Can you keep a secret? (Sophie Kinsella)

Blurb

Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets: " Secrets from her boyfriend: "I've always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken." Secrets from her mother: " I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching "Ben-Hur. Secrets she wouldn't share with anyone in the world: "I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is. Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger....

Review begins here... 

I finished this book just the other day, did I like it?
It's an easy question to answer, yes, yes I liked it, perhaps a lot more than I anticipated. This book immediately got me clinging to it from the first sentence. "Of course I have secrets."  And then this character, Emma, just gets you so attached to her, her personality becomes more familiar to yours, I felt like I could relate to her so much, her clumsiness, her secrets, you'd imagine that her secrets would be something that would put someone's life in danger, but no, it's not, it's the same kind of secrets we have, and after reading the book, after finishing it, I felt the need to just tell all of my secrets, according to this book, according to Emma, it changes you, letting everything out can change you.
This book moved me completely, I might have started seeing things from a completely different perspective, Emma's perspective.
The humor at the beginning of the book, the multiple shock moments it gave me played a huge role in how I generally feel about this book. Reading the story, it didn't quite occur to me that all events happening would somehow connect, that's what made it so interesting and amusing, how each character in Emma's surrounding develops, kind of gives the whole story a background. Her friends, one more or less responsible than the other or herself, the perfect guy and the incredibly mysterious guy, it's like the perfect, cheesy romance novel, only it's not cheesy, not to me, and trust me, I completely dislike cheesy romances sometimes, but this one was the type that just took me in. As soon as Jack appeared, all I wanted to do was flip the pages to Jack moments only because the character Sophie Kinsella created was the type of character you would want to see in any story. I can't form the right sentences to sum up how I feel about this story, it is absolutely amazing. Despite the fact that the use of "fuck" in Emma's thoughts came off to me as a bit of a surprise, because I am not used to that term, at all, but it fit right with the content of the story, with Emma's character, like every time she panicked, you could literally feel what she was going through. I'll admit the break-up came off to me as a bit of an abrupt thing, I'd expected it to be more humorous rather than just sad, I honestly hate feeling bad about characters, so that was not something I really liked, of course, the whole story covers that small bit, so it wasn't much of a bad thing, but with everything going on in Emma's life, that break up was just like another bad thing going on in her life, making it seem really complicated which I liked, therefore my final thought would be that this story is definitely worth reading, I would not stop laughing at everything, you'd imagine that it's exaggerated because all other attempted humor in books and movies are overrated, but this one had just about the right amount and the right kind of humor to make you burst out laughing on your own. I'd find myself smiling and chuckling and laughing like crazy throughout the whole story, and it's a great one. Perhaps we'll all be an "Emma" at some point in our lives, vulnerable, clumsy, and extremely paranoid.  This is a story of an extremely ordinary girl, who's life turns around because of one simple mistake, one we could all make, or perhaps wish to make, in order to meet our "Jack". I used to completely despise Romances, this one's starting to give me hope that there's better stories out there for me to read, especially from an author with such talent and sense of humor.

Divergent (Review on the first book of the Divergent Series)

Blurb

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

Review:

One of the reasons as to why I read the book was: 1: it was highly recommended to me. 2: I saw the movie before reading it.  Of course, I had an idea as to just how much the book would be different or extremely close to the movie but I thought I would try it out.

 Reading the book after seeing the movie felt like re-watching the movie. First of all, the plot stays the same. Not that much changes. 

This story evolves around the idea of different groups of people working together as one to maintain a safe yet active environment. The Abnegation, the Dauntless, the Amity, the Erudite and the Candor. The story's main focus is on one character, Beatrice, from the Abnegation faction. I find it quite interesting how she feels like she doesn't fit in well with her faction before choosing, despite the fact that she might have been raised to be like the Abnegation people, she decides to go for a completely different faction. The idea of her being Divergent has a lot of impact on how the character changes throughout the story, from becoming a simple, ordinary person, she turns into this complicated being with this idea that she is Divergent (different), and because of that her life is in danger. What makes the story so good is that it doesn't only focus on the idea of fitting in, but also on how it's not just about that. I learned about how (Beatrice) Tris and the other characters had to come down to the idea of accepting the fact that failing was not an option if they wanted to go through with it or live for that matter, which is a little bit odd if I'd compare it to our world, we are told so often that without failure we can't learn but there it is in the story, a different lesson is being taught. Competition added a lot of suspense to the story, who's leaving? who's staying? It just makes you wonder: how far can this character really make it? and what are the other characters willing to do in order to not fail?  This story has a lot of lessons to teach, firstly it's about trust, who can Tris really trust? She's carrying this secret on her shoulder wherever she goes and spilling out anything related to it might really get her killed, it's crazy because one simple mistake might ruin everything for her, so you just stay there like OMG that was CLOSE! Also there is a lot of violence in the story, it's different from the Hunger Games book series, I don't even get why it's compared to it, yes, both are based on life and death decisions and competition but in Divergent, violence is compulsory, it's like: fight or you're out. 

 The movie and the book have so much going on, time flies by so fast because it kind of just feels like there's over a million events going on, it's like information overload and i'm not complaining, I was not bored for a second of it, it has a little humor, romance, action, science fiction and adventure. All those genres have been applied to this story in a  very balanced way and I like that. It's quite easy to get to know the characters in the story, their personalities are so different and striking because they're all different yet they all chose the same faction, and it's like these different people all become so the same, they all develop and change completely because of their training and everything they go through, I like how teamwork is encouraged despite the competition going on, because competition and teamwork are two different things and they just combine at some point. Also I must add that this idea of instructor + student romance thing going on or something is just awesome, even though they're not like super focused on their relationship, maybe at the end it is, but at the beginning when she just talks to him and he's like: Hello.. why are you talking to me? and she's just like: Oh God Why. it's great, really awesome, and this simulation idea really helps with getting to know the characters and their fears, i really like that because you get to know the instructor's (Four's) fears and you just think: Oh wait, you can't actually reach perfection. But he is perfection because putting tough-act aside, he's quite sweet and just like her, still a kid or something. Also this idea of bravery playing a huge role in the story, it's not just about being there and doing what they ask but also about taking chances and risking yourself to become more than you already are and that's what Tris does, she takes risks especially when it comes to helping out friends, friendship is also an important thing when it comes to the characters, how some things have to be done, it's about survival and with friends or without, it's tough. Also also how all characters are so unpredictable makes it interesting in the sense of not knowing what to expect. Tris is quite the character and so is Four, it's a story that doesn't just focus on one main thing but on a lot of other things, meaning everything is connected, their choices, reasons, the character's background, especially Four's. Of course, there's always a bitchy character and the evil ones, the thing is, it's being evil with a purpose, not just like: Oh let me take over the world, muahaha..  So yeah, it's quite balanced, everything is, and I just started the second book, once I'm done with it, I'll write a review on that as well! 

Read the book!

- Nermin  

Playa Las Canteras, Spain