Alba in bookland

This week I am rather busy because I have just started a course that is taking way too many hours of my time. So every day, after dinner, I just want to disconnect and read something fun to take my mind off. With this idea I started How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake and the truth is that it worked! I had a lot of fun reading it and every day I couldn't wait to get home to see what was going to happen next! Here is the cover (I really like the colours):

The story is about Nicola Brown, a girl who likes things in a certain way, has a very organised life and enjoys her work. Even with her OCD-ish ways, she is very lovable and I warmed to her immediately. She is not interested in men because of a past heartbreak. Thanks to some flashbacks we know exactly what happened to her and then we understand her better. But when her coworker, who has become a good friend, Caroline, a busy mother of two, points out that maybe her life is a bit boring and dares her, well actually, double dares her with no returns to get a St Valentine's date, Nicola decides that maybe it is time to get a (love) life.

From this moment, Nicola starts looking for suitable men in the more bizarre places like a carpentry class, a golf course or a grassy dinner. But also through more traditional ways like facebook or blind dates. All this results in a series of hilarious dates (I was really laughing out loud with some of them!) that leave her wondering if she is ever going to find her soul mate.

What I really enjoyed from this book, apart from the dates, are the supporting characters, specilly his brother who keeps turning up uninvited in her house and tries to set her up with a couple of his friends. He is a good guy who has his own obsession (bats, ugh right?) but who is always there for her. Also, Caroline, who is the key who started everything, and James, his boss. I had a feeling about him that there could be more there and I couldn't wait to know if my intuition was right or not...

How to Get a (Love) Life is funny and uplifting and Rosie's writing is very enjoyable. At the end (I would have loved to know a bit more about what happens after the airport!) you are left with a smile plastered on your face and a warm feeling so if you are feeling a bit down or you are crazy busy and need to have some laughs and relax, this book will do it!

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Buy it on Amazon.co.uk for only £0.79!!

Some months ago, I read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I had never read a book by this author and I cannot begin to describe how much I loved it, it was so emotional and heart-breaking. So if you haven't read it yet, do it! You won't regret it. Anyway since I read it I had been wanting to read more books by Jojo Moyes and when a couple of weeks ago I saw her lastest book I fell in love with the cover and the blurb and I bought it. The cover is so simple but at the same time so beautiful. Have a look yourself:

So when last weekend the weather turned bad (spring? where did you go?) I realised it was the perfect oportunity for me to sit on my couch with a nice cup of tea and enjoy this gorgeous novel, because I had the feeling that it was going to be one of those books that captures you and you cannot put down. And YES it was one of those book. I simply loved it.

The book tells the story of four people and a dog who embark in an epic journey through the UK and discover that life isn't always fair or easy but you always have to keep fighting and maybe, at the end, a suprise awaits. In this story we meet a family of three: Jess, a young single mother who works like crazy in her two jobs to mantain her two children, Nicky, her teen stepson who doesn't fit because of his style and gets bullied, and Tanzie, a maths genius who just wants to solve her maths exercises and go to a better school to keep learning.

So when Tanzie gets the oportunity to take part in a Maths competition in Scotland and win a 5000 pounds prize, Jess is decided to get her family to Scotland no matter what in the hope that the prize will solve their most immediate problems. Here is where Ed appears, a man whose life is falling apart because of a crime he didn't know he was comminting, is forced to leave his house, company, family and friends and moves to his beach house, that Jess cleans, to await his trial. So when he sees Jess and her family in the middle of the night getting a fine for driving a car with no insurance, he finds himself offering them a ride to Scotland.

The book is written from several narratives, so during their trip, we get to know all the characters and we start to love them with all their flaws. They are all so real and honest. Jess is the most optimistic person I have ever met, even when life only puts obstacle after obstacle in front of her. And the fact that she took Nicky as her own at her young age, only shows how brave and good she is. Nicky is the most honest one, during his parts you discover a lot about everyone, and you can see that he loves Jess and Tanzie like crazy. Tanzie is so lovable, at her young age she doesn't understand why her family is so unlucky. And finally, Ed, is just lost. At the begining, I didn't like him but then you see his good heart and everything he does for this family of strangers and it is impossible not to love him too. Ah! I almost forgot Norman, the dog, who is a star!

During the book I got so angry. Why did they have to suffer so much? I also cried with all the sad bits. But I laughed too and enjoyed every page of the book. It has it all: drama, heartbreak, comedy, laughs and love. Moreover, Jojo's writing is perfect and clever. I loved the structure of the book, it made it unique and special. I actually cannot describe how much I loved it, Jojo is a genius and creates characters so real and warm. Just read the book because it is AMAZING and be prepared to be left with a huge book hangover.

Finally my rating: 5 cute clouds plus a small heart, meaning it has been one of my favourites this year so far!

We end this week dedicated to the Johny Be Good series with the review of The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson, the fourth book of the series. It is, however, quite different from the previous ones. This is the lastest book of Paige Toon and it is her first young adult novel, after her great success in the chick lit genre. The first thing that catches your atention is, as you can see, that the cover has nothing to do with her pink/violet previous ones. In this case, there is a selfie of a pretty young girl. This is the first hint that this book is something different from the other ones.

In Johny's Girl we learned that Johnny had a long lost daughter who, after her mother's death, wanted to meet him. Now, in The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson, we meet Jessie Pickerill, a fifteen-year-old girl who has just lost her mother and is currently living with her stepfather, a maths teacher at her school. She is struggling to get over her loss and tries to ignore her old friends to avoid sympathetic looks and prefers to hang out with cooler kids who didn't know her before.

Her mother never told her who her father was and now Jessie feels alone in this world. Her stepfather has a lot of problems to control her (she likes drinking, smoking and going to parties too much) and decides that is time for her to know the truth: her father is the world famous rock star Johnny Jeffersson. Jessie is shocked to learn that her mother was a groupie who would follow Johnny around and never told him when she got pregnant.

After some phone calls and meetings with his lawyers, and a lot of nerves and excitement, Johnny and Jessie agree to meet in LA for a week. Jessie can't believe that she is finally going to meet her dad, who happens to be a millionaire rock star. So when she arrives at his house, she kind of wants to impress him and wears a shiny silver minidress with high heels boots. That and the fact that she forgets to take off her sunglasses gives Meg, Johnny's wife, the impression that she is a wannabe rock star, so basically, that she is trouble.

At the beginning she feels like she is stepping in this perfect family and that she has no place with them. But little by little she starts to get to know better her dad, who is even more nervous than her to meet her, and her half-brothers and the week goes by way too fast. So when Johnny offers her to stay longer, she doesn’t hesitate. But is she ready to learn more about her family and more importantly, is she ready for the world to know about her? Is her life going to change forever? And can she go back to her old life after living with the luxuries of LA?

My opinion

I was a bit worried before reading this book because I was so used to read about Johnny and Meg from Meg's point of view that I didn't know if I was going to like Jessie, specially after reading the ending of Johny's Girl, where she seemed a bit problematic. But the truth is that little by little I got to love Jessie too. She is not the wannabe who we thought, she is just a girl struggling with her new reality who just wants to fit. Although I missed knowing how Meg was feeling, Jessie was a complex character and it was fun, exciting and addictive reading about her.

Paige Toon's writing, as usual, is fast-paced and descriptive and she creates, once more, a total page-turner! I am sure that all the younger girls (and all the not that young girls) are going to love Jessie, specially all her love dilemas and her adventures in LA. When I got to the end I was like, no! Don't end! Obviously, I want to keep reading about her and I can't wait for the second book about Jessie in 2015. Luckly for us, Paige Toon is publishing her new book quite soon.

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