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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
So cute and I loved how important friendship was to the story.
File that under "makes me happy", because it did. I finally read my first Emma Mills book, and it may be love.
Back in September, I shared a list of authors I NEED to read. Emma Mills was on this list, and I cannot believe it took me so long to read one of her books! This book was such a joy to read, and exactly my cup of tea.
I am not quite sure where to start with my outpouring of affection for this book, but I am going to try.
•Claudia was so wonderful! I related to so many of her worries and the baggage she was carrying from a past relationship, but also found her to be such a genuinely kind person. She made mistakes, but she also knew she made mistakes, and worked hard to remedy those transgressions. I just adored her and wanted to be her friend, as well as a part of her guild too.
•Gideon!!! There was a LOT more to this uber-popular boy than we were led to believe. He came off a little goofy and not very serious, but as the story progressed, we learned about what a beautiful and kind person he really was. I would totally have Gideon as my "majestic space prince" any day. And if he was older or I was younger, I would eat soggy cereal with him.
•In general, this book is packed with superb characters. They were quirky and interesting and felt real to me. I was super eager to spend time in their world, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of characters to do it with.
•I love romance, and my heart just exploded from the romances in this book. There are three to watch, and all are sweet and adorable, and I shipped them all. Claudia's romance was the main focus, and it was so adorably awkward and perfectly "her". I just couldn't get enough of it.
•Claudia's narration was so fabulous! I just loved being in her head, and I found her voice to be perfect.
•Growth, growth, and more growth! I felt like a lot of characters experienced significant personal growth in this book, but most notably, Iris and Claudia. Iris learned how to be a better friend and a better person, and Claudia learned to love and appreciate herself more. I am always on board with personal growth, and found Claudia's to be an important journey to share.
•The family ties were tied nice and tight in this one. Claudia's family was total #FamilyGoals. Her parents are very present in this book, but we see more focus on the sibling relationships, which were quite lovely. I love that they maintained contact over the miles by playing an MMORPG together. You know what they say, the family that plays together, stays together. Mills really did a wonderful job with the family dynamic, and I couldn't get enough of this clan.
•This is my favorite kind of book, because it was quite fun, packed with great and witty banter, and low drama. It's almost as if Mills wrote this book just for me.
Overall: A wonderful story filled with family and friendship, which left me with an incurable case of the warm-fuzzies. I have now found an new author for my go-to list and am eager to read every book Mills writes.
*I would like to thank the publisher for the advanced copy of this book.
Back in September, I shared a list of authors I NEED to read. Emma Mills was on this list, and I cannot believe it took me so long to read one of her books! This book was such a joy to read, and exactly my cup of tea.
I am not quite sure where to start with my outpouring of affection for this book, but I am going to try.
•Claudia was so wonderful! I related to so many of her worries and the baggage she was carrying from a past relationship, but also found her to be such a genuinely kind person. She made mistakes, but she also knew she made mistakes, and worked hard to remedy those transgressions. I just adored her and wanted to be her friend, as well as a part of her guild too.
•Gideon!!! There was a LOT more to this uber-popular boy than we were led to believe. He came off a little goofy and not very serious, but as the story progressed, we learned about what a beautiful and kind person he really was. I would totally have Gideon as my "majestic space prince" any day. And if he was older or I was younger, I would eat soggy cereal with him.
•In general, this book is packed with superb characters. They were quirky and interesting and felt real to me. I was super eager to spend time in their world, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of characters to do it with.
•I love romance, and my heart just exploded from the romances in this book. There are three to watch, and all are sweet and adorable, and I shipped them all. Claudia's romance was the main focus, and it was so adorably awkward and perfectly "her". I just couldn't get enough of it.
•Claudia's narration was so fabulous! I just loved being in her head, and I found her voice to be perfect.
•Growth, growth, and more growth! I felt like a lot of characters experienced significant personal growth in this book, but most notably, Iris and Claudia. Iris learned how to be a better friend and a better person, and Claudia learned to love and appreciate herself more. I am always on board with personal growth, and found Claudia's to be an important journey to share.
•The family ties were tied nice and tight in this one. Claudia's family was total #FamilyGoals. Her parents are very present in this book, but we see more focus on the sibling relationships, which were quite lovely. I love that they maintained contact over the miles by playing an MMORPG together. You know what they say, the family that plays together, stays together. Mills really did a wonderful job with the family dynamic, and I couldn't get enough of this clan.
•This is my favorite kind of book, because it was quite fun, packed with great and witty banter, and low drama. It's almost as if Mills wrote this book just for me.
Overall: A wonderful story filled with family and friendship, which left me with an incurable case of the warm-fuzzies. I have now found an new author for my go-to list and am eager to read every book Mills writes.
*I would like to thank the publisher for the advanced copy of this book.
I LOVED THIS. This book is like a warm hug wrapped in a contemporary YA coming of age type novel and, *sigh* I just can't- I LOVED all the characters for all their flaws quirks and virtues and I'm left feeling really sad that it's over and also very 'cheered up' if that's even a term... anyway if you like contemporary YA this is brilliant 😊😊
I fell in love with Emma Mills writing when I read and loved This Adventure Ends, and I was really excited to read more of her work, and it didn't disappoint. Mills has a way of writing contemporary YA in such a new, fresh way, while also just using the good genre "tropes" to create great, heart-warming stories that also feel very real. But what I like especially about these books is that they're much more about friendship than they are about romance.
And so too, with Foolish Hearts. Honestly, I had expected an entirely different story, when I read the blurb, and I was a little hesitant, but this was so, so much better than I could have expected. I was bracing myself a little for bitchy, boy-friend fight, but that all disappeared within the first scene. I was so excited to read that the most popular couple in this high school were two girls!
The characters are so great. They're complex and interesting, sometimes silly and flawed, but also just really likeable. I especially liked that one of the main characters was allowed to be just a bit of a jerk, without her being the 'evil bitch slut etc. girl'. Female characters are allowed to be flawed in Mills' books, and still be okay or good people. Real people. It's such a relief from other YA books where girls have to be sugar sweet and perfect in order to be good characters. People are flawed, all right, they make mistakes, they're insecure, they're scared. They're human.
God, all the characters are so funny. They make exactly kind of jokes I'd make with my friends, it's exactly my generation's sense of humor. That's something I often miss in YA, that it's written by people a generation above mine, and it often is just ever so slightly not.. right. But Emma Mill's books are! Another detail of her books I love is that the characters are allowed to swear! They're allowed to cuss like real teenagers, which always makes it more relatable to me. Maybe not so much as actual real life teenagers, but I love a well-placed f-bomb.
I also liked that the romance isn't on the foreground, it's most of an afterthought. Not in the way that's it's added with the idea that YA Must Have Romance, but rather that romance exists, and is cool, but that friendship is really important too!
Anyway, Foolish Hearts is a sweet, funny, relatable, realistic and again, really, really funny story about making friends and being yourself, full of great, flawed, realistic, amazing characters who learn to open up and become true friends. Now I want to read it all over again!
And so too, with Foolish Hearts. Honestly, I had expected an entirely different story, when I read the blurb, and I was a little hesitant, but this was so, so much better than I could have expected. I was bracing myself a little for bitchy, boy-friend fight, but that all disappeared within the first scene. I was so excited to read that the most popular couple in this high school were two girls!
The characters are so great. They're complex and interesting, sometimes silly and flawed, but also just really likeable. I especially liked that one of the main characters was allowed to be just a bit of a jerk, without her being the 'evil bitch slut etc. girl'. Female characters are allowed to be flawed in Mills' books, and still be okay or good people. Real people. It's such a relief from other YA books where girls have to be sugar sweet and perfect in order to be good characters. People are flawed, all right, they make mistakes, they're insecure, they're scared. They're human.
God, all the characters are so funny. They make exactly kind of jokes I'd make with my friends, it's exactly my generation's sense of humor. That's something I often miss in YA, that it's written by people a generation above mine, and it often is just ever so slightly not.. right. But Emma Mill's books are! Another detail of her books I love is that the characters are allowed to swear! They're allowed to cuss like real teenagers, which always makes it more relatable to me. Maybe not so much as actual real life teenagers, but I love a well-placed f-bomb.
I also liked that the romance isn't on the foreground, it's most of an afterthought. Not in the way that's it's added with the idea that YA Must Have Romance, but rather that romance exists, and is cool, but that friendship is really important too!
Anyway, Foolish Hearts is a sweet, funny, relatable, realistic and again, really, really funny story about making friends and being yourself, full of great, flawed, realistic, amazing characters who learn to open up and become true friends. Now I want to read it all over again!
Probably my favorite of her books so far. The brother/best friend/video game stuff was sparse compared to the Iris and Gideon plots and the main character was a bit too much of a blank slate but still a good contemporary ya.
This book had everything I love in a contemporary. The emotions felt so real and the dialogue was so snappy and witty and genuine. I want to be friends with Claudia.
WHAT THE HELL.
I am so insanely and ridiculously disappointed with part of the GoodReads community. I went into Foolish Hearts with reservations, because apparently it was “slow, stupid, etc.” Did we even read the same book?
I LOVED Foolish Hearts. It was a realistic of so many things a typical girl will go through in her teens and even twenties. Making a friend on her own for the first time, trying to trust love again after a bad breakup, dealing with crazy family things (read siblings), and sister getting pregnant (and having the baby, and worrying about the baby). Not to mention, so much more.
But what was absolutely perfect was how well-written all of this was. Foolish Hearts was funny, sad, frustrating, and just made me feel.
I honestly can’t even tell you who my favorite character was. Claudia was so realistic, and although very different from me, she could have easily been me in high school. And I feel like a lot of other girls will relate to her. Or Gideon, who was so stinking cute, and yet completely unique. Or maybe Iris who was her own self and had to be so independent and was so lonely (yet fierce). Or Claudia’s parents who were PRESENT. Like can this still be a YA novel if the parents are there???? Or maybe Lena who was everything I’ve ever wanted? Luxury. Affordable. Industry standard.
Thank you Emma for writing a book that I needed to read. One that would break me out of my reading slump, and be cute and yet oh so meaningful.
I am so insanely and ridiculously disappointed with part of the GoodReads community. I went into Foolish Hearts with reservations, because apparently it was “slow, stupid, etc.” Did we even read the same book?
I LOVED Foolish Hearts. It was a realistic of so many things a typical girl will go through in her teens and even twenties. Making a friend on her own for the first time, trying to trust love again after a bad breakup, dealing with crazy family things (read siblings), and sister getting pregnant (and having the baby, and worrying about the baby). Not to mention, so much more.
But what was absolutely perfect was how well-written all of this was. Foolish Hearts was funny, sad, frustrating, and just made me feel.
I honestly can’t even tell you who my favorite character was. Claudia was so realistic, and although very different from me, she could have easily been me in high school. And I feel like a lot of other girls will relate to her. Or Gideon, who was so stinking cute, and yet completely unique. Or maybe Iris who was her own self and had to be so independent and was so lonely (yet fierce). Or Claudia’s parents who were PRESENT. Like can this still be a YA novel if the parents are there???? Or maybe Lena who was everything I’ve ever wanted? Luxury. Affordable. Industry standard.
Thank you Emma for writing a book that I needed to read. One that would break me out of my reading slump, and be cute and yet oh so meaningful.
This book ultimately wasn't for me. I like contemporary YA on occasion (although it isn't my favorite genre of YA) but I felt no connection or emotions towards the characters at all. They felt flat and unidimensional to me as if their characteristics were taken from other books and then combined together. The drama that revolves around the group of friends and their story felt uninteresting, and even a bit petty to me. I think some people may enjoy how fast and easy this read it, but this wasn't for me.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated