she's bisexual, something she's known about herself since she was eleven years old. After Simon came out as gay it seems like now is the best time to do it, but she can't shake the feeling that things will change, and not for the better, if she's honest with her friends, and when she starts to realise she has feelings for her friend's girlfriend life gets even more complicated.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Leah in Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, there were times when she seemed quite nasty and I have a hard time warming to nasty characters, but reading from her point of view was such a breath of fresh air and I began to realise that perhaps part of the reason I didn't like her was because I saw some of my own weaknesses in her. She doesn't try to be likeable and yet those who know her know that she's a good friend, particularly Simon, and I loved her unlikeability - particularly because she becomes more and more aware of it as the novel wares on, and when she does anything or says anything particularly unkind she does try to atone for it in her own way.

My sexuality isn't something I've discussed much but it was so refreshing to read a book from the point of view of a bisexual girl who acknowledged feelings for other girls and for boys. Leah isn't defined by her bisexuality but it's still a big part of who she is, mainly because she feels like she can't tell anyone about it, and that's something that really resonated with me.

My favourite aspect of the novel, though, had to be Leah's relationship with her mom. Leah is from a single parent family and her mom was pregnant with Leah when she attended her own high school prom, but there's none of the prejudices about teenage mothers in the book and their relationship is just lovely. I'd love to read a story about Leah's mom and her boyfriend to be honest, they were adorable.

This is the first novel of Albertalli's I haven't given five stars to and that does make me a little sad considering the bisexual and women-loving-women rep, but as much as I enjoyed the relationship that developed between Leah and Abby in the book I couldn't help thinking that Nick and Abby both became kind of shitty people in this novel. There is an instance where Leah judges Abby for not understanding her own sexuality, which is not okay considering everyone discovers these things differently and this is a big change for Abby when she's always identified as straight, and to be fair to Abby she always apologises when she does something wrong. However, I couldn't help feeling that Leah deserved better throughout the novel. Whether she meant to or not Abby does play with her feelings a little and Nick became such a different character that I was struggling to understand why Simon and Leah were friends with him in the first place - I couldn't remember any of his good qualities from the first book.

Not only that, but I'm still not sure how I feel about Leah and Abby pursuing a relationship so soon after Abby ended a relationship with one of Leah's best friends - as annoying as Nick was in this book, this still felt strange - and there was a lot of convenient pairing off at the end that I didn't quite believe, which is a shame when one of the reasons I love Albertalli's books so much is that she portrays teenagers as actual teenagers and she paints a picture of high school the way I remember it. It's something I've noticed in YA Contemporary in general, which I think is another reason I don't read much of it - why can't people just be single? It's okay not to go to the same college as your high school girlfriend/boyfriend, something, to be fair, Albertalli does explore with Simon and Bram's relationship.

All that aside, I loved the humour, I loved Albertalli's writing, I loved Leah and I'm glad this novel exists and I'll read whatever Albertalli does next. She's still a firm favourite author and I'm so glad that, with this book, Leah finally got her own happy ending.

Review | Sofia Khan is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged

by Ayisha Malik

My Rating: 

Unlucky in love once again after her sort-of-boyfriend/possible-marriage-partner-to-be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene.

As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she seeks stories for her book. But in amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and polygamy-inclined friends, could there be a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love . . . ?

When January rolled around I found myself craving a bit of contemporary fiction; it's not a genre I read often, so when I'm in the mood for it I usually end up devouring it, as was the case here.

I discovered Sofia Khan is Not Obliged on Leena @ justkissmyfrog's YouTube channel (a channel which you should totally be following if you're not already) and I wanted to check it out for myself. There's no shortage of contemporary novels starring women working in publishing, but I'd never read one in which the protagonist is Muslim. In fact the more I thought about it, the more I realised I'd never read a contemporary novel in which the protagonist is Muslim. Considering I don't read much contemporary I suppose I can give myself a break, but other than the Ms. Marvel comics I don't think I've read any other books, regardless of genre, which feature Muslim protagonists.

Note to self: Fix this.

One thing I love about Sofia Khan and Ms. Marvel is that they're both also written by Muslim women, which is an added bonus. I'm not of the opinion that people can only write about characters like themselves - yes I think more trans authors writing about trans characters should be published, for example, but I don't think that means only trans authors can write about trans characters - but it's refreshing to read about a Muslim woman written by a Muslim woman, especially when so many Muslim narratives in fiction feature breaking away from tradition.

What I really enjoyed about Sofia Khan is Not Obliged is that Sofia is a practicing Muslim. She wears a hijab not because anyone is forcing her to, but because she chooses to wear it. I can't express how important this is when we live in a society that keeps trying to tell women who wear a hijab that they're being oppressed; as someone who is white and agnostic, it's none of my business what a practicing Muslim woman decides to wear. Even if I were Muslim, it'd still be none of my business.

God is very important to Sofia, but don't let that put you off this book; it's not trying to convert you to Islam, it's simply Sofia's story, and Sofia just so happens to be Muslim. Outside of her faith she's like any other woman: she's not quite sure where her life is going, she doesn't know if she's in the right job, she's pretty sure she's going to be single until the end of time, and she's just a bit lost.

Ultimately this book went in a direction I wasn't expecting; it started out as a Bridget Jones kind of rom-com and then became something a little more serious which, given Sofia's journey throughout this book, makes a lot of sense. However, sometimes the tone felt a little obscure because of it, leaving me not quite sure what kind of book I was reading. Having said that, I love that Malik tackled some more serious topics in this book, that she didn't let the genre she was writing in, a genre that's so often met with derision, dictate the kind of story she was going to tell; in many ways Malik's writing process and Sofia's are fairly parallel. 

Basically this book ticks a lot of boxes; it's funny, heartfelt, and thoughtful, and I'm definitely interested in checking out whatever Malik releases next.

This Week in Books | 02/12/15

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

NOW: I'm making my way through my eARCs, which means I'm finally reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I already love it. It really does have a Firefly feel to it, and I'm really excited to read the rest of it!

THEN: The last book I finished, The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is still a Boys' Club, was also a NetGalley read. I enjoyed it, but sadly not as much as I thought I would - you can check out my review here if you want to see more of my thoughts about it!

NEXT: Speaking of eARCs, I have a handful of Christmas contemporaries to read and review this December, and I think the first one I'm going to tackle is Holly Martin's Christmas at Lilac Cottage, which sounds adorable.

What are you reading?

Review | Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Everything, Everything

by Nicola Yoon

My Rating:

My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.

I received a copy of Everything, Everything from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Everything, Everything follows the life of Maddy who has an incredibly rare illness which means that she's basically allergic to, well, everything. If she went outside she'd probably die. She's never been able to make real friends her own age or go to school or learn to drive or go on a date. Then a new family moves in next door, and Maddy meets Olly...

What an easy read this was! I sped through Everything, Everything, which was just what I needed because, before I picked it up, I could feel myself falling into a post-amazing book slump after I finished Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. Maddy's narrative voice was so easy to fall into, and I loved her sense of humour. I wasn't sure what someone who's allergic to everything would be like, but Maddy was rarely self-pitying or bitter, even though she had every right to be, nor was she a saint. She was an ordinary girl, who also just happened to be ill.

This is quite possibly one of the most diverse books I've ever read, though considering Nicola Yoon's own feelings for the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign I'm not all that surprised. Maddy is mixed race; half of her ancestry is Asian (Japanese, I think?) and the other half is African American. I haven't read a single book starring another character with that background, so that was fantastic. And there wasn't only Maddy; Maddy's mother, her nurse, and Olly's friend were all people of colour, which is awesome.

The best thing about it, though, was that it didn't feel like Yoon was trying to do a racial paint by numbers. It never felt as though she was including these people 'just to be diverse', but that she was including these people because when she looks at the world it isn't, and never has been, all white. I loved that.

I thought the romance in Everything, Everything was believable and really quite lovely. Maddy and Olly were great together, but they were also great separately, too, which doesn't always happen when you get stories in which the romance is one of the main aspects rather than a sideplot. I could understand why the two of them fell so deeply in love with one another and, perhaps more importantly, I as a reader was hoping for their happiness.

The only thing I had a problem with was that some aspects of the story felt too easy. For example, I would have liked to have known more about Olly's sister and I feel like the only reason we didn't see more of her is because it was easier to just not write about her. Does that make sense? There is also something that happens near the end of the novel that I did kind of like, it's certainly interesting and quite suspenseful, but then it's also a little unbelievable, and another part of me can't help feeling that perhaps Yoon didn't know how else to end it, and so she ended it the way she did. That's so unhelpful, I know, but it's impossible to talk about the thing I'm talking about without spoiling the novel.

All in all, I did enjoy this. For a debut novel it's pretty good! Contemporary isn't the genre I usually lean towards, but I sped through this in two sittings, and definitely recommend it to anyone who's been eying it up.

Review | Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Little Beach Street Bakery

by Jenny Colgan

My Rating: 

Polly Waterford is recovering from a toxic relationship. Unable to afford their flat, she has to move miles away from everyone, to a sleepy little seaside resort in Cornwall, where she lives alone above an abandoned shop. And so Polly takes out her frustrations on her favourite hobby: making bread.

But what was previously a weekend diversion suddenly becomes far more important as she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, and each loaf becomes better and better. With nuts and seeds, olives and chorizo, with local honey (courtesy of local bee keeper, Huckle), and with reserves of determination and creativity Polly never knew she had, she bakes and bakes and bakes.... And people start to hear about it. Sometimes, bread really is life...and Polly is about to reclaim hers.

I don't read contemporary all that often, although it's definitely a genre I've started exploring a little more over the past year. Contemporary settings I can handle, but I love my speculative fiction; if a book doesn't even have a hint of magical realism in it then I'm immediately less likely to pick it up, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes I need something fun and light to fill me with the warm fuzzies, and contemporary is ideal for that.

Little Beach Street Bakery isn't the first Colgan book I've read, I fell in love with her Rosie Hopkins books at the end of last year and have been eager to check out more of her contemporary since because I love the way she includes food in her stories, from sweets to cupcakes to chocolate and, now, to bread! Who doesn't love a bit of bread? Apart from people who can't have glucose...

Perhaps it's my love for Daphne du Maurier, but for whatever reason I have a weakness for books set in Cornwall. I knew I wanted to read more of Colgan's work outside of the Rosie Hopkins series, and to be honest it was the Cornish setting that sold Little Beach Street Bakery to me. The setting was beautiful; Colgan really brought Cornwall to life, to the extent that the setting felt like a character in and of itself. Writing place is something Colgan does incredibly well.

At first it felt a little strange to be reading a Colgan book that wasn't about Rosie, but Polly soon grew on me; she's a really fun and honest protagonist to follow around, and I certainly empathised with the predicament that she found herself in at the beginning of the story. She makes mistakes, she learns from them, and she grows. What more could you want from a protagonist?

I also loved her trusty sidekick Neil the Puffin, even if he was a little unrealistic. Then again if I wanted realism I wouldn't read fiction!

However, while I enjoyed this book I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the Rosie Hopkins books. I felt no real chemistry between Polly and either of her love interests - though I did appreciate that Colgan gave her more than one relationship, unlike many other contemporary reads I've come across - and judging by a lot of the other reviews I've read I'm not alone here. In fact there were times when I felt as though the story would have been just as good, maybe even better, without any of the romantic elements at all. 

I did like her best friend, Kerensa, despite being a little unsure about her at first, but I thought the subplot involving her nearer the end of the book got a little too silly for my taste.

I will definitely read Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, which I already own a copy of, as I'd like to return to Cornwall and see how these characters are doing. With any luck there'll be a little more chemistry there than I felt in this first book! I did enjoy it, though, it's just a shame Colgan spent so much of the book talking about chemistry that wasn't there.

Review | If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay

by Gayle Forman

My Rating: 

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make.

I've mentioned before on my blog that I don't tend to read an awful lot of contemporary, and I read even less YA contemporary, for no other reason than that some of my favourite genres are historical fiction, magical realism and fantasy, so contemporary tends to pass me by!

Reading If I Stay reminded me that I should try to read contemporary more, because I usually end up enjoying what I read; I read If I Stay in a day last November and enjoyed it a lot more than I initially thought I would!

Mia's narrative was very easy to fall into, so much so that even though this book is relatively short as far as novels go I felt like I knew her very well by the time I turned the last page. I loved the constant seesawing throughout; one moment we were seeing this kind of limbo that Mia finds herself in, and the next we were being told about one of her memories regarding her family, her friends and Adam, her boyfriend.

I'm not always keen on the love interests in contemporary YA, but Adam I liked for the simple reason that Mia and Adam's relationship felt like one of the more realistic relationships I've come across in contemporary YA in a while. They had disagreements and they worked through them like a real couple do, and I appreciated Forman's honesty in that respect.

I loved Mia's parents the most. They made me laugh more than once, and knowing that neither of them survived the crash really tugged at my heartstrings.

All in all I really liked this book. I loved the way that it ended, and the only reason it got 4 stars rather than 5 is because it didn't completely blow me away. But I still recommend checking it out if it's on your TBR!

Reading Wrap-Up | November 2014

November was a pretty decent reading month for me. I managed to get through five books, and while the majority of them disappointed me (I've been very critical lately) this month has been the first month in a while where I've constantly been reading something. I finished a book and then immediately picked up another, and I feel as though I haven't done that in a while without giving myself a headache!

Also, unusually for me, I've been on something of a contemporary kick this month! I don't usually read a lot of contemporary, but this month, apart from one book, everything I read was contemporary.

So, on with the wrap-up!

Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams

by Jenny Colgan

My Rating: 

Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian s sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy, is she wrong.

Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton s sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets.

This was my very first dip into Jenny Colgan, and I really liked it! I've owned this book for a while after my sister recommended it to me, and I decided to pick it up this month purely so I could read Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop as the festive season approaches - in fact I'm reading it now! 

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would - in fact there were some parts of it that broke my heart a little bit - and I definitely want to check out more Colgan in future. I keep eying up Little Beach Street Bakery, but I think it'll be a read for the warmer weather, and after I finish Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop I'm hoping to borrow The Christmas Surprise from my local library.

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

My Rating: 

It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders.

Twelve-year old Jonas has never thought there was anything wrong with his world. But from the moment he is selected as the Receiver of Memory, Jonas discovers that their community is not as perfect as it seems.

It is only with the help of the Giver, that Jonas can find what has been lost. And it is only through his personal courage that Jonas finds the strength to do what is right…

I've been meaning to read The Giver for years, so in November I finally decided to cross it off my TBR and I'm sorry to say that I was very disappointed with it. If you want to know more about my thoughts on it, you can find my review here!

If I Stay

by Gayle Forman

My Rating: 

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

After I finished The Giver I was in the mood for something short, and preferably something short that wasn't going to disappoint me like The Giver did. I read If I Stay in a day and enjoyed it way more than I thought I was going to. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet, and I'm eager to watch the film adaptation now!

The Little Women Letters

by Gabrielle Donnelly

My Rating: 

With her older sister, Emma, planning a wedding and her younger sister, Sophie, preparing to launch a career on the London stage, Lulu can't help but feel like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut, working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight. When her mother asks her to find a cache of old family recipes in the attic of her childhood home, Lulu stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. In her letters, Jo writes in detail about every aspect of her life: her older sister, Meg's, new home and family; her younger sister Amy's many admirers; Beth's illness and the family's shared grief over losing her too soon; and the butterflies she feels when she meets a handsome young German. As Lulu delves deeper into the lives and secrets of the March sisters, she finds solace and guidance, but can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu find a place for herself in a world so different from the one Jo knew?

I'm a big fan of the Little Women story and The Little Women Letters has been on my TBR for a while. I borrowed it from my local library while I was on my contemporary kick and, sadly, I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. Again, if you want to know more about my thoughts on it you can find my Goodreads review here!

A Winter Flame

by Milly Johnson

My Rating: 

Eve has never liked Christmas, not since her beloved fiancé was killed in action in Afghanistan on Christmas Day. So when her adored elderly aunt dies, the last thing she is expecting is to be left a theme park in her will. A theme park with a Christmas theme…

And that's not the only catch. Her aunt's will stipulates that Eve must run the park with a mysterious partner, the exotically named Jacques Glace. Who is this Jacques, and why did Aunt Evelyn name him in her will?

But Eve isn't going to back down from a challenge. She's determined to make a success of Winterworld, no matter what. Can she overcome her dislike of Christmas, and can Jacques melt her frozen heart at last…?

For my final book of November I decided to continue on my contemporary kick and tick one of the books off my Winter TBR. I didn't dislike this book exactly, but it did disappoint me. I'm not going to say much because I'll be reviewing it during my Twelve Days of Christmas!

What did you read last month?

Review | Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments

by Rainbow Rowell

My Rating: 

"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

This month I read my very first Rainbow Rowell book - I know, where have I been? For some reason Rowell's just one of those authors it's taken me a while to get around to. I don't read an awful lot of contemporary, but I've heard nothing but amazing things about her books.

I have a copy of Fangirl waiting to be read (which I will be reading and reviewing soon!) and I'm very eager to get my hands on a copy of Eleanor & Park, but I have to admit I'm quite glad to have started with Rowell's first novel. I've heard such amazing things about her YA books that I almost didn't want to read them in case I was one of the few readers who ended up not liking them, and I've been interested in Attachments' plot since I first heard about it.

Ultimately this book was a fun, fast read. I read it in a day, and reading it was like watching a rom-com. Let's face it, all of us have at least one rom-com that we love to sit back and watch at the end of a tough day! I really enjoyed the way the story was written; it flits between Beth and Jennifer's email conversations and Lincoln's POV, so it was a very quick read because the chapters flew by.

I loved Beth and Jennifer's friendship. As I'm sure you all know by now positive female relationships in fiction make my inner beast purr, and I think Jennifer might have been my favourite character - I just thought she was adorable!

I definitely enjoyed reading Beth and Jennifer's conversations more than I enjoyed Lincoln's narrative which, given that he's basically the main protagonist, might not be the best reaction. That's not to say I didn't enjoy his story, however, only that I struggled to make my mind up about him, and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about him. There were times when I felt sorry for him, and other times when I just wanted to give him a slap and tell him to get his act together - but I guess we all probably know some real people who make us feel that way!

What I really appreciated is that Rowell addressed the creepiness of the situation. As much as I thought the plot was quite sweet - I love the idea of awkwardly having to explain to someone your job is to read their email, and now you're a little bit in love with them - it was a fairly unusual set up, and if we're being completely honest I think most of us would run a mile if we met someone out of the blue who told us they knew all our secrets because they'd been reading our personal messages.

I think Rowell managed to overcome the obstacle of an entirely creepy scenario by making Beth as much of a stalker as Lincoln is. I'm probably making this novel sound like it's about a bunch of mad people, but if you've read the book you'll know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, I promise it's slightly a lot more socially acceptable than it sounds!

My main criticism of Attachments would have to be that the ending was a little too abrupt for me. When it comes to standalone contemporary novels I don't expect a huge epilogue at the end by any means, but to me it felt as though the story just stopped. And that was it. Considering the majority of the novel is a big build up of 'will they, won't they?' I wanted a bit more 'yes, they will' at the end. Am I making any sense?

Even so I did enjoy this book. It was light and fun and sweet - the perfect summer read for those of you looking for a book to take on holiday or slip into your beach bag! If nothing else I'm glad I can finally say I've read a Rainbow Rowell book, and I'm looking forward to reading some of her YA in future!

J.

TBR | Contemporary

Last month I shared with you the Classics I'd most like to try and cross off my TBR shelf this year. This month I thought I'd share with you some of the lighter reads I'd like to read this year, because Spring is on the way!

There are less books on this list than my previous one because I don't tend to read an awful lot of Contemporary, but whenever I do read it I always find I've stumbled across it at a time that I've really needed to read something fun and heart-warming. You tend to find books when you're ready for them, don't you?

Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Last month I mentioned this book in my Booket List as the Contemporary novel I'd most like to read this year. I've heard nothing but good things about Rainbow Rowell's novels so it's really about time I got around to reading one of them - Fangirl is my novel of choice simply because it sounds more cheerful than Eleanor and Park. I've heard wonderful things about the latter, but when it comes to Contemporary I usually prefer the books that are going to make me smile to the ones that are going to make me cry.

Then again maybe there's something huge and emotional waiting for me in Fangirl that I don't know anything about...

Alphabet Weekends

by Elizabeth Noble

Natalie and Tom have been best friends forever, but Tom wants them to be much more. When Natalie's longtime boyfriend walks out on her just when she thinks he's going to propose, Tom offers her a different and wildly romantic proposition. He suggests that they spend twenty-six weekends together, indulging in twenty-six different activities from A to Z, and at the end of that time Tom's convinced they'll be madly in love. Natalie, however, is not so sure.

As Natalie's touring the alphabet with Tom, her mother's going through her own romantic crisis—while Tom's unhappily married sister-in-law, Lucy, struggles with temptation. And over the course of six amazing months, three generations of passionate dreamers are going to discover that, no matter how clever they are, love—and life—is never as easy as A, B, C . . .

Contrary to what I was just saying about books that won't make me cry, one of my favourite Contemporary reads is Elizabeth Noble's Things I Want My Daughters to Know, which follows a family of four daughters after their mother passes away. Since then I've been eager to read something else of Noble's and Alphabet Weekends has been waiting on my shelf for a while now.

I don't read an awful lot of Chick Fiction, but I've enjoyed most of what I've read and I think it's a strand of Contemporary that often gets looked down upon by readers who think they're above it, and that's a real shame. Like any genre some of it can be trashy and awful, but there's a lot of Chick Fiction out there that's fun to read and just nice.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

by Morgan Matson

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn't seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she's coming to terms with her father's death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

You can't go wrong with a road trip story. Usually this wouldn't be my kind of thing at all, but since the release of Amy and Roger's Epic Detour I've heard nothing but good things about it, so I might just see if my local library has it and read it this summer - summer's always the best time of year for a road trip, after all!

The Little Women Letters

by Gabrielle Donnelly

With her older sister, Emma, planning a wedding and her younger sister, Sophie, preparing to launch a career on the London stage, Lulu can’t help but feel like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut, working dead-end jobs with no romantic prospects in sight. When her mother asks her to find a cache of old family recipes in the attic of her childhood home, Lulu stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. In her letters, Jo writes in detail about every aspect of her life: her older sister, Meg’s, new home and family; her younger sister Amy’s many admirers; Beth’s illness and the family’s shared grief over losing her too soon; and the butterflies she feels when she meets a handsome young German. As Lulu delves deeper into the lives and secrets of the March sisters, she finds solace and guidance, but can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu find a place for herself in a world so different from the one Jo knew?

Little Women is one of my favourite Classics, and one of the only American Classics, aside from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Edgar Allen Poe's works, that I've actually liked. No offence to the American Classic, but there's only so many times I can read about the futility of the American Dream.

When I first came across The Little Women Letters on Goodreads I was a little worried that someone had taken one of my favourite Classics and ruined it, so I was actually relieved to discover that this story is about Jo March's descendents rather than the original "Little Women" themselves. I'm a sucker for stories about sisters, so hopefully I'll read this book this year!

Brownies and Broomsticks

by Bailey Cates

Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees.

While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells!

When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer...

Okay so technically this book might fall more into the Fantasy or Mystery genre, but it just sounds adorable, doesn't it?

I love an epic Fantasy or Crime story just as much as the next person - nothing gets me excited like The Lunar Chronicles or one of the Shardlake novels - but sometimes it's nice to sit down and enjoy something cute too, and nothing sounds cuter to me than a Cozy Mystery set in a bakery that's run by witches. I'm going to have to get my hands on a copy of this in time for summer, I think!

What Contemporary books are on your TBR shelf? Are there any in particular you'd like to read this year? Feel free to let me know down below!