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A review by allaurae
Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
3.0
Official Rating: 3
Thoughts:
I wanted to love this book. I really, truly did. I'm a big fan of Stephanie Perkins' writing, and a firm believer that she has amazing talent at writing healthy, swoon-worthy relationships and novels that have not only a focus on one central romance, but also character development, backstory and fun.
Unfortunately, this was not one of those books.
Yes, there was a romance, yes there were some swoon-worthy moments, and yes, there was some fun. Alas, I would under no circumstances call Isla and Josh's relationship "healthy".
The first quarter of the book, Isla is obsessed with Josh in an incredibly stalker-ish manner. She follows his online presence (what little there is), daydreams about living in the same room that he used to, and frets over his alternating presence and absence from class.
It goes beyond paranoid interest, and swerves into full-on obsession when they become a couple - a transition which felt, to me, a bit rushed, however I understand how quickly it had to happen in order to move onto the brunt of the book's conflict. When Isla is able to add the title 'boyfriend' onto the end of Josh's name, suddenly any skerrick of a personality that she had flies out the window.
If her world revolved around this boy before, he became her entire universe after that development. I mean this quite literally when I say she begins to eat, drink, and breathe Josh. There are moments in the book where, while they're separated, she bemoans how she literally can't function without him there with her.
Every single passage that passed I felt myself falling further and further back into the 1950s.
To be fair, we eventually find out that Josh doesn't cope much better without her, but the point remains the same.
Another problem arises, of course, when they're actually together. While they were separated, Isla worries over if, ohmigosh, where they ever really a couple?? Was it all just a big gimmick?? Then, when they are finally reunited, she begins to panic that, ohmigosh, what if he doesn't really love me and next time he goes away he'll realise that I'm not actually his one true love???? What if he realises how boring I am??
I think this is one of my main problems that I have with Isla. She has a bit of an anti-special-snowflake complex. Instead of the often-found, "I'm so different to everyone else, so I'm better than them", Isla's mentality instead seems to be "I'm so much more boring than everyone else. They're so much better than me, I'm so uninteresting." While this might be refreshing for about 20 pages, eventually you realise that that's not just her being modest or self-deprecating, she actually doesn't have much of a personality. After spending days poring over her story, and reading her innermost thoughts, I can tell you the following things about her: she likes reading, she's smart, she has red hair, family issues, an Autistic best friend (oh my lovely Kurt, I'll get to you later), and will be moving in with her boyfriend eventually.
I don't know if she has ANY other hobbies apart from reading, because all she seems to do in this book is read, study, fight with Kurt, and interact with Josh.
Before they got together, a good portion of her character was about trying to get together with Josh, and once they were together, her entire character was about being with Josh. I can't even tell you what she was planning on studying at college, because that plotline, which might have otherwise been a really interesting way to develop her character, became entirely about Josh, and what he would think about where she went to college.
Everything about Isla frustrated me. Some of the lines that literally made me put the book down and pace in order to work off my anger were as follows, including my internally worded reactions:
"A good girlfriend would keep her mouth shut."
No. Just no.
"There nothing here to love."
Oh my God Isla GET OVER YOURSELF, believe it or not you were a PERSON before you were a GIRLFRIEND.
"It's the deathblow. It's over."
Jesus take the wheel. Someone get this girl a life. I can't deal with her bullshit anymore.
"That's kind of how I feel about everything these days: ugh. No."
Kind of like me with THIS BOOK.
The next, and probably most angering thing about Isla, was how she treated other girls. I get that she's insecure, and irrational jealousy was supposed to be a flaw in her character, but oh my God the girl is vicious when it comes to other girls. I honestly felt bad for Rashmi because of the beating the girl got in this book. Isla instantly tore down and hated on other girls who showed even the slightest interest in Josh, and her first thought in any social situation was to analyse, with her apparently vulture-like eyes, if any interaction between Josh and other girls was platonic or otherwise.
I understand what it's like to be protective, but Isla was just plain nasty in some scenes, especially in regards to Rashmi. Another indicator of how unhealthy their relationship was - how unwilling Isla was to accept that yes, Josh had a girlfriend before her. While she eventually comes more to terms with it by the end of the book, she never seems to feel true remorse for the awful things she was thinking about Josh's ex.
I'm sorry to say there were only a couple of things that I liked about this book. For starters, Kurt. I wish we'd gotten to see more of him, and more of him interacting with other people, because I honestly can't remember the last time I've read about an Autistic character before. There was so much potential there for Perkins to explore a character like that, and show how growing up with an Autistic best friend might have skewed the way Isla approaches society. Surely she must have been exposed to the more horrible people in life at a younger age, right? However, if any such developments did occur, we saw very little to no evidence of it at all.
Secondly, the WHOLE GANG IS BACK! (For about 4 pages but I digress.)
Anna and St. Clair's engagement scene was so sweet. It was actually nice to not be there with them, hearing the words be spoken. Their story is finished, now, and it was nice that attention on certain characters wasn't skewed in order to be a part of that. It was satisfying, and gratuitous, and everything I'd ever wanted.
Calliope finally got her gold. Yes, girl.
And, yes, by the end, the romance had grown on me. In the final pages we were given a snapshot of Isla and Josh's toned-down relationship. It was relieving, because we see that while their love for each other hasn't in any way diminished, they have finally found a balance between being together and being their own people.
I don't really know how to finish this review off. The book was good, the writing was cute, many of the scenes were fluffy and adorable. But, many also were not, in the worst way possible.
All in all, I did enjoy Isla and the Happily Ever After. While it definitely didn't live up to its predecessors, it was a satisfying conclusion to an otherwise fantastic trilogy.
Thoughts:
I wanted to love this book. I really, truly did. I'm a big fan of Stephanie Perkins' writing, and a firm believer that she has amazing talent at writing healthy, swoon-worthy relationships and novels that have not only a focus on one central romance, but also character development, backstory and fun.
Unfortunately, this was not one of those books.
Yes, there was a romance, yes there were some swoon-worthy moments, and yes, there was some fun. Alas, I would under no circumstances call Isla and Josh's relationship "healthy".
The first quarter of the book, Isla is obsessed with Josh in an incredibly stalker-ish manner. She follows his online presence (what little there is), daydreams about living in the same room that he used to, and frets over his alternating presence and absence from class.
It goes beyond paranoid interest, and swerves into full-on obsession when they become a couple - a transition which felt, to me, a bit rushed, however I understand how quickly it had to happen in order to move onto the brunt of the book's conflict. When Isla is able to add the title 'boyfriend' onto the end of Josh's name, suddenly any skerrick of a personality that she had flies out the window.
If her world revolved around this boy before, he became her entire universe after that development. I mean this quite literally when I say she begins to eat, drink, and breathe Josh. There are moments in the book where, while they're separated, she bemoans how she literally can't function without him there with her.
Every single passage that passed I felt myself falling further and further back into the 1950s.
To be fair, we eventually find out that Josh doesn't cope much better without her, but the point remains the same.
Another problem arises, of course, when they're actually together. While they were separated, Isla worries over if, ohmigosh, where they ever really a couple?? Was it all just a big gimmick?? Then, when they are finally reunited, she begins to panic that, ohmigosh, what if he doesn't really love me and next time he goes away he'll realise that I'm not actually his one true love???? What if he realises how boring I am??
I think this is one of my main problems that I have with Isla. She has a bit of an anti-special-snowflake complex. Instead of the often-found, "I'm so different to everyone else, so I'm better than them", Isla's mentality instead seems to be "I'm so much more boring than everyone else. They're so much better than me, I'm so uninteresting." While this might be refreshing for about 20 pages, eventually you realise that that's not just her being modest or self-deprecating, she actually doesn't have much of a personality. After spending days poring over her story, and reading her innermost thoughts, I can tell you the following things about her: she likes reading, she's smart, she has red hair, family issues, an Autistic best friend (oh my lovely Kurt, I'll get to you later), and will be moving in with her boyfriend eventually.
I don't know if she has ANY other hobbies apart from reading, because all she seems to do in this book is read, study, fight with Kurt, and interact with Josh.
Before they got together, a good portion of her character was about trying to get together with Josh, and once they were together, her entire character was about being with Josh. I can't even tell you what she was planning on studying at college, because that plotline, which might have otherwise been a really interesting way to develop her character, became entirely about Josh, and what he would think about where she went to college.
Everything about Isla frustrated me. Some of the lines that literally made me put the book down and pace in order to work off my anger were as follows, including my internally worded reactions:
"A good girlfriend would keep her mouth shut."
No. Just no.
"There nothing here to love."
Oh my God Isla GET OVER YOURSELF, believe it or not you were a PERSON before you were a GIRLFRIEND.
"It's the deathblow. It's over."
Jesus take the wheel. Someone get this girl a life. I can't deal with her bullshit anymore.
"That's kind of how I feel about everything these days: ugh. No."
Kind of like me with THIS BOOK.
The next, and probably most angering thing about Isla, was how she treated other girls. I get that she's insecure, and irrational jealousy was supposed to be a flaw in her character, but oh my God the girl is vicious when it comes to other girls. I honestly felt bad for Rashmi because of the beating the girl got in this book. Isla instantly tore down and hated on other girls who showed even the slightest interest in Josh, and her first thought in any social situation was to analyse, with her apparently vulture-like eyes, if any interaction between Josh and other girls was platonic or otherwise.
I understand what it's like to be protective, but Isla was just plain nasty in some scenes, especially in regards to Rashmi. Another indicator of how unhealthy their relationship was - how unwilling Isla was to accept that yes, Josh had a girlfriend before her. While she eventually comes more to terms with it by the end of the book, she never seems to feel true remorse for the awful things she was thinking about Josh's ex.
I'm sorry to say there were only a couple of things that I liked about this book. For starters, Kurt. I wish we'd gotten to see more of him, and more of him interacting with other people, because I honestly can't remember the last time I've read about an Autistic character before. There was so much potential there for Perkins to explore a character like that, and show how growing up with an Autistic best friend might have skewed the way Isla approaches society. Surely she must have been exposed to the more horrible people in life at a younger age, right? However, if any such developments did occur, we saw very little to no evidence of it at all.
Secondly, the WHOLE GANG IS BACK! (For about 4 pages but I digress.)
Anna and St. Clair's engagement scene was so sweet. It was actually nice to not be there with them, hearing the words be spoken. Their story is finished, now, and it was nice that attention on certain characters wasn't skewed in order to be a part of that. It was satisfying, and gratuitous, and everything I'd ever wanted.
Calliope finally got her gold. Yes, girl.
And, yes, by the end, the romance had grown on me. In the final pages we were given a snapshot of Isla and Josh's toned-down relationship. It was relieving, because we see that while their love for each other hasn't in any way diminished, they have finally found a balance between being together and being their own people.
I don't really know how to finish this review off. The book was good, the writing was cute, many of the scenes were fluffy and adorable. But, many also were not, in the worst way possible.
All in all, I did enjoy Isla and the Happily Ever After. While it definitely didn't live up to its predecessors, it was a satisfying conclusion to an otherwise fantastic trilogy.