Every Day - David Levithan

'It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.'

Hello!

Every Day by David Levithan is the story of A, who has spent their whole life living in a different body, a different life every day. A has gotten very good at changing and not getting attached, until one day he's in the body of Justin and meets his girlfriend Rhiannon. Soon A starts wanting to be with Rhiannon, not just a day, but every day.

This book is one of those books that you can't think too much on or it all falls apart. Like, why does all of this happen? Why is the jump contained geographically and through A's age (they are 16, so will only jump to people who are the same age)? If you want to enjoy the book for what it is, you kind of just have to roll with what it is.

Through the jumps, Levithan takes the opportunity to tell many little stories with topics such as suicide, being transgender, illegal immigrants, religion and the like. Some of these were pretty cool while others were a bit half-hearted, more there for the sake of talking about it than actually needing to talk about it. In the end, only maybe one or two of them were actually relevant to anything else in A's life, which was a bit of a shame. To be a book with so many characters but only two of them mean anything, it's kind of poor.

Rhiannon is very likeable, and I could see what A would see to make them fall in love, but on the other hand A does fall head over heels for her very suddenly and a little bit for no reason, something Rhiannon calls them out on. That being said, their relationship hardly seemed functional to me. Rhiannon doesn't feel like she can be with someone when she can't be sure who and where the other person will be the next day. A wants Rhiannon to see behind the body and love A for who they are. But really? There isn't much 'A' to speak of, because they've never had a life of their own. And yes, that's cruel and unfair, but it was a little difficult for me to relate to A because of this. They felt a bit like they had given up, and Rhiannon becomes their whole life in a way that was a little annoying.

The writing of this book was rather good, and I felt like it described the different lives and people quite well. Even though I didn't necessarily relate to A, I still felt for their struggle to just exist. There's some honestly heartfelt moments throughout the story.

This book was maybe more like a 3.5 for me, but I rounded it up because I quite liked the ending. I was wondering how it was all going to tie together in the end and I thought it may have been going one way, but what happened was much better than what I had imagined. I will definitely check out Levithan's other works too.

Oh, and there's a sequel from Rhiannon's point of view, which I'll probably pick up sooner or later since she was pretty likeable and I could've lived with some more of her. There's also another sequel coming up, but I don't fully understand what it's about? Well, anyway. Hear from you soon!

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

'But I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.'

Hello!!

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (I'll just call it 'Simon vs.' after this, I think) has the titular Simon in an online relationship with 'Blue'. When Simon comes out as gay to the world without his own decision, he has to figure out what is that he wants to do next.

As far as the characters go, Blue was my favourite. Simon I liked also. But the others - the sisters, parents, friends... They all stayed quite distant to me throughout the journey, even though they seemed like nice people and their interactions with Simon definitely brought something to his character.

I don't think this book needs to be a gay story (even though it definitely is, a rather good one too), because it's definitely something feel most people can relate to. Referring to the quote I picked to start this review with, Simon is bothered by how he feels like he's constantly changing, and such is the case especially when you're growing up and constantly growing out of yourself from yesterday. Hence I'd like to contest almost everyone has at some point struggled with the hassle of 'coming out', which is one of the stronger aspects of this book.

Unfortunately, Simon vs. is another one of those very American young adult books that are starting to wear me out. It's probably very relatable to people who live there and do things Simon does every day, but to me it felt alien and kind of killed some of the immersiveness. Is that a problem that has to do with me, or the book? This time, I'm going to say it's the book.

Here's the reason: I feel like in another culture, this bombardment of information would possibly be done in a more thoughtful way. For an example, when I read 'The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane', there wasn't much pre-existing knowledge of Chinese culture required of me. But Simon vs. is constantly speaking about Poptarts and bleachers and Reese's - things I know in passing from all the times I'm assumed to know them in American pop culture, but also things I'm never fully explained. I never gain a confidence that I fully understand what they mean. Maybe it means that the book assumes it's written primarily for an American - a fair assumption, to be fair - but it's just a bit of a shame.

On the bright side, Simon vs. is set in Atlanta, Georgia, just like Gone With the Wind. It's mainly so exciting because I would never have recognised is as the same place if it wasn't named. as such It's weird what can happen in 130 years or so.

I will definitely read Albertalli's books in the future as well (this autumn, there will be a collaboration effort between her and Adam Silvera, which sounds so exciting!). Even though this one wasn't my favourite, I still found it quite enjoyable.

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

'I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got one-half of the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it.'

Hello!

Now that all my 2017 books are reviewed, here's the first book I read in 2018, from my Christmas break spent in Finland. I think I can safely say it's also the best book I will read this year. What a
terrible idea to get a jackpot on the first book!

I had the absolute pleasure to read mum's beautiful copies
from the 1970s!!

Anyway, the spoiler is that I really liked this book. My mum's been telling me to read it for a while now and I can only speculate why I haven't read it before. Well, to be honest, I think I know why. 

You see, Gone With the Wind clearly has a reputation of some sort. I've heard it being called one of the greatest love stories of all time and all that, and I think it's really downplaying the importance of this masterpiece. It is a love story, sure, and it is a great one. But it's also a story about war and misfortune and death and misery and unfairness and inequality and racism and patriarchy and a million of things that I find should be mentioned before it's just branded a romantic book for women.  Heck, Margaret Mitchell herself stated that the primary theme of this book is 'survival'. That's not really anything we should outright label as a women's silly little pastime.

The books had these lovely pictures from
the movie!!

'Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.'

Scarlett O'Hara is without a doubt one of the best-written characters I've met in any book. She's self-centered, spoiled and shallow in the beginning and she's still all of these things in the end, but the growth of her character is so well-written and believable. She's stubborn and she refuses to give up when her world turns to ash around her, unlike most of the other characters who just cling to the past. She's the most beautiful girl and she knows it, but she's also so sincere in just wanting to live her life having fun that she's hard to not like. She's also much more intelligent than she's allowed to be for a woman in her time, which I really enjoyed as well.

'After all, tomorrow is another day.'





All of the other characters are so good as well. There's Scarlett's crush Ashley, attractive and artistic and incredibly unsuited for Scarlett and probably so attractive to her because of it. The Tara household also has a black caretaker called Mammy, who's incredibly difficult not to like. Scarlett's sister-in-law Melanie is basically the kindest person ever and everything else Scarlett doesn't even
want to be but she still thinks the world of Scarlett, and Rhett Butler is a charming scoundrel who doesn't care to even try and gain the approval of the Southern nobles. He's also the only one not to fall for Scarlett's charm, and the two of these are the main romance of the book. I must say that it was impossible for me to not smile every time Rhett was around, because his character was so enjoyable to have around and such a great fit for Scarlett, insofar as anyone could be.

Melanie on the left and Rhett and Ashley on the right

Scarlett and Rhett's relationship is probably so memorable and iconic because it's not the standard love at first sight -kind. These two characters challenge each other and dance around each other constantly, and never quite settle into a comfortable relationship. In a way, even the aspect of this book that you should be able to take comfort in is a constant battle.

'No, my dear, I'm not in love with you, no more than you are with me, and if I were, you would be the last person I'd ever tell. God help the man who ever really loves you. You'd break his heart, my darling, cruel, destructive little cat who is so careless and confident she doesn't even trouble to sheathe her claws.'

The historical setting of this book is the American Civil War. What I knew about the war beforehand could be summed up in the following two points: 1) the South wanted to keep slaves and 2) the South lost. And while that's kind of the gist of it, this book made me understand how it was much more complicated and many-sided. Margaret Mitchell was from Atlanta, Georgia herself, and much of the historical aspects are based in her own experiences and the stories she heard. You could probably argue that the story takes sides, but to me it felt rather sincere about what it was trying to get across. This war is not part of my heritage, but I cared and weeped for the characters going through the hardships regardless, because it all felt so real.

So yes, 5/5, I loved it, I want to go back in time to not having read it but I also don't want to not have read it. Please read it and talk to me about it.

2017 in Books

Hello!

Happy 2018!! (I don't know when I'll get used to that, if ever)

So this post is a little bit overdue maybe, so I'll just get right to it. I read more books in 2017 than any year before it, so it's only fair I do some statistics / recap of them et cetera.

In total, I read 56 books. According to Goodreads, that's about 18,606 pages but I'll take that with a pinch of salt since I might have logged in some different editions and so on.

Out of those books,

17 were Finnish (30.3%)

20 were in Finnish (35.7%)

36 were in English (64.3%)

18 were British (32.1%)

32 were written by women (57.1%)

24 were written by men (42.9%).

11 were on the Kindle (19.6%)

10 were audiobooks (one was a podcast!) (17.8%)

35 were traditional books. (58.9%)

7 had main LGBT relationships (I excluded token gays from this because bleh) (12.5%)

4 were from outside North America, UK and Finland (7.1%) (This is something I'd really like to improve in 2018, I'm rather tired of all the US-centric literature especially)

I rated 15 books 5/5 (probably the easiest way to see them is here)

and only one book 1/5 (it was Charisma by Jeanne Ryan).

I also participated in, and completed, the Helmet 2017 reading challenge, which was 50 books in different categories such as 'animal on the cover', 'a book about faith or religion' and 'a book where nobody dies'. It was a lot of fun and had me picking up a lot of books I probably wouldn't have read otherwise, so it was a very good experience.

I also completed my Goodreads Reading Goal, which was set at 30 books. That was mostly due to the former reading challenge, of course. While both of these challenges were really fun and, well, challenging, they did make me pick up a lot of books that were short and probably ignore a lot of great ones. Because of this, I decided not to take on any reading challenges this year. It's kind of nice, for a change.

I also personally wanted to read more Finnish books, which was questionably successful(?) because living in the UK, it's kind of difficult to get my hands on as many of them as I'd like. Still, 17 isn't too shabby. I'll definitely continue with my challenge in the future too!

So that's that for 2017! Hopefully this year I'll have more specific stats for you, I'll try to make them as I go this time.