Billy and Me
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Meine Meinung: Sophie May lebt ein zurückgezogenes Leben in ihren Heimatdorf. Sie arbeitet in einem kleinen Teestübchen und vertreibt sie ihre Zeit nur zu gerne mit dem Lesen von Büchern. Sie wirkt sehr schüchtern und hat Schwierigkeiten damit mit anderen Menschen in Kontakt zu treten. Sie schwärmt heimlich für Jude Law und so hofft sie auch, dass er derjenige sein wird, der die Hauptrolle in einem Film ergattern wird, der in ihrem Dorf gedreht werden soll. Eines Tages spaziert ein sehr attraktiver Mann bei ihr ins Cafe und es wird schnell klar, dass die Anziehung der beiden auf Gegenseitigkeit beruht. Doch der sympathische Mann ist niemand anderes als Billy Sinclair, der gerade dabei ist einer der großen Hollywoodstars zu werden. Die Geschichte von Sternenküsse hält sich nicht lange mit der Beziehungsfindung von Billy und Sophie auf, sondern beginnt eigentlich dort, wo andere Geschichten aufhören, nämlich im Alltag des Paares. Sophie muss sich in Billys Glitzerwelt zurechtfinden und wird ständig von Selbstzweifeln geplagt. Plötzlich sind die Reporter auch hinter ihr her und sie weiß in ihrer Schüchternheit, gar nicht wie sie mit so viel Aufmerksamkeit umgehen soll. Wir bekommen Sophies Zweifel und Überlegungen direkt mit, denn die Geschichte wird aus ihrer Ich-Perspektive erzählt. Ich mochte Sophie zwar, allerdings hätte ich sie manchmal auch schütteln mögen. Anstatt Billy deutlich zu sagen, dass er zu weit geht, schluckt sie ihren Ärger immer wieder herunter. Billy verändert sich nämlich durch den Rummel um seine Person und hebt sehr deutlich ab. Sophie wird dadurch in einen starken Zwiespalt geworfen, denn einerseits liebt sie Billy, anderseits fühlt sie sich in der glitzernden Bussi-Bussi Welt überhaupt nicht wohl. Die Funken zwischen den beiden sind für mich irgendwie nicht geflogen und ihre Liebesgeschichte konnte mich nicht so ganz berühren. Allerdings gab es viele andere Dinge, die mir in dem Buch gut gefallen haben. Sophie Mays Beziehung zu ihrer Mutter oder auch die Freundschaft mit ihrer Chefin waren herzerwärmend zu lesen. Am Ende musste ich wegen der traurigen Wendungen doch das ein oder andere Tränchen vergießen. Besonders in Sophies Heimatort habe ich mich während des Lesens sehr wohlgefühlt und mochte mich atmosphärisch gar nicht so recht von dem Buch trennen. Der Schreibstil ist flüssig, auch wenn in der Wortwahl sehr auf die Vermittlung von Emotionen wertgelegt wird. Fazit: Die Liebesgeschichte zwischen Sophie und Billy konnte mich ehrlich gesagt nicht vollends packen. Billy hat in meinen Augen oft zu egoistisch gehandelt, so dass ihn mit zunehmender Seitenanzahl immer weniger mochte und kaum noch nachvollziehen konnte, warum Sophie bei ihm bleibt. Allerdings war mir Sophie sympathisch, wenn auch vielleicht etwas zu naiv. Ich mochte die Art und Weise wie ihre Verbundenheit zu ihrem Dorf und den dort lebenden Menschen dargestellt wurde. Insgesamt hat mich das Buch gut unterhalten und somit vergebe ich sehr gerne vier Sterne dafür!
read my complete review with spoiler section: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.com/ Instagram: isleepnaked MY THOUGHTS ON IT I bought this book three years ago at the airport in Malta because a Booktuber that doesn't even do Youtube anymore recommended it in a video and I was also really into the cover of the book. But the book got neglected by me because I expected it to be a sweet, rather ordinary, straight love story and I was less and less into those kinds of books. Then I read "It Only Happens In The Movies" by Holly Bourne (find my review on my blog) and was so into that straight love story that I thought that now's the perfect time to read this book. Unfortunately, "Billy and Me" did many of the things wrong that "It Only Happens In The Movies" did right. But let's start at the beginning. The book starts with a flashback, written in a hard-to-read cursive font, that got me quite intrigued into the story because Sophie, the main character, seemed relatable and likable. She is into books and mostly classic English literature, which got me more interested in finally reading these novels myself. I also instantly felt cozy and comfortable in the lovely atmosphere of the Tea-on-the-Hill tea shop where Sophie works. The detail with which the coziness of the shop and the warmth between Sophie and the owner of the shop, Molly, got described, was just heart-warming and everything was set for a perfect comfort-read. Then the book introduced a film set and thereby movies into the stories and Sophie had several moments of intensive fangirling over Jude Law, and I was hooked. I've always had a thing for Jude Law myself and can never watch The Holiday without swooning over him, but ever since he has been cast as the young Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts and has been promoting this movie together with that cast I'm just completely into him and he's my man crush #1 at the moment. So it felt almost spooky that I seemed to have waited so long to read this book only to read it at the perfect time, at the height of my Jude-Law-obsession.. And Jude Law kept showing up again and again throughout the book and every time that happened, the book gained a plus from me. So although I could highly relate to Sophie's love for literature and her obsession with Jude Law, I still had huge problems with her low self-esteem and non-existent sense of self-worth. Those "shy girl" traits are probably meant to make her more likable, more relatable for the reader, but they did the exact opposite for me. And that's where it gets tricky for me. Because on the one hand I think that I might have enjoyed the book more when I was younger because I would have been able to relate more to Sophie and her shyness and self-insecure self. But on the other hand I don't even want to say that I'm to blame for not reading it when I was younger because I don't want to encourage those female characters with so little sense of self-worth and no self-confidence at all. I'm not sure how old Sophie is supposed to be in this book but probably around 25 years old, so older than me, and she just acted in a way that is expected from 16-year-old protagonists, which I found very sad. And the story does give the reader reasons for Sophie being like that through the flashbacks (which are always written in that quite-hard-to-read font) and emphasise that she had actually been quite different before that certain thing had happened. I just wish that the book would have made Sophie develop throughout the story into a more self-confident and self-loving person, because her lack of ever going in that direction made me lose my connection to her throughout the book. And that is always the point when a book goes downhill for me, once I cannot relate to or find I do not like the main character anymore. The book is titled "Billy and Me" (which already says all about who has the dominance in that relationship by the way.. - often I just wanted to scream at Sophie that it should be her first and Billy second and not always Billy first and then her... but we'll come to that later), so obviously there is a love story happening between Sophie and this Billy guy. At first, Billy seemed like a sweet guy (although his throwing-the-head-back-laugh really irritated me) and I had nothing against him, although I did never feel any chemistry or sexual tension between him and Sophie. (And as I've just written in my last review, that is the most important thing for me to decide whether I am into a romance or not.) With a book of over 400 pages, I found the love story to happen far too quickly when there's already talk of marriage after not even 100 pages. I really wondered what the rest of the book was then going to be about.. Well, it turned out that the other 300 pages where spent in making this relationship so toxic that I wanted to shake Sophie and tell her to get the hell out of it for her own sake. There are so many problematic clichés of straight relationships and gender roles incorporated into this book that are not even pointed out to be unhealthy, which made me really furious. Just to name a few of them: Billy not wanting Sophie to work because he can provide for them both shows very patriarchal characteristics that I felt very uncomfortable with. Especially since Sophie explicitly says that she wants to work to keep her independence, which doesn't seem to hold any meaning for Billy whatsoever. Sophie leaving behind her whole life, loved ones and job just to be with Billy because Billy wants to live with her although she would only be one hour away if she had stayed in her village. Sophie therefore ending up completely unhappy, isolated, with her sole purpose in life being baking fancy things for Billy to come home to and appreciate. Billy coming home drunk with friends although Sophie needed to sleep to get up early the next morning. Billy utterly disregarding her concerns and making Sophie and her job feel unimportant. Billy making Sophie uncomfortable by getting very intimate with his female friends. Sophie not being able to voice her issues with that because she doesn't want to come across as the jealous girlfriend. There's clearly no healthy bond of trust between Billy and Sophie. They don't talk about the things that bother them. Sophie keeps putting herself down and keeps finding excuses for Billy's patronizing behaviour in herself because of her lack of self-worth and self-love and self-confidence. Since the title of this book is "Billy and Me" I had little hope that this story would end in the only way that could have saved this book for me: the both of them realising that they do not have a healthy relationship and ending it for the sake of both of them. The only positive aspect of the middle part of the book was the detailed view into an actor's life, which Billy provided. Since the author was herself an actor I found that insight to be quite interesting. Luckily, however, the last part of the book was better than that dreadful middle because Billy got swept more and more into the background and Sophie and her story got more into the front, which I liked. There was also a very sad plot twist towards the end of this book that made me far more emotional than I had ever expected this book to be able to make me feel. I will talk a bit more about that after my rating, in the spoiler section, on my blog. CONCLUSION Well, I had my ups and downs with this book but overall the downs unfortunately prevailed. The most positive part of the book for me was clearly the constant mentioning and appearances of Jude Law throughout this book. That definitely added a whole star to my rating of the book that would otherwise not be there. Besides that, I also really loved the cozy atmosphere of the tea shop and the village that Sophie lived in. I would have honestly liked the whole book better if Billy had never shown up in it and it had just been a lovely read about this village and its tea shop. The relationship that Sophie had with Molly, the shop owner, was really touching and beautiful and definitely one of my favourite things in the book. Unfortunately, I was very quickly annoyed by the male love interest, Billy, because he seemed to embody every cliché of male toxic behaviour in relationships. Billy and Sophie had a relationship that I pitied both of them for and wished that the book had ended with them realising that, too. The book followed the exact romance stereotypes/tropes that "It Only Happens In The Movies" criticised and that are just way too old and way too overused. RATING I award this book with 3 out of 5 stars.
I've got no work done today at all, because I had to sit down and finish reading this book. First of all, if anyone is looking for the perfect book to put on their holiday/christmas TBRs, something to read cuddled up in a blanket, in front of a fire with mulled wine (or tea) in their hand: stop looking, this is it! It's got everything you could possibly want from a story, the ups and downs of a new relationship that two young people rush into, with the minor complications of being a celebrity vs. the major complications of being human and having a backstory. This book has two amazing young main characters, and a brilliant ensemble or supportive characters, all well rounded and thought out. You can't help but fall in love with all of them (except for the "villains" of course, and yes, I am looking at you Manager-Person-I-don't-even-want-to-remember-the-name-of), even when they are being stupid and stubborn. How not to fall in love with Billy Buskin? I don't know. Thank you Gi for this wonderful story, I can't wait to read more from you soon.
I've got no work done today at all, because I had to sit down and finish reading this book. First of all, if anyone is looking for the perfect book to put on their holiday/christmas TBRs, something to read cuddled up in a blanket, in front of a fire with mulled wine (or tea) in their hand: stop looking, this is it! It's got everything you could possibly want from a story, the ups and downs of a new relationship that two young people rush into, with the minor complications of being a celebrity vs. the major complications of being human and having a backstory. This book has two amazing young main characters, and a brilliant ensemble or supportive characters, all well rounded and thought out. You can't help but fall in love with all of them (except for the "villains" of course, and yes, I am looking at you Manager-Person-I-don't-even-want-to-remember-the-name-of), even when they are being stupid and stubborn. How not to fall in love with Billy Buskin? I don't know. Thank you Gi for this wonderful story, I can't wait to read more from you soon.
Description
Book Information
Posts
Meine Meinung: Sophie May lebt ein zurückgezogenes Leben in ihren Heimatdorf. Sie arbeitet in einem kleinen Teestübchen und vertreibt sie ihre Zeit nur zu gerne mit dem Lesen von Büchern. Sie wirkt sehr schüchtern und hat Schwierigkeiten damit mit anderen Menschen in Kontakt zu treten. Sie schwärmt heimlich für Jude Law und so hofft sie auch, dass er derjenige sein wird, der die Hauptrolle in einem Film ergattern wird, der in ihrem Dorf gedreht werden soll. Eines Tages spaziert ein sehr attraktiver Mann bei ihr ins Cafe und es wird schnell klar, dass die Anziehung der beiden auf Gegenseitigkeit beruht. Doch der sympathische Mann ist niemand anderes als Billy Sinclair, der gerade dabei ist einer der großen Hollywoodstars zu werden. Die Geschichte von Sternenküsse hält sich nicht lange mit der Beziehungsfindung von Billy und Sophie auf, sondern beginnt eigentlich dort, wo andere Geschichten aufhören, nämlich im Alltag des Paares. Sophie muss sich in Billys Glitzerwelt zurechtfinden und wird ständig von Selbstzweifeln geplagt. Plötzlich sind die Reporter auch hinter ihr her und sie weiß in ihrer Schüchternheit, gar nicht wie sie mit so viel Aufmerksamkeit umgehen soll. Wir bekommen Sophies Zweifel und Überlegungen direkt mit, denn die Geschichte wird aus ihrer Ich-Perspektive erzählt. Ich mochte Sophie zwar, allerdings hätte ich sie manchmal auch schütteln mögen. Anstatt Billy deutlich zu sagen, dass er zu weit geht, schluckt sie ihren Ärger immer wieder herunter. Billy verändert sich nämlich durch den Rummel um seine Person und hebt sehr deutlich ab. Sophie wird dadurch in einen starken Zwiespalt geworfen, denn einerseits liebt sie Billy, anderseits fühlt sie sich in der glitzernden Bussi-Bussi Welt überhaupt nicht wohl. Die Funken zwischen den beiden sind für mich irgendwie nicht geflogen und ihre Liebesgeschichte konnte mich nicht so ganz berühren. Allerdings gab es viele andere Dinge, die mir in dem Buch gut gefallen haben. Sophie Mays Beziehung zu ihrer Mutter oder auch die Freundschaft mit ihrer Chefin waren herzerwärmend zu lesen. Am Ende musste ich wegen der traurigen Wendungen doch das ein oder andere Tränchen vergießen. Besonders in Sophies Heimatort habe ich mich während des Lesens sehr wohlgefühlt und mochte mich atmosphärisch gar nicht so recht von dem Buch trennen. Der Schreibstil ist flüssig, auch wenn in der Wortwahl sehr auf die Vermittlung von Emotionen wertgelegt wird. Fazit: Die Liebesgeschichte zwischen Sophie und Billy konnte mich ehrlich gesagt nicht vollends packen. Billy hat in meinen Augen oft zu egoistisch gehandelt, so dass ihn mit zunehmender Seitenanzahl immer weniger mochte und kaum noch nachvollziehen konnte, warum Sophie bei ihm bleibt. Allerdings war mir Sophie sympathisch, wenn auch vielleicht etwas zu naiv. Ich mochte die Art und Weise wie ihre Verbundenheit zu ihrem Dorf und den dort lebenden Menschen dargestellt wurde. Insgesamt hat mich das Buch gut unterhalten und somit vergebe ich sehr gerne vier Sterne dafür!
read my complete review with spoiler section: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.com/ Instagram: isleepnaked MY THOUGHTS ON IT I bought this book three years ago at the airport in Malta because a Booktuber that doesn't even do Youtube anymore recommended it in a video and I was also really into the cover of the book. But the book got neglected by me because I expected it to be a sweet, rather ordinary, straight love story and I was less and less into those kinds of books. Then I read "It Only Happens In The Movies" by Holly Bourne (find my review on my blog) and was so into that straight love story that I thought that now's the perfect time to read this book. Unfortunately, "Billy and Me" did many of the things wrong that "It Only Happens In The Movies" did right. But let's start at the beginning. The book starts with a flashback, written in a hard-to-read cursive font, that got me quite intrigued into the story because Sophie, the main character, seemed relatable and likable. She is into books and mostly classic English literature, which got me more interested in finally reading these novels myself. I also instantly felt cozy and comfortable in the lovely atmosphere of the Tea-on-the-Hill tea shop where Sophie works. The detail with which the coziness of the shop and the warmth between Sophie and the owner of the shop, Molly, got described, was just heart-warming and everything was set for a perfect comfort-read. Then the book introduced a film set and thereby movies into the stories and Sophie had several moments of intensive fangirling over Jude Law, and I was hooked. I've always had a thing for Jude Law myself and can never watch The Holiday without swooning over him, but ever since he has been cast as the young Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts and has been promoting this movie together with that cast I'm just completely into him and he's my man crush #1 at the moment. So it felt almost spooky that I seemed to have waited so long to read this book only to read it at the perfect time, at the height of my Jude-Law-obsession.. And Jude Law kept showing up again and again throughout the book and every time that happened, the book gained a plus from me. So although I could highly relate to Sophie's love for literature and her obsession with Jude Law, I still had huge problems with her low self-esteem and non-existent sense of self-worth. Those "shy girl" traits are probably meant to make her more likable, more relatable for the reader, but they did the exact opposite for me. And that's where it gets tricky for me. Because on the one hand I think that I might have enjoyed the book more when I was younger because I would have been able to relate more to Sophie and her shyness and self-insecure self. But on the other hand I don't even want to say that I'm to blame for not reading it when I was younger because I don't want to encourage those female characters with so little sense of self-worth and no self-confidence at all. I'm not sure how old Sophie is supposed to be in this book but probably around 25 years old, so older than me, and she just acted in a way that is expected from 16-year-old protagonists, which I found very sad. And the story does give the reader reasons for Sophie being like that through the flashbacks (which are always written in that quite-hard-to-read font) and emphasise that she had actually been quite different before that certain thing had happened. I just wish that the book would have made Sophie develop throughout the story into a more self-confident and self-loving person, because her lack of ever going in that direction made me lose my connection to her throughout the book. And that is always the point when a book goes downhill for me, once I cannot relate to or find I do not like the main character anymore. The book is titled "Billy and Me" (which already says all about who has the dominance in that relationship by the way.. - often I just wanted to scream at Sophie that it should be her first and Billy second and not always Billy first and then her... but we'll come to that later), so obviously there is a love story happening between Sophie and this Billy guy. At first, Billy seemed like a sweet guy (although his throwing-the-head-back-laugh really irritated me) and I had nothing against him, although I did never feel any chemistry or sexual tension between him and Sophie. (And as I've just written in my last review, that is the most important thing for me to decide whether I am into a romance or not.) With a book of over 400 pages, I found the love story to happen far too quickly when there's already talk of marriage after not even 100 pages. I really wondered what the rest of the book was then going to be about.. Well, it turned out that the other 300 pages where spent in making this relationship so toxic that I wanted to shake Sophie and tell her to get the hell out of it for her own sake. There are so many problematic clichés of straight relationships and gender roles incorporated into this book that are not even pointed out to be unhealthy, which made me really furious. Just to name a few of them: Billy not wanting Sophie to work because he can provide for them both shows very patriarchal characteristics that I felt very uncomfortable with. Especially since Sophie explicitly says that she wants to work to keep her independence, which doesn't seem to hold any meaning for Billy whatsoever. Sophie leaving behind her whole life, loved ones and job just to be with Billy because Billy wants to live with her although she would only be one hour away if she had stayed in her village. Sophie therefore ending up completely unhappy, isolated, with her sole purpose in life being baking fancy things for Billy to come home to and appreciate. Billy coming home drunk with friends although Sophie needed to sleep to get up early the next morning. Billy utterly disregarding her concerns and making Sophie and her job feel unimportant. Billy making Sophie uncomfortable by getting very intimate with his female friends. Sophie not being able to voice her issues with that because she doesn't want to come across as the jealous girlfriend. There's clearly no healthy bond of trust between Billy and Sophie. They don't talk about the things that bother them. Sophie keeps putting herself down and keeps finding excuses for Billy's patronizing behaviour in herself because of her lack of self-worth and self-love and self-confidence. Since the title of this book is "Billy and Me" I had little hope that this story would end in the only way that could have saved this book for me: the both of them realising that they do not have a healthy relationship and ending it for the sake of both of them. The only positive aspect of the middle part of the book was the detailed view into an actor's life, which Billy provided. Since the author was herself an actor I found that insight to be quite interesting. Luckily, however, the last part of the book was better than that dreadful middle because Billy got swept more and more into the background and Sophie and her story got more into the front, which I liked. There was also a very sad plot twist towards the end of this book that made me far more emotional than I had ever expected this book to be able to make me feel. I will talk a bit more about that after my rating, in the spoiler section, on my blog. CONCLUSION Well, I had my ups and downs with this book but overall the downs unfortunately prevailed. The most positive part of the book for me was clearly the constant mentioning and appearances of Jude Law throughout this book. That definitely added a whole star to my rating of the book that would otherwise not be there. Besides that, I also really loved the cozy atmosphere of the tea shop and the village that Sophie lived in. I would have honestly liked the whole book better if Billy had never shown up in it and it had just been a lovely read about this village and its tea shop. The relationship that Sophie had with Molly, the shop owner, was really touching and beautiful and definitely one of my favourite things in the book. Unfortunately, I was very quickly annoyed by the male love interest, Billy, because he seemed to embody every cliché of male toxic behaviour in relationships. Billy and Sophie had a relationship that I pitied both of them for and wished that the book had ended with them realising that, too. The book followed the exact romance stereotypes/tropes that "It Only Happens In The Movies" criticised and that are just way too old and way too overused. RATING I award this book with 3 out of 5 stars.
I've got no work done today at all, because I had to sit down and finish reading this book. First of all, if anyone is looking for the perfect book to put on their holiday/christmas TBRs, something to read cuddled up in a blanket, in front of a fire with mulled wine (or tea) in their hand: stop looking, this is it! It's got everything you could possibly want from a story, the ups and downs of a new relationship that two young people rush into, with the minor complications of being a celebrity vs. the major complications of being human and having a backstory. This book has two amazing young main characters, and a brilliant ensemble or supportive characters, all well rounded and thought out. You can't help but fall in love with all of them (except for the "villains" of course, and yes, I am looking at you Manager-Person-I-don't-even-want-to-remember-the-name-of), even when they are being stupid and stubborn. How not to fall in love with Billy Buskin? I don't know. Thank you Gi for this wonderful story, I can't wait to read more from you soon.
I've got no work done today at all, because I had to sit down and finish reading this book. First of all, if anyone is looking for the perfect book to put on their holiday/christmas TBRs, something to read cuddled up in a blanket, in front of a fire with mulled wine (or tea) in their hand: stop looking, this is it! It's got everything you could possibly want from a story, the ups and downs of a new relationship that two young people rush into, with the minor complications of being a celebrity vs. the major complications of being human and having a backstory. This book has two amazing young main characters, and a brilliant ensemble or supportive characters, all well rounded and thought out. You can't help but fall in love with all of them (except for the "villains" of course, and yes, I am looking at you Manager-Person-I-don't-even-want-to-remember-the-name-of), even when they are being stupid and stubborn. How not to fall in love with Billy Buskin? I don't know. Thank you Gi for this wonderful story, I can't wait to read more from you soon.