OK. Christian Simamora is officially my favorite Indonesian romance author now. As soon as I knew the new novel is released, I raced to the bookstore to buy 1 copy. He’s back with his J-boyfriend series this time. (Preorder is one option but I like being in control of what I’m paying for more. You can always preorder here: http://twigora.com/.)
Isadora (Is), our main actress of the novel, was a buyer at a premium department store, Haute & Co. She was traumatized by her ex boyfriend, Al, with whom she just broke up 1 month ago and who couldn’t understand the meaning of ‘break up’. Al kept contacting her, saying that he missed her and that he wanted her back. What’s worse was the fact that Al was somehow related to Is’ sister’s soon-to-be husband (their wedding was 2 weeks away). She convinced him that she already had a new boyfriend but Al wouldn’t buy it, resulting in her having to take her ‘new boyfriend’ to her sister’s wedding.
Jordache (Jordi), definitely our J-boyfriend, happened to just moved in to Is’ next room in her lodge. A couple of meetings with Jordi popped an idea to Is’ head: to make him her fake boyfriend, to take to her sister’s wedding to make her ex boyfriend believe that she had a new boyfriend. Little did they know that after Jordi agreed to being Is’ fake boyfriend, they would be enjoying the pretending very much.
I enjoyed the novel very much that I finished reading in 2 days. Definitely couldn’t stop reading once I started. Another good job from Babang Christian Simamora. 😀
I happened to find this book in Big Bad Wolf 2018 (it is an annual book event, normally held for 10-12 days straight: https://www.bigbadwolfbooks.com/id/) and bought it because it was cheap, without thinking to finish reading it. My last time reading English novel(s) was a while ago, with the novel getting dusty on my bedside table and still marked at the last page I read.
Of course, I watched the movie “Me Before You”, which is the prequel of this novel, and I like the movie.
In ‘After You’, Louisa Clark (Lou) was going through a deep heartbreak after losing Will Traynor to a painful planned death. She’d traveled around Europe for 1 years, moved out of her parents’ house to stay in London, and worked a horrible job at an airport bar. She was too scared to sleep that most nights she would just smoke and drink until she dropped and fell asleep. One night when she was smoking at the balcony of her apartment, she fell down from the fifth floor and half paralyzed for a while. The first half of the novel is as gloomy as everyone can imagine.
After checking out of hospital, she went back to her parents’ house and was let go with 1 requirement: she must join ‘Moving On Circle,’ a support group in a church in London consisting of people who had lost their loved ones, gathering every Friday evening. In Moving On Circle, she met a lot of other people just like her, sharing stories and reminiscing memories of their lost loved ones. As a sugar on top, she also met Jake, a teenage boy whose mother died due to cancer and father irresponsibly bounced from a girl to another girl. He was picked up regularly by Sam, a paramedic who happened to be the one rescuing Lou after her accident in her apartment.
Lou’s life was changed the moment Lily Houghton-Miller showed up, bringing a shocking news that she was Will Traynor’s daughter. As much as Lou didn’t want to believe that Lily was Will’s daughter, by time she found that Lily got more like Will in many ways, from physical to mental traits. Lily was as unstable as a 16-year-old girl can be, and Lou felt responsible for Lily’s happiness, especially since she always felt that she was unwanted by her own mother (who got married to another guy and had 2 sons).
In the end, as every romance novel ends, everything went well for Lou, Sam, and Lily. They all got the life they wanted in the first place.
This novel is a good read, given that I finished reading in less than 2 months after flipping through the first page.
Yes, I didn’t preorder this one and I had to get in and out of bookstores for 3 consecutive days before I finally found one (and bought it without thinking).
This book is a “spin-off” of the previously released “Burn Baby Burn“, which you can read without reading the predecessor. In Burn Baby Burn, the main character loved listening to a band named “Expectation”, for their single “Tsundere”, to be exact. Here in Remuk Redam, the main character is the vocalist of Expectation, Lucas Wolff. He is best friends with his manager and another YouTube hit, Mahir Siregar.
There once was a young woman who owned a man clothing label called “Gentleman 1995”, which was on the edge of bankruptcy. This woman, Olivia, inspired by her gay best friend, Fendi‘s spontaneous words, came to an event to approach Mahir with an expectation that he will be attracted to her, be her boyfriend, and promote her label for free. The most effective way to boost up a company’s profit this day, really.
Never came to her mind that she will instead attract Luc – the short of Lucas, a typical rocker who once broke her heart: a playboy with a lot of tattoos on his skin. Regardless of how hard she tried, she always failed to reject Luc – this includes not putting her heart in a relationship, the one thing she’s always proud of. In the end, it was proved that Luc broke her heart, just as his image says. ‘It was never a good idea to be involved with a rocker,’ she thought as her world was falling around her.
All in all, I can say Bang Christian Simamora is back with his romance style that I always love. Good job on this one too, Bang! I only needed 3 days (after office!!) to finish the book. 🙂 You should get 1 for yourself too.
This is officially my 3rd time pre-ordering Christian Simamora’s novel – I didn’t look after the bonus, but the ability to receive the novel earlier than everyone else. If you’re interested in ordering too, you can follow the publisher’s social media accounts: Twitter or Instagram. This newest novel was released on 22 January 2018 and I finished reading it in 3 days. 😀 I can only give my salute to this guy for releasing a novel with different genre than he normally writes and he’s also out of his J-boyfriend series at the same time (he claims that the story was from the same universe, though).
Gia was an introvert translator/writer who enjoyed staying at home and being careless about how she looked. At the age of 35, she was still single and felt uncomfortable interacting with other human, especially her older sister, Cass. She felt that Cass meddled in her business way too much, complaining about her being single and forcing her to get out of her ‘nest’. Gia felt the opposite about her niece, though. Gadis, Cass’ daughter, got along very well with Gia. They hung out now and then, and their favorite restaurant was The Roux, a creole restaurant.
Kyrian LeRoux, or in short, Ky, was the handsome owner and chef of The Roux. Unquestionably, Gia felt for Ky. Encouraged by Gadis, Gia started her approach to Ky after he called her by name during one of her visit to The Roux. They believed that Ky also had feelings for Gia.
Cass kept warning Gia (and Gadis) that Ky had nothing special for Gia, and that Gia needed to be extra cautious being around him. Instead, both Gia and Gadis confronted Cass. It didn’t take a long time for Gia to be heartbroken: Ky had a girlfriend. The worst of it all was that only when Ky broke up did he find Gia again, confirming Cass’ claim that he only took Gia as a ‘spare tire’.
As always, Christian Simamora never upsets me. In this novel, he proves that he’s matured up his writing skills. I cannot wait to read his other new novels. Good job, Abang! 😀
*First of all, I need to say sorry for not being able to write a review about Christian Simamora’s previously released book. Here’s the review of his newest novel titled ‘What a Boss Wants’ which was released early August 2017.
Jiro Amadeus Vimana inherited Toybox, a local toy producer, from his father, Danno Vimana, who has recently become ill. Danno is a Vimana who doesn’t want to use his family’s name and wealth to start a business – instead, he started Toybox with his own blood and sweat. After 1 year of retreat around Asia, Jiro still could not fight the fear he’s had when dealing with the dictator Danno, who wouldn’t listen to whatever Jiro said.
Becoming a toy designer has always been Soleram Anand (Sol)’s dream ever since she was a child. Being a huge fan of Carousel Pony, she practically lived in a fairy tale she’s created for herself. Never had she imagined that she would be working with a very charming and handsome Jiro in Toybox, which honestly had attracted her since her first day of work. Jiro had always been, on the other hand, out of reach for Sol that she didn’t dare dreaming about him.
Shanghai Toy Expo had somehow brought the two people traveling together: the love-skeptical Jiro and the imaginative Sol. Spending one week away from home, the ice between Jiro and Sol melted away..
As expected, Christian Simamora has become more mature in his diction and story plot. The novel is very much enjoyable, making every reader want to keep flipping the pages on and on. Keep up the good work, Bang! 😀
It’s been more than 1 year since my last post of the first of Supernova series by Dee Lestari (you can read my post by clicking here); I’d spent 8 months to finish reading the other 4 books of the series and another several months finalizing this blog post *oops*. It’s quite a long time for me to read, but the case with this series is it was really hard to push myself to start reading the novels yet it was also really hard to stop reading them once I started. So, yeah, there’s that complexity there. *drama*
I read half of this novel back when I was in high school, after I finished reading the first Supernova novel, but didn’t finish it. Confession: I finished reading it after 3 months this time. Having read all published novels of the series, I can say that this one is the most boring one *sorry, Kak Dee!*, though essential.
PETIR (2004)
Talking about a Chinese Indonesian who is closely related to electric power and lives in Bandung is what enables me to relate closely to the novel.
PARTIKEL (2012)
After 8 years of waiting, Dee finally released her 4th novel of Supernova series, which IMHO contains too much drama. It digs deep of the main character, Zarah’s, life that it makes almost no difference than regular romance novel should there not be the ending where Elektra met Bodhi and recognized each other.
GELOMBANG (2014)
This is the best of Supernova series (for me, hehehe..).
Born and grown up in a small village in North Sumatra, Alfa had always cried and been cranky every time religion events took place that he was evacuated to his family’s house in the closest town. It was when he was 11 that he finally saw a huge black, winged, yellow-eyed creature in the corner of his house, beginning his nightmares that he didn’t dare to sleep anymore at night. Moving to Jakarta, a family friend took him to the USA when he was 17, making him an underaged illegal immigrant. With his brilliant mind, however, he successfully got into college and worked at Wall Street that not only he was able to pay off all of his debt, but he also could live a luxurious life.
Being all successful, he still felt that something in his life was missing – he tried a popular anonymous one night service offered by his best friend and met Ishtar, feeling that he had met her some time in the past. After a wonderful night, he fell asleep longer than he normally would, and ran to the hospital emergency straightaway. He met a young doctor who was also an insomniac like him, got help from a sleeping center, learned how to be conscious in his dreams, and finally found the answer he had been looking for in Yarlung Valley, Tibet. At the end of the novel, it was depicted that he met Kell on his way back to Indonesia to gather all people he needed to gather to create a complete circle.
After reading the next 5 novels of Supernova series (the last one, ‘Inteligensi Embun Pagi’, will be reviewed soon enough), I’m concluding that these novels will be enjoyable by people who are interested in the ‘beyond’ world, where special people would gather and run a mission to save the world, but not the superhero type of “saving the world” and it’s also not a sci-fi series. Each novel is linked to the other – some characters from 1 novel will appear on the other.
As I always do, I regularly visit a bookstore to check for new novels from my favorite authors, and Christian Simamora is one of them, with his J-boyfriend series. In May 2015, a new novel, inspired by Beauty and The Beast, came up and I finished reading it (as always) in 3 days. The new novel is titled “Marry Now, Sorry Later” by Twigora publishings.
Marry Now, Sorry Later by Christian Simamora (picture taken from kendengpanali.blogspot.com)
The story started with Jao Lee, our J-guy in this novel, going to Bali 6 months after his marriage to “check Shylock Indonesia representative office in Bali” and happen to pick his “beloved” wife, Reina, who ran away on the day of their marriage, right before the wedding reception. From Reina’s point of view, Jao is an evil who forced her into marriage and, once again, forced her to come with him to Jakarta and live a marriage life for the next 6 months, according to their agreement before the wedding.
Reina’s only hope to stay sane are her best friends, Sari and the flamboyant Char. Everyone has his own story, and so does our main characters here. Jao, despite his devilish character, knew that something was going on with him, being obsessed with Reina and so on. He cares so much about her while at the same time he realized he couldn’t show his true feelings for her because of his childhood drama when his parents were divorced that he lost his faith in love. Afterall, living together had driven Jao and Reina to events that led them to another feeling that they didn’t know would have existed.. Under this condition, will they still separate after 6 months? That’s for you to find out. 😉
Again, I’m giving 4.5 out of 5 stars for this novel. The story is so interesting that I couldn’t stop myself from turning the pages and the (pssst..) adultery parts were not so much in this one, making the heart throbbing feeling more real.
*I can’t believe I drafted this post 2 months ago and still haven’t finished it yet until today – sorry if I miss some details from the series*
(left-right) The cast of Choi In Ha, Choi Dal Po/Ki Ha Myung, Seo Bum Jo, and Yoon Yoo Rae (Picture taken from http://www.koreandrama.org)
The story started with a fireman chief promising his youngest son, Ki Ha Myung (Lee Jong Suk) that he will take his son to see the fireworks when a fire occurred and he left to the scene. Being a brave man that he was, he went inside the factory building when he knew that there were still 2 people inside. Little did he know that his action would leave his family in despair, especially when the next day people found that the whole firemen squad died inside and the chief’s body was nowhere to be found, making his family take all the blame for causing so many casualties. Ha Myung’s life came to its lowest point when his older brother, Ki Jae Myung fled from home and his mother committed suicide due to hopelessness – she couldn’t take all the blame, especially when reporters started to haunt their family.
Stranded on an island, Ha Myung was lucky that a good grandfather, Choi Gong Pil (Byun Hee Bong) found and, thinking that he was his long-lost son, Choi Dal Po, adapted him. At the same time, the grandfather’s younger son, Choi Dal Pyung was just divorced from his workaholic reporter wife, Song Cha Ok and took his daughter, Choi In Ha (Park Shin Hye), to the island. Pretending to have lost his memories, Ha Myung played a good role as Dal Po and instantly became friends with In Ha. As they grew older, Ha Myung’s feeling for In Ha changed – he fell in love with her, but was in denial because she is the daughter of the person he hated the most: Song Cha Ok the ambitious reporter who dragged his mother to suicide.
Obsessed to be a TV reporter like her mother, In Ha applied for a reporter position in YGN Station, together with Dal Po/Ha Myung who also applied there with a totally different motive: to beat the hated reporter with a reporter way. Unfortunately, due to her Pinocchio condition where she can’t lie without hiccuping, In Ha was rejected. Being a sly person Song Cha Ok is, she suggested MSC News Station, which rating was going down due to people being unfaithful in their news, to recruit In Ha and promote that she is a Pinocchio to public to boost up their rating. Together with Seo Bum Jo (Kim Young Kwang), In Ha became interns at MSC News, which means she was at the opposite side with Dal Po.
During his assignment to report on a mysterious murder case, Dal Po finally met with his long-lost brother, without Jae Myung knowing that it was his younger brother. The biggest dilemma he had to face was when he uncovered that the culprit was his own brother and he had to admit that to the public – which he did, to show Song Cha Ok how to be a good reporter. The story went on with some drama as in the love triangle between In Ha – Bum Jo – Dal Po, with the ambitions of Song Cha Ok, the freak-ness of Dal Po’s colleague at YGN Yoon Yoo Rae (Lee Yoo Bi) and some funny faces of the Cap of YGN, Hwang Gyo Dong (Lee Pil Mo). Of course, like other drama, this one ended happily.
All in all, quite a good one to watch if you have some spare time. I had trouble stopping myself from watching from episode to episode. LOL. I’m giving this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Last month my sister tagged me in a picture of the novel cover, knowing that I’m a fan of Christian Simamora’s J boyfriend series. I’ve been strolling down every bookstore I see ever since, trying to find the book and finally found it last week. Finished reading it in 4 shots – needed to stop myself from reading due to having to work the next day.
Unlike his other J boyfriend series novels, the cover of this novel is not a guy’s bare chest with six-pack abs. It’s still in line with the theme, though, showing a guy’s body with cropped head. This time the guy’s wearing a tux. 🙂
Javier Bungsu Vimana (Javi) has been best friends with Kendra Rey ever since they were kids. Javi is a player specialized in one night stands with pretty girls he meets through dating apps. Being a Vimana (a wealthy clan in this series), he owns (only) a small Russian-themed cafe in a mall, Tolstoy, with Kendra as the operational manager. Just as the saying: “men and women can’t be just friends“, Kendra has had a crush on Javi for a long time, of course without Javi knowing. One weekend, to celebrate her best friend’s engagement, Kendra and Javi had a sleepover at Laura‘s villa in Puncak. Laura’s fiance, Mario, asked Javi during their ‘truth or dare’ game if he would have sex with Kendra. In an instant Javi answered no, because Kendra is undesirable – and this answer broke Kendra’s heart.
Things changed between them – the heartbroken Kendra avoided Javi with all she could and changed her looks before she finally recovered. In an event sponsored by Shylock community in Bandung, Kendra met Orion Sentosa, another rich guy of the story who fell in love with her and finally caught her attention. Long story short, they started dating and this fact finally opened Javi’s mind that he’s jealous of Ken dating another man…
my (and apparently someone else’s) favorite quote from the book
You should read the rest of the story yourself – that’s why I’m not continuing my story. In his thirteenth novel, Christian Simamora is getting more mature in his writing, making it even harder (than ever) for me to stop flipping from page to page. The story is typical problem everyone meets when being best friends with a member of opposite sex: you might silently have a crush on your best friend while at the same time you’re not comfortable with the thought of approaching him/her because you don’t want to lose him/her as a best friend, but with additional seasoning of drama which will drag you to some emotional states throughout the story.
Overall, I’m giving 4 out of 5 stars for this book. Good job, Christian Simamora. Waiting for your 14th, 15th, …th novels! 😀
*I scored “Lurah Jboyfriendseries” in the last page’s quiz – I’m a terrible name-recaller – I’d even forgotten the characters’ names of the book I read last month.
I read the novel for the first time back in 2002 during my first year of high school (the book was launched in 2001). I remember liking the novel but had a hard time reading it because of the incomprehensible concept of the story. Long story short, they made a movie out of this novel and by chance I won free tickets, so it’s so me to buy the novel to read it once more before watching the movie.
It was told that a couple of 10 years, Reuben and Dimas, thought of creating something different, and they came up with the idea of writing a novel. Reuben the genius, combined with Dimas the romantic, wrote together a novel inspired by a rare sad ending fairy tale about a knight, a princess, and a shooting star (ksatria, putri dan bintang jatuh).
The knight is someone who fell in love so deep with the pretty princess that he took the only chance the shooting star gave him to take him to the princess’s place beyond the sky. When they arrived, the shooting star was also charmed by the princess that in a moment he left the knight alone in the dark and came to the princess himself.
In parallel universe, there was a young executive, Ferre (the knight), who fell in love with a magazine reporter he met by chance, Rana (the princess). Rana was married to Arwin, so it makes things complicated for the two people deeply in love. Then there came Supernova, the Cyber Avatar of the story, who gave people advices, including our Ferre and Rana. After struggling with things, Rana finally decided to come back to her husband, leaving Ferre deeply heartbroken that he didn’t leave his house for 3 full days, making his across the street neighbor, Diva (the shooting star), worried. Diva was a dangerously pretty and smart, independent woman who is not willing to work in any institution – she made her money by giving people ‘services’ and only the services they are paying for. Diva helped Ferre a lot in transforming to be a real knight, and after she’s done, she left.
Overall, I’m giving 4 out of 5 stars for this novel. Even after reading it for the second time, I’m still amazed by how Dee is telling the story. It’s mysterious in a way and genius in other, giving us a different perspective on how to see the world. It’s hard not to flip to the next page as you finish reading one.
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BABYRABZ 