2.5 stars.

*mild spoilers ahead*




Isla and the Happily Ever After is a fluffy, light romance, which is fine. There is nothing wrong with fluff, in theory. Unfortunately, I felt like this book at times was so surface level that I just didn't feel connected. That, coupled with a main character I frequently wanted to smack, left me a little iffy on this one.

First, I want to say that I haven't read the other two books in this series, but since they are companion novels I didn't feel like it would be a crucial thing to ensure my potential enjoyment of this installment.

Things I liked:

1. Josh is an artist - I really liked that art was an important part of the story. I loved that he wrote his story and their story, especially as a way to win her over.

2. The pacing - This book flew by for me. I do wish that Josh's return to New York had been a little later in the book, but I read this in one day.

3. Kurt - I liked Kurt's character. He is a person with high-functioning autism. As such, the way in which he relates to the world and interacts with other socially is different that others. I liked that he is honest and straight-forward with everyone, even though it ends up getting Isla into trouble.

4. The setting(s) - As someone who has never been to France or Spain, I liked that this book took us to both places and discussed some of the architectural and cultural aspects of both places

5. (SOME of) The banter between the characters - There was quite a bit of dialogue that had me rolling my eyes because it was cheesy or stupid, but there were definitely some interactions I enjoyed and thought were well-written.

Things I didn't like:

1. Insta-love - Now, some people say that this book isn't an example of insta-love because they'd known each other for three years prior. BUT, Isla literally tells him that she's been IN LOVE with him since the first time she saw him. And she also says that in the three years that they've been in the same school they've only had four different exchanges. Sorry, that's still insta-love.

2. The intensity of their relationship - This is kind of connected to the insta-love, but I thought their relationship progressed incredibly quickly. They went from 0-100 in about ten pages...and even their love scenes were like that. Now, I understand that I am not the target demographic for this book, being a woman in my 30s. But I do remember being 18. I was with the boy who is now my husband. And we had fun...but I don't remember it being so intense that it crossed over into obsessed territory, and this book does. They literally throw themselves at each other. It's a little much.

3. Isla - I know this is going to piss people off, but Isla annoyed the crap out of me. Here is this wealthy, privileged girl in a fancy boarding school with a bunch of other fancy privileged people. She's dating the boy she's been obsessing over for three years, and yet she can't get over the fact that he had a long-term girlfriend and other friends before they started dating. She also had a boyfriend, but apparently that's different? Her low self-esteem was maddening. Also, the way she treats Kurt is awful. At the beginning she seems like an amazing friend, but the second Josh gives her the time of day, she begins to treat him the way she's accused others of doing in the past.
I also thought she was a major hypocrite with Josh. She tells him very matter-of-factly that she had sex with the boyfriend she had the year before and that the French (she's half French) had a much different view on sex than Puritanical Americans. Then she gets all prudish about the fact that Josh and his ex-gf were also intimate. And then, she breaks up with him for zero reason, all stemming from her wild insecurities. She later mentions to her sister that she didn't think she was deserving of love, but that doesn't ring true for me. There is no textual evidence that she has ever gone without love. Her parents seem fairly accessible, considering they live in a different country. She's just annoying and immature and I wanna smack her.

4. The break-up - This felt like such a plot-device to me. Everything is going along and she's totally obsessed and crazy-in-love and then she makes up some stupid thing to pick a fight about and breaks up with him...why? To create tension and drama? I'm still not sure, because literally two pages later she's admitting it was stupid. And it was. Very stupid. Like I said, it felt like a plot device that the author used for the sole purpose of keeping them apart instead of being organically woven into the story.

5. This is nitpicky, but the whole 'broken-door' thing was stupid. He wanted to make it possible for his gf to go in and out of his room so he kicked it until it wouldn't latch properly? And Kurt and Isla switched keys and sometimes got locked out of their own rooms? If you wanted to leave someone a way into your room, why wouldn't you just put a piece of tape over that part of the door? Like I said, just a little annoyance that didn't actually affect my enjoyment of the story.

So, like I said, I was all over the place on this one. There were definitely times I thought they were cute, and for the most part I enjoyed my time reading this book, which is why I bumped my rating up to 3 instead of down to 2.