As you can clearly see from my posts so far, I absolutely love making lists and reviewing! Becky , who I've been following for a while n...

As you can clearly see from my posts so far, I absolutely love making lists and reviewing! Becky, who I've been following for a while now, has written a post about something called '30 Days of Books'. Digging deeper, I found out that it was actually Jenni Elyse who started this trend. And because I'm such a sucker for making lists, I have officially decided to follow up with the two of them.

You have the full list below: 

The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting  by Holly Bourne follows the life of Bree, a teenage girl who's not quite like the rest. ...

The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting by Holly Bourne follows the life of Bree, a teenage girl who's not quite like the rest. "Why?" you may ask. Well, for instance, she dreams of becoming a writer and dyes her hair crazy colors once in a few months and doesn't give a flying fuck about what people say about her. Bonus, her best friend's name is Holdo, as in Holden Caulfield. Yes, the Holden Caulfield. You are now entitled to think that this book is utter bullshit judging by the way it starts, and I thought it was pretty awful in the beginning myself. By the end, though, my opinion has been changed for good, even though the plot became sort of predictable at some point.

There's not much to say about the plot itself. It's just this girl who isn't like the rest of the girls and tries to pull a Mean Girls scheme on the popular girls in her school, while documenting her experiences on her blog, for the sake of her writing, of course. Long story short, while trying to trick others, she ends up tricking herself and her whole life goes down swinging.

Now, what I loved about this book is the fact that it's so sincere and that the moral is so straight to the point. There is no hiding behind the truth in this book. Everything is straightforward and hits you hard in the face, just like your own teenage years. Bree is an amazing protagonist; she is strong and fearless and stays her ground, like a real warrior. The lists she makes, such as the one written on the cover are enlightning and it's surprinsing how accurately she follows them.

What's more, the book debates topics such as self-harm, teacher-student relationships and popularity, highlighting their impact on a teenager's mind. The reader watches as Bree goes on with her plan and for a while everything goes smoothly. But what happens when everything becomes too beautiful to be true?

For me, this book hit really close to home: I, too, wish to become a writer and would give so much for my writing and I, too, have problems with confidence and integrating in a group. The way Bourne chose to tell this story is remarkable because it shines a light upon the teenager's mentality and it helps young people realize that self-love is what it's really important. It surely helped me see that no one and nothing is more important than my health and well-being. After all, we are living alone with ourselves our entire lives, so we should learn to love who we are.

I think that the essence of this novel lies in this very quote: "Aren't we all fed up of being a brand? Of having to portray this perfect version of ourselves? Of beinb obsessed with making sure everyone else thinks we're doing and thinking the right thing? Why are we so scared of admitting to each other: ' I'm messed up' or 'I'm lonely' or 'That really hurt my feelings'? "

Those being said, I really recommend this book to all of you out there struggling in school or struggling with self-harm, disorders or anything that makes you feel uneasy. This book will give you hope and will make you feel better about who you are because it's a reminder that we ALL matter, and we should love ourselves because we're beautiful and special in our own way.

While browsing the Internet tonight, since I had no idea what to write about, I saw something called "The Bookish Bookin Book Tag"...

While browsing the Internet tonight, since I had no idea what to write about, I saw something called "The Bookish Bookin Book Tag". A few links later, I decided that "YES, THIS IS WHAT I'M GONNA BLOG ABOUT TONIGHT!!!".

And, well, here we are...

The one who gave me the idea is Kayleigh, who you can find here. I am really happy that I came across her blog, you should totally read her blog too!

The one who actually started this tag is Bekah AwesomeBookNut, whose video you can watch here. I watched several videos of hers while actually trying to understand what this whole booklover's community is about, and let me tell you, she's the SWEETEST.

Now that the introductions are over, let's get through to....

A ll the Bright Places is a novel written by Jennifer Niven. It tells the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey who fall in love i...

All the Bright Places is a novel written by Jennifer Niven. It tells the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey who fall in love in the most beautiful way two people ever could.

I can already see you, dear Reader, rolling your eyes hard. I know: "YA books suck! Why didn't you choose to review a more serious book?! I mean, you said you wanted to be a writer and all..." The reason is simple and needs no further explanations: because I absolutely ADORED this book.

So, as I said before, this is the story of Finch and Violet, who fall in love with eachother. Nothing out of the ordinary so far, I mean, we've all read at least one of John Green's books (to which I'll get at some point of this blog), but this book is different. Of course it's filled with all the cheesy metaphors one could think of, but it feels...real. It's your typical fucked-up-boy-falls-in-love-with-normal-and-beautiful-girl kind of romance, but I could actually identify with the characters.

Theodore Finch is an outcast. He's a hidden introvert, burying himself deep in his art: guitar and writing. He suffers from bipolarity, depression and suicidal thoughts and because of this he spends weeks in bed, skipping school. In an "Awake" moment, as he calls it, he gets up in the bell tower of the high school and thinks of killing himself, when a girl climbs next to him, wanting to do the exact same thing. He talks her into getting off the ledge, and this is how it all begins.

Violet Markey is broken. Since a terrible incident happened to her, she cannot function properly anymore. Meeting Finch saved her. He opened her eyes in a way no one ever could.

The blurb does justice to this book. It really is "The story of a girl who learned to live from a boy who wants to die", but I wouldn't exactly compare it with The Fault in Our Stars. They have a few things in common here and there, such as a brilliant, cocky, charming male protagonist and an almost-ordinary female protagonist, a beautiful love story and a tragic ending (I'm not telling you more), but I dare say that Niven's novel tops John Green's. Even though both of them talked about hard topics (e.g. cancer in TFIOS and mental disorders in All the Bright Places), this one seemed closer to the audience. Of course, Green's book was a huge hit, but in a world where mental disorders don't exist because you cannot see them or they're considered "just a phase", this book pointed out the truth. The reader can see exactly what mental disorders do to someone. It is infuriating, how no one but you, the reader, sees how much Finch is suffering, yet you cannot help him. His parents are oblivious, his teachers too, his counselor has no idea how to approach him and he shuts within himself more and more as the story advances.

The love story is only half of what this book is. It is the sugar-coated part. Yet mental disorders are nothing that should be sugar-coated. I personally hate the idea of romanticised disorders, of a lover that could "kiss away" depression and anxiety or self-harm. These topics are not to be fooled around with. And teenage suicide rates are getting higher as the days go by.

Therefore, I recommend this book if you're a John Green, Jojo Moyes or Rainbow Rowell fan, but I also recommend it to everyone who wants to read something heart-breakingly true.