Sunday, May 19, 2013

This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Book:  This Is What Happy Looks Like
Author:  Jennifer E. Smith
Publisher:  Poppy
Date:  Available now
Source:  Publisher via Edelweiss
Grade:  A

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? 

Initial reaction
Oh, how I love chick lit when it’s well done!!  And this one was sooooo well done!

Cover story
Love, love, love it!  The title is cute and catchy and the cover is cute and catchy.  Just perfect for a book that is cute and catchy!

What’s the Story?

Ellie lives in a small town in Maine and one day, she accidentally receives an email that got sent to the wrong address.  To make a long story short, she starts emailing the boy (they do figure out that they are a boy and a girl pretty quickly!), never knowing that he is really a very famous teen movie star.  When he sees an opportunity to move his current film on location to Ellie’s town, he does it because he really likes talking to her in emails and wants to see what could happen in person.

This is where the story picks up and then moves into the ins and outs of dating a celebrity.  There are some rather unusual complications in this story, however.  I won’t give them away, but just let it suffice to say that nothing about this relationship is easy.

The story and the characters however, are easy……easy to love!!  I really liked Ellie.  She felt very down-to-earth and she dealt with the complexities and hardships of her life without letting them get her down or make her jaded.  In fact, it was probably the hardships she had growing up that prepared her for the hardships of a relationship with a celebrity.

I loved Graham as well.  He wasn’t conceited at all and he complimented Ellie very well.  I felt sorry for him a lot.  He was just a guy who liked to act and had to deal with lots of other crap in order to do what he loved.

One thing that was nice about this book was seeing glimpses of how Ellie and Graham built their relationship over months of emailing one another.  And even so, it wasn’t insta-love when they first meet.  It was a gradual getting to know one another all over again.  But that was the best part!  You know those books that give you flutters in your tummy because you feel exactly what the girl is feeling?  This was one of those books!  I just wanted to stay in this world forever. 

Just to give you a hint of how much I loved this book, there are only a couple other contemporaries that I have loved this much.  For me, this book ranks right up there with Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill, Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson and Ditched by Robin Mellom.  I loved those 3 contemporaries and this one is now in that group.

If you want a fun contemporary with a beautiful love story and 2 really down-to-earth characters, this one is it.  And now I have to run read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.

The Soundtrack

A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton


Dreams by The Cranberries


Oh, Is It Love? By Hellogoodbye
                                                                                                      

Kiss Me by Six Pence None the Richer


I Knew I Loved You by Savage Garden


When You Say Nothing at All by Alison Krauss


The Final Grade

My final grade for this book is an A.  It’s been a week and a half since I read it and I’m sitting here writing this review with a huge grin on my face because of how much I enjoyed this book.  If that’s not a good reason, I don’t know what is!


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