Mouth to Mouth by Christian Simamora

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. 😀

As Seen On TV (ASOT) by Christian Simamora

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.

Come On Over (CO2) by Christian Simamora

OK I know I posted way too much of Christian Simamora lately (again, to promote my own blog, I’m linking this post with my previous posts: numero uno and dos), but once I started I just can’t stop myself. Talking about self control.. *rolling eyeballs*

To start, I was a bit shocked when I found this novel in a bookstore rack – it has the same style of cover (juicy abs with huge “CHRISTIAN SIMAMORA” on top), only different logo. Apparently, he mentioned in the prologue that this is his first novel after joining a new publisher. Still, he didn’t forget about the J-boyfriend series where characters from previous novels appear here and there as cameos.

Come on Over by Christian Simamora

The main character of this novel is Tata, an orphan tomboy living with her one and only older sister, Ada. Six months after resigning from her job as a designer, she met Jermaine (yes, another J) when doing her duty as a storekeeper in Ada’s Crystal Clear, which, as you can guess from the name, is a crystal store. Jermaine came to buy his girlfriend Liz a music box which he then used to propose her. Unfortunately, Liz rejected his proposal, leaving him heartbroken and leading him back to Crystal Clear in order to get his money back. This second meeting somehow led Tata and Jermaine closer to each other. The bro-friendship started with each of them convincing themselves that a guy and a woman can be just friends without any love intention.

Yes, you’re guessing correctly, no naivity is allowed in any kind of novel – Jermaine and Tata fell for each other after one incident that led to another, only proving that the conviction is not strong enough. At the same time, Liz came back to Jermaine, telling him everything she was feeling, getting him into a dilemma. Being the bigger one, Tata kept her distance from Jermaine, regardless how she felt (clue: badly torn). Typically, they ended up together. *spoiler*

Overall, I’m giving 2 out of 5 stars for this novel. Unlike his other novels, I didn’t really enjoy reading this one. With Christian Simamora, normally I would not be able to stop myself from flipping to the next page. This novel, however, does not have the same effect. It’s a bit boring, even though I like Tata’s character so much. The plus point of this author is that he’s good at describing and personalizing his characters – every name has own character that would be easy to remember.

Good job and wish you the best of luck with the new publisher, Chris! *SKSD*

Guilty Pleasure by Christian Simamora

After a train of Korean and Japanese dorama (and the fact that my internet connection sucks that I couldn’t download any more dorama), I decided to continue with reading. The first novel I read was “Guilty Pleasure” by Christian Simamora. As I mentioned in my previous post about his other book (click here to view post), I like the way he writes, and in this novel, he proves that he’s getting better at it.

Guilty Pleasure by Christian Simamora

The novel is about accidental love. Other than it started with a car crash between Devika, a rising antagonist actress and Julien Ang, a wealthy 40-year-old entrepreneur. It was never mentioned how old Devika was, but she always thought of Julien as an “om-om” (uncle), so I assume she’s at the age of 25 or around that number. The accident somehow brought them closer as when they started to get to know each other, they found an inevitable attraction. After their second meeting at Julien’s cousin’s fashion line launching, where Dev unknowingly met her ex-boyfriend of 5 years, Hezekiel, they practically started dating. She still didn’t have the answer of why someone like Julien (he was so handsome, good looking, had best body, and of course, wealthy) was still single, though.

When Devika finally went head over heels for Julien, she’d found out that Julien still didn’t over his deceased first love-slash-best friend, Miranda. He mentioned Miranda a lot, compared Devika to her, and even kept everything about Miranda in his house that he never let Devika come to his house. When Dev found out about this, she went totally heartbroken and decided to leave Julien. Not to mention her manager-slash-best-friend, Renhard and her other best gay friends, this novel is braver in opening up Jakarta’s free life of the youngs, in a smooth way. As other romance novel, one incident leads to another, and in the end Devika lived happily ever after with Julien, despite their age gap.

Overall, I give 3.5 out of 5 stars for this novel. (I like the “All You Can Eat” better.) A good read if you’re looking for something that you will find it hard to stop opening up the next page and keep reading. 🙂 Yes, it’s that addictive, Christian Simamora’s novel is..

All You Can Eat by Christian Simamora

I’d practically spent my last 3 nights reading this novel in my room (only to get 3 sleepy mornings after, but it’s all worth it). I always like this author since he uses appropriate amount of slang words together with a nice mix of simple English and bahasa Indonesia (unlike those new authors using too much English when the novels are supposed to be in bahasa Indonesia). In addition to that, he seems to have always planned the plot before started writing; it makes his novels consistently interesting from the start till the end, really.

The tagline of the novel’s cover was “Terkadang, yang tak bisa kamu lupakan adalah seseorang yang tak pernah bisa kamu miliki” (translates to: “Sometimes, the one you cannot forget is the one you can never have”), making people curious about what’s inside the novel (well, at least I was).

The story is about a woman in her early 30, who works as a quite successful scriptwriter in Indonesia, Sarah. The first part of the novel was about her breaking up with her 2-year boyfriend (who’d been living with her, in HER apartment, without paying anything). With the help from her best friend, Anye, she went to Bali to better heal her broken heart and to finish writing her newest script. Unexpectedly, Anye’s little brother, Jandro, was already there by the time Sarah arrived. He was there to also try healing his broken heart after breaking up with his girlfriend. With Jandro being her best friend’s brother, not to mention much younger than she was, Sarah had to make her boundaries; she cannot fall in love with him…

As any other romance novel, this one has a happy ending – the author himself had even written that fact on the back cover. The conflicts are the most interesting to follow as you flip from page to page. 🙂

The downside is, this novel is in bahasa Indonesia and I’m not sure if it’s going to be translated to English. If you read bahasa Indonesia, I highly recommend this novel to you. The conflict about not dating a younger guy can relate more to Indonesian too anyway. 😉

about writing (part x of x)

Some of my close friends might have known that my hidden obsession is…. writing. Yes, and that’s why I created a blog in the first place (humm.. blogs, if you count my first naive blogspot blog too :P). As an introvert, I express myself better through writing. However, I’m always too ashamed of letting anyone read any of my writings.

Back in high school, I wrote some short stories about (puppy) love. As I grew older, the creativity just stuck and I tend to write about my opinion more. The inspiration can come from anywhere; I’ve written something about my dreams and simply what I see on my way to work. Still, I don’t have enough courage to show anyone my writings. Maybe later in life, or maybe never. One thing for sure, I’m not gonna live out of my writings/books/publications. Let it still be my hobby. 🙂

me, writing 😛

*Cheer up for Monday morning! 😀