Book Review: “Always and Forever, Lara Jean” by Jenny Han

Hello!

It is time for the final book review of Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before series. I cannot believe I finished all of them! I’m still wrestling with all of the emotions I had while reading this series, especially this book, because it is the last piece of a very complex puzzle for me.

After I finished reading P.S. I Still Love You a few months ago, I thought I would give myself a chance to recover before jumping into the next book, but I didn’t. Everything that I loved about that book, made me want to continue down the road to Lara Jean’s love story. So, the day the review was published on here, I begin reading Always and Forever, Lara Jean and now I get to talk to you about everything I loved about it too!

WARNING: There are some spoilers below, so continue at your own risk!

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Lara Jean is having the best senior year.

And there’s still so much to look forward to: a class trip to New York City, prom with her boyfriend Peter, Beach Week after graduation, and her dad’s wedding to Ms. Rothschild. Then she’ll be off to college with Peter, at a school close enough for her to come home and bake chocolate chip cookies on the weekends.

Life couldn’t be more perfect!

At least, that’s what Lara Jean thinks . . . until she gets some unexpected news.

Now the girl who dreads change must rethink all her plans—but when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

taken from Goodreads.

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When the story starts, you quickly realize we basically skip a year; as if by magic we end up starting Lara Jean’s senior year. I thought this concept was interesting considering the fact that I am celebrating 10 year of becoming a high school graduate, so a good chunk of the material about everyone trying to figure out what they were going to do after school was interesting because it brought back almost everything I was feeling when I was in my last year of high school as well.

There were a lot of things that made me rethink about my own early adult life, but even though I really tried (and also failed) to look past my own experiences during this important time of any young girl’s life, it was also nice to see how everything played out for both Lara Jean and Peter’s love story. Now with that being said, there was also some things I wasn’t a big fan of in this book. The most important was Stormy’s death. To say I was a wreck for a couple of days is a bit of an understatement, because this was a character I absolutely adored, probably because she reminded me of my nana in just her personality alone, so to see that part of Lara Jean’s story kind of left out at such an important time in her life really sucked!

Another element that “bothered” me was Peter’s attitude towards the end. Even though we have seen Peter have sensitive moments in the past, I really didn’t like the fact that he pushed the idea of them going to the same college after attending a year at other campuses. I know Lara Jean wanted to go to UVA as much as Peter, but as she has been really supportive towards him in the things he’s done throughout their relationship, he wasn’t truly there for her to make a big decision on the next phase of her life.

Once I realized in my mind that this was starting to remind me of when my sister began a long distance relationship with her boyfriend, I just got it into my head that they should break up. My sister kept fighting for a love that obviously didn’t care as much for her as she did for him, and I became very afraid for Lara Jean. I didn’t want her to experience that kind of pain, so in a way I turned into Margot–who I’ve never been a huge fan of throughout the series–and I started to agree with her mom’s advice to Margot about not having a boyfriend before entering college when she left for St. Andrews two years prior.

Even though I was on the fence about that situation, I did choose to think happy thoughts about how they were going to attempt to make it work and I actually really enjoyed how it ended. A part of me is really glad we don’t get to know what happens next for Lara Jean and Peter, and all of the other beloved characters like Chris, Kitty, and Lucas! The last sentence was so perfect and very Lara Jeanesqe as it gave me back a little snippet of what initially got me to this series in the first place!

This series has meant a lot for me! I brought me back to some memorable moments in my life, and in a way let me see what could have been had other things worked out. Later on, it felt like fate that I was reintroduced to this story, because now I can say I have completed a whole book series! I have never done that before in my life and so, this series has created its own little section in my heart for two but equally gratifying reasons!

Fun fact: I found that Romeo & Juliet film on our movies channels last month and I have had quite a bit of chocolate chip cookies. So, I thought since I’m done reading the series, I could pull a “date” night with just myself enjoying the two together with Lara Jean Song Covey and Peter Kavinsky deep in my heart. ❤

Have you finished this book? If you are watching the film series on Netflix, what are you hoping they include that wasn’t mentioned in the end? Last but not least, how are you doing on your 2020 reading challenge?

A-Z Disability Challenge | S : Sexaulity

WARNING: This mentions mature sexual content. If you are not comfortable in reading about this, I highly suggest you click the “x” button on the top right. This is an educational but personal post that I will NOT apologize for, it is very important for others with disabilities. Please respect what I have to say, and enjoy. Thank you!

Oh boy!

I think talking about disability and sex are very taboo topics. I should know considering it took my mom and I a fairly long time to even start having discussions about it. When it came to my sister, I feel like it wasn’t that bad and yes, I was there for the majority of that talk. For me though, I knew what sex was (I always have), but there were things that I couldn’t get my head around. Ha ha! Blondie was roughly 15 or 16 years old when she received the talk whereas I was 19 or 21! I feel like at that those ages, you should be somewhat of a pro when it comes to knowing things and of course having sex!

One of things that Arthrogryposis has basically taken away from me, is my ability to pleasure myself. I can’t mastrubate like other women. I have asked questions about this to a group of women who also have my condition and they’ve been helping me figure out alternatives. I also don’t think I’ve had a proper orgasm, but as I have been told, it takes a lot to get that far apparently! If you have a disability and worry about your lack of sexual experience, you know what I’m talking about, because you feel like you’re missing out on something that everyone is doing. You just feel lost in your own body and you don’t really know how to resolve this issue as a whole.

Honestly, I am afraid of having sex. As much as it excites me, because let’s be real here I watch porn and read erotica novels, and I response in the right ways, it’s the physicality that terrifies me I guess! I mean, I can barely get through a couple of seconds when I have to put vaginal cream inside my vagina, because you have to use a syringe and it makes me feel really uncomfortable – half it is because a parent has to do, mostly it’s my mom! This might be the other reason why I am semi okay with never been on a date! I’ve never had to really think about what happens afterwards; once I cross that line, how am I going to feel? I know it’ll hurt, but how much?

Last week, I watched Nikki Glaser’s Netflix comedy special Bangin‘ and oh my gosh, it was freaking hilarious! I am usually not a fan of sexual humor but the whole thing was funny! It was also shocking that she was talking about things that I have been thinking about for years! She starts off discussing blow jobs and I’ll tell you, I will NOT do that for as long as I live! What is funny though is that, it was the first sexual thing I ever knew about even before realizing it was a real thing! I still have no idea how I figured it out too. That’s still a mystery to us!

This has probably been the most freeing post out of all the other letter challenges! The reason why I felt like I needed to write about it, is because I know I am not the only one who feel like this! I think it takes a lot of guts to speak up about your sex life, and I just wanted to break out a little more because I am usually very reserved in my posts but I thought it was time to loosen up a bit.

How old were you when you received the sex talk with your parents? Now what about you had sex for the first time? Have you felt like you’ve been left out of the party of what everybody in your age group is doing in their lives?

REVIEW | The Society

Howdy!

This month was a good month to catch up on TV shows that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while, like The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, Supergirl and finally The Society. I know this one came out in May, but I kind of kept dodging it because I really didn’t think I would enjoy it, but then I caved and realized I was wrong with my initial impression of it.

Backstory

The Society is a story of 200+ teens who think they are about to go off on a camping trip as part of their final field trip together before graduating from high school an making their way to various colleges. They are dropped off at main square of their hometown of West Ham, to find themselves not with their families anymore. So, what’s their first reaction to this news? Well, to have a big party of course! Afterwards they find out the hard truth of how to be an adult and survive on their own without anyone helping them.

It is up to them to either work together or create chaos. When someone ens up killed, they have to figure out how to achieve justice an protect everyone when they no longer have a police force in their wing. Everything normal teenagers take for granted on a daily basis, is being thrown in their faces to the harshest reality that they will have to rebuild what they love an move on from their childish games.

What I Really Thought

Okay, so I will try my harest to not reveal everything, but I do have a lot of thoughts so if you want to, you can just skip this section!

There were a good balance of what I like and what I didn’t like about it. I guess in a way, I half expected it to have some supernatural effect to it, which in a way it does, but I mean like a mythology beast that haunts the town or something like that. When that never happened I was kicking myself a bit because I was so iffy about the show itself. It wasn’t until the last episode that I actually started to like it more.

The things that I did like about it were things about the characters, such as their personalities and the fact that we get elements of everyday life. I think adding both the deaf and LBGTQ+ communities were great! They never shied away from the possibility of gun violence, domestic violence, mental illness, pregnancy and inexperienced childbirth being parts of the story. It is modern story of survival and it was nice to see 17-19 year old kids telling the story for once.

It was also like a test to see how much they remembered their studies too. After everything that happened with the trail of you-know-who, I immediately went into the bowels of my brain to see if there was a way that they could serve justice is by a firing squad, which is what they demonstrated on the show and I have to say, that is a very brave thing to do for many reasons. If you don’t have a way to secure your prisoners besides locking them up in wine cellars, the death penalty could be an option. A lot of people may not agree to it, but in order to show others that if you’re stupid enough to make a choice like this, this is what happens as a consequence. I hate that fact a single person had to make that type of result, but I fully agreed with that person.

Now there were some things that I didn’t like, kind of goes with the previous paragraph as the leader demands that all guns are to be taken away. I know they needed to be tested to see if they matched the bullet that killed “C” but keeping them for safe keeping really strike a nerve with me as I think this is wrong. I don’t think anybody else what do anything like that again–then maybe besides Campbell! That’s one of our biggest arguments now, whether or not to remove all firearms, but it’s like demonizing the pit bull breeds, it’s not their fault, it is the one that yields the power and in both cases people are the heart of the issue.

Lastly, I wasn’t thrilled when it was announced that instead of continuing the role of being the leader of their establishment, they held elections. I know this is another part of being an American, but considering how the season ended, I really hated the idea. The thing about having chores or living together to save resources were smart! When “H” vowed that things should be different, people should be thinking of themselves and not of the others living next door really made me angry because that’s just somebody’s ego talking and not giving a damn about what happens in the future. By the time the new season returns, we’ll see that these new rulers of West Ham were just in over their heads and chaos will really take place.

Have you watched Netflix’s “The Society” yet? What were some of your thoughts about the plot and overall story? did you enjoy it or hate it?

 

 

REVIEW | The Perfect Date

Howdy!

I was really confused about what kind of review I thought you’ d most likely enjoy on here so I decided that it would be good to mix things up a bit. I am usually talking about albums, EPs, & TV shows, but I’ve recently seen a new movie early last week and I just thought I need to discuss it only so maybe somebody will understand my feelings on it and we’ll become best friends….or not, who knows!

I was on Netflix one night and honestly I was quite bored. I have a nice hefty list of other movies and TV shows I’ve been trying to finish for the past month but I wanted something new to apparently sink my teeth into, and the first one that popped on my screen was The Perfect Date. Now as many of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with romantic comedies. I used to like them when I was younger, it was just my teenage years really screwed me over of ever believing in love and unfortunately because of that, I can hardly watch one without seeing right through it.

Backstory 

So the story of this movie is the lead character, Brooks basically overhears a classmate of his talking about the fact that he is getting paid by his own uncle to take his cousin to a formal at her school. Of course, the guy doesn’t want to take his own cousin out on like a date, because that’s really weird so Brooks comes up with the idea that he goes with her instead and not only does he get the cash but also to drive the other dude’s car too.

The second part of it is afterwards, is that he gets the idea of becoming a chauffeur by allowing young, rich girls to choose whatever they want him to be, like being a total jerk in front of her parents; complete with the hat tilted on one side and wearing a massive gold chain around his neck he found at a Thrift Shop. He becomes this totally different person both this way and in reality as he uses this ability to his advantage later in the film that makes him rethink everything he wants to be as a human being.

What I Really Thought About It

Personally, I thought I was going to be somewhat confused an maybe it would drag on about it, but I was totally wrong with my expectations on all fronts though. I was really surprised on how light-hearted it was, there wasn’t any type of bullying involved or too much sexual talk in it, it was so clean but absolutely hilarious anyways!

I was a bit worried about Noah Centineo though. Since he was in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before film last year, I was hoping that this had a different storyline to it. That’s the one thing about rom-coms is that themes can overlap each other and since I remember both big and little things in various things, I can spot similarities very easily. There was a moment in this movie that immediately brought me back to the previous film and I thought “oh no!” but luckily it wasn’t too weird. I thought it was different from the other movie so I went on without ever having another thought like that again for the rest of the film.

Although I did recognize Noah and eventually Camila Mendes from “Riverdale”, he was the only one I knew from other releases. I know a lot of people were freaking out about the fact that Laura Mareno was going to be in it, and that she and Noah would be reunited since they were on a Disney Channel show together several years ago, but I didn’t know anybody else, but I actually liked it that way though! It allowed me to see the film and not have me think of where else I might’ve seen the rest of the cast on before. However, I did gush about Noah being on there though. He’s just too damn cute and I couldn’t help myself!

If you’re looking for a fun and relaxing film to watch you might want to consider watching this, because honestly I had the best time ever! It was both funny and full of really cute moments with all of the characters. It was just different so if you’re like me and you also have issues with romantic comedies too, this might be the perfect starter to attempt to get back into them!

Have you seen The Perfect Date yet? If you have, what were some of your thoughts about it? Let me know below!

REVIEW | The Order

I have been searching for new shows… again! I have a couple of shows that are literally being ignored on my DVR because I would rather search for something on Netflix instead. Sometimes when I go off on these “little” adventures I either come back with duds or really great discoveries, it just depends on my mood at the time honestly.

Recently, I went off into the “New Releases” scroll and found this new show called “The Order” but sadly it was there for like a week and a half before I decided to check it out. On the good note, I am getting somewhat smarter now as I’ve been watching the trailers before I actually start a series in general. As much as the summary wasn’t as appealing, the trailers were responsible for changing my mind about it and taking a chance on it.

Backstory

The Order is a Netflix Original, that follows a young man by the name of “Jack” on his way to a very special college called Belgrave University. One of the main reasons why Jack wants to go to Belgrave is because of this secret society, called The Hermetic Order of The Blue Rose. It’s a society of people learning various levels of witchcraft, and at the heart of the order is a man named Edward Coventry, who Jack’s grandfather or “pops” thinks is the main reason for his daughter and Jack’s mother’s death. Anyways, Jack is on his way of getting into the order when all hell breaks loose, and he ends joining another secret society called The Knights of Saint Christopher. So, in other words he turns into a werewolf and Jack is basically having to choose which side he is loyal to the most.

What I Really Thought About It

I thought the big reason why I decided to watch it was because I was really hoping it would give me that creepy vibe I needed to be able to remind myself on what I need to expect whenever The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina came back to me. I don’t think it did it justice but I enjoyed the effort though.

The rating that was given for the entire thing is TV-MA, meaning it is meant for mature audiences, so I half expected it to be really bloody and gory, but it really wasn’t like that considering the amount of killing that was involved among the characters. It also wasn’t very sexual either, other than the fourth or fifth episode but even then I’d still say those scenes were really PG=13. So, my logic was that it must’ve been given the rating because of the large amount of swearing within the hour-long episodes. Another thing is that, it was really funny, and normally I don’t like dark humor, but the dialogue was portrayed in the realist of ways so that I was laughing most of the time, so both elements really worked out well enough to make me a fan.

I am excited that there will be a season two! After the way they ended the last episode, I know everybody was really confused, and as much as I was laughing reading the comments on Twitter about their reactions of the last episode, I was too eating my own giggles because I was dumbfounded so we all need to know what happens to Jack, Alyssa and the rest of the characters.

Have you watched The Order yet? If you have, what were some of your thoughts? Do you have any theories about why the ending of season one happened like that?