Title: This is What Happy Looks Like
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Format: Hardback
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Format: Hardback
Release Date: April 2nd, 2013
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
If fate sent you an email, would you answer?
When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.
Then Graham finds out that Ellie's Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?
When teenage movie star Graham Larkin accidentally sends small town girl Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig, the two seventeen-year-olds strike up a witty and unforgettable correspondence, discussing everything under the sun, except for their names or backgrounds.
Then Graham finds out that Ellie's Maine hometown is the perfect location for his latest film, and he decides to take their relationship from online to in-person. But can a star as famous as Graham really start a relationship with an ordinary girl like Ellie? And why does Ellie want to avoid the media's spotlight at all costs?
My Review:
I'm going to be eating my words with this review, but I stand behind them. I know a few people that I follow enjoyed this book. What astounds me the most though, was the difference was rather significant. I didn't hate the book, I just appreciate and understand why people may like it. I didn't get into the book when I picked up on a vacation for something to read. I got into the first bit. However, it never kept me into the book at all. I found it hard to get into the characters.
Well and the odds with e-mail nowadays, what are the odds that you'll type in an incorrect e-mail and magically get someone around your age? I may have to try that, beware world! Furthermore, what's are the odds that on the first e-mail you send out, that you miraculously fall in love with each other, and neither of you think that it is creepy or odd that you're asking all these personal questions? The odds of that happening, almost none, and yet in this book it does.
At first the novel starts with the e-mails going back and between E and G, as they signed it. They talk about nearly everything. What each other like, favorite colors, poems, what Happy would look like even. It's the kind of first date talks, getting to know each other halfway across the world sort of questions. What I don't think they understood thought was slowly they were falling for each other. From the beginning I saw it, and it was just so cliched and overdone that I wanted something more from it. It was a sad beginning for me.
Graham Larkin probably one of the most humble actors, I've read about. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those tabloid junkies that reads about what Robert Downey Jr. did last week at a hospital. I just don't think that any actor would act at all like how Graham does, he hates the cameras and wants to run as far away as he can. He even blames the press and the fame to how troubling and "horrid" his family life. To the point where he tries to avoid them constantly, and wanting a normal life. It's almost like he wants to quit acting. I understand his perspective, I just find it hard to believe that someone, a almost mere nobody as he started out, would want to leave and go back to a normal life.
Ellie O'Neill is a character that I found most reliable and relatable to in this book. A girl that has a secret, I so wish I could say it, but it gives a good part of the book away. While she is desperate to hide that secret, she wants to know more about it and almost at times pursues it further than what she intends. However it's her character that I fell in love with. She is down to earth, works in a local ice cream shop.
As well, she is the first person to want to question and want to know more about who each other were in the e-mails going back and forth. When she finds out about Graham she is the first to fear the spotlight for her secret. To be honest, forget her secret, any girl in her right mind wouldn't want to be ran through the spotlight of some actor. Their private life airs out all over TV, it just isn't good for a relationship I don't think. Graham wants to be with her, that when she runs of time and time again, he doesn't understand and at times you can tell he's blaming the cameras again. I felt sorry for Graham in the novel, to be honest.
So why did the book not score so well with me as it did with some of my other bloggers? Well to be honest I found it overall very cliche, there was some originality in it, but overall I've seen it done and it didn't provide me with anything new. I could tell what was going to happen nearly from the beginning and the fact that there was no twist, nothing really to sink my teeth into I felt kinda put off by the book. It was like we'll give you something you've already seen before, in a typical normal girl falls for hot actor and magically they live happily ever after. I wanted more and sought more, it just wasn't there at all.
Well and the odds with e-mail nowadays, what are the odds that you'll type in an incorrect e-mail and magically get someone around your age? I may have to try that, beware world! Furthermore, what's are the odds that on the first e-mail you send out, that you miraculously fall in love with each other, and neither of you think that it is creepy or odd that you're asking all these personal questions? The odds of that happening, almost none, and yet in this book it does.
At first the novel starts with the e-mails going back and between E and G, as they signed it. They talk about nearly everything. What each other like, favorite colors, poems, what Happy would look like even. It's the kind of first date talks, getting to know each other halfway across the world sort of questions. What I don't think they understood thought was slowly they were falling for each other. From the beginning I saw it, and it was just so cliched and overdone that I wanted something more from it. It was a sad beginning for me.
Graham Larkin probably one of the most humble actors, I've read about. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those tabloid junkies that reads about what Robert Downey Jr. did last week at a hospital. I just don't think that any actor would act at all like how Graham does, he hates the cameras and wants to run as far away as he can. He even blames the press and the fame to how troubling and "horrid" his family life. To the point where he tries to avoid them constantly, and wanting a normal life. It's almost like he wants to quit acting. I understand his perspective, I just find it hard to believe that someone, a almost mere nobody as he started out, would want to leave and go back to a normal life.
Ellie O'Neill is a character that I found most reliable and relatable to in this book. A girl that has a secret, I so wish I could say it, but it gives a good part of the book away. While she is desperate to hide that secret, she wants to know more about it and almost at times pursues it further than what she intends. However it's her character that I fell in love with. She is down to earth, works in a local ice cream shop.
As well, she is the first person to want to question and want to know more about who each other were in the e-mails going back and forth. When she finds out about Graham she is the first to fear the spotlight for her secret. To be honest, forget her secret, any girl in her right mind wouldn't want to be ran through the spotlight of some actor. Their private life airs out all over TV, it just isn't good for a relationship I don't think. Graham wants to be with her, that when she runs of time and time again, he doesn't understand and at times you can tell he's blaming the cameras again. I felt sorry for Graham in the novel, to be honest.
So why did the book not score so well with me as it did with some of my other bloggers? Well to be honest I found it overall very cliche, there was some originality in it, but overall I've seen it done and it didn't provide me with anything new. I could tell what was going to happen nearly from the beginning and the fact that there was no twist, nothing really to sink my teeth into I felt kinda put off by the book. It was like we'll give you something you've already seen before, in a typical normal girl falls for hot actor and magically they live happily ever after. I wanted more and sought more, it just wasn't there at all.
