I really liked this book! It was chock full of pop culture stuff especially harry potter stuff made me laugh out loud. Henry stole my heart throughout the novel. I was not crazy invested in the romance but i love what happen to the characters. A very unique Ya romance ( )

I really liked this book! It was chock full of pop culture stuff especially harry potter stuff made me laugh out loud. Henry stole my heart throughout the novel. I was not crazy invested in the romance but i love what happen to the characters. A very unique Ya romance ( )

This book was able to rip my heart out of my chest. Grace and Henry were never meant to be and it hurt me a bit cause I wanted a happy ending for Henry but Grace was grieving, and they were just too toxic for each other. I officially broke down when Grace ran away and he found her at the place they trespassed to and she just shut down and told him how she felt. I had to take a break when she said took off the dress and said she was going to marry Dominic in that dress. My god when Henry goes to the cemetery alone to talk to Dom's grave. Just the anger Henry had at Dom for leaving Grace. Their last kiss hurt, when he asked her why she kissed him like she loved him and she responds saying "that's the only way I know how." ( )

3.5 Stars ( )

3.0

Here is the thing about the manic pixie dream girl trope, It's done all wrong. People like to say that that the manic pixie dream girl doesn't exist, It is the product of some lonely male's imagination. I don't agree.

I think that what they get wrong is the person falling in love with her. I think what they don't see is what causes the mania, the awkwardness, the different drum that calls to the MPDG.

Our chemical hearts got something correct. The author hit it on the nose with Grace Town. A female who is wrapped in trauma and loneliness. That trauma and loneliness manifests itself it ways that those around her may call "quirky", "odd " or "special." That aloofness credited to her "marching to her own drum," instead of someone just desperately trying to move forward.

I've known those girls. I was that girl. I read Shakespeare, wrote and performed poetry, always had a book in my hand, and wore ripped dreams with my favorite quotes written on them. One day I wore a big flowered hat with a daisy and a floor length vintage skirt, the next kool-aid died hair and leather. I kept to myself. I sat under a stairwell reading books and eating lunch. I felt different and off. I had trouble making friends. I had anxiety, and I was cloaked in trauma. I knew other girls like me. Awkward, different, bouncing from ecclesiastical to sad. Trying to find themselves. Different in all the ways that usually kept us where we wanted to be. Separate.

Then there is the Henry Pages. The boys that you read or see in the manic pixie dream girl works of fiction that are sensitive and see something in that female. The Henry Page character is just as much a trope as the MPDG, but that is rarely discussed. I was friends with the Henry Page. He hung on the peripheral. But, the girls I always saw them dream of being with were the blessedly ordinary girls, or the popular girls, or just anyone in between that could make them feel more extraordinary. Someone that made them feel a little less awkward. Like, "if I can get her I have cracked the code."

I appreciated this book for its depiction of trauma, of trying to let go, of using someone as a buoy to keep your head above water. I appreciated that feeling of loving the idea of a person versus the reality. That selfish and crazy feelings of first love. But, for my MPDG/B loving soul, give me the Charlie's from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". Give me the soul of the person who is recognizably awkward, just trying to not say the wrong things, trying to fit in, and lost loveless in their turmoil. Someone almost but not quite ever...there. ( )