This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills | Totally Frank Approved!

This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills
Date Read: Jan 24 to 26, 2018

First Published: 2016

Hardback

Young Adult, Contemporary

Rating:

Re-Readability:

Sloane isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida—especially not a group of friends so intense, so in love, so all-consuming. Yet that's exactly what happens.
Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane's ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that takes her across state lines—and ever deeper into the twins' lives.
Filled with intense and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romantic developments, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed.

This is a Frank Approved Book. 

I can't tell you I fell in love with this book the way I did Mills's Foolish Hearts. That book owned me--body and soul--from the very first pages. This one was more slow-burn; it started out rather cool, but slowly heated to the point of boiling. So if you want to know the verdict ahead of time... Yes, I recommend this book. Yes, go get it. Yes, you're not going to regret it.

What I truly find fascinating about Mills is how she manages to write people. Like, I know that sounds stupid. Doesn't every book does it? No, not really. Not like this. Not in the way her characters feel entirely too real, completely three dimensional and full of layers, the way real people do. They're not a caricature or the way someone thinks a person could or should be. They just... are. Complete with imperfect lives, and issues that remain unsolved, and some that stay unexplored. I like that. I like that a lot.

Reading Mills's novels is like being given a momentary peek into these people's lives. It's almost as if they will continue long after me, the same way the did long before me. It's slightly depressing, and yet entirely uplifting.

But who are those enigmatic people? The main is, obviously, Sloane, who tells this story. At first, I felt mostly removed from her. Looking back, I feel like that might have been because she's like that with other people. She is snarky, quiet and very forthcoming. She cares a whole lot, without ever realizing she does. She doesn't know how to do friendships and relationships and yet she somehow manages to stumble into quite a few of them.

By the end of the novel, I was crying when she was crying, feeling crushed when she was, and desperate to give her a hug and promise her everything will be okay.

Now, the theme of this book is FRIENDSHIPS in all caps. And you know, Emma Mills slays friendships the way Buffy slays Vampires, making it look as easy to write as cutting butter.

"Just so you know," I say, "I would straight-up kill for you"

Sloane moves towns. She meets sunshine girl Vera. She meets her strong-and-silent twin brother Gabe. She meets Remy and Aubrey, their best friends, who used to be the golden couple. She meets party planner extraordinaire Frank. And somehow, miraculously, she becomes part of the group. She expands the group. Becomes a central piece of it. Grows to love these people and be loved by them, Even if she doesn't see it.

And that process... that process is everything. It's a slow, steady, flowing river; one day you don't know each other. The next you may be friends. Then you're maybe possibly besties and then... then you are, no questions asked. My heart overflows at this.

Mills writes friendships in a way that is really hard to describe. She makes them awkward and quirky and real. So fucking real.

Everything about this book is real; how life takes time. How sometimes you can be so unsure of everything. How sometimes you can be 100% certain. How sometimes parents fight and have issues 'cause they are not perfect. How dads can lose their muse, and maybe a little bit of themselves with it. How people die... and how people move on. How it's hard to care, but even harder to stop once you've started. How relationships can succeed.. but they can also fail. How a family can be born, but it can also be made. How you can learn to love. How... everything.

It was just all so realistic and complex, and I loved it. Loved, loved, loved it.

However, if you're here to read a romance book, I would suggest picking up Foolish Hearts or a Kasie West novel, because THIS ADVENTURE ENDS doesn't get there for a loooong time. Mostly because, again, this book is about all caps FRIENDSHIP. But you do have a couple or two to root for, and it's definitely fun to see them form organically. And let me assure you right now, we do get kisses. I repeat: we do get kisses. Hang in there.

P.S. I need a book about Frank. That guy is pure, and great, and charming, and electrifying, and absolutely fabulous, and he NEEDS to be the hero of his own book!! Pretty please?

Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills | First 5 Star of the Year!

Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills
Date Read: Jan 6, 2018

First Published: 2017

Signed Owlcrate Hardcover

Young Adult, Contemporary
Rating:

Re-Readability:

A contemporary novel about a girl whose high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream leads her to new friends—and maybe even new love.
The day of the last party of the summer, Claudia overhears a conversation she wasn't supposed to. Now on the wrong side of one of the meanest girls in school, Claudia doesn't know what to expect when the two are paired up to write a paper—let alone when they're both forced to try out for the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
But mandatory participation has its upsides—namely, an unexpected friendship, a boy band obsession, and a guy with the best dimpled smile Claudia's ever seen. As Claudia's world starts to expand, she finds that maybe there are some things worth sticking her neck out for.

Some books fall into your lap from nowhere, and you just kind of quietly thank whatever superior being you believe in for being so kind to you. This is one of those books. I didn't hear about it before, I didn't plan to read it, it wasn't anywhere on my radar. And then my Owlcrate box brought it to my doorstep, and I cracked it open. And my foolish heart was moved.

This book was simply adorable.

And I'm not talking in like an "aww, this is cute" kind of way. Oh no. I'm talking the kind of adorable that makes you stay up until freakin' 5 a.m. in the morning to finish the novel because you are so entirely captivated by these lovely people the wonderful relationships they are forming that you can't tell them goodbye. The type of adorable that keeps making you want more.

Yeah, that kind.

And it all starts with Claudia. She is just a normal girl who goes to a not so normal all-girls high school, even though she would have much preferred to go the public school with her best friend Zoe. While Claudia certainly doesn't suffer in her school (and I can't express how much I loved the fact these rich girls are not made into the cliched mean girls), she doesn't exactly make any strong friendships either. Instead, she spends her time playing an MMORPG together with Zoe, her older brother Alex and her older sister Julia and her husband Mark who live in Indianapolis.

Everything begins to shift when Claudia witnesses the breakup between her school's long-lasting couple Paige and Iris. It's that break-up that makes Iris chilly to Claudia when they are forced to work together on a project and causes the two to do horribly in it. As a result, the two are strongly encouraged to participate in the school's joint play with the all-boys' school.

That play changes everything.

It's there where Claudia gets the chance to get to know Gideon Prewitt. Hellooooo, book boyfriend! Gideon is the most popular guy on the boys' side. Everybody knows him, and everybody likes him. Even Claudia. He's goofy, handsome, awkward, loyal, and everybody calls him the prince. And this prince is instantly smitten with Claudia and her wicked sense of sarcasm (which is, really, when everything boils down to it, the best sense to have).

This guy. THIS GUY!

This is how you write a book boyfriend; sweet, genuine, well-meaning, silly, funny, and just head over heels for the girl in the cutest of ways. He lights up when he sees Claudia. He keeps wanting to spend time with her. He flirts and he jokes and he matches her wit and sarcasm. He is interested in the things she is interested in, and he notices the smallest of things about her. Gideon Prewitt, quite frankly, makes my foolish heart flutter.

But wait, Gideon and Claudia aren't the only amazing relationship in this novel. The second one is the friendships that bloom between Claudia and Ice Queen Iris. To say it starts off on the wrong foot is to... underestimate and oversimplify things. Iris is mean, cold and unaffected. Everything Claudia is not. But while Claudia hates fighting and usually chooses to avoid altercations, don't mistake her for a doormat or a coward. Oh, no, Claudia gives as good as she gets. She snaps back, she fights back, and she throws some truths at Iris.

I guess Iris finds that somewhat charming, or at the very least refreshing, because she starts to... thaw. It starts when she coerces Claudia to do another paper with her, this time actually exchanging numbers and even meeting up to do the project. Then it evolves into sharing hobbies. Then it ends up in girl talk and boy talk and all kinds of talk, and suddenly - they're friends, and no one can deny that, least of all the two girls involved.

I honestly thought this was extremely endearing. Iris is not the kind of girl you become friends with at once, and Mills does an incredible job showing Claudia slowly, and often unintentionally by just being Claudia, chipping away the armor of steel around Iris and reaching her heart. In a lot of ways, Claudia is a far stronger force in Iris's life than the-love-of-her-life Paige, because, while Paige makes Iris want to be better, it's Claudia who shows her that she can be, and how.

She's the one who defends her even when she doesn't always give her a good reason to, she's the one to point out they're friends, or that Iris is doing exactly what she thinks she is incapable of. She's the one who calls Iris out on her bullshit but also makes her act differently. She is the one to push her in the right direction. She's the one to make Iris not just her friend--but a part of a group of friends. All things Paige couldn't do, probably because Paige is the most important person to Iris, and therefore far more difficult to share, and also far more difficult to "lose" to.

Okay, I've rambled enough. Suffice to say, I adored this relationship. I adored the progression of it. I adored how Mills nailed the process and the feelings.

Speaking of feelings... this book has a. lot. of. them. It's not in the "normal" tear-jerker way, if you know what I mean. This book doesn't set up to get you to tear up. But it does such a phenomenal job putting you in Claudia's head and fusing yourself to her while you're reading that when she feels insecure, and small, and underappreciates herself so colossally and so matter of factly, you get there anyway. You want to smother her in a hug, and you want her to see she's wrong, while you simultaneously feel small and insecure yourself. It's honestly a wonder. I can count on one hand the number of heroines who have made me feel like this, and all of them were as unexpected as Claudia.

Now, aside for these three characters, the book doesn't lack for awesome people. You've got Zoe, Claudia's best friend, who is just... a great friend, even if she does stumble a little bit there. You have Noah, Gideon's best friend who I simply adored (I vote this bromance for president!). You have Alex and Julia, Claudia's siblings, who are just... all around #goals. The relationship between them is so good even when things get rocky and I adored every second of it!

I would honestly read an entire novel made up just of these characters living life, going on dates, hanging out, talking to each other. No angst or overall arc necessary. Just.. spending some more time with these guys. Is that too much to ask for?