Isla and the Happily Ever After

I have been waiting for Isla and the Happily Ever After for the longest time and I was so excited when it finally showed up on my doorstep after pre-ordering the lovely signed copy with all the cute goodies. I drove straight into it and every time I would get interrupted, I wish I didn't have to stop. I've always loved Stephanie Perkins books and I have read all three of the books now. The one thing I love is how all the books have intertwined with each other and how your beloved old characters would show up in the next book you read. Isla was no different.

Isla and the Happily Ever After follows the seniors Isla and Josh at the academy that you know and love where Anna went from Anna and the French Kiss. The book is about their adventure of their last year in high school, their future, and of course their love. Isla is a red head freckled cute girl that has had a crush on Josh since freshman year. The summer of their senior year, Isla runs into josh at a local shop in Manhattan where they both are from. They finally get to talk and spend some time together where they flirt. Isla hopes to see him again there the next day or later in the summer but there is no luck so she goes back to school in the fall wondering what she did wrong.

Josh comes from a family of well behaved people. His father is running to be a senator and Josh has to seem like a well put together child. Josh goes to the academy in Paris as well as Isla and he tends to act out a little. He is a wonderful artist that will go anywhere to doodle people, work on his art, and write his memoir.

I really enjoyed the entire book and I thought the relationship between Isla and Josh was really cute and realistic. I enjoyed reading about the happy moments as a couple and also the struggles they had to experience. I think Stephanie Perkins did a really good job of wrapping up this series and I think she probably made everyone happy with how it ended. I don't want to give anything away because I think this is a book that should be read without spoilers because you will enjoy it more. I just loved the ending and also how everyone from the pervious books that were important ended up together at the end. It was a lovely thing to read.

Thank you Stephanie Perkins for all that you do and I couldn't help but want to cry when I read your acknowledgments! I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys contemporary reads that make you attached to all the characters. I would say that you should read all of them in order though to get the full affect and get that same enjoyment of seeing all of the characters grow through each book and end up together.

When I was reading this series, the more I read, the more flaws I found. At first they didn't othered me, but in this books there were so many to ignore them.
The problems started with Isla: she doesn't have any real personality, and i we analize the book, we realize that she is all the time talking about other people sorrunding her and looking at what they do, shenever talks about herself, what she likes and dislikes, her passions, NOTHING AT ALL. So, all that I have to say about her is that she was an annoying 12-year-old girl who didn't care about anyone but herself.

The only parts that I ‘enjoyed' where the ones with Josh in them. I can see that Perkins is better at writing boys than girls. I loved Josh, but that's not enough to give this book a good rating.
Las únicas partes que disfrutaba eran en las que estaba Josh.

The only part of this book that I really enjoyed was the finale. See all together broke my heart in tiny pieces, and this scene is the only reason I'm onot giving it 1 star.
So yeah, this book was bad. Sorry Steph, but you dissapointed me so bad.

Oh god I hated this book. Due to the fact the other two books weren't good for me, I expected to like this more. The beginning was good: Half french girl? Check, so we have a person that can speak french in the School of America in Paris. A not so stupid love interest with interests I could understand? Check. Possibly more logical girl? Nah.

But after 60 pages it all went down the river.

I had real problems when Josh and Isla were in the finish art exhibit and were super jerks to the artists. Ok, I get that not all art is pleasing for everyone. Did they (including an artist) being so jerky? nope. At this point (1/5 of the book) the “artist” characteristics of Josh died for me. A few chapters later, Isla and Josh are talking about La Louvre and other famous old art galleries and are admiring the heck out of them. Ok, old art is, also in my opinion, more pleasing than the new, abstract art. But then the scenes in Barcelona. Gaudí is an artist in the catalonian modernism. It sound so pretentious that he like one art without reasons other than it's beautiful and hates on other art. I don't get it as an artist myself.

At the point of Barcelona and the shocking not so shocking effects of it afterwards, I almost threw my ereader across the room. Due to the fact that I didn't had my physical copy with me, I switched to my computer so that it was harder to throw.

I feel like Kurt, the only sane person with a brain in this goddamn book. The more I read about him and Isla, the more I questioned why they were even friends.

Other Problems I had:
- even the mild stalking is stalking
- Isla is praised as being smart but she's almost as dumb as Anna
- I didn't understood Kurt's mental health issues as they weren't shown to us. I was not convinced that weekly activities like pizza oder sushi night would make a overly structure
- The french: I am an almost native french speaker since my grand-père is french. So I noticed a few weird sentences. Some were more like textbook or translation french but this one urks me to no end:

in chapter 22: “mon bébés” -> mes bébés it's called plural. If you write french, make sure it is grammatically correct. Or the editor should know french. -.-

- Isla's impulsiveness:
also chapter 22: “It's a freaking soap opera.” Like your life isn't one.

- Unbelievableness:
chapter 25: Yeah, totally realistic given the acceptance rates of these both universities are the other way around. Also: If Isla doesn't know what she wants to do in the future for what did she apply for? In France especially Sorbonne, you need to know your “major” before applying. We still don't know what she wants to do in the end of the book as for her major!

- The ending: it was rushed given the 50+ pages of Isla ignoring Josh. The redemption wasn't there. For neither of these characters

- The “couples coming together”: I felt that Lola and her boyfriend weren't depicted as they were in the previous book and it was weird

- The constant mentioning of Étienne loving Anna: I felt like this was done to “improve” the not spoken out reasons in Anna and the French Kiss to give reasons for Étiennes behaviour. So why wasn't this in the first book? It doesn't redeem the fact what happened in book one.

- The ironicness of the use of the term “happily ever after” in the middle of the book

I'm done. I love Stephanie Perkins short stories but I find to much flaws in the full length novels.

I feel like I wasted time reading this because I didn't feel anything for the characters at all. The story was pure instalove in the worst way possible and I found myself rolling my eyes at most of the events in this book. The scene with the other characters was a highlight, but even that wasn't enough to redeem this book for me.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this story, but I really didn't enjoy it.



[140705]
SCREAMING FOREVER. AUGUST 2014. THAT'S NEXT MONTH. OMFG.

2.5 stars.

I just....wasn't feeling it.

I hate when a girl gets absorbed by a boyfriend Aaand that is literally all this story is. Who is Isla? Oh. Just Josh's girlfriend. Literally, that is ALL she is. it rankles. even at the end, she Ohmerged LOVES HIM so OF COURSE she'll wait for him forever and ever ad infinitum barf.

And the “perfect” sex scenes? Where they reach orgasm together THE FIRST TIME THEY HAVE SEX?!? pffttttt. Lady, please.
Nope. Not happening at 17. Not buying that with a 100 dollar bill.

oh gosh, I just love all of Stephanie Perkins's stuff. This was especially great to read in the wake of [b:The Girl with All the Gifts 17235026 The Girl with All the Gifts M.R. Carey https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403033579s/17235026.jpg 23753235], which left me mildly traumatized. Isla was like a cup of hot chocolate and a hug. I love Isla, I love Josh, I love how great Stephanie Perkins is at writing romance that's sweet and realistic without being without substance. I love how she writes about travel and dreams and the future. LOVE

Okay, let's start with the obvious. This is yet another in a long line of popular YA trotting out the same stereotypical heroines, childish misunderstandings, unimaginative rumours, transparent lies, shitty parents, dramatic kisses (that happen right as the fireworks go off behind the couple on New Year's Eve), watered down language and best friends who also double as your shrink. We know what's going to happen before we read it. We've read a hundred like it before. Why, then, do we keep going back to it? I believe a potent combination of nostalgia and the comfort of a familiar narrative structure is at work. It's why adults still read YA. They liked it because they could relate to the themes explored in it when they were teenagers discovering themselves and the world around them (but mostly themselves) for the first time. Then the mere exposure effect took over. Repeated exposure created preference and they became hooked. It is the same reason we crawl back to our exes and into toxic relationships, the same reason we play songs on repeat even after we kind of hate them and the same reason we can't stop watching Disney movies. Let's face it, stereotypes make it easier for us to read because we don't have to put in time and effort behind processing the unfamiliar. We can just sit back and trust the story to take over and do what it's done in the past. I'd like to say this though. While Isla is really another [b:Anna 6936382 Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1) Stephanie Perkins https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358271931s/6936382.jpg 7168450] and definitely no [b:Lola 9961796 Lola and the Boy Next Door (Anna and the French Kiss, #2) Stephanie Perkins https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358271832s/9961796.jpg 7149084], some of it really hit me hard. I couldn't help but relate to it. Josh and Isla had to go through the agony of separation, work through the anxiety, depression and withdrawal that comes with it, deal with doubts, cope with the dreadful reality of getting caught and get past parental disapproval. This was painful to read because it was all too familiar. I might have cried a little when Josh sends Isla a worn T-shirt that smells like him and she sends her scarf back as a peace offering even though they're fighting. It was all too real. I also have to say this. ISLA IS SUCH A BITCH. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE MADE HER AUTISTIC BEST FRIEND APOLOGISE TO HER FOR HIS AUTISM. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE BROKE UP WITH HER BOYFRIEND BECAUSE SHE WAS JEALOUS OF AN EX THAT WASN'T EVEN IN HIS LIFE. HOW SELFISH CAN SHE BE? What went wrong, Stephanie Perkins? How could you go from my beautiful, sparkly Lola to this?

I am livid.I thought [b:Talon 17331828 Talon (Talon, #1) Julie Kagawa https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397581124s/17331828.jpg 24035257] was the most disappointing book I'd read. I was wrong. This takes the cake. I loved [b:Anna and the French Kiss 6936382 Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1) Stephanie Perkins https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358271931s/6936382.jpg 7168450] and [b:Lola and the Boy Next Door 9961796 Lola and the Boy Next Door (Anna and the French Kiss, #2) Stephanie Perkins https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358271832s/9961796.jpg 7149084]. I expected to love this just as I did those. And really, the writing is just as good. The setting is just as spectacular as the others.It's just everything else that sucked.For starters, I feel like this story, unlike the others, is lazy and underdeveloped. It seems like Isla and Josh's relationship is built almost entirely on sex. Look, I knew going into this that this would be the most sex-focused of the books. It said it would be ‘sexy' on the cover flap. But this? This is not love. This is lust. I read this for a love story, and that is not what I got.But you want to know the worst part about this book? Isla. Freaking. Martin. This chick is the protagonist and I honestly can't stand her. I've read my fair share of crappy lead characters, but Isla is probably the worst. She's bratty and whiny, and besides the fact that she reads, I share little to nothing in common with her. Here's just two things I really hated about her in particular.She's a stalker. No, really. She is. She's been “in love” (lust) with Josh ever since she was a freshman- she's now a senior. She knows everything about him. She's googled him. Googled his parents. She knows where he hangs out with his friends, where he doesn't go, she just knows that he must speak perfect French. It doesn't even get better when they're dating. Once they're dating, her stalker resources are put towards her extreme jealousy and possessiveness. I personally do not like these traits at all. Had Isla been a male character, these traits- her stalking, jealousy, and possessiveness- would have raised immediate red flags. Just because she's female doesn't mean she's immune from this same judgment.Second of all, she treats Kurt, her best friend, and Hattie, her younger sister, like crap. She doesn't care about them at all as long as she's with Josh. And then she has the audacity to blame them for her own mistake? It's disgusting, honestly. And don't even get me started on the insta-love vibes coming from Josh...To be completely honest, I think I disliked this book so much because I couldn't stand Isla. It just ruined the story for me, and I'm really disappointed in this book as a whole.