Publisher: Poppy
Page Count: 272

Usually when I talk about books and movies in one post, the movie came AFTER the book. I am not sure that’s the case here. Please don’t hold me accountable for that info, but from what I gathered online, the movie is based on a Japanese film from the year 2006 and therefore they wrote the book for the American movie. I guess this is one of the rare occasions where you wouldn’t have to read the book before watching the movie? The two could still differ from one another, but looking at the trailer it looks exactly the same.

But now on to the actual content! To me, it felt like Everything, Everything meets A Walk to Remember but a tinsy bit less emotional? Despite the seemingly heavy topic, I mostly had a lot of fun reading this book. Admittedly, there were some rather cringey exchanges at times, but I never took them too seriously and therefore could laugh through them. The characters were cute and relatable teens with dreams and aspirations of how they and their love might change the world. The pacing seemed well chosen for the progression of the story and never seemed too rushed. It’s also not a very long read, which is something I gravitate more towards when my schedule gets busy.

All of that is well and fine, except that it never truly hit home on the emotional component with me. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the book a lot, but I just think that there was more room for depth and character development. A lot of it felt cliché or stereotypical, for example the mean girl that remains a mean girl for a century and becomes personified evil just because she is jealous of the seemingly perfectly adorkable but hot MC. I prefer a little more reasoning and nuance with my villains. Also, while I get that the lonely girl trapped in her house enjoys people watching and will inevitably develop crushes on reoccurring faces, please don’t ever normalise stalky behaviour as cute. Again, I understand that this is a very particular situation, but I just want to point out that the person on the receiving end should always be a bit wary if they notice tendencies like that.

If that doesn’t bother you, I am sure you will enjoy this sweet love story. I am not going to promise you a happy ending, but a wild ride of adorably awkward dates, some great female friendship, caring parents, melancholy and a tad of broken heart.

Before I leave you with the trailer, I just want to say that I really appreciated that little definition and the provided links to explain XP at the end of the book. They clearly stated that they may have taken a couple liberties (e.g. how fast it progresses in Katie’s case) but they also showed that they have done their research and wanted to portray it as accurately as possible.

But enough from me, here’s the trailer:

Fazit: 3/5 stars! A really great and fast read that could have used some more depth.

Have you read the book? Are you interested in checking it out? Are you going to watch the movie? Let’s talk!