DAY 12: A Book You Love and Hate at the Same Time

"I enjoy reading books like that because it's not at all the life I lead. 

It's completely different than any situation I'll ever be in. But I get entertainment out of it."

***

So... It took me forever to actually do an update for the 30-Day Book Challenge but here it is! The book that I love and sort of hate at the moment is... *drum rolls* Colleen Hoover's November 9.

Colleen Hoover writes the most relatable, beautiful and yet flawed characters that one just won't help but love. That is almost a given. Her novels can keep one engaged enough to finish a book in one sitting because there is always something in each story that makes each one a unique read. (e.g. in Slammed there's slam poetry and in Confess, the artsy, paintings and stuff and those were beautiful.)

As for this novel, I love the fact that it kind of want to go defy the usual young-adult plot, too (Typical CoHo). It started quite well, an aspiring young writer (Ben Kessler) and a promising actress who has been on an unfortunate accident (Fallon O'Neill) met under unexpected circumstances and due to some (read-the-book-if-you-are-curious-enough) reasons, well....decided to meet every year on the same date (hence, the title) and eventually, it led to falling in love. 

I hate that it sort of succeeded and not succeeded in doing so; that it turned out to be kind of a cliche and very conflicted towards the big plot twist. (No major spoilers, don't worry. Just a bit of direct quotations from the actual book that I like.) Cynical in love or not, the insta-love plot is borderline perfect that I don't know, it felt like something that in no way will ever happen in real life(?) that I cannot put my heart totally in it. It is fiction in the most fictional sense. See, although relatable at some point, even the opening excerpt (as told by the lead girl in the story) is quite contradictory as her life is a perfect example of a girl off a YA novel. It is a book inside a book but is way better than Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, if I may add. (You better read it yourself for me to make sense, probably.)

Anyway, here are some of the remarkable lines from the book:

"You'll never be able to find yourself if you're lost in someone else."

***

"She "loved me" in quotations

She kissed me in bold

I TRIED TO KEEP HER in all caps

She left with an ellipsis..."

This kind of worked for the hopeless romantic in me. ha

***

"Because when you love someone, you owe it to them 

to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be. 

And as much as it crushes me to admit this, the best version of you doesn't include me."

Uhm..?

***

It is a light good read, and not so bad, to be honest. It could even be a perfect post-Valentine read. Which reminds me, I still have to read two more books to keep up with my Goodreads reading challenge this year. I may or may not be reading a lot of fan fictions a lot these days (would you believe?), I should probably chill and proceed with the actual published pieces.

Lastly, this excerpt may have been stuck in my mind for personal reasons:

 "I have longed to move away but am afraid; Some life, yet unspent, might explode." 

I'll elaborate in the coming days. 

PS: Please include me in your prayers. And thank you.

x