Author- Lucy Powrie
Series- The Paper&Hearts Society (Book One of Three)
Published- 2019
Page Count- 355
Publishing House- Hodder's Children Books
Genre- YA Contemporary
Rating- 4/5 Stars
About the Author
Lucy Powrie is a blogger, YouTuber and author from the UK. Lucy is the creator of #ukyachat on Twitter. In 2015 Lucy won a UK Young Adult Blogger Award for Champion of YA. When she's not reading, she enjoys cuddling guinea pigs and eating Oreo chocolate, but let's be real: she's mostly always reading. Her debut novel, The Paper & Hearts Society, will be published in June 2019 from Hodder Children’s Books.
Plot
Tabby Brown is tired of trying to fit in. She doesn't want to go to parties - in fact, she would much rather snuggle up on the sofa with her favourite book.
It's like she hasn't found her people ...
Then Tabby joins a club that promises to celebrate books. What could go wrong? EVERYTHING - especially when making new friends brings out an AWKWARD BUZZING feeling all over her body.
But Olivia, Cassie, Henry and Ed have something that makes Tabby come back. Maybe it's the Austen-themed fancy-dress parties or Ed's fluffy cat Mrs Simpkins, or could it be Henry himself ...
Can Tabby let her weird out AND live THE BEST BOOKISH LIFE POSSIBLE?
It's like she hasn't found her people ...
Then Tabby joins a club that promises to celebrate books. What could go wrong? EVERYTHING - especially when making new friends brings out an AWKWARD BUZZING feeling all over her body.
But Olivia, Cassie, Henry and Ed have something that makes Tabby come back. Maybe it's the Austen-themed fancy-dress parties or Ed's fluffy cat Mrs Simpkins, or could it be Henry himself ...
Can Tabby let her weird out AND live THE BEST BOOKISH LIFE POSSIBLE?
Opinions
I have never watched any of Lucy's videos before and to be honest, I bought this on a bit of a whim. Probably the main reason I bought it was because Lucy is a similar age to me and I wanted to read a book written by someone who was like me. I knew very little about it going into it and I was a tad sceptical because of the whole "YouTuber writes a book" problem. I assumed this was going to be another YouTuber hopping on the book bandwagon and releasing something that was good, but it wasn't great. It was nice to be pleasantly surprised and found wrong.
Contemporary is a genre I rarely read as I prefer Urban Fantasy. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it that much, but upon picking it up, I couldn't put it down. Or rather, I didn't want to put it down. I was invested in the story from the first chapter. To me, the best way to describe this book is as a fun and fluffy Contemporary that you'll fly through. I read this in a day. In fact, I read this within a few hours. It was one of the best reading experiences I've had in a while.
The characters were well-developed and had room for development. I liked them all as they all had their own unique characteristics. The only character that rubbed me up the wrong way was Olivia because at times she came across the tiniest bit pushy and as an introvert myself, she was a very extroverted introvert. It was a minor fault I found and it is totally a personal preference and no fault of the authors.
The LGBT representation in this book was great. Olivia is revealed to be demisexual and it is unclear what sexuality Cassie is, but she and Oliva start a relationship in this book. It has been revealed that the second book is going to be much more LBGT heavy than the first and I am here for it. I really enjoyed the development of their relationship as it wasn't instalove (which is something I'm not the biggest fan of). I enjoyed the conflict at the start of their relationship as to me it felt realistic.
Another great bit of representation was the mental health representation. Tabby has anxiety and suffers from panic attacks throughout the book. I felt it was well handled and didn't trivialise the issue at all. It was also nice to see a group of friends being supportive when one of them is clearly suffering. All of Tabby's friends were able to be there for her when she wasn't feeling great and to me that was a heartwarming part of the book.
I loved the bookish road trip that they went on. It made me really want to go travelling with my friends and do something impulsive like that. The underlying plot of the book was very emotional. It felt relevant to today's audience as cyberbullying is still a huge issue and needs to be tackled more.
The only reason I knocked off a star was that I felt that the way the characters were written as though they were much older. Until the ages of the characters were actually stated, I had assumed that the group was between the age of 16-18. However, they were between the ages of 15-17. I would have liked for them to have been a tiny bit older as once I knew how old they were, I found it a tiny bit harder to connect with them as they weren't a similar age to me anymore.
Another great bit of representation was the mental health representation. Tabby has anxiety and suffers from panic attacks throughout the book. I felt it was well handled and didn't trivialise the issue at all. It was also nice to see a group of friends being supportive when one of them is clearly suffering. All of Tabby's friends were able to be there for her when she wasn't feeling great and to me that was a heartwarming part of the book.
I loved the bookish road trip that they went on. It made me really want to go travelling with my friends and do something impulsive like that. The underlying plot of the book was very emotional. It felt relevant to today's audience as cyberbullying is still a huge issue and needs to be tackled more.
The only reason I knocked off a star was that I felt that the way the characters were written as though they were much older. Until the ages of the characters were actually stated, I had assumed that the group was between the age of 16-18. However, they were between the ages of 15-17. I would have liked for them to have been a tiny bit older as once I knew how old they were, I found it a tiny bit harder to connect with them as they weren't a similar age to me anymore.
