pagesofaina's reviews
18 reviews

for those who have always felt unwanted, never wanted. this is for you. ♡

long overdue because i didn’t know how to review this book. i was fully absorbed into the story and each scene played in front of my own pair of eyes clearly. it got me feeling all sorts of emotions my god. the most important thing is that it made me believe in love again. your right one is out there, and will come with time. 

songs of the runaway heart core 🎸🏍️✨
🎸 childhood friends to lovers
🎸 trio brothers
🎸 hot mmc x witty fmc
🎸 single dad raising a kid in kindergarten

kamelia and haikal were inseparable—always glaring and having banters with one another since they were kid. until one day, kamelia left without a word. life between these two crumbled but things get back on track over time, until they bumped into each other again, nine years later. kamelia living in her van. haikal raising his kid, alone.

first of all, the banters!?!?! SO CUTE and idk if it was the past-12-AM hormones when i was reading or the book just keeps getting cuter and cuter??? the amount of times i had to stop reading and squealed my face onto the book???? unhealthy. i literally palmed myself on the book countless times because *i* was blushing 

and thank YOU marisa for kamelia’s witty character 😭🙏🏻 there’s definitely more than one “i love kamelia” annotation on my copy. i love kamelia so much i love her humour. [i think i’m just so bored with innocent characters who blurt out “huh, awak suka saya? 😦” kind of thing you know what i mean]

there’s a song dedicated in the beginning of every chapter and i played the songs accordingly for the said chapter, and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. 🔛🔝 the song choice fits its own chapter SO well (read: the brothers seem hotter with the background song), i 100% recommend playing the songs accordingly cus what an experience 💯!!!

i also appreciate how kamelia and haikal were given the character development that they deserve. other characters in the book receive theirs too, in fact (it made me sob in my bed in the middle of the night).

[special shoutout—i feel so much for alif. my roman empire is alif being left alone, breaking down in the hospital, with his own thoughts, pain, guilt, and feelings.]

a must read for sure. i’d say it’s a light read (though it made me cry a few times LOL) but it’s definitely a book that’ll make you squeal in silence cus you don’t want people to think you’re crazy

rtc! i love this booooook <3

thank you bookiut for sending this to me!

i’ll think about this book from time to time. and puteri gunung ledang. full rtc

if i say this is a must-read for everyone, you’d think “ah the book about womanhood, glad u enjoyed it!”. but you don’t know how this book will change you as a person. 

i’m a woman and i thought i’d relate to this book.

to a certain extent, i do. but it somehow still reveals what i hadn’t thought of, being a woman. being a woman, there’s always this lingering pain, at every phase of your life. 

this review doesn’t do justice anyway to this book, i have so many thoughts in my mind, unexpressed.

this is a slow-burn and you might need some patience, but as always ann liang’s writing is always so fun to read (and the humour is always on point) i enjoyed this one and also shed some tears (bcs ann liang makes sure you feel the emotions in the characters’ backstory)

p/s: i “AHAHA” at caz song’s cameo (does it count as a cameo if it’s the school principal watching a fan-edit of caz song?) [the male mc from This Time It’s Real by Ann Liang]

nonetheless i think i’d suggest you to read:
1) i hope this doesn’t find you [slowburn romance] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2) this time it’s real [this is super cute] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
3) if you could see the sun [chills i love henry li] ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
in this order because my favs will be in the order of 3), 2), then 1) so you might want to save the best for last! hehe

this book reminds me of patah seribu—a 2012 malaysian telemovie starring shila amzah and sharnaaz—bubbly girl MC x cold boy MC! i shed some tears quite a few times reading this book (it was emotional k) 🥲

characters:
neveah is the happy-go-lucky girl who sees positivity in everything, and she has this unwavering love and admiration towards the stars—it’s what keeps her going. while yohan on the other hand, is the complete opposite; he’s barely livinb after “surviving” a traumatic event.

Marisa beautifully expresses the changes in yohan’s personality before and after he met neveah; i adore how this gentle side of yohan slowly blossoms as the story progressed. and when motorbike-yohan started to make its appearance…. u don’t understand i’m on my knees 🧎‍♀️

i get the grumpy x sunshine trope intended by the author, but i think the sunshine is a bit overdone because at certain scenes, neveah’s insistence to include yohan in the fun sometimes frustrates me, maybe i’ve grown out of the cheeky YA scenes 😂 so i guess some scenes didn’t sit right with me, like when neveah made a mess with the EGGS in yohan’s kitchen to make him say yes and join their trip, because i personally would’ve lost my temper 😭

however, along the way i realised, maybe i didn’t like neveah’s personality because it mirrors who i was—younger me, innocent & naive, the one who’s unnecessarily kind to everyone. and yohan feels so close to me because his personality is what’s the closest to me today. (ok i didn’t intend to make this depressing but real)

writing & pace:
at first, i struggled a bit to read this book because it’s slow-paced and it took me a while to get used to the characters’ monologue since the author sometimes write half-finished monologues (as if the train of thoughts are cut off) to build suspense, but some monologues left me wondering because i couldn’t figure out the context of the half-finished sentences. but on page 194, things started to pique my interest when yohan keeps denying to himself that neveah needed someone else as her tutor, “definitely not him” (oh we know he’s lying to himself) 🤭 the 2nd half of the book picked up as well and the yohan x atlas crossover buildssssss up my curiousity!! 🥸😼

ending:

did it leave my mouth hanging saying “what just happened”? yes. but is it realistic? yes, and i like the message that it delivered—meeting neveah is yohan’s star, she made him see colours again for a while, if not forever. but sometimes a mere love interest couldn’t change one into a happier person, because “no matter how much despair you purge from your system, there’s always a piece of it that clings on, refusing to let go.” (a direct quote from the book itself)

the second half saved the book for me! pls also check the tw before u read this book. thank you to the author herself, marisa, for sending the e-ARC to me! proud of you ☄️🫶🏻 fading stars is for you if you love: astronomy, grumpy x sunshine trope, depressing boy MC with traumatic past!

p/s: the copy that i read is the latest ARC, but there were quite a lot of typos here and there. i hope these have all been resolved before the final cut.

a beautiful story told by Holly Bourne. 

a bunch of popular kids at school thinking they are the greatest people in the world, a narcissist father figure in a broken home, an old broken friendship—these are what you'll be reading about (i cried).
 

The Yearbook follows Paige as she survives secondary school as the unpopular student nobody ever notices, on top of being the abandoned second child walking on eggshells to please her narcissistic father figure. she spends most of her time at school in the library—she'd rather be someone unremembered than someone targeted at by Grace and co, the famous kids (read: bully) in her year—so that's how she noticed the (striking) red pen annotations in the book she just borrowed. but the thing is, whatever the stranger has written.... speaks to her. 

Paige is also one of the newspaper committees in charge of the yearbook, and what's unique is that the discussion of school societal hierarchy is reflected in their process of making the yearbook come to life (when Grace and co suddenly wanted to join the yearbook committees to make the yearbook everything about their popularity). 

Holly Bourne's writing is FOR ME. i devour every single word, she perfectly encapsulates the emotions in her writing and i'm ALL for writings layered with emotions. definitely will be reading more books from her.

i'm a huge book annotator (or should i say, sifter? iykyk) so the concept of Paige reading and really SEEING the annotations written by a random stranger in a book she borrowed from the library, is FOR ME. i've always admired the idea of sharing thoughts and profound findings with people close to you, about things that ACTUALLY matter.

while the main message of this book revolves around the societal hierarchy at school, Paige's unstable family dynamic also holds such an important aspect in this story and, is my favourite part of this book in fact (so that explains these whole bunch of highlighted lines that i inserted here). 

Holly Bourne portrays Paige's family with such intricate details of a broken family—how her mother, her brother, and she herself walk on eggshells around Paige's father figure, how their life had to revolve around a narcissistic man. 

i also love how romance is only a subplot in this book, so the book focuses more on Paige and her personal growth. tbh Elijah didn't strike me as an attractive love interest (for me) in the beginning, but i feel like it's meant to be that way so the chemistry between Paige and Elijah could be built and developed by being friends. as the author revealed more and more of Elijah's personality, i grew fond of him for being such a thoughtful and loving human being.

from the moment i started this book, i knew there was gonna be a friendship breakup element but boy was i not prepared to feel that much emotion from the fight. CRY!!! the raw conversation between Paige and Ruby (not a spoiler)... my heart breaks. 

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i think my review does not do justice to this book, it's of course a whole experience when you read the book yourself. Holly Bourne will get you immersed in the story, in her writing, that you can't help but feel emotional and reflect upon different perspectives in life. 

holly bourne, you're one of my favourite authors now. <3

i can understand why most people adore this book, i just think the meant-to-be element is not for me. don’t let me discourage you from reading this book! full rtc 🤍

wow. it's always the BEST ones that we really struggle to write a review on. this book is not just a thought-provoking thriller but a WHOLE story with beautiful and well-written conclusion. 
[please check TW before reading]