Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 352
Rating: ★★★★
Synopsis
How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?
Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.
Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .
For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.
After You is quintessential Jojo Moyes—a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and rejoice at being back in the world she creates. Here she does what few novelists can do—revisits beloved characters and takes them to places neither they nor we ever expected.
My Thoughts
After reading and falling in love with Me Before You last month, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the sequel. Moyes wasn't planning to initially write a sequel but I am so glad that she did. Even though I felt like I got enough closure in the first book, I was excited to return to the characters I loved and meet some new ones.
After the passing of Will, Louisa is completely lost. She is living in London alone and works at a pub in the airport but she isn't following Will's final piece of advice to "just live well". That is until she falls off her rooftop garden. With this action she begins to reevaluate her life and tries to move forward.
She meets Sam, her paramedic that saved her after she fell. Sam helps bring Louisa out of her depression and to see how her life could change if she can just move past the death of Will. Along with Sam, Louisa also meets the 16 year old Lily who has her own connections to Will. They all work together to come out of their own grief and become people that Will would be proud of.
I am so happy with the way the sequel worked out. I was afraid it would leave me disappointed but Moyes did a good job to ensure that this book stands alone but also functions as part of the whole. I enjoyed revisiting these characters and seeing the way Louisa was able to change and leap out from her comfort zone with the help of new people in her life. If you liked Me Before You, definitely continue on to After You.
My Favorite Line
You Live. And you throw yourself into everything and try not to think about the bruises.
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Anchor Books
Pages: 527
Rating: ★★★
Synopsis
When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor.
On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.
My Thoughts
I do not get the love/cult following for this book and for it's sequel China Rich Girlfriend. I don't know if I am missing something here or if it's just that I wasn't really into it. It was very slow to start, the middle was good but definitely not great, and then the last 100 pages were really good and made me question my feelings toward the other 400 pages.
The book begins with an introduction to the insane wealth of the main characters. When the Young family is mistreated at a ritzy hotel in London, they just end up buying the hotel and firing the rude manager. The title does not lie -- it really is about some crazy rich asians.
The book then introduces us to the main characters Nick and Rachel. Kwan shifts point of view between the modest lives of Nick and Rachel in New York and Nick's mother Eleanor in her posh Singapore apartment. As I already said, this beginning was slow to start. It was all about establishing the different lifestyles between Rachel and Nick's Singaporean relatives. Eventually, Nick and Rachel finally come to Singapore where they meet all of Nick's friends and family. Rachel begins to experience the insane wealth and the shallow people that all make up Nick's past. Rachel must decide whether the life Nick has in Singapore is something she can learn to accept.
Overall, this book was probably too long for the subject matter. I skipped through several chapters told from secondary characters point of views because I didn't care about their story lines. There was constant name dropping in an attempt to really force the topic of wealth. I wasn't very into this book and definitely won't be returning for the sequel.
My Favorite Line
The investigator thinks that they were most likely working class. In other words, they are PEASANTS.
Genre: Nonfiction
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Pages: 240
Rating: ★★★★★
Synopsis
In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life, whether it’s falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, or most important, believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you’re constantly reminded that no one looks like you.
In “How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet’s Confessions,” Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty, (“Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn’t the land of appropriate–this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman’s traditional hair color is honey blonde.”) “Player” tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. (“I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.”) In “Unlikely Leading Lady,” she muses on America’s fixation with the weight of actresses, (“Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they’re walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.”) And in “Soup Snakes,” Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak (“I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.”)
Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who’s ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who’ve never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.
My Thoughts
I love Mindy Kaling. I love her TV show. I love her books. I love her. If there is one thing you learn about me it is this, I. Love. Mindy. Kaling. She could have written 240 pages on mathematical equations and I probably would have read it and loved it because to me, whatever Mindy says goes.
Why Not Me starts off with the section For the Ladies which, of course, is hysterical. Kaling covers everything from her Hollywood beauty secrets to the things she would want you to bring to her dinner party. In the essay titled Some Thoughts on Weddings, Kaling describes how her friendships have changed since college by saying that her friends "will never come home to each other again and will never have each other's undivided attention. That version of our friendship is over". With graduation in the Spring, this quote hit a little close to home. But its not all sentimental, when describing her time in a sorority Kaling describes her horror at being fined for not attending an event. Which is hilarious if you know that this is absolutely common. Per usual, everything is absolutely relevant and completely clever.
The next section of essays covers Kaling's television series The Mindy Project. In the essay A Day in the Life of Mindy Kaling, Mindy's assistant Sonia documents and timelines an entire day for Mindy Kaling. Truth bombs from this essay include "Prop cake is the sweetest kind of cake because unlike with regular cake, it has no calories because my character is eating it, not me. Thats how it works". Kaling reflects on when she found out that The Mindy Project wasn't nominated for an Emmy and how she chose to "be gracious so people would continue to think I'm professional and classy". As if you needed another reason to idolize her!
Love Dating and Boys Who Ru(i)n The World had me constantly underlining statements and simply annotating them with a simple 'yes.' Everything here was exactly straight out of my brain. Being perpetually single has its ups and downs and Kaling 100% gets it. "What I am asking for is not that much. I just want a boyfriend who is sweet and trustworthy. That's it". That is how the essay A Perfectly Reasonable Request begins. Of course Mindy doesn't stop there. You'll have to read the whole essay to see what other requests Kaling has, but its hilarious.
In the last section of Kaling's book I was faced with the impending tragedy of the book actually ending. All the Opinions You Will Ever Need is really that. In what was probably the most relatable essay in the book, Kaling discusses what it is like to be a body role model but also her struggles with remaining body confident. My favorite essay of the whole book is in this section and titled Unlikely Leading Lady. Kaling admits "I don't wake up in the morning, look my naked body in the mirror and say, 'Good Morning, body. Once again you've nailed it, you gorgeous imperfect thing." This essay really captured Kaling's thoughts of herself and also allowed me to relate to her. Mindy also included a copy of her Harvard Law School Commencement Address which is so funny and so great. (Confession: I love watching commencement addresses and Kaling's is up in my tops!)
Overall, this book was a fabulous description of Mindy and it just made me love her more! Definitely read her first book if you haven't already and then grab this one too!
My Favorite Line
If you've got it flaunt it. And if you've don't got it? Flaunt it. 'Cause what are we even doing here if we're not flaunting it?
