I read The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood years ago, and I was obsessed with it. So when I heard the movie was coming, I was really looking forward to watching it.
I have seen it now, and of course, there were differences, as usual with book adaptations.
But there was one scene I was actually looking forward to.
That scene where the seats are full and Adam has to carry Olive on his thigh.
And the funny thing is, I didn’t go looking for what was going to be in the movie and what wasn’t going to be in it. I wanted it to just unveil itself to me while I watched.
So I was watching, waiting…
And when I realised that scene wasn’t going to happen?
Heartbreaking.
Honestly, heartbreaking.
It’s funny how you can read a book years ago and still remember these little moments. Not necessarily the biggest scenes, but those little things that stuck with you.
I was minding my business on TikTok this evening when Apple TV+ decided to tell me Ryan Reynolds has a new movie coming out… This September. I already know I’ll most likely watch it when it becomes available in my area.
What surprised me wasn’t the trailer. It was the comment section of the post.
Oh my Goodness… The hate was loud. Really really loud. I found some commentors asking, “Wait… what happened?” “Why does everyone suddenly hate Ryan Reynolds?” “Do we not like Ryan Reynolds anymore?” I didn’t wonder along with them because I knew exactly why they were hating.
A lot of the backlash stems from the ongoing legal dispute involving Reynold’s wife, Blake Lively, and actor/director Justin Baldoni. Ryan stood by his wife publicly… as most husbands probably would. This made many people feel disappointed by the position he took. Whether you agree with him or not, opinions have become incredibly divided.
I won’t lie. For a brief moment, I felt caught in the middle too. I’ve always liked Ryan Reynolds. His sense of humor is effortless, his acting is brilliant, and he has this way of making almost every role enjoyable to watch. So, did the controversy make me pause? Yes it sure did. Did it make me hate him? No.
And that’s when another thought crossed my mind. Why do we find it so easy to hate people these days? Not disagree with them. Not question them. Not even criticize them. Just… hate them.
It reminded me of Colleen Hoover… And just to add, this whole Reynolds controversy stems from the period of the movie production of Hoovers It Ends with Us.
I’ve watched people tear Hoover apart online for years. The funny thing is, I’ve never even taken the time to investigate every reason behind the criticism. I simply know she’s become one of those people the internet has collectively decided to dislike.
Yet, somehow, millions of people have laughed, cried and healed through her books.
Then there’s Morgan Wallen. Recently, I found myself reading about some of his past controversies. There were arrests, poor decisions and headlines that weren’t exactly flattering. Did it change the fact that I love his music? No it didn’t. His songs still make me smile. They still tell stories that resonate with me.
So I made peace with something. I don’t have to approve of every decision an artist has ever made before I can appreciate what they create.
I can enjoy Morgan Wallen’s music without defending his mistakes.
I can admire Ryan Reynolds’ talent without pretending to know everything about his personal life.
I can appreciate Colleen Hoover’s creativity without making her my moral compass.
Maybe that’s where I’ve landed.
The internet doesn’t seem to leave much room for middle ground anymore. It’s almost as if we’re expected to pick a side immediately.
Love them. Cancel them. Support them. Boycott them. No middle ground.
But life has taught me that human beings are far more complicated than hashtags and comment sections.
People are flawed, they disappoint us, they grow, they make mistakes… Sometimes they apologize… Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes we choose to keep supporting their work and sometimes we don’t.
That’s a personal decision, and I respect it.
For me, though, I don’t want to join every online pile-on just because it’s trending.
I’d rather think, read, make my own conclusions and remember that someone can create something beautiful while still being an imperfect human being.
If we demanded perfection from every artist before enjoying their work, our playlists would become very quiet, our bookshelves much emptier, and our watchlists surprisingly very very short.
So yes… I’ll probably watch the Ryan Reynolds movie. I’ll still listen to Morgan Wallen. I’ll probably pick up another Colleen Hoover book if the story interests me.
I won’t do all that because I think any of them are perfect, I will do it because I’m learning to appreciate the art without expecting perfection from the artist. And honestly… I think there’s a little more peace in living that way… Peace for me.
That book stayed with me… Still on my mind. It won’t let me be.
While I was reading I couldn’t stop thinking about one moment, that small moment when Mr. Earnshaw brings Heathcliff home. Just like that. He didn’t even give an explanation. Just… “this child has no one, so now he’s mine.”
And look at what that one decision turned into.
It honestly messed with me a bit.
Usually, we like to believe that if you do something kind, it will lead to something good. Right?… Simple. Clean. You help someone, things get better. But that’s not what happens here at all. That one act of compassion ends up stirring jealousy, resentment, and eventually so much damage it spills into the next generation.
And it made me think about real life.
I’ve had moments where I meant well… really well, but things didn’t turn out the way I imagined. Sometimes people misunderstood me. Sometimes what I gave created expectations I didn’t even know I was setting. Sometimes it just… complicated things.
This doesn’t mean I was wrong to be kind… I think people are just not simple.
Everyone is carrying something. Pride, insecurity, pain, history. So when you step in with “good intentions,” you’re not stepping into an empty space, you’re stepping into all of that.
That’s what happened with Heathcliff. The kindness was real, but the environment wasn’t healthy… And that changed everything.
I don’t think the lesson is “don’t be kind.” That feels too harsh and even too defensive.
If anything, it’s this: good intentions are not enough on their own… …What happens after matters. How people receive what you give matters. The space you’re giving into matters…. And sometimes, even when you do everything from a good place, things can still go sideways.
It’s kind of uncomfortable to admit that, but it also feels honest.
So maybe I’m learning to hold my kindness with a bit more awareness… Not to stop giving, but to understand that it doesn’t give me control over the outcome… I guess that’s the hard part, isn’t it?
At the beginning of this year, sitting quietly on my TBR list, was The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros… And I was afraid of it. I was actually very afraid.
By the time I finally picked it up this past weekend, I had already spent months seeing reactions online. TikTok videos of people crying mid-review. Instagram captions, warning readers that the book would “destroy” them emotionally. Comments from people saying they had to pause while reading just to recover.
So I delayed it… And delayed it some more, until finally, this weekend, I summoned the courage to read it.
I finished it in two days.
And strangely enough, when I got to the end, my biggest feeling was not devastation.
It was perspective.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the book is emotional. There are losses that hurt. Endings that ache. Moments where life feels painfully unfair. It definitely did not tie everything up in a neat, perfect bow.
But maybe because I had spent so much time preparing for emotional destruction, I entered the story differently from many people who read it blindly. I wasn’t reading for shock anymore. I was reading carefully, almost cautiously, trying to understand what everyone else had experienced so intensely.
What I found wasn’t a book that ruined me. I found a book that quietly reminded me that life will always be both beautiful and painful at the same time.
There’s a line repeated in the book: “Take your happy.”
And somehow, that became the thing that stayed with me most… Not the tragedy. Not even the heartbreak.
That line… Take your happy.
Why?… Ljfe is unpredictable… Sometimes the future changes without permission… And waiting for a perfect life before allowing yourself to be happy is a dangerous thing.
I think that’s what the book really left with me. Not fear or emotional ruin… Just Acceptance… The understanding that life is not divided into clean categories of “good times” and “bad times.” Most of the time, they exist together. You can grieve and still laugh. You can carry fear and still love people deeply. You can know pain is possible and still choose happiness anyway.
And maybe that’s why the ending did not break me the way I expected it to.
I also realized something else while reading it…; social media sometimes shapes our emotional expectations before we even open a book.
People online prepared me for emotional devastation so thoroughly that I think I unconsciously built armor around myself before chapter one. I expected to be wrecked. I expected tears. I expected emotional collapse.
Instead, I found reflection.
And honestly, I think that is okay too. I told myself that the fact I don’t cry does not mean the story failed to touch me. Sometimes the stories that affect us most are the ones that settle quietly into our thoughts instead of exploding out of us emotionally.
I liked the book… In all the loss, pain and grief, it kept whispering something incredibly human: Take your happy while it’s here.
And maybe that is enough.
The next book I’m bracing myself for is A little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
I have been reading romance novels since I was a teenager…
I didn’t even know this was a thing.
Somewhere along the way, quietly and without any fanfare… the “why choose” trope found its way onto the shelves, built an audience, and settled into its own space in the world of romance… and I completely missed it.
From what I’ve now come to understand, the idea itself isn’t entirely new. Its roots stretch back into earlier romance (especially in fantasy and paranormal spaces) where a woman might be surrounded by multiple love interests, where each interest offers something different. But in those stories, there was almost always a final decision. A choice had to be made. One stayed, the others faded away. That was the rule…
Then something shifted. I have come to learn, that in the early to mid 2010s, particularly within indie publishing spaces, writers began to experiment. They questioned that rule. What if she didn’t have to choose? What if love didn’t need to be reduced to a single outcome? And just like that, without asking permission, the trope evolved.
My research tells me that by the late 2010s into the early 2020s, it had fully arrived. Not just as an idea, but as a recognized and named trope. Platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and Wattpad gave writers the freedom to explore it, and readers responded. Strongly.
Fans of this trope say there is something quietly relieving about it. No tension of “who will she pick.” No sense of loss when a favorite character is left behind. No pressure for one person to be everything. Just… an expansion of what love can look like.
And yet, here I am, only just discovering it.
But when I think about it, it makes sense why I didn’t.
This trope tends to live in genres I don’t naturally gravitate toward… fantasy romance, dark romance, paranormal worlds, academy settings (except the Love Hypothesis 😁)… spaces where imagination stretches wider and the rules of reality are more flexible. That’s where “why choose” feels most at home.
For me, I tend to sit more with quieter, grounded stories. The slow ones. The reflective ones. The ones that feel like sitting by a window in the evening with your thoughts. So yes, of course it slipped past me.
Still, I find something about it… interesting. It challenges something we have long accepted without questioning that love must be singular to be valid. That choosing one means losing others. That fullness only comes in one form. “What if it didn’t?” it seems to ask.
So, while I see why people would like the trope, I on the other hand, believe in choosing. I believe in the weight of it. In the clarity of it. I believe, even in the ache that sometimes comes with it.
I love the deep feeling that comes with “I choose You”… Not everyone. Not everything. Just… you. Even if it hurts. Even if it costs something. Even if it doesn’t come easy. That, to me, is where love sharpens into meaning.
So while the shelves may be expanding, and the stories evolving, I find myself still drawn to that singular thread… The courage and the consequence… of choosing one.
There’s something quietly beautiful about a thrift book. It’s not just the lower price or the softened pages, it’s the feeling that the story has been held before. Maybe someone paused where you will pause. Maybe they underlined a sentence that will mean something entirely different to you. There’s a quiet continuity in it.
I stumbled into the world of thrift books two years ago on Instagram. I had no idea it existed in my location. I gradually began adding to my little library.
Today I walked into one of the bookshops I used to buy books from and found out they had some affordable books… Apparently they are thrifting these days.
I bought True Believer by Nicholas Sparks. I opened it and found a hug inside.
It was a simple picture, two women, wrapped in each other in a quiet, unguarded moment. No names, no date, no explanation. Just warmth, captured and tucked between pages, as though someone once needed to keep that feeling close.
I paused longer than I expected to.
Who were they to each other? Friends, sisters, mother and daughter? Was it a reunion or a goodbye? There’s something about a hug that holds both joy and ache at the same time… and somehow, that feeling lingered even without the story.
The book was second-hand, but the moment inside it didn’t feel used or old. It felt alive.
I’m about to begin Wuthering Heights. I actually ventured into it weeks ago. Somewhere around chapter four, I realized I was reading it wrong.
It had been a very hectic period for me at work, plus the weather had been unbearable… Temperatures over 40° in the day, and just a little under that at night. So I went with In Her Own League and then mostly television at that time.
Now I am ready for Wuthering Heights.
Not just read it… but enter it.
I’ve heard enough and also tried before, so I know this isn’t the kind of story you rush through. It’s not a quick, feel-good romance you skim between moments… It asks for something slower. Something more present.
I’m learning to approach it differently.
Not with urgency… but with stillness.
Like sitting alone, in a corner, on a beautiful day. Maybe with some coffee, maybe just water. Not chasing the story…. but watching it unfold.
Watching people unravel…
There’s something almost comforting about that idea. To read not for speed, but for depth. I want to let the atmosphere settle in. I want to observe, rather than judge too quickly…
So this is me, at the threshold.
About to step into a world that doesn’t promise ease… but promises to be felt, really felt. And that’s why I will take my time… No rush.
I wonder what Gabe Kapler has to say about the recent explosion of his real videos and some AI generated ones too, all over tiktok.
Last June, I read all five of the Windy City Series by Liz Tomforde. It was the perfect balm for a numb month. The series is in Five parts. Each part (Book) focusing on one of the five couples in the series; Mile High, The Right Move, Caught Up, Play Along and Rewind It Back.
Shortly after I had finished reading them, I found out there was about to be a spin off, which was due early 2026. I waited patiently and the day finally came. The sixth book, titled ‘In Her Own League’.
I’m not one to rush a book, I usually take me time… I often pause deliberately just to savour and enjoy a book… And sometimes make notes too. So I wonder why I rushed this one in one day.
To be totally honest, I couldn’t just put the book down. It was what I expected and more. I think it just became my favourite of all in the series.
I bumped Caught up to second place and took In Her Own League straight to number one.
I read almost any genre of books, but Whenever I dive into romance, I have the specific tropes I prefer. Slow burn, enemies to lovers…with all the tension and banter, close proximity, second chance and the likes. Liz Tomforde just nailed almost all my preferences in this last one.
That’s where Gabe Kapler comes in. I believe the main male character in this final book was written with Kapler in mind. Every description just screams Gabe Kapler. So in the booktok world, the Character Emmet ‘Monty’ Montgomery is Gabe Kapler.
There must be thousands of videos of Kapler being used as Emmet. Makes me wonder, does he like it? Is he flattered about this? Is he upset about this? Has he read the book? I wish I knew.
The thing is, when we disappear into romance fiction, we imagine that character and leave him in our heads, but to have to not imagine, but to know that it’s him, that clean, rugged face, the beard (very intentional, very effective), the fitness… man looks like he lives in a gym, and that focused, slightly broody expression, and then that tattoo on the back of his hand… To know he actually exists…
…don’t do that again Liz Tomforde, I prefer them in my imagination.
When this year began, somewhere around the 5th of January, I got tired of waiting for People We Meet on Vacation and so I started watching The Diplomat… Just a little something to hold me till the 9th of January. I enjoyed The Diplomat so much that I decided to finish it up even when the long awaited movie dropped.
Today I finally saw the movie.
People We Meet on Vacation is an adaptation of Emily Henry’s novel with the same title.
I had jumped on the novel the moment I learned that the adaptation was in production. It was in fact my second Emily Henry read, just after Book Lovers. I always love to do that; read a book and then see what film makers will make of it.
What did I think of this one?
It was nicely done. I had been worried about how well they could fit the back and forth of ten years as written in the book. They managed just fine… Not leaving too much from the book out of the film.
It’s a story about two longtime friends who take yearly trips together, they slowly realize that the person who feels most like home may also be the one they’re afraid to choose.
I have left details of the story out so as not to create any spoilers for anyone.
I was 50 minutes into the 1949 adaptation of The Great Gatsby when I said a little prayer;
“O dear lord. Pardon my condescending heart… But I feel sorry for people who dont read.” Especially when I read a book, and then I see its film adaptation.
But then, I found myself defending myself…. oh, how human of me… right?
I told myself; It’s not condescension… it’s the ache of someone who knows what the full feast tastes like and then watches others settle for crumbs.
When you read a book, you carry the author’s voice, the nuance, the internal worlds, and the slow bloom of meaning. A film, no matter how brilliant, can only give a slice of that. So when I see an adaptation, I feel the gap. I see everything that was left behind… but I love films… so I keep doing this to myself… over and over again… how pathetic. I guess I am not pitying them as people… I think I am grieving what they are missing out on.
I have always wanted to read The Great Gatsby. Over the years, I found it was a common and popular material in western literature.
Two reasons why I have never read it is one, I never did literature in my secondary school days, and two, The Great Gatsby isn’t a popular selection in the curriculum here in Nigeria.
I finally read it yesterday. It was a lazy Sunday, and I chewed on it from morning, and by bedtime, I was done.
I was carried away by the beautiful way it was narrated and by the witty humor, so much that I didn’t even know when tragedy hit me. It was a complete shift. A full 360 degrees.
I loved what F. Scott Fitzgerald did to me.
Do I wish I read it sooner? No. I think I read at the right moment of my life.
It was worth every page.
I spent most of my night reading reviews and literary analysis on this book… that’s how much I loved it.
For anyone who has read it, care to share anything with me?
