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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
Adorable! Love the different plots with Claudia’s budding friendship with Ivy and the way they bond over a boy band as well as the romance between her and Gideon, who I would actually die for. It’s light hearted but still had a depth of emotion that made it a well rounded contemporary. Also the humor was on spot! I lived for Claudia’s dry humor. I’d definitely pick this book up again for a reread.
A sweet quirky romance. I love how multifaceted some of the characters were, and the amazing friendships.
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
sad
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
Genuinely lovely read, couldn't put it down. Nothing incredibly exceptional to earn a 5 star, but it brightened my day!
This was seriously one of the cutest books I’ve read in a REALLY long time!!! The friendships and relationships were really cute and I really felt them in my heart. So much of the dialogue made me laugh out loud, they have such unique senses of humor and when things got serious it was so real, I felt like I was sitting there with them. Certain parts made my heart clench, other parts made me smile so big my cheeks hurt! So so so cute.
I started this book technically the night before but I was worried I was going to wake my husband up with my laughter, so I held off. I thought this book was funny and endearing. I kept reading parts of it out loud to my husband, and he kept saying, “Are you sure you didn’t write this book? Because this sounds like something you would write”. And I’m trying to figure out if TION is BTS or not. I want them to be. But anyway, I really, really liked this book. Thanks, Owlcrate!
hat ein bisschen gedauert, um reinzukommen, und vieles war einfach absolut vorauszusehen - aber dann doch einfach ganz süß
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
I received an Arc of this book in exchange of an honest review
Full review originally posted on my blog: Word Wonders
If you’d be inclined to help me get my heart back, please take a spoon a help me gather this puddle of feelings off the floor. That’s my heart. That’s it. That’s what Foolish Hearts does to you. It just takes your frigid heart (if you’re like me) and starts sneakily melting it, which you don’t even realize until it succeeds. This book is so fluffy and soft and cute and happy, it made me want to pick up every similar book out there because I want the genuine warm happiness it made me feel to last forever.
The writing is very simple and yet enjoyable, which is helped by how funny and quirky it is. It’s from our main character Claudia‘s POV and I. Loved. Her. She’s so awkward but also extremely funny. Like, laugh out loud funny which I always appreciate, especially when it’s sarcasm. She’s insecure and uses her humour as a defense mechanism, which is so relatable to teenage me. She’s been metaphorically romantically burned before and isn’t looking to relive the experience so she’s a flee first, think later kind of girl. Claudia is also a MMRPG player and I only realized how little we see of gamers in YA books. So, GIMME MORE. PLEASE.
The thing I really appreciated about this book is how realistically it portrayed the teenage experience. With imprefect teens who have different interests, make mistakes, hang out, fight and make up. Just living their messy teen lives. We get a 360° view of the high school experience, with a main character who isn’t super popular but isn’t isolated either, friendship, romance, drama (!!!) both in their personal lives and having the characters all working in a play, and genuine realistic dialogue.
At the core of this book, is its friendship, more specifically it’s amazing portrayal of female friendship. She has a best friend is Zoe with whom she shares a very tight bond, but in the book we see a brand new friendship bloom between her and Iris. Iris is…a tough one to like, but I absolutely loved her. She’s closed off, rough around the edges and straight up rude in the beginning and she’s hated for it around school, she doesn’t know how to make friends and pushes people away so much that they don’t want to be around her. What I loved most is that Claudia didn’t let that scare her away. She kept pushing back whenever Iris pushed and calling her out on her bullshit. And the two of them bonded over a boy band which Iris is a huge fan of and got Claudia into. And the keyboard smash when Iris started freaking out over them? Fucking iconic!
THEN, in second place comes the romance. Gideon, the love interest is such a HUGE dorky sweetheart. He’s super popular and loved by basically everyone but that never gets to his head and he just genuinely enjoys being around people, especially Claudia. I really appreciated how the author challenged every toxic masculinity trait out there. H’s not afraid of showing his feelings for Claudia without ever pushing her or resenting her if she doesn’t reciprocate, as well as physical displays of affections towards his best friends, Noah, who also only has great things to say about him. And honestly? Their relationship is SO slowburn and beyond adorable, they take genuine interest in each other and Gideon starts playing Claudia’s favourite game BECAUSE HE LIKES HER. And oh gosh, she’s so oblivious to it all.
There’s also a sapphic side relationship that made my heart burst. It just showed how sometimes people need some time apart to grow on their own and find their way back to each other. And Iris and Paige’s love for each other is almost palpable, even when they’re not in each other’s vicinity, and even with the book not centering them and their romance being secondary to the plot. I loved it.
Foolish Hearts feels like a warm hug after a long hard day that you never want to let go of and I’m sure this will become one of my go-to feel good reads because it’s just that type of book.
I received an Arc of this book in exchange of an honest review
Full review originally posted on my blog: Word Wonders
If you’d be inclined to help me get my heart back, please take a spoon a help me gather this puddle of feelings off the floor. That’s my heart. That’s it. That’s what Foolish Hearts does to you. It just takes your frigid heart (if you’re like me) and starts sneakily melting it, which you don’t even realize until it succeeds. This book is so fluffy and soft and cute and happy, it made me want to pick up every similar book out there because I want the genuine warm happiness it made me feel to last forever.
The writing is very simple and yet enjoyable, which is helped by how funny and quirky it is. It’s from our main character Claudia‘s POV and I. Loved. Her. She’s so awkward but also extremely funny. Like, laugh out loud funny which I always appreciate, especially when it’s sarcasm. She’s insecure and uses her humour as a defense mechanism, which is so relatable to teenage me. She’s been metaphorically romantically burned before and isn’t looking to relive the experience so she’s a flee first, think later kind of girl. Claudia is also a MMRPG player and I only realized how little we see of gamers in YA books. So, GIMME MORE. PLEASE.
The thing I really appreciated about this book is how realistically it portrayed the teenage experience. With imprefect teens who have different interests, make mistakes, hang out, fight and make up. Just living their messy teen lives. We get a 360° view of the high school experience, with a main character who isn’t super popular but isn’t isolated either, friendship, romance, drama (!!!) both in their personal lives and having the characters all working in a play, and genuine realistic dialogue.
At the core of this book, is its friendship, more specifically it’s amazing portrayal of female friendship. She has a best friend is Zoe with whom she shares a very tight bond, but in the book we see a brand new friendship bloom between her and Iris. Iris is…a tough one to like, but I absolutely loved her. She’s closed off, rough around the edges and straight up rude in the beginning and she’s hated for it around school, she doesn’t know how to make friends and pushes people away so much that they don’t want to be around her. What I loved most is that Claudia didn’t let that scare her away. She kept pushing back whenever Iris pushed and calling her out on her bullshit. And the two of them bonded over a boy band which Iris is a huge fan of and got Claudia into. And the keyboard smash when Iris started freaking out over them? Fucking iconic!
THEN, in second place comes the romance. Gideon, the love interest is such a HUGE dorky sweetheart. He’s super popular and loved by basically everyone but that never gets to his head and he just genuinely enjoys being around people, especially Claudia. I really appreciated how the author challenged every toxic masculinity trait out there. H’s not afraid of showing his feelings for Claudia without ever pushing her or resenting her if she doesn’t reciprocate, as well as physical displays of affections towards his best friends, Noah, who also only has great things to say about him. And honestly? Their relationship is SO slowburn and beyond adorable, they take genuine interest in each other and Gideon starts playing Claudia’s favourite game BECAUSE HE LIKES HER. And oh gosh, she’s so oblivious to it all.
There’s also a sapphic side relationship that made my heart burst. It just showed how sometimes people need some time apart to grow on their own and find their way back to each other. And Iris and Paige’s love for each other is almost palpable, even when they’re not in each other’s vicinity, and even with the book not centering them and their romance being secondary to the plot. I loved it.
Foolish Hearts feels like a warm hug after a long hard day that you never want to let go of and I’m sure this will become one of my go-to feel good reads because it’s just that type of book.
When Claudia accidentally eavesdrops on the epic breakup of Paige and Iris, the it-couple at her school, she finds herself in hot water with prickly, difficult Iris. Thrown together against their will in the class production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, along with the goofiest, cutest boy Claudia has ever known, Iris and Claudia are in for an eye-opening senior year.
I’m going to change my rating from 4 stars to 5. When I first started this book, I was immediately hooked. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while but never really realized what a gem it was. Claudia is your average high school student who has the privilege of attending a fancy private school because her father works there. She doesn’t really fit in but she doesn’t not fit in either, if that makes sense. It’s almost as though she makes herself not fit in because she thinks she doesn’t belong. I don’t think the description above really does the story justice. Claudia and Iris are forced to work as partners on a project and when they blow it because of their hostility towards each other, they are both assigned to the school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to make up the project. The play is put on with the neighboring boy’s private school which is where Claudia meets Gideon. Gideon is popular, super cute but also super dorky in his own way. Claudia has been hurt before so she more or less ignores him and his obvious interest in her. Throughout the story, Claudia, Iris, Gideon, and the rest of the play’s cast and crew are thrown together in various situations so that Claudia cannot ignore Gideon and grows to actually like Iris as a friend.
There is also a subplot to the story which I didn’t love and is why my original rating was 4 stars. My overall love of the story overshadows my dislike of this portion. Claudia has a brother and a sister. Her sister lives in another city with her husband. Claudia, her brother, her sister and her husband, as well as Claudia’s best friend Zoe all play this video game. It’s sort of how they stay connected as a family. Zoe goes to the public school in their town but comes over every day to spend time with Claudia. She is really Claudia’s only friend. Eventually it comes out that Zoe isn’t just Claudia’s best friend, she’s secretly been dating Claudia’s brother Alex. When she finds out, Claudia pretty much flips out and it causes a rift between them. I didn’t like this part of the story because it just doesn’t really add up to me. I don’t have siblings but I have close friends who have siblings and due to my closeness with their family, I’ve never seen their siblings as anything less than semi-siblings of my own. I could never imagine dating any of them. Ultimately it all works out but I just wasn’t that interested in this part of the story.
Despite my lack of interest in part of the story, I believe others will love the story as a whole just as I do. I think this was a cute, high school story with a happy ending. My take away from this story is: Why on earth did I wait so long to read it?! I loved it.
Emma Mills is the author of First & Then, This Adventure Ends, Foolish Hearts, Famous in a Small Town, and Lucky Caller. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and has recently completed a PhD in cell biology.
Here's a link to my blog: https://ashleesbookishadventures.tumblr.com/post/619120708477419520/foolish-hearts-by-emma-mills
I’m going to change my rating from 4 stars to 5. When I first started this book, I was immediately hooked. I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while but never really realized what a gem it was. Claudia is your average high school student who has the privilege of attending a fancy private school because her father works there. She doesn’t really fit in but she doesn’t not fit in either, if that makes sense. It’s almost as though she makes herself not fit in because she thinks she doesn’t belong. I don’t think the description above really does the story justice. Claudia and Iris are forced to work as partners on a project and when they blow it because of their hostility towards each other, they are both assigned to the school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to make up the project. The play is put on with the neighboring boy’s private school which is where Claudia meets Gideon. Gideon is popular, super cute but also super dorky in his own way. Claudia has been hurt before so she more or less ignores him and his obvious interest in her. Throughout the story, Claudia, Iris, Gideon, and the rest of the play’s cast and crew are thrown together in various situations so that Claudia cannot ignore Gideon and grows to actually like Iris as a friend.
There is also a subplot to the story which I didn’t love and is why my original rating was 4 stars. My overall love of the story overshadows my dislike of this portion. Claudia has a brother and a sister. Her sister lives in another city with her husband. Claudia, her brother, her sister and her husband, as well as Claudia’s best friend Zoe all play this video game. It’s sort of how they stay connected as a family. Zoe goes to the public school in their town but comes over every day to spend time with Claudia. She is really Claudia’s only friend. Eventually it comes out that Zoe isn’t just Claudia’s best friend, she’s secretly been dating Claudia’s brother Alex. When she finds out, Claudia pretty much flips out and it causes a rift between them. I didn’t like this part of the story because it just doesn’t really add up to me. I don’t have siblings but I have close friends who have siblings and due to my closeness with their family, I’ve never seen their siblings as anything less than semi-siblings of my own. I could never imagine dating any of them. Ultimately it all works out but I just wasn’t that interested in this part of the story.
Despite my lack of interest in part of the story, I believe others will love the story as a whole just as I do. I think this was a cute, high school story with a happy ending. My take away from this story is: Why on earth did I wait so long to read it?! I loved it.
Emma Mills is the author of First & Then, This Adventure Ends, Foolish Hearts, Famous in a Small Town, and Lucky Caller. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and has recently completed a PhD in cell biology.
Here's a link to my blog: https://ashleesbookishadventures.tumblr.com/post/619120708477419520/foolish-hearts-by-emma-mills