Reviews

I read the the first book in the Paper and Hearts Society series when I was going through a hard time in my life. I remember my mum bought it for me on impulse when she had to take a friend an hour drive away because her car was broken. They stopped at a bookstore and my mum thought that the book sounded like something I would like. She was so right.

I came home from school and found the book sitting on the kitchen table. I read the blurb and instead of adding it to my TBR, I read to straight away. I even set my alarm clock early the next morning so I could read it as soon as I could.

Tabby was a character who I connected with deeply. She was exactly who I needed to read at that point in my life and not many fictional characters help me figure out who I am but she did.

I feel like crying writing this because I know it’s just a book but I read this when I was in a hard place and I just don’t want to let go of it.

I left such a crappy review for the first book when really it’s one of my favourite books of all time. I guess I didn’t feel like it was possible for a book to have such an impact on you, but this book did.

Medoran Chronicles was a book series I read before Paper and hearts and I can’t express how those so different books helped me. Medoran Chronicles made me realise that I shouldn’t be keeping negative things in my life for the purpose of not wanting to let them go and after that I made some changes in my life. But the paper and hearts society made me realise how to deal with the change. It made me realise that I was valued as a person and even after I made a big change, I was still me and it reminded me I’ll be able to adjust to the change.

Read with Pride, while not meaning as much to me as it could have meant for others. It was a book that made me realise how much I should value what struggles I don’t have to go through. I can always find a book that reflects what I want in a romance, but for some people it’s so hard and I hope that they can feel valued as a reader and person.

Now this book, I loved reading but the last three chapters made me so sad. Not a crying sad, but an empty sad. I felt empty, like I had lost important people in my life. And that took me back full circle to the first book. The first book where I was dealing with change of the people in my life. I don’t know if any series will connect to me on such a level as this one has.

But Ed, Henry, Olivia, Cassie, Tabby and now Hannah, all the helped me in some sort of way. They made me value what I had in life and cut out toxic people who made me feel worse about myself.

Through Tabby helping me with my own anxiety’s, Olivia proving to me I can stand up to others and Ed helping me realise that dealing with complicated feelings is normal and can be helped. I thank them for everything.

Even Cassie who showed me that you shouldn’t judge people based off first impressions and Henry who showed me that being their for your friends is so important even if you aren’t the funny or loud one. And Hannah who made me realise that friendships can develop into such amazing things.

Friendship. I learnt throughout this whole book that friendship can get you through hard times. Friendships can help you when you need them. All you need to do is to let them help you. I think to how my life is now, everyday I have a happy moment. Whether it was on Thursday when I was doing trivia with my friends in the library , or on Friday when two boys in my class and I were having a great discussion about a chair. I have learnt from this book that I should value these moments.

Now, this is a lot and people could say I’m overreacting and it’s just a book. But without this book, I wouldn’t have gained such wonderful new friendships and valued all the great moments in life that I would have taken for granted.

So, to the Paper and Hearts Society and the lovely author Lucy Powrie, I leave you with this...

Thank you for everything, I have learnt so much from this book and it’s helped through a hard time in my life and made me the person who I am today, so thank you.

Thank you so much

amysbookishlife's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

readbylotte's review against another edition

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5.0

This book was a beautiful ending to this amazing book series. I have loved every page, the characters are in my heart since the day I started the first book and they'll definitely stay with me.
I recommend this book to every book lover out there, you won't be disappointed!

amyurwin's review

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lighthearted

4.5

anniekslibrary's review

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4.0

This was by far my favourite book in the series! It was so charming and it had a surprise (for me!) autistic love interest! I loved the rep so much!!

samreadsthings's review against another edition

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emotional funny informative lighthearted medium-paced

4.25

tachyondecay's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is my 1700th review per my website’s official count (counts on other places, like Goodreads and The StoryGraph, might be slightly off because of import issues/what gets counted as a “review”)!! I didn’t choose Bookishly Ever After for my 1700th review on purpose, but I couldn’t think of a more deserving book for this arbitrary milestone. Lucy Powrie concludes the trilogy began in The Paper & Hearts Society and furthered in Read with Pride. As is the case with those first two books, I adored this one. I laughed. I also cried. Powrie’s abilities as a writer have only increased since the first Paper & Hearts Society book, and Bookishly Ever After manages the impressive feat of ending a trilogy on a satisfying note while leaving me wanting more more more from Powrie.

This book follows Ed. We have come to know him over the previous two books as someone with a flair for the dramatic. Everything is big and emotional for Ed, from his obsession with Shakespeare to how much he cares for his friends. In this book, he has acquired a part-time job at Woolf and Wilde, an independent bookstore in their town. Ed is excited for the new job, but as you can probably imagine, reality turns out to be less impressive. Ed’s co-worker, Hannah, is aloof. Dealing with customers is tricky. And in the meantime, Ed’s mum lets spill that she is seeing someone, just as Ed’s dad seems to be pulling away from Ed while also lecturing him to “man up.” Indeed, for emotional Ed, it feels like his world is lurching perilously from its axis. Can the Paper & Hearts Society be his Atlas, or will he go spinning off into space?

I don’t even know where to begin in my encomium, so I guess we’ll start with all the feels and why that’s important. First, I think Powrie nails the intensity of emotions that teenagers experience. She is not alone in doing this. However, other authors of YA fiction sometimes eschew that—perhaps for fear that it will feel melodramatic or unrealistic, or perhaps because they weren’t really writing YA in the first place but the book got marketed that way. Regardless of the reason, a lot of books we call YA are either “new adult” or have the emotional sensibility of NA even if their protagonists are 16 or under. That’s not the case here. Ed and friends are so gloriously, cheerfully, completely messy. They laugh and cry and snap at one another, in person and in text. They make lots of mistakes. The moment Ed put that can of beans in the microwave, I looked up from my book and said, “Oh nooooo,” but that’s because I am a 31-year-old adult who has indeed tripped a circuit breaker or two in her time because of infelicitous microwaving choices. (Shout-out as well to the moment where Ed said to us that all he has to do is keep pushing down his feelings, that everything would be fine if he did this, which prompted a knowing chuckle as I turned the page to continue reading about how that worked out for him.)

Moreover, it’s significant that Ed is a boy and experiencing all these raw emotions. Our society still has a tendency to devalue when men show emotions that are not related to aggression. Men and boys who show too much emotion are sensitive if we want to be charitable and girly or sissy if we decide to throw some misogyny in there while we’re at it. Powrie subverts and openly acknowledges these expectations in Bookishly Ever After. Ed cries. He becomes a big ol’ pile of tears when necessary. But we also see how confused he is by his emotions, and how much he struggles with emotional regulation because it was never really taught properly to him—not by his dad, certainly, who is all about the toxic masculinity I mentioned at the top of this paragraph; but also not even by his loving mum, who seems to be a little taken aback by Ed in the later half of the book, like she blinked and has only now realized her boy is on the cusp of manhood and certain things are now Very Difficult. They finally have a good conversation about it towards the end of the book, along with a touching conversation with Cassie that echoes many of the same themes, including the powerful idea that you can be disappointed in someone and still love them, that you can want more from someone and feel let down if you don’t get it. This really resonated with me, as a single person who relies on a very small number of close friendships for fulfillment in my life. Sometimes my friends do disappoint me—we are all only human—but that is not a reflection on our love for each other.

The value that this trilogy places on friendship is another reason it will always be dear to me. Powrie’s books currently sit alphabetically on my shelf next to Non Pratt’s, another UK YA author whose work often focuses on friendship in a way that makes me, as an aromantic asexual person who doesn’t desire a partner, romantic or otherwise, feel seen. This is the case for the Paper & Hearts Society books as well. Yes, Bookishly Ever After has a romantic subplot. It is adorable! However, that plot is not the central part of this book, and without going into spoilers, Powrie skilfully resolves the conflict within that subplot without resorting to an over-the-top grand gesture. Rather, the resolution to the romance subplot relies entirely on the assistance and advice of Ed’s friends. They are the ones he goes to, individually and as a group, when he needs help. They are the ones who will lift him up. And Ed’s paramour begins as a new friend, one who makes him feel fulfilled and at ease in ways his book club friends don’t—that is to say, it’s ok to have different people in your life for different moods and activities. A new person entering our lives who makes us feel wonderful doesn’t invalidate or minimize the joy we derive from our existing friendships.

Ok, speaking of paramours, let’s talk a little about Hannah! I love her characterization so much. I know enough about Powrie from her YouTube and Twitter to know she has put a lot of herself into Hannah, from her book love and book blogging, to her guinea pig obsession and animal love to, yes, being autistic. Powrie leaves enough hints in Hannah’s actions that even my allistic self can pick up on Hannah being autistic before we hear that label. (I don’t blame Ed for not picking up on it, because he’s … well, he’s Ed. What matters is that when he does learn she’s autistic, his reaction is acceptance.) I can’t speak to what this representation means to autistic readers. All I can say is that I love how Hannah is portrayed and how Powrie includes Hannah’s voice throughout the book in the form of posts Ed reads from her blog. This includes a post with recommendations for other, real books with autistic characters. So sneaky! I smiled a little every time I turned the page and saw another of Hannah’s blog posts, because I knew I was in for a little break in the narrative, a little treat.

Indeed, I said this when comparing Read with Pride to the first book, and I’ll say it now when comparing this book to Read with Pride: marked improvement. Powrie’s debut novel was great, but as she herself notes in her afterword, she has changed a lot since writing that first book. This is evident in each subsequent novel. Bookishly Ever After’s structure, the way the various plots end up hanging together, and the careful inclusion of elements like Hannah’s voice, has a richness and complexity that is all the more rewarding if you’ve read the first two books in this trilogy and seen that growth. I hope when I say this that it isn’t coming off as condescending of a young author; rather, I want to celebrate how far Powrie has come over the course of this trilogy.

See, I’m really sad that this series is over. It was so good, yet at the same time, there’s so much more I want to see from these characters! Powrie wraps it up neatly with an epilogue, and while of course the door remains open for her to revisit these characters should she choose, it’s clear that, for now, she has told the stories she wants to tell. Hence why I’m so excited by how Powrie’s writing has developed over just these three novels. Even though I’m sad to say goodbye to these characters, I’m simultaneously eager to see what Powrie plans to give us next. Her love of 18th and 19th century English literature was how I first found her on YouTube and has been a constant in her reading and also influenced her writing (Woolf and Wilde, anyone?), so I’m super hopeful she will channel that more directly into a new project. Regardless of the form it takes, however, I’m going to be a fan. Because I’ve been reviewing books on these here internets long enough that this one is #1700, and it’s because authors like Powrie keep surprising me, keeping serving up those delicious emotional highs, that I’m going to keep going for the foreseeable future.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

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