Baiklah, ini kali pertamanya aku mencoba menulis review dalam bahasa Indonesia. Buku yang terakhir kubaca adalah Slammed yang ditulis oleh Collen Hoover. Ini adalah buku kedua dari Colleen yang sudah kubaca dan seperti sebelumnya Colleen benar-benar membuatku terkesan. Secara singkat buku ini menceritakan bagaimana Layken –tokoh utama dalam buku ini yang baru saja pindah ke Ypsilianti, Michigan setelah kematian ayahnya– menghadapi kenyataan bahwa ia mencintai tetangganya, Will Cooper yang ternyata merupakan guru bahasa Inggrisnya. Selain itu Layken juga harus dapat menerima jika ibunya menderita kanker yang umurnya tinggal sebentar. Aku tidak tahu sihir apa yang dimiliki Colleen sehingga dapat menulis kata-kata yang dapat membuatku selalu penasaran sehingga sulit bagiku untuk berhenti membaca buku ini.
Meskipun pada awal buku terasa cukup membosankan bagaimana dalam waktu 3 hari Layken dapat langsung menyukai Will dan bla bla bla. Dan hal yang mengagetkan ketika Lake mengira ibunya memiliki kekasih baru yang disembunyikannya tapi nyatanya bukan kekasih yang disembunyikan ibunya tapi penyakit kanker paru-paru lah yang menggerogotinya.
Dalam buku ini juga terdapat karakter aneh sekaligus yang paling kusukai, yaitu Eddie. Jika kau mengira Eddie adalah laki-laki, well kau salah besar. Eddie merupakan perempuan, sahabat baru Lake yang sifatnya cukup aneh, di awal cerita kita bisa melihat bagaimana tanpa permintaan Lake Eddie menuliskan nomor telepon penting ke jadwalnya dan meminta jam istirahatnya diganti agar mereka memiliki jam istirahat yang sama, what a weird girl, rite? Selain itu masa lalu mengenai perjalanannya sebagai anak adopsi dari berbagai keluarga juga merupakan hal yang aneh tapi sekaligus bagus.
Selain itu aku suka puisi-puisi yang ditulis oleh Colleen, dan yang paling jelas kusukai adalah ketika Lake dan Will saling berbalas puisi dalam acara Slammed. *shaking my head* Damn! those words are deep and I’m crying when I read those words. Berikut adalah puisi Schooled yang dibacakan oleh Lake
I got schooled this year.
By everyone.
By my little brother…
by The Avett Brothers…
by my mother, my best friend, my teacher, my father,
and
by
a
boy.
a boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with…
I got so schooled this year.
By a nine-year-old.
He taught me that it’s okay to live life
a little backwards.
And how to laugh
At what you would think
is un-laughable.
I got schooled this year
By a Band!
They taught me how to find that feeling of feeling again.
They taught me how to decide what to be
And go be it.
I got schooled this year.
By a cancer patient.
She taught me so much. She’s still teaching me so much.
She taught me to question.
To never regret.
She taught me to push my boundaries,
Because that’s what they’re there for.
She told me to find a balance between head and heart
And then
she taught me how…
I got schooled this year
By a Foster Kid
She taught me to respect the hand that I was dealt.
And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand.
She taught me that family
Doesn’t have to be blood.
Sometimes your family
are your friends.
I got schooled this year
By my teacher
He taught me
That the points are not the point,
The point is poetry…
I got schooled this year
By my father.
He taught me that hero’s aren’t always invincible
And that the magic
is within me..
I got schooled this year
by
a
Boy.
a boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.
And he taught me the most important thing of all…
To put the emphasis
On life.
Dan ini adalah puisi balasan dari Will untuk Lake
I met a girl in a U-Haul.
A beautiful girl
And I fell for her.
I fell hard.
Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way.
Life definitely got in my way.
It got all up in my damn way,
Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden 2×4’s nailed together and attached to a fifteen inch concrete wall behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame that no matter how hard I shoved against it-
It
wouldn’t
budge.
Sometimes life doesn’t budge.
It just gets all up in your damn way.
It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wishes, my wants, my needs.
It blocked out that beautiful girl
That I fell so hard for.
Life tries to tell you what’s best for you
What should be most important to you
What should come in first
Or second
Or third.
I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized, stacked in chronological order, everything in its perfect space, its perfect place.
I thought that’s what life wanted me to do.
This is what life needed for me to do.
Right?
Keep it all in sequence?
Sometimes, life gets in your way.
It gets all up in your damn way.
But it doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along.
Life wants you to fight it.
Learn how to make it your own.
It wants you to grab an axe and hack through the wood.
It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through the concrete.
It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it.
Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together,
stir it up,
blend it.
Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your little brother should be the only thing that comes first.
Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your career and your education should be the only thing that comes in second.
And life definitely doesn’t want me
To just let it tell me
that the girl I met,
The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girl
That I fell so hard for
Should only come in third.
Life knows
Life is trying to tell me
That the girl I love,
The girl I fell
So hard for?
There’s room for her in first.
I’m putting her first.