#The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[perfectquote]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[perfectfeelings]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[thoughtkick]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[surqrised]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[afrognamedfizzarolli]

You can never visit the same place twice.

Each time, it's a different story.

By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

-Maureen Johnson (The Last Little Blue Envelope)

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 The Last Love Song Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite love song?❓ 🦇 After graduating, Mia Peters is given a letter from her late mother, country music star Tori Rose — the woman who left the small town of Sunset Cove to pursue her dream. That first letter sends her on a scavenger hunt across town to find more, each one like a puzzle piece, adding to the hazy image Mia has of the woman behind hit albums and fame. Each letter brings Mia closer to her mother, but further away from her best friend and sort-of-girlfriend Britt, who is leaving in a few days to pursue the same dream. Can Mia unravel her mother's past, face her present, and decide on a future outside of Sunset Cove? Or will the truth leave her disappointed and trapped in the small town her mother left behind?

💜 Kalie Holford does a stunning job at sparking vivacious life into Tori Rose through letters and journal entries. You experience the magnetism everyone in Sunset Cove once did, and understand why the entire town reveres her. Readers are bound to connect and empathize with both Tori and her daughter Mia in this dual POV/dual timeline story. Reading it, I was instantly tugged back to 2005, at the memory of reading Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes. There's such exquisite balance between the past and present in this story, Tori's puzzle-pieced past simultaneously soothing Mia's concerns about leaving Sunset Cove while adding to them — a reminder that your choices and mistakes MUST be your own.

💜 That beautiful balance creates parallels between Mia's story and her mother's. We even see parallels between Mia and her unknown father. Both run away, fear being brave or taking a risk, and it holds them back from their true potential. Mia is so eager NOT to repeat her mother's history that she second-guesses herself constantly, afraid to make her own mistakes. Mia not only learns from her mother's journal entries, but also the lives she touched — proving the domino effect we can have on another person's lives. At the end, though...it's also a story about regret. We aren't our mistakes, but what we learn from them. It's a story about growth after the fact.

💜 "I will never regret chasing my dream. I regret the people I hurt. I regret the bridges I burned. I regret losing who I was in an attempt to find someone else in everyone else and within me."

💜 The lyrics from Mia's music AND her mothers add an extra layer to this story. For the record, I did cry (reading the story's literal Last Long Song), so if you're sappy like me, have tissues at the ready.

💙 Holford beautifully encapsulates that pivitol "coming-of-age" moment that empowers any YA story. The best friends to lovers aspect is messy, realistic, and pure; a series of stolen, secret kisses, failed relationships with others in between, the fear of either ruining or losing an unspoken love story. You'll root for Mia and Britt, cry at Mia's side, and feel full of hope by the end of it all. Also, Mia's grandmothers? They are everything.

🦇 This is a powerful, atmospheric debut that's bursting with heart and soul. Recommended for fans of Sadie, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and Mama Mia. And, beyond a doubt, all you Swifties.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🎵 Bisexual FMC 🎶 Sapphic Romance / Best Friends to Lovers 🎵 Lyrics 🎶 Mother/Daughter 🎵 Dual POV 🎶 Dual Timeline 🎵 Grief & Self-Discovery 🎶 Contemporary YA 🎵 Debut

🦇 Major thanks to the author @kalieholford and publisher @blackstonepublishing for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

💬 Quotes ❝ All my life I’ve collected pieces of Tori Rose like breadcrumbs, lyrics like talismans, stories like safety nets. ❞ ❝ "Really think about it without the fear and the lies and the telling yourself you can’t have it.” ❞ ❝ “You’re going to be a star, you know that, right?” She shakes her head. “Stars burn out. I want to be my own goddamn galaxy.” ❞ ❝ She’s the personification of a love song, and I can’t get her out of my head. ❞ ❝ The world raises girls to be competitors not constellations. ❞ ❝ We burst and we break. We are dichotomies and paradoxes and lies and happily never afters. We are an ending that wants to be a beginning and a beginning that never got to start quite right. We are everything and she is everything and only I know that I truly wish I could go with her. ❞

[merthurians-prat-and-idiot]

17, 19, 20?

Thank you for asking! 💙💫

17. A book you’re currently reading

Ah, I've not read a book for far too long! I love books but I've not been up for starting a new one for a while. Last one I read was probably 13 little blue envelopes by Maureen Johnson. I've re-read it loads, v much recommend!

19. The last thing that made you laugh out loud

A fic I was reading! (I've not been reading books but I have been reading a lot of fanfic!)

It was a buddie fic called Champagne Coast by music4girls & Eddie was being v dumb & in love

20. A skill you’d like to learn

Oooh, I watched some craft videos recently & someone made the most adorable mouse knight by felting, so I'd like to learn that!

The video if anyone's interested-

(I realise this turned into me recommending things but they're all great so ☺)

[resqectable]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[nightlyquotes]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[stay-close]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[perfeqt]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[perfectquote]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[nikov]

THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

it's not summer without you, jenny han / kingdom without borders, miriam adeney / the catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger / before i fall, lauren oliver / the last little blue envelope, maureen johnson / night train to lisbon, pascal mercier / my tears ricochet, taylor swift / flipped, wendelin van draanen / lewis carroll / men without women, haruki murakami

[thoughtkick]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[surqrised]

You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

[womanoncesaid]

People always say they can’t do things, that they’re impossible. They just haven’t been creative enough.

Maureen Johnson, The Last Little Blue Envelope