Ten Reasons I Love Stephanie Perkins

Guys, at first it was really hard for me to come up with this Tuesday’s topic. I LOVE so many bookish  things. There were so many options. But Stephanie Perkins is on my mind because one of my best friends finally read the Anna/Lola/Isla books and I finished Summer Days and Summer Nights (which Perkins edited) recently. Also I have like a thousand, or at least a hundred, reasons I love her so coming up with the top ten isn’t that hard. Here we go!

1. So much romance! I loved Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door, and Isla and the Happily Ever After for so many reasons. But the biggest reason is that they are SO ROMANTIC. Serious swooning. I love how Perkins writes scenes where just sleeping together is more romantic than anything else that could happen … I also don’t mind the scene where more than just sleeping happens (winky face emoji).
2. Female characters with strong passions. Anna loves movies. Isla loves fashion and costumes. A lot of the Isla story is about her not knowing herself and not knowing what she wants to do, but she loves reading and comics and adventure stories.
3. Amazing settings. Paris. New York City. San Francisco. Barcelona. These novels take place in such magical cities and Perkins writes about them so perfectly!
4. I love all three books, but Isla and the Happily Ever After is my favorite. It came out my first week in New York. I read it three times lying on a mattress on the floor, trying not to freak out about the fact that I lived here and it was so so scary.
5. Even though Isla is my favorite book, Cricket Bell is my favorite boy in the series. He. Is. So. Dreamy. The rubber bands. The way is pants fit. Everything.
6. I’ve really loved the two YA short story compilations Stephanie Perkins has edited. My True Love Gave to Me and Summer Days and Summer Nights are full of romantic stories by some of my favorite YA authors. I highly recommend reading both of them.
7. She’s been very open about being a writer and having depression in blog posts here and here and here. I read all three posts during my time in Big Sur trying to decide if I wanted to “be a writer” and they were incredibly helpful to me as a writer and a human. So brave.
8. Her idea about creating love lists for story ideas is something I’ve used and relied on during revision. It’s some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received.
9. She also gave some great NaNoWriMo advice.
10. I met her the night I turned in my critical thesis first semester. I totally cried I was so excited to meet her. I’ve never reacted to any other author that way. And she was THE KINDEST, most gracious person about it. She gave me a hug. We took a picture. She asked me about my writing and chatted with me. I saw her at another event later in the week and she remembered me. Magic.

Thanks to The Broke and the Bookish for hosting this weekly book meme. Also, if you’ve read Stephanie Perkins I would love to know what your favorite book is. If you haven’t, do you have an author you feel this way about?