Anyway, I'm not really sure how to formally write this so bear with me on this.
Book: Falling in Love with English Boys by Melissa Jensen
Love the cover...and the title haha. Pretty much the title is what sold me as that is the story of my life. I am such a sucker for guys with accents, particularly Brits. :)
To give you a little background on the book, it's about this 16 year old girl named Cat who is spending the summer in London while her mother (or as she affectionately titles her "(s)mother") researches a historical writer, Mary Percival. Her mother gives her the 1815 diary of Katherine Percival (Mary's daughter) to read as she thinks that Cat might find it interesting and see similarities between Katherine's life and hers. So the novel is told through Cat's blog and Katherine's diary. Cat blogs about adjusting to London and her time with/developing crush on Will Percival, one of Katherine's descendants, while Katherine writes about her first Season in society and finding a husband - think very Jane Austen/Pride & Prejudice.
Now, that you've got the gist of it...here are my thoughts.
I'm tempted to do bulleted lists as it's only appropriate since Cat and Katherine did the same thing. So here we go.
Things I Liked About This Book
- Besides the title and cover, I was immediately drawn to the fact that it's set in London/England in general. Being a bit of an Anglophile, I loved the references to certain London landmarks like Hyde Park and Covent Garden. It makes me want to go there even more, and I've definitely added a few more places on my need-to-visit list like Hatchards - this huge bookstore that sounds awesome. Also, I loved all the Britspeak like flat, yoghurt, prawns, test match cricket, etc. It brought me back to my AU days - who doesn't love a book that brings on nostalgia?
- I really liked Cat's snarkiness. She's honest and relatable - like worrying about keeping a room dim and your chin pointed down due to a strategically placed zit when a cute boy comes over. I loved how she didn't have a filter on what she wrote so sometimes it really felt like a stream of consciousness. Also, can I note that Cat's London friends were awesome? There's this one instance in the book where Cat has a really bad day, and the three girls drop everything for Cat, meet at one girl's house, and have a total Haagen Dazs and moviefest. So cool that they were that nice to a girl that they didn't know for very long - treating her like one of the gang as they've been a trio since elementary school.
- I loved the lists and bullets. I'm a very visual person with a short attention span sometimes so it was a great way to break things up and keep the pace moving. (Plus, loved Cat's blog playlist at the end - although I wish the author would've posted each one along with the corresponding chapter rather than bunching them at the end. It would've been nice to listen to that song while reading that blog post.)
- As a pop culture fanatic, I loved all the current references like mentioning Orlando Bloom and all the Harry Potter ones like the Weasley Twins...I think my favorite though was describing this 30 year old guy at a club as "Draco Malfoy's squib uncle." Classic.
- I wasn't the biggest fan of the Katherine part of the novel. Honestly, it felt like it was trying so hard to be Jane Austen, and it just didn't fit right to me as it jumped back and forth between Katherine and Cat. Also, there were different fonts for the two sections - maybe I'm too big on aesthetics, but I did not like the font used for Katherine's diary, which made it more difficult to read. I will admit she grew on me towards the end, but it was very predictable and I didn't find her as endearing/likeable as Cat. First impressions are everything as they say, and she came across a bit snooty at the beginning so that could explain it. Also, maybe it's me, but I found it hard to keep track of all the characters mentioned in her side of the story. There were a number of minor characters that I would read their name, not remember their backstory, and kind of just keep going...I'm sorry to say, I didn't care enough to flip back and figure out who this person really was.
- The textspeak killed me as well as some of her misspellings due to phonetics vs actual grammar like "sez" vs. "says." The textspeak was the worst though...maybe I was a couple years older than when some of this stuff hit, but it's confusing. Like it took me a while to realize "N" was "no" instead of "and" or when she used "Y" for "why" and "yes." I'm sorry, but I've never understood text/IM abbreviations. Honestly, "u" and "you"...they are two letters off. Do the extra two buttons you don't need to press (keyboard or on your phone) really save you that much time? I mean, I have an iPhone and I still type out everything. Granted, it does have lovely (most of the time) autocorrect (please check out damnyouautocorrect.com if you haven't - good laughs :)), but it's just the principle.
- Lastly, toward the end, what happens with Cat (I'm trying really hard not to give anything away) felt really rushed and kind of like out of left field. I mean, it's nothing shocking that you didn't see coming, but it felt like it arrived sooner than expected if that makes sense. Could just be me though.
Verdict: 3/5
EDIT: Sorry, just previewed this post and realized how long that review is! Will work on condensing next time! :)
Well, now I'm off to bed...maybe dream of some English boys - perhaps Alex Pettyfer (the cute lead in I Am Number Four) or the lovely Marcus Mumford who heads my current musical obsession Mumford & Sons (please check them out if you haven't already!).
