fiwwa's reviews
213 reviews

A science fiction? About astrophysics? With a spice of romance?

Yes, that's why I read this book. It's my first ever science fiction and glad to say that the author, Mashuri, is Indonesian! Initially, I wasn't sure if I was going to finish this book since sci-fi isn't my favorite BUT turns out it's actually not bad and I like it! Well maybe because it has an astrophysics theory and I'm so curious about it.

Since it's my first sci-fi book, I was a bit confused and my brain worked harder than when I was reading romance or any genre I usually read. The author uses a loot of physics theories and scientific words that I don't understand and I just realized there's a note for some of the words on the last page of the book AFTER I FINISHED IT....

You will probably find it hard to understand about the time machine the character (Ilyas) made if you're not into the space and time concept. But to me, all those physics theories are what makes this book fun to read. It's like you're learning astrophysics as you read!

Now about the characters, hm... Raden Ilyas Aditya is... okay? But, Alisa Hakukedo? ALISA HAKUKEDO <33 A. DREAM. COME. TRUE. She's an ITB Astronomy and MIT graduate?? /screaming on a pillow moment/ I can't really see the development of the other characters except Alisa, also the expressions Ilyas and the other passengers use when they arrive in year 2040. They don't seem panic enough when everything is completely different?

I attempted reading this book three times and each time I fell asleep before finally finishing it overnight. I thought that was the universe's way of telling me I wasn't prepared for the misery this book would bring. I mean, based on booktok and the synopsis, it seems promising: a melancholy book that will take two weeks to emotionally recover from, or will at the very least leave with you with a small sob. But here's the sad truth: it did not. I don't even need half an hour to recover because I feel... nothing.

Throughout the book, I felt like I was just reading about Julie, a girl who is lonely after her boyfriend dies and tries to escape reality but ends up ruining things around her. Well, she was in mourning. I know everyone has their own way of grieving and the accident happened so sudden it must've stunned her, so she hide from the real world, tossing Sam's belongings and skipping his funerals and any other ceremonies held in his honor. I understand that it's hard for her, and that she thinks nothing is right at the time, but I think she can't just escape from the truth that Sam is gone, that Sam can't be there with her anymore.

Now, about Sam, if I could simply have a call with him, I would like to ask, "What's the deal, exactly? Why would you even pick up the phone the first time? Why would you talk to Julie again if you know it will be hard for her to forget you? Why don't you just come to her dream and say goodbye if that's all you want?" I honestly don't see anything so special about Sam, I wonder what makes his friends adore him so much. Not that he's horrible or anything, it's just... again, I don't see anything special in him. His character feels flat to me.

Actually, it's not just Sam. Other characters are likewise bland and God, I even hate some of them. Except Oliver and Mika, Sam's friends suck. Blaming Julie when she was just trying to cope and have some time alone? It's an odd analogy, but even Elsa from Frozen didn't even show up to her parents' funeral??? They (Sam's friends) act as if a year has passed and Julie hasn't done anything good to Sam, yet it's only been a week. She needs a time of her own and she shouldn't even be apologizing for it.

Let's talk about the plot. [ Might contain spoiler so beware! ]

Uniqueness wise, I personally think it's original. I never read or heard a story about someone who calls her dead lover just to say goodbye. But even the only thing I admire from this book is a bit disappointing. After the story ends, I still don't get what the phone call was for. Sam said he will wait until Julie says goodbye, but when she said she doesn't a want a goodbye, he insisted. What's the point? Just don't call her then, you can say goodbye in her dream.

It's weird that Sam said that they have a 'special connection' when I don't see any at all. It feels like a high school love to me. When I read the scenes about them, all I can think about was "Oh, yeah. I could tell that they're dating." but not the type of "Oh my God!! They're so in love and they're so cute!" or the ones that makes me screaming behind my pillow. Maybe they do love each other, but from the plot, I couldn't see it.

There is one thing that I was looking forward to and expecting from the book, but it didn't appear at all. I'm hoping for a scene when

Julie attempts to call Sam's phone again after not picking up his call on purpose so that they can't talk to each other again, and all she get is "You've reached Sam, leave a message!", then she finally tries to let go

or something like that. Because even at the end, I can't see Julie has moved on from Sam. Not that she has to forget about him completely, but she has to live her life, she deserves to find love again even.

One other thing that I was expecting is a plot twist. My theory began when

Oliver starts talking to Julie, buying her ice cream, and taking her to the movie. I assumed he liked her, and that he and Sam also have that special connection that allows them to communicate on the phone, and that Sam somehow asked him to take care of Julie, which is why he's doing all of that. And in one of Sam and Julie's phone talks, Sam also assured Julie that she will be okay whoever she will end up with. But it turns out Oliver is gay.

So I put that theory out of my head. And I know for sure

Tristan has a feeling for Julie. The after party and the rose even introducing her to a professor he knew she would like?? It's obvious. I hope Julie would give him a chance or at least do something more to him since she met that music guy because of Tristan.

Lastly, there are so many unanswered questions like where is Sam exactly? Why is he doing this? Why does he doesn't want Julie to share his music? Why does he always unsure with his answers? What's with the limited calls when Sam said he would wait? What happened to Julie's phone? I thought Sam would answer those questions before the last call.

I can see this book is trying to be sad and emotional, it does give me emotions, but a temporary ones. I can still sleep in peace after reading this book and wake up like I wasn't reading anything sad. With all the hype this book brings, I really hoped it could be so much better.

First of all, yes, I have to review this on November 9 although I finished it last night. The quote above is one of the famous quotes from this book. It does sounds sweet, Ben Kessler is sweet. But.. I may have a love-hate relationship with this book. I don't even know should I start with the good or the bad, the characters or the plot.

Let's start with describing the good part of the characters.

I usually starts by simping over the male character but now I'll talk about the female character first. Fallon O'Neill, an innocent girl who lost many things including almost the entire left side of her body and her rising acting career, all because of the fire that burned her house. The trauma she brought from that incident made her lose her confidence to meet other people let alone to fall in love, she thought it was impossible. Until a man suddenly (like literally, so sudden) swooping in her booth when she was trying to defend herself alone to someone who she hates so much and starts defending her. Starting then, her self-confidence start shining again.

Ben Kessler is a writer, I thought that alone was enough for him to be in my book boyfriend list. His words are spoken beautifully and it does make our confidence boost up like a rocket. I mean if he said this, how would you feel?

He's the reason Fallon's self-confidence is back, he believes in her and sees her scars as part of what makes her pretty. He reads more than 20 romance books just to know what Fallon likes and wrote her a book. Yes, he did all that just for ONE girl.

Now before we move on to the plot let me tell you the things I don't really like about these two characters, starting with Ben:

1. Ben Kessler was a freaking creep when he first met Fallon. Swooping to a stranger's table, pretends to be her boyfriend, and calls her "Ladybug"?? HE COULD BE A MURDERER. WE NEVER KNOW?
2. And wondering about WHAT COLOR IS HER PANTIES when he first saw her?! Man, what a pervert.
3. Saying that it's hard for him to be an 'alpha-male' but that man literally controls Fallon to stay with him when they just met, forcing her to wear a dress that shows her insecurities (I know he meant well, and maybe that's the way that works for Fallon but still). What kind of alpha-male he wanted to be then.
4. He pays attention so much I don't know if I should feel safe or concerned :D
5. Ben Kessler is a liar and hate to say this but honestly, I saw it coming.

Did Ben make it to the book boyfriends list? Yeah, at the very bottom, though. Now about Fallon, I don't have anything much that I don't really like about her except that how she easily fell in love with someone she just met, I kinda see it like she's... craving for love?

One more before we actually talk about the plot, the other characters. I'll make it short: Hate Fallon's dad for obvious reason, love Fallon's mom for leaving him and loving Fallon, love Amber and Glenn for being such a great friend, love the Kessler's brother, no comments for Jordyn but she's not that bad, and what the hell is Miles doing here I don't like him since Ugly Love.

Alright now about the plot, how the hell do they every little details that happened last year in November 9? And most importantly, how did they survive not talking to each other or even stalking each other on social media for a year and suddenly meet up like it's a normal thing? HOW?! It's unrealistic in my mind. But the plot twist???? I think it's genius. I mean it's Colleen Hoover, genius is her middle name. However, not gonna lie, I kinda saw it coming since Kyle on the Second November 9th, I know it's gotta be related. It's still great though, I scream and hit my pillow when the plot twist came. The whole script that Ben wrote??? It left me speechless I don't even give too much annotations because holy cactus I don't know what to say.

My favorite scene is the airport scene on the first November 9th. The slow motion scene. It's definitely book-worthy. And my favorite quote would probably be

As much as I don't really like Ben in the beginning, I still love the overall of the book. 

Lastly, happy November 9! And someone please booksting me ♡ 

Intermediate Thermodynamics is what my fake scenario in my head looks like every night. The sparks and swoon-worthy romance between Esther and Jonathan is sooo much better than the Melody and Jeremy in Remedial Rocket Science. To be honest, things going on in this book is way more rocket science than in the first book, I still haven't figured out why it's called Intermediate Thermodynamics actually.

This book makes me soo happy and there are many things I love about this book: the characters, the characterization, the conversation, the plot. The overall of this book is what I hope my future life will be (well maybe not all, but most of them), both work-life and love life.

Let me start with the one and only heroine, Esther Abbott. The aerospace engineer. THE ROCKET SCIENTIST. The girl who doesn't have a good taste in coffee, always speaks bluntly, hard to fall in love, and not a big fan of expressing her emotions. The last four characteristics mentioned are who I am now, the first and second will become me as well in 10 years... or less, I hope. Esther actually cares a lot about everyone around her, even to the ones she shouldn't care about like her Mom who always asks her for money

honestly what is it with the Moms in this series, they always have problems

 and secretly cares about the next-door neighbor who always bumped into her accidentally. Though she kinda surrounded by sucks people, there are still a lot of them who doesn't suck at all like Jinny, Yemi, her brother, the knitting group, and Sally Ride (it's a cat but omg I love that Esther named her cat the first American woman in space).

That neighbor, apparently, is secretly a dream man. Well, maybe except the fact that he doesn't know the basic rules of the laundry room and always forgets his laundry  (or maybe he doesn't, he just wants to meet his friendly neighbor). Jonathan Brinkerhoff, a film school graduate student who only has flannels in his closet and wearing beanie like his head is something forbidden to see with a cute glasses on his face to show the 'cute writer' type. I like the character development in Jonathan especially in his writing, from the love story of the girl he knows years ago with no personality to the girl next door that he wishes a chance with. Oh, and he wrote her a screenplay. I repeat, HE WROTE HER A SCREENPLAY TO CONFESS HIS FEELING.

Dear God, can I please experience this as the person in the story not the person who wrote it <///3

Now moving on to the character's chemistry, I feel like this book can be considered enemies-to-lovers since Esther hates Jonathan at first with no specific reason except the laundry and smoking problem. The connection between them develops in a... raw and real way, if that makes sense. It's realistic because they can't just suddenly talk and become lovers, lot of things happened in between. Starting with the mutual agreement, when they start seeing each other more often than just bumping into each other, drinking coffee while reviewing Jonathan's script in a way Esther's mind would see it and how Jonathan accepts all her honest reviews, watching outer space action movies to help him with the script, the party (more Remedial Rocket Science characters here!), and... the after party. The tension escalated quickly after that, some parts even makes me tear up, Jonathan really knows what he's saying.

One of my favorite scene is when they started talking about the love because of the romance script Jonathan was writing, how Esther wasn't a big believer of love and commitment but Jonathan on the other hand was looking for it. And every scene where they just sit around discussing the script, it reminds me of the lyrics "Dumb conversations, we lose track of time. Have I told you lately I'm grateful you're mine?" except that they're not each other's just yet. I don't know what's in the new coffee maker that Esther bought, but it surely makes their conversation even more sweeter and sometimes I just wanna scream knowing I probably won't ever experience it.

And when I said Jonathan knows his words, he knows. I think Esther made him a much better writer and he starts bringing her to life like the story he was writing after he discovers every pages he hasn't read before. To end the review, here's Jonathan with his words that makes me (again) screaming inside.

! Most of the part contains spoiler !

The fact that this book is considered short but I finish it in more than a day explains that this book is not enjoyable to read for me. No, no, not because it's not spicy that makes it boring, but the plot. I was expecting a fun second chance lovers-enemies-lovers but what I get is lovers-enemies-forced to be lovers and get married.

I see the way Nicholas tried for Naomi to love him again but it's the type of "that's what you call effort?" effort. Yeah, I KNOW he bought her a house but then what, does she even like the house at first? Doesn't he supposed to know what she likes by ASKING AND COMMUNICATE? And even after all those things that Nicholas did to her, I still don't see the sparks of love in Naomi. She is happy most of the times and tried to think that Nicholas does that because he loves her. I repeat, she tried to think about his gesture. If he actually shows his love in the right one, the one that he knows Naomi likes, she won't even have to try to see that. Even in the end, I still think that they get married by the thought of "Yeah, maybe she/he does love me."

I was expecting a heated enemies trying to find the love between them but what I found is just a childish hate with revenge and sabotage. I get that this book is about communication and honesty in a relationship but I swear the miscommunication between Naomi and Nicholas on the half of the book pissed me off sooo much it makes me almost add this book to DNF. Let's be real, sometimes we intentionally look for a toxic relationship trope in a romance but not this one. Naomi is so... self-centered, not as awful as Deborah but she is still awful. She only wants Nicholas to do all the love-finding without even doing anything. Kinda hoping there's a Nicholas's POV to see how he actually feels.

HOWEVER, what makes me happy is when the author mentioned the title in the book. Nice one. The perfect title choice for the story though I personally don't really like the story itself.

I am not the type of person that pay much attention to the book's synopsis before reading them, if another bookworm that I trust says the book is good, then it is good. So I was kind of surprised when I found out what this book is really about, not disappointed, though. There are many things I like about this books but also some things that just not really my thing.

Start with the likes: the heroine. Stella Lane is a successful econometrician with high salary and obsessed with her job she doesn't even care about the money, and the diagnosed autism spectrum disorder author put the autism representation in Stella, something I've never seen before in a romcom books. The hero, Michael Phan... or Larsen, the Vietnamese guy is as sweet as Stella, or more actually: respectful, kind, and very patience which I highly appreciate. Let me slide in one dislike about him, too insecure about his job and salary compared to Stella and made it a reason to not chase after her. I mean... hey, man, if you do love her, then those stupid things won't be a problem to you or even to her. She just happens to has a job with more salary than you do, that doesn't mean you can't have her. But well, he (eventually) becomes a designer which is usually a women's job, so good thing is there's a gender job reverse here!

Ok move on to the dislikes or things I don't really like: the perverts who can't take no. I know that the author is trying to say "Don't be like them, be like Michael Phan who respects Stella's decision." I just hate the character, and the untold characters that had it with Stella when she's completely uncomfortable. And secondly, I don't know anything about Michael's initial job nor that I'm planning to find out more about it, but if he's a fashion school graduate and has the amazing ability to design beautiful clothes, why the hell did he choose to be an escort at first? I'm pretty sure that finding a business partner, being a designer, having his own clothing line and company will gain more than being an escort... no?

I enjoy reading this a lot because of the woman in STEM trope but not life-changing or anything special about the plot. I wasn't expecting anything when I decided to read this book, just wanted to get out of my reading slump and knowing that this is an aerospace industry love story I just got excited.

First thing that I like about this book: THE MAIN CHARACTER. Melody Gage, a computer science major in MIT, a scholarship awardee, and work in an aerospace company in LA with high salary just after she graduates. What. A. Dream. More dreamy with the fact that she eventually

dates the company's CEO's son. A billionaire. Well, a playboy, was, but A BILLIONAIRE.

But not gonna lie I can't see the nerdy part of her, I mean she is smart, I can tell, but nothing so special about that except that she goes to MIT. And some times... she's a bit too dramatic, not the heroine-type-of-mc.

Second thing is: Jeremy Sauer's love language. He is a love interest character I also adore but he isn't all that to be on my book boyfriend list, but his love language? I FELL. Words of affirmation? Check. Acts of service? Check. I kinda picture him as Matt Czuchry for no reason (or maybe because I watch Gilmore Girls). But Jeremy's cute, can't deny that fact.

Third one isn't a big thing but fake dating trope!! Ugh, one trope that never fails me. Also, I realized friends-to-lovers trope isn't actually bad! (a book I've read before has that trope and not the best one. Bad, actually).

One thing that I'm not a big fan of is the plot is a bit... forced. The drama is kinda unnecessary. It seems like they tried so hard to make Melody and Jeremy to be together despite the fact that Jeremy's ex girlfriend is Melody's friend. And also to make Jeremy the most miserable person in the book by mixing things up with his mom (I mean, what does his mom has anything to do with his love life or this story?), and the engagement of his other ex girlfriend. Too forced to be dramatic.

Kind of forcing myself to finish this book just in case there's something good I'm missing but... there's nothing I feel like I missed? I had high expectations because people are talking about this book all over Tiktok and it took me two tries to finally finish it.

When the one bed trope comes, I was hoping it'll make the story better but... not really. Not until the airport scene... where they're done with the vacation... when they're saying goodbye... Maybe it's not the book problem, it's not that bad, maybe it's a me problem: that I'm not into best friends-to-lovers, or maybe I do but not this one? 

For the characters, Poppy Wright is a sunshine travel writer, nothing's wrong with her character, I love Poppy, actually. Except that she hates Alex's ex girlfriend so much but she doesn't want to confess her feelings to him. And for Alex Nilsen, don't get me wrong, a very caring and thoughtful English teacher is pretty cute, but for some reason there's no sparks or something special when I read the words written about him. He's just cute and doesn't say much, but I love some words that Alex said in some final chapters like 

Kinda hoping I can read his point of view of this story too actually. But as romantic as he is, I don't think there's anything special that will make me put him  on my book boyfriends list. And I hate to say this but... I feel no chemistry between Poppy and Alex. Although they've been best friends for TWELVE YEARS and their friendship is cute but not as couple honestly. Feel bad for their ex-partners because they only date them to hide the feelings they have.

I fell asleep after I read this book hoping I'd wake up feeling better... I ENDED UP FEELING WORSE?? This is the type of hurt that will make you sit on your bed, staring at the ceiling, not even knowing what to do. You can cry, of course, you won't have the energy for that though (for me at least lol). It's not everyday that I love a marriage romance with pregnancy and people on covers (which is the worst tbh but please make an exception for this one). 

Do we love Graham? Yes, we LOVE Graham Wells. A man who wrote a letter... no, love letter.... no, love letterS to make sure his woman knows he loves her even when she's unloveable (a "Dear God, when?" moment for me). The letters are beautifully written I'd DEFINITELY cry if I were Quinn. And do we love Quinn? WE SURE ARE. I love Quinn and I want to hug her so bad. I cried and screamed for Quinn when she couldn't do that.