Leave Me

In Gayle Forman’s debut adult novel, Leave Me, we meet Maribeth Klein, a woman who is so busy working as an editor at a magazine  and taking care of her family  that she doesn’t even realize it when she’s having a heart attack. After her heart attack, she thinks maybe it won’t be so bad. It’s her family’s turn to take care of her but this doesn’t turn out to be the case. So sick and tired of it all, Maribeth beth packs a bag and runs away. She doesn’t even know where she’s going when she gets to the train station but she finds her self in Pittsburg.

I loved Maribeth from the first sentence of the first paragraph on the very first page of the book. I realize that she’s suppose to be a flawed character and not everyone is going to like her straight off. I realize a lot of the women who read this book aren’t going to like her at all. It’s going to be hard for them to understand how a woman could leave her family, her children behind and run away.

Honestly, Maribeth is probably the fictional character that i’ve related to the most since I read Lara Jean from Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Yeah, I know that’s an odd comparison but let me explain. I am a full time college student and I work on average I work 20 hours a week. When I started reading this book, it was November. I work retail, so it super busy at my store and everyday that I wasn’t in class, I was at work. I wanted to run away so badly. Believe me, I thought about it too several times.

I guess this was maybe a bit of an eye opener for me too? I see myself being very much like Maribeth when I’m older. In a way, she’s always what i’ve aspired to be. A career woman, living in New York with a family. I don’t have kids but work and school is basically like having two jobs. I learned from Maribeth that I need to always make sure that I stop and make time to take care of myself.

I really loved the plot progression. I loved how witty the writing is. I loved how all the characters served a purpose and were well developed. the thing I appreciate the most was that it ended in a good spot. Meaning, the story wasn’t dragged out longer than it needed to be. Which, if you’ve read any of my posts or other book reviews, you know that stories being dragged out longer than they need to be is my biggest pet peeve, well in books it is anyways.

There was a line in this book that spoke to me on so many levels “Yes, she was in motherfucking crisis!”.  I laughed out loud so hard when I read this line. I just love it so much. I even took a picture of the page in the book and circled this line and added it to my snapchat story. I feel like this is going to be playing in my head several times once I start classes again in April. Another one I loved was one where it said something about the kids being “fuck ups in training”.

I got to meet Gayle when she went on book tour for this book! This was actually my second time to meet her and hear her speak. The first time I met her, I was rushed through the line because it was a book fest and there was a billion people in line and she had to leave early to catch her flight. I love listening to her speak. She’s witty and the message she has always speaks to me and sticks with me. I’m really happy that I got to actually talk to her for more than two second this time and take a picture with her. She’s super sweet and was surprised to see that I had a copy of Sisters in Sanity with me. We both agreed that it doesn’t get enough love.

Something funny I want to include that’s kind of related to the book but not really. So I was really stressed out at work one day and I was telling someone I work with the plot of this book and she goes “So like Harry Potter?”. I love this girl but she has selective hearing, so i’m pretty sure the only thing she heard me say was “The book I’m reading” and zoned out when I was describing the plot. I’m not sure if I find this funny because i’m a book nerd or because this girl is crazy but I still thought i’d share it.

I’ve now read 5 out of 7 of Gayle’s books and I’ve yet to meet one that I didn’t like. I gave Leave Me, 4/5 stars. I really liked Maribeth and once I had time to read this book, I couldn’t put it down.

Much Love,

Kait

The Clique

The Clique, by Lisi Harrison, is the first book in the Clique Series and it also happens to be one of my all time favorite books. A couple of weeks ago, I made a reference to something that Dylan said in one of the books and I realized that the last time I read The Clique was in 2010, my freshman year of high school and the last time I read a clique book was when the last one came out in 2011. Needless to say, it was long past time for me to spend some time with Massie, Kristen, Dylan, Alicia and Claire.

Massie Block has everything that she could ever need in life. She has the best designer clothes, she lives in a mansion, She’s the most popular girl in the 7th grade at OCD, and of course, she has the bestest friends in the whole world, Kristen, Dylan and Alicia. When Claire Lyons and her family move in to the guest house on the Block estate, Massie’s parents expect her to become friends with Claire. But how can Massie be friends with Claire? She wears keds, jeans from the gap, eats gummy feet and not to mention she’s all around ah-nnoying.

Look, I know the summary I just gave of this book above make it look super shallow but it’s not. I’ve read this book so many times that I can’t summarize it without telling the whole story. (Maybe the summary on the goodreads page will help you out better) The Clique is a story about friendship. At the root of everything, Massie is insecure and while she’ll never admit it, she’s threatened by Claire. Claire wants more than anything to make friends and to be accepted by Massie.

What I loved most about this book when I was in middle school is still the very same thing I love most about this book today. It shows you that even when someone has it all, money, designer clothes, popularity and friends, that they’re still insecure. Even though I’m nothing like Massie, I related to her as when I was her age reading these books and I still relate to her now because of her insecurities.

The Clique has often been criticized for being shallow, teaching girls to be mean to each other but anyone who has read the series knows this is not the case. The Clique is about wanting to be accepted. I mean, as humans, isn’t that what we all want?

I loved reading this book again as an adult. I’d actually forgotten a lot of the minor details of what happens but as I was reading the words, I remembered exactly. It was like knowing all the words to a song you hadn’t heard in a really long time. I loved all the one liners. Lisi Harrison is the queen of one liners. I loved picking up on some things that I never picked up on as a kid. I loved picking up on the writing style, and how Lisi used the duel points of view from Massie and Claire not only show things about the person whose perspective but things about the other character too. I realized how much I actually learned about Massie from Claire’s point of view and vice versa. My favorite thing I picked up on was Vince, the art teacher being “very special friends” with the hot coma guy on all my children. I can’t believe that I never picked up on that before. Mostly, I loved falling in love with Massie and Claire all over again. When I was younger, I always liked Massie more but this time around, I loved them equally. I guess you can say I fell in love with Claire.

I know I will never be able to say enough nice things about this book to do it justice. You know how most people talk about the Harry Potter books meaning so much to them? That’s me with not only just this book but this whole series. I will never not love this book. I will never not love Lisi Harrison. Did you guys know that I named this blog as a reference to The Clique series?  The purple color of the website is a reference/ tribute to Massie because her favorite color is purple because she once read that it is the color of royalty. These books were the first books that I was ever really excited about reading. These are the books that made me go from someone who likes reading to a reader. These books are everything to me.

You guys have no idea how tempted I am to just binge read the whole series. If I didn’t have so many books on my shelf that I hadn’t read, I probably would. I can tell you this for sure, It won’t be so long before I pick up the second book in the series, Best Friends for Never, for a reread. The who am I kidding, i’m gonna read Revenge of the Wannabes right after that because that’s my favorite one in the whole series.

Much Love,

Kate

2017 Reading Goals

In 2015, I had a great reading year, probably my best ever. With that in mind, I set some pretty ambitious reading goals for 2016. If you read last week’s post, you know I achieved zero of those goals.

It may seem silly but I have set reading goals for myself for 2017. I love reading at I was to constantly get better at the things that I love and the only way to achieve that is to set goals for yourself.

1.  I’m going to read for 30 minutes daily. Even if it means setting a timer for myself like my mom had to do with my daily reading log in grade school. What I realized looking back on 2016, was that I didn’t have the time to read, but I didn’t make the time for it either. I’m going to make time to read because reading is something that I love to do.
2. I’m setting my goodreads challenge at 30 books. 50 was way too ambitious last year. I read 23 books in 2016 (I didn’t finish my reread of The CliqueI till the first of January), so I feel like 30 is pushing myself to read more and to be realistic about it.
3. I’m not making any promises but I’d like to finish the other 4 books in the Harry Potter series that I haven’t read yet.

Much Love,

Kate