“Just because something isn’t practical doesn’t mean it’s not worth creating. Sometimes beauty and real-life magic are enough.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: mean sisters, rock bands, fortune-telling, strict parents, colorful wigs, figure skating, babies, a boy next door, Marie Antoinette gowns, and… cherries.

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit – the more sparkly, more wild – the better. And life is pretty close to perfect for Lola, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend.

That is, until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket return to the neighbourhood and unearth a past of hurt that Lola thought was long buried. So when talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally face up to a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. Could the boy from Lola’s past be the love of her future?

Fall in love with the international bestseller from queen of young adult fiction, Stephanie Perkins.

After finishing “Anna and the French Kiss“, I immediately picked up “Lola and the Boy Next Door” because I was hoping it would be as good as the first book. While it wasn’t, I still think this was a cute read – I just liked the first book better in comparison.

Lola was a fun character and quirky to read! She is very into fashion and designing outfits, and I really enjoyed reading about that. Of course, there were some moments here and there that showed some immaturity from Lola but I had to remind myself they’re still pretty young and this is still a YA novel! I also want to mention Lola’s parents, Andy and Nathan, because I loved them as characters! Even though they are strict with her, they are great parents.

I feel like there’s a more… adult feel to this one. Her boyfriend Max is 22 and she’s only 16 years old, so that was a little creepy to me. Also, he was a jerk to her, always trying to control her and only liking her because she was young.

The romance was cute! I really liked Cricket Bell as a love interest. They liked each other for a very long time, and only now they’re starting to express their feelings for each other. Who doesn’t love a good first love story? Compared to her boyfriend Max, Cricket is very sweet and kind to her.

Since this is a crossover kind of trilogy, Anna and St. Clair from “Anna and the French Kiss” were part of the book! They made a few appearances here and there, so it was cool to see their “happily ever after”.Overall, I had fun reading this. It was a cute story and I enjoyed it for what it was, but so far the first book is still my favorite. I liked the first story better and I found it more entertaining and engaging than the second book. Let’s see how “Isla and the Happily Ever After” goes!

“Seriously, I don’t know any American girl who can resist an English accent.” – 4.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: movie reviews, new friendships, colorful pastries, boarding schools, English accents, terrifying diagnoses, cinemas in every corner, sweet wine grapes, a fear of heights, and the many steps of the Eiffel Tower.

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 less than thrilled 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 people, 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 waiting for?

I finally read the epitome of YA Romance: “Anna and the French Kiss”!

I know I’m super late to the “Anna and the French Kiss” party, but I am happy I finally started this series. I’ll admit I had low expectations for this book because I thought this was probably overhyped. Well… I’m thrilled to say I was wrong.

Oh, the charms of Paris. I was excited when I found out the setting was in Paris! I was afraid this was going to be a very stereotypical view of Paris, but I liked the details that made this story escape the usual stereotypes – like the mention of the sweet wine grapes and the cinemas on every corner! Of course, you still have the staples, but the mention of different things was a pleasant surprise and made me think the author was actually in Paris and took inspiration from personal experience.

The romance was cute! I liked Anna as a main character and Étienne was a cute and interesting romantic interest. The word that best describes the characters in this would be “adorable”. The only thing that I didn’t like was the fact he had a girlfriend for most of the book. Without giving too many details, there’s a lot of emotional (and even some physical) cheating. I admit this wasn’t my favorite thing, but the rest of the story made up for it.

Surprisingly, there is some depth to the book. I thought this would be a full-on fluff book, but there were a few elements here that I wasn’t expecting. The lighter topics are well-balanced with the heavier topics mentioned –  it’s a fluffy read on the one hand with the cutesy romance while discovering Paris, but on the other side, we have one of the characters dealing with cancer. So not everything was butterflies and roses!

Overall, I was entertained and I was curious to see how the story ended. I heard the other two books are not as good as this one, but I’m still curious and I’ll be continuing the series to find out for myself.

“I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.” (not from the book) – 3.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: dangerous stunts, amazing movies, being kind, terrible mistakes, and martial arts.

A candid, thrilling memoir from one of the most recognizable, influential, and beloved cinematic personalities in the world.

Everyone knows Jackie Chan. Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, The Karate Kid, or Kung Fu Panda, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts. In 2016—after fifty-six years in the industry, over 200 films, and many broken bones—he received an honorary Academy Award for his lifetime achievement in film. But at 64 years-old, Jackie is just getting started.

Now, in Never Grow Up, the global superstar reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of six), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father (which has been, admittedly and regrettably, imperfect).

Jackie has never shied away from his mistakes. Since The Young Master in 1980, Jackie’s films have ended with a bloopers reel in which he stumbles over his lines, misses his mark, or crashes to the ground in a stunt gone south. In Never Grow Up, Jackie applies the same spirit of openness to his life, proving time and time again why he’s beloved the world over: he’s honest, funny, kind, brave beyond reckoning and—after all this time—still young at heart.

This was probably one of the most surprising memoirs I have ever read.

I can’t say I’m a huge Jackie Chan fan since I haven’t seen a lot of his movies – and apparently there are a lot of them -, but I’m a fan of the person he is. I always admired his work ethic and humble background, especially knowing how far he has come.

As I was expecting, he started his martial arts training very young and he did it for about 10 years. He soon started working on films as a stuntman, and he quickly became more and more popular because he was very hard-working and was always pushing his limits! He also talks about how every part of his body was broken at some point – he even goes into detail about every single lesion, which was insane to read about!

Now let me tell what surprised me the most about his story: I always saw him as a humble person, but he admits he wasn’t always like that. He talked a lot about his mistakes and how he mistreated people a lot. I can’t lie, my view of him changed a little! That was very surprising to me, but he was very open about it, which also tells us how much he has changed.

I really liked reading about his story, his passion for creating high-quality movies and always pushing his limits. I still admire him.

“I do love him. I’ve loved him as long as he has loved me. I’ve just spent so much of my life, so much of the last week, pretending it wasn’t true. So that we wouldn’t be hurt. That we wouldn’t suffer at the hands of class and expectations.” – 3/5 stars!

“The Little Mermaid” takes a twisted turn in this thrilling sequel to villainess origin story Sea Witch, as the forces of land and sea clash in an epic battle for freedom, redemption, and true love.

Runa will not let her twin sister die. Alia traded her voice to the Sea Witch for a shot at happiness with a prince who doesn’t love her. And his rejection will literally kill her—unless Runa intervenes.

Under the sea, Evie craves her own freedom—but liberation from her role as Sea Witch will require an exchange she may not be willing to make. With their hearts’ desires at odds, what will Runa and Evie be willing to sacrifice to save their worlds?

Told from alternating perspectives, this epic fairy tale retelling is a romantic and heart-wrenching story about the complications of sisterhood, the uncompromising nature of magic, and the cost of redemption.

Meh, it was alright.

Now this was a little closer to the “Little Mermaid” story to be called a retelling in comparison to the first book. In “Sea Witch”, the focus is on the sea witch story, but in this book, it’s a little closer to the story most of us know – but the interesting part is that this book focuses on Runa (a sister) instead of Alia (the little mermaid).

I admit I wasn’t super invested in this book. It just felt a little flat and boring, and I had a hard time feeling captivated to keep reading. Not sure if that’s because I already “know” the original story and I lost interest? I also don’t think this needed to be a duology. 

At the end of the day, this duology was just okay – nothing too captivating. I find it hard to find good mermaid books, and this was another example of that struggle. It’s just not a very memorable book. It wasn’t terrible, but it was great as well… just alright.

“I’ve learned that there are really just two mental patterns that contribute to dis-ease: fear and anger. Anger can show up as impatience, irritation, frustration, criticism, resentment, jealousy, or bitterness. These are all thoughts that poison the body. When we release this burden, all the organs in our body begin to function properly. Fear could be tension, anxiety, nervousness, worry, doubt, insecurity, feeling not good enough, or unworthiness. Do you relate to any of this stuff? We must learn to substitute faith for fear if we are to heal.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: affirmations, health conditions, and handling emotions.

Heal Your Body is a fresh and easy step-by-step guide. Just look up your specific health challenge and you will find the probable cause for this health issue and the information you need to overcome it by creating a new thought pattern. Louise Hay, bestselling author, is an internationally known leader in the self-help field. Her key “If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.” The author has a great deal of experience and firsthand information to share about healing—including how she cured herself after having been diagnosed with cancer.Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have read Heal Your Body and have found it to be an indispensable reference. Here are some typical “I love this book. I carry it around in my purse,refer to it constantly, and share it with my friends.”“HEAL YOUR BODY seems divinely inspired.”“Thank you for writing HEAL YOUR BODY. It changed my ideas about diseases. As I am a doctor, it also changed the way I look at people.”

Oh, how I love Louise Hay! Her books always come to me at the right time, and I couldn’t be more grateful!

This is a book for people who want to treat a specific health condition through metaphysics. Louise explains that the health issues we have are usually created by us either by feelings like fear and anger, or personal trauma. So she uses this book to explain how you can treat your specific condition. 

It’s not a conventional book format when it comes to structure, because it consists (mostly) of a table with three columns: a column with different conditions/diseases, a column with the probable cause, and a final column with affirmations to work on the issues. There’s also a specific area at the end that focuses on back pain and goes into detail on the probable causes and treatments.

She listed a lot of conditions, so it’s probable you’ll find in the list what has been bothering you! It’s vast and complete with the most common health problems.

This is more a book to be consulted from time to time, it’s not exactly a full, deep read.

Highly recommend it if you’re open-minded and are looking for a cure in an unconventional way.

“I told the girl that I loved my scars. And I do. My scars tell my story more clearly than any ink.” – 2/5 stars!

NK taught Leora that all was not what it seems on the surface.
SPARK taught her that there are two sides to every story.
Now Leora has had enough of lessons – she wants to make her own story.

The explosive finale to the best-selling INK trilogy sees Leora struggling to reconcile her past and her future – and recognising that there may be no easy answers.

Oh, the conclusion for this trilogy wasn’t better. I wanted to end this series on a high note, but I ended up reducing my rating again.

Once again, what bothered me the most in this book was the constant nonsense. Nothing makes sense. The dialogs lead to nowhere, the characters do unexplainable things for weird reasons… the writing is so weird!

One thing that happened a lot is that a new element is introduced (character, situation, etc.), but after a while then you understand it wasn’t relevant to the story. For example in the second book, Gull’s bother was introduced and I was super sure he was going to form a love triangle with Leora and the other guy (can’t even remember his name) because he was getting so much attention… it turns out, he wasn’t relevant in the end. Things like that happened all the time in all of the books, and it made the pacing very awkward because you expect something to happen and then it never happens.

On a side note: I was scared when I read about the immortality thing. I genuinely thought to myself “Are you serious, I can’t believe I’m reading this”. It turns out, it wasn’t really a thing (thank God). If you read the book, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m sad because I really wanted to love this trilogy. As soon as I read the synopsis for the first book, I was immediately captivated, but the execution ruined these books. What a shame.

“I don’t feel as though I’m a blessing, but at least I can choose not to be a curse.” – 3/5 stars!

Leora is reeling: questioning everything she has ever known about her family and herself.

As half-Marked and half-Blank, can she ever wholly belong in either fractured community? Mayor Longsight wants to use her as a weapon: to infiltrate Featherstone, home of the Blanks, and deliver them to him for obliteration. Leora longs for answers about her mysterious birth mother, and Featherstone may reveal them.

But will she find solace and safety there or a viper’s nest of suspicion and secrets?

Yeah, I’m not loving this series – and trust me, I wanted to!

This book is a little better compared to the first, but it was still too nonsensical for me. Just like what happened with the first book, there were a lot of chapters where things didn’t make any sense – weird dialogs between the characters, random decisions, etc.

It felt a lot like a filler book because it felt like almost nothing happened. Leora went to the blanks as a spy, but of course, she starts seeing things differently and changes her mind. It was a very predictable plot!

To be completely honest, it was not a very entertaining book, but at least it was a little more pleasant than the first one. I keep saying the concept of the trilogy is cool and interesting, but the delivery is not the best.