i genuinely, truly, from the bottom of my cold and shriveled heart where very little other than hate and vitriol can possibly exist...love this book.

and it just seems that no matter how old i am or where i'm at or what i want from it, i still do. i first read this book in 2013, a time when i had braces and an enduring appreciation for a variety of teen pop sensations. neither of those have anything to do with why my feelings on this book would have changed, but i firmly believe they both had a significant impact on my evolving personality.

in 2013 also, notably, i was young and full of life. while i was still very tall, i was also little. emotionally speaking. and nice. i liked everything i read. (can you imagine.)

so suffice it to say that 15-year-old me and current me have very little in common. my teeth are metal-free. my heart is empty of celebrities. and i have one starred countless books that once were five stars.

but not this one!

11 years passed, i changed as a person, i apparently have all different cells or something, but guess what stayed the same.

if you guessed "my love for this book," you're today's winner.

ostensibly this is a YA contemporary romance, a subgenre which i used to read exclusively and now, despite my best efforts, seem to abhor. we follow allyson, who at the beginning is in a snoozefest teen tour of europe. she is one pair of glasses, a haircut, and a dream away from the 2000s movie style makeover that will reveal her to be hot the whole time when willem appears, a hot european guy who takes her on a Life Changing Weekend Sojourn to paris.

all of that is fun and fine and involves crepes, but it's not the good part. the good part is allyson.

she starts off the book very play-by-the-rules, very shy, very...boring. and her little parisian love story is nice and all, but it only takes up a fraction of the book. the rest of it is about allyson learning to take risks, to stand up for herself, and to live the life she wants to.

so maybe this book isn't perfect, but...i'm not open to that concept. because (CHEESY ALERT, I ADVISE YOU TO STOP READING HERE BEFORE WE BOTH GET EMBARRASSED): it is pretty goddamn inspiring. i hate to be emotional ever at all, both because it's off-brand for me and also just unpleasant, but...i can be the kind of snoozefest person allyson starts the book as. but all the best times of my life have been because of times that i wasn't!

as in, have happened when i was drunk. (just kidding! (kind of.))

i will finish by saying: willem is pretty hot in this book and all, and that’s a nice bonus, but what is really cool about this book is allyson.

bottom line: if you don't like this book you're wrong; allyson is my daughter; let's all go get drunk in paris and land some willems.

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project 5 star reread

welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, an undertaking in which i reread my favorite books and dare the universe to smite me by proving them lacking.

this one is especially auspicious as i read it (a book about a trip to paris) ahead of my own trip to paris.

AND IT REMAINS FIVE STARS.

(updated review to come)

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reread pre-review

AMAZING NEWS: I loved this book just as much rereading it as I did in twenty goddamn thirteen.

Like, 2017 me: Bitter vessel of hatred; one stars books she used to love; in the midst of a Reread Extravaganza that is going, on average, quite badly.

2013 me: Fifteen, enjoys the simple things in life, still has braces I think, mentally rates every book highly (doesn't have a Goodreads yet).

But those two selves form a lopsided Venn diagram. And in the needlepoint-small cross section of that diagram: a love for this book. And also for sweets.

I legitimately, earnestly, worry- and sarcasm-free can't wait to read the sequel.

Review to come!!!

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rereading updates

me most of the time: there's no cure for depression
me when i remember this book exists: there's one cure for depression

(this is my true problematic fave)