Dear Stephanie Perkins

It's been too long since I've had a book to gush about. A book that filled me up, made me it's prisoner, made me squeal like an idiot and made me believe in love and words. A book that sparks my insides and moves me to write and to read and to smile and to UGH very loudly.

Stephanie Perkins you win again. 

Last year I read Anna and the French Kiss swiftly followed by Lola and the Boy Next Door. I shared some thoughts on those two books here but to echo the sentiment a bit, these books moved me so much. These characters are just so alive and so beautiful and broken and unique. The way Stephanie writes is just electric and so full of love. You can feel this woman's passion and love for words and her characters soak through the pages.

She writes how I want to write. I love when you can tell an author loves their characters and I think Stephanie Perkins takes the cake there. I can almost feel her squealing with me when the characters kiss and getting frustrated with me when her characters aren't together. I like that I can feel how much love and care and attention each character gets. I like that the characters become my friends and that they are Stephanie's friends too.

I devour her books also. It's been a good summer for reading but good GOD I was not ready for the majesty of Isla and the Happily Ever After, the last book of her sort of, interrelated series. I don't want to give anything away by way of plot but here's the low down. Isla is shy and has always loved Josh, a broody hot artist who can't seem to focus on much. After a very awkward (and literally awesome) first official meeting over summer vacation, their school year in Paris becomes a lovely jumble of romance and sorrow and GUYS I COULD NOT.

One of the best parts of these books is that they truly transport you to the landscapes that they take place in. In Anna, you are swept away to Paris and you return back to Paris in Isla after some time in New York and some even more delicious time in Barcelona (STEPHANIE PERKINS I CAN'T WITH YOU). But one of my favorite experiences was reading Lola while I was in San Francisco last week. I mean, holy wow it brought the book to life in bursting colors. I drove through the Castro and picked the houses I though Lola and Cricket lived in and loved in. I bought some crazy dresses in the Haight and felt my Lola showing. She knows San Francisco and she paints each city she uses so lovingly and so beautifully.

My favorite line of Lola

I could gush about the intricacies of her books forever, how much I love the boys she writes (PS STEPHANIE PERKINS YOU ALSO SUCK BECAUSE I CAN'T PICK BETWEEN THE THREE OF THEM HOW DARE YOU), and how beautifully she writes her women. I can see pieces of all of them in me and that makes reading her books very fun and also very revealing. These girls have their faults and there are times when reading them revealed mine and I got so uncomfortable for a minute, but then so inspired. Like Isla for example. She is so hard on herself and she focuses on her past and Josh's past so much. I was so frustrated reading that until I realized that I do the exact same thing. Her books always seem to reveal me. It's because her characters are so damn realistic. It might seem easy to dismiss these books as easy to read or mindless romance but HOT DAMN do they get heavy and real and raw.

Stephanie Perkins is the writer I want to be and her words always wake me up when I need them to. I have been in the worst writing rut of all time. I feel like I have creative ADD. I sit down to write, feel so jazzed to be writing, and then I just can't. It feels empty and useless to try. I feel like I have nothing to say and no words to say anything. But her books excite me. They make me feel love and they make me feel a love of love in books. That feeling of getting so sucked into words that you cannot stop, you cannot and will not put it down. I want to write a book like that and Stephanie Perkins makes me feel like that type of writing is possible.

On her blog she has talked about battling depression. About how hard it is to write through it sometimes. I feel that pain so so much. Brains are assholes. Brains tell you you can't write or that you shouldn't or that people won't like you. And when that happens, bodies and words shut down. On one of her posts about depression, I left a comment for her about how much she inspires me. And guess what? She responded to me! :) She said "Thank you, Em. I'm so sorry that your brain is mean to you, too. I'm glad you're fighting it! Keep writing. I can't wait to read YOUR book someday. :-)"

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ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I was dying when that happened last year. And something more, I know she means it because she is just the nicest.

I know this post is all over the place but in the end, it has one purpose. Thank you so much Stephanie Perkins. Thank you for your books, your characters (particularly the boys but... how can I pick between the three ugh), your hope, your words, being you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for giving me my writing back.

I cannot wait for your next masterpiece.

On Love and Lola

I love when a book keeps you awake at night and makes you hold your breath because of how much you love it. I love when you root for a character so much that when they finally get something they want, you cannot help but shed a tear and smile like an idiot by yourself in a dark bedroom at 2 in the morning.

I love books that inspire me and make me want to read more and more.

I love books that make me want to write.

I love books that make me want to love.

I finished a book called Lola and the Boy Next Door a few nights back. It was the second book published by Stephanie Perkins and the second book of hers that I have read. When I read her first book, Anna and the French Kiss, I could not wait to get my hands on Lola. (I just reread that... I love the awkward. Apologies to any readers named Lola.) 

Perkins, man. Girl can WRITE. She is hilarious and pure and full of love and hope. Her books always leave me wonderstruck and ready to fall in love. She writes these boys... I just.... they are unreal. In Anna, the boy de jour is Etienne St. Clair. He's British, and also French, and also American. And also the most perfect specimen I have ever met. Read. Whatever I love him. In Lola, it's Cricket Bell. Adorable, awkward, excited, lovely Cricket. 

Don't you hate it when you read a book by an author and it's just so good that you cannot imagine anything being better? And then you go into every other book comparing it to your favorite, never imagining anything could top it. It makes it hard to get in to the other book. I walked in to Lola missing Anna and that world. Luckily for me, ANNA IS IN LOLA! AND SO IS ST CLAIR. And I loved Lola and Cricket enough without the other couple being there. I didn't think it would be possible for me to like a book liked I like Anna but man, Lola won me over. 

If you know me, you know that I'm not the biggest fan of the "chick lit" genre. I don't read a ton of books about girls falling in love with the argumentative but suave boy in her math class. I like my books a little bit deeper. But these books are anything but chick lit. They are so smart and so funny. Stephanie Perkins writes these strong girls who aren't chasing boys but seem to happen upon them, just like real life. Her boys are charming and perfect but they have secrets and burdens that humanize them, like real life. Her books are real, if you catch my drift. The characters don't meet and then hate each other and realize through a series of shenanigans that they are meant to be. They just ARE meant to be. 

Back to the writing for a hot second. Stephanie Perkins, if you are reading this... first off... I love you so much. Your taste in music is superb (GUYS she makes playlists on 8tracks for her books so you can hear what she heard while writing. Get her out of here. She is perfect.) Here is my question for you. How do you manage to write such romantic and sexy books without every ONCE being corny or cheesy? 

Never once during these books do I feel like the romance is forced or cheesy. The whole time I was reading Anna my heart was racing with anticipation and lust for those two to get together. During Lola, I wanted to cry from the beauty and delicacy of it all. It never went over the top, the words were never cliche. It was fresh and alive and heartbreaking. This sentence happened in Lola and I wanted to die:

Did you get that? Anguished. ANGUISHED. Can any word describe love better? It's deep and overpowering and it hurts. Being in love hurts in the best of ways. It's honest and so powerful. Stephanie Perkins gets this. Probably because she loves her husband more than anyone on this planet. Seriously. I've never seen a woman more in love with her husband, and I'm only seeing it through her words. Each dedication is to her husband Jarrod. Also, read the final paragraph of each of her acknowledgement sections at the end of the books. It's for him and it is so lovely and overflowing with love. Stephanie Perkins you are beautiful. 

These books make me realize a lot about myself and my writing. But mostly about love. I have been in love a few times in my life. All consuming love. But I don't think anyone has ever loved me back. I have been loved, I have loved, but never equal amounts simultaneously. These books make me so thrilled to find my one. They excite me and urge me to keep on loving, even when it seems in vain. They show me what that love feels like, that one love that tears you apart easily and carries you to the ends of the Earth. Love shouldn't feel forced. It should click like these characters do, or like Stephanie Perkins with her husband. 

I can't wait to feel that mutual anguish and honesty. I cannot wait for that day when it all clicks. I cannot wait to find my own St. Clair or Cricket. In the mean time, the books will have to do.

Everyone. Go read these books now.

And Stephanie, thanks again for your words. You are truly beautiful.