Waiting on Wednesday!!

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spines\

This is my first Waiting on Wednesday and I clearly went for the obvious choice. City of Heavenly Fire is without a doubt the most talked about YA release of 2014. The hype on this fantasy series has been unreal the past few months. It's a fun fandom and I like being a part of all their craziness when I can. There are plenty of new releases this year, but darn it I'm excited most about this one! Plus with this beautiful cover just being released yesterday I couldn't resist talking about it. My anticipation for this release is surprisingly genuine. This series as a whole has been a mix of ups and downs for me. At least one of the books I hated, but others kept me up all night. The fantasy elements and Magnus Bane always keep me running back for more.I am so ready to marathon the last two books of this series and finally know all of the things.Hope your excited for this one too! Let me know :) 

Release Date: May 27, 4014

Review Time!! Messenger by Lois Lowry

For the past six years, Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man, known for his special sight. Village was a place that welcomed newcomers, but something sinister has seeped into Village and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. Matty has been invaluable as a messenger. Now he must make one last journey through the treacherous forest with his only weapon, a power he unexpectedly discovers within himself.


                                   Rating: 5 Stars 

Oh goodness...prepare for the gushing! Warning there is no way to make this without Giver or Gathering Blue spoilers so don't read this is if you haven't read those. 

Right off the bat, this is a really fun book for fans of this series. This one is told through the eyes of Matty. Matty has really changed since his days in the Fen (rough neighborhood from Gathering Blue). He now lives with Seer (Kira's father) and is a messenger for the community. One of the few people who can travel into Forest, Matty is still pretty fierce.

I LOVED getting to see Matty's growth in this novel. I enjoyed reading about his experience becoming apart of this community. Another character I enjoyed getting to know better is Seer. We get so little of him in Gathering Blue and I was so happy to learn more. Possibly the most exciting thing about this book is Jonas. It's hard to describe how happy I was to learn about his important role in this community and how he has learned and grown. 

Compared to Gathering Blue I felt like the pacing of this book was fast. The plot was organized in a way that always kept me guessing and waiting for more! This was a re read for me, but I seemed to have remembered very little. Very often I caught myself gasping or crying. 

I won't spoil the ending for you, but OMG OMG OMG. That's all I'll say...

Highly recommend this one for readers of The Giver and Gathering Blue. It was amazing, 5 stars, so amazing!

Top Ten Tuesday! Words or Topics that Make Me Pick Up a Book!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by TheBrokeandBookish so go there to see more post on this weeks topic! 

Must Buys/Reads! 

1. Peter Pan- The Child Thief by Brom is an amazingly illustrated retelling of Peter Pan. I've also heard good things about Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson.

2. Dragons- The Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini was my Harry Potter guys so they have a soft spot in my heart. Anything involving dragons...yup it's on my TBR.

3. Strong Female protagonist! - I would suggest the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson if your looking for a kick-ass female character. 

4. John Green- let's all be honest here...

5. Greek Mythology- Percy Jackson will you marry me? 

6. Fairy tale retelling- Why have I not read Cinder yet? Ugh so many books..

7. Girl overcoming tragedy-  Sometimes it's nice to read about another person going through a tough time to make you appreciate the good things in life. Some of my favorites include Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson , Willow by Julia Hoban, Identical and Burned both by Ellen Hopkins

8. Stand Alone Novel- It's no secret that the Young Adult section of books stores is almost entirely series and trilogies. I love reading a good series or trilogy but sometimes busting out $20-30 for each book can get pricey. The most recent YA stand alone I picked up is Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz. It was amazing!

A Few Things that Stop me from Reading/Buying a Book

1. All male characters- It took me a long time to realize that the reason I hated books like Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. 

2. Scary- I'm just such a baby for scary movies and like most people I imagine things so much more vividly when I read. Scary = Turtle repellent 


Let me know what your Top Ten Words/ Topics are! Even some you hate would be fun :) 

Review Time!!! The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. 

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. 

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Going into it I knew that this book would make me cry. In fact I expected it. I was waiting for it. What I didn't realize, was how much this book would make me laugh.

I knew that this was a book was going to be a lot about death. I did not expect that it would show me so much about what it means to live.

The Fault in Our Stars tells the story of Hazel and Augustus, two teenagers with completely different kinds of cancer. Hazel walks around with an oxygen tank because her lungs are stupid. She is dying from her extremely rare form of cancer. Augustus is in remission from a highly curable form of cancer. (Curable, as in they cut off such and such limb in order to save you). They meet in a support group for cancer kids and that is where this story truly begins.

Even through some of the worst and most heart wrenching tears, this book made me smile so much. I loved it. I loved it. I FREAKING LOVED IT.  No other book in the Young Adult reading world is more hyped, but even with all of the incredibly high expectations I had before starting this book it still could not compare. I was, and am still so stunned by how amazing this book was. I did not disappoint me in any way. This book is even better than all the hype it gets online.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this book is how much a story about two dying teenagers could celebrate life, and love. It would have been so easy to simply captivate me with the story of two very lovely people falling in love, but it was so much more than that. Hazel and Augustus felt so real to me. John Green’s phenomenal writing made me feel such an unwavering connection to these two. It was amazing to see just how much he understood about people’s need to have closure and meaning in their lives.

This book broke my heart in more ways than I could possibly imagine, but we often forgive the things we love when they hurt us. Sometimes the pain is important in ways we cannot understand. Even when I would stop and sleep, I would dream of this book and it would break my heart all over again. That’s how I know that this is a book I will be reading again and again for years to come.

This is one of my favorite quotes from the novel. 

I know John says on his website that he spent about a decade writing this book, and once it was over he was so glad to be rid of it. Well, I would like to say thank you John. Thank-you for creating this story, these amazing characters for us to enjoy, for breaking my heart, making me laugh, for writing perhaps the saddest story I have ever read, and finally, thank-you for the Venn-diagrams.

If you haven’t read this book then just start it. Trust me you will not regret it. 

Comment below and let me know what you think of this novel! :)

Roadblocks #2 - On Procrastination and Excuse making

As you have probably noticed this blog has been quite for awhile.

My reasons you ask? Honestly...

I HAVE NONE.

This is going to be me standing up to my lazy, excuse making, procrastinating a**. So as much as I would like to tell you how incredibly busy I have been lately, and all the tragic events that have kept me from writing a blog post I won't. I refuse! 

The truth is that over the past few weeks I have been accepting crap like this from myself:

 "Oh, I'm too busy!"   

"I'll have more energy tomorrow"

"I should eat first"

"It's already really dark outside....maybe another time.."

The real reason I haven't been blogging is because I am a master procrastinator and excuse maker. No matter how busy my life has been these past few weeks no different from how busy it has always been, and will always be.

I won't pretend that my accepting my flaws makes them go away, but it does help. Now, no more BS guys. I'm making time, because I want to do this and I shouldn't let anything stop me.

This is what I always have as my computer background.  Sometimes all I need is a harsh reminder  about what how my priorities reflect my values.

That's the real question I had to sit down and ask myself. How important is this to me? I guess, that will be determined by my post, or lack of post, over the next few weeks. I'd like to believe that this is important to me. It sure does feel like it.

Until next time guys! Hopefully, next time isn't Roadblocks #3.

YouTube will be deleted!!

It's about 2:30am and I casually decide to open up YouTube, a normal teenage act. I notice the upper left hand corner has a trophy on it saying that YouTube has a message for me. I get just a tad bit excited.. 

                Omg, YouTube is telling me something...

So I click it, and proceed to watch this video.

WHAT?! NO!!!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! I HAVEN'T CAUGHT UP WITH ALL THE VLOGBROTHERS VIDEOS YET!! MY VIDEOS! I'M JUST STARTING! *nearly faints and runs to Google*

Now, in my complete desperation I ask Google if this could possibly be true. Google, of course, leads me to this kind soul who promptly reminds me what a complete idiot I am...

Happy April Fools Day Guys...

In other news, did you hear about Google Nose? 

Review Time: Matched by Ally Condie

From Goodreads:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

I should start by saying that I had to cut half of this review because it was far too long and ranting...

Oh this book...just looking at it brings up my frustrations again. I promised to write this review over a month ago and the main reason that it did not happen is because I was just so upset. Since it was the first book I read in 2013 (regrets...oh the regret) it's safe to say that I had high expectations.I was just completely expecting more from the plot and the characters especially. Everything about Matched seemed so up my alley and perfect that I thought this is the type of story line where you just can't go wrong. Well, it turns out yes, yes you can go wrong with this story line. In fact, you can go so wrong that a person can turn the last page, put this junk down, and then refuse to look at it for over a month even though they promised the internet they would write about it. Now, I am working through my frustrations and disappointments to try and explain to you guys why I just did not like this book.

Every single character in this book just fell flat for me. Cassia, the protagonist, was unbelievably frustrating in every way that a character can be. I found her to be stupid, self centered, flat, and overall annoying. Maybe it was the fact that the whole story was told in the point of view of a character that drove me up the wall insane that really ruined the book for me. I have no idea. I just know that by the time I reached the midway point in this book I was dying to be out of this girls ridiculous sense of reasoning.

One of the main reasons I picked this book up in the first place is because its world and matching ceremony reminded me so much of The Giver by Lois Lowry and I thought that was awesome. The Giver is one of my all-time favorite books so if something sounds like it might be like that then I'm totally reading it. Unfortunately  Condie never told me enough about her dystopian society for me to by into it. That element is taken from  The world had the potential to be interesting but the book doesn't give enough detail about its inner workings to really get into it. Again, maybe having the whole story told through Cassia's self centered eyes is what ruined the book for me because she is always too busy thinking about her stupid love triangle to tell me about the world around her. It was a big frustration with this whole book. It felt like there was so much truly interesting stuff going on in the society, its government, and the war but all the dang book ended up being about was Cassia choosing between Xander and Ky. Why in the grand scheme of this society did I only get to hear about this so predictable romance? I can't even wrap my head around that. It was almost as if the author had two separate stories in her head and instead of writing two different books we got this little monster. Perhaps if the book was told through the point of view of Cassia's father than things could have been more interesting.

I'm going to do my best to not put any spoilers in this but basically one second your in the world and characters I described above and them BAM!. Suddenly everyone has real thoughts and Cassia is supposedly not as irritatingly stupid as before. I can see where this was coming from in the books umm plot (if your willing to call it that) but the build-up to this point was just not there. 

I ended up giving this book 3.5 stars on Goodreads.  Who knows, maybe I'm just being harder on this book because it was my first book of the year but my rating stands solid. At the moment I really don't think I will read the second book anytime soon because I have no wish to revisit these feelings but I'm really never good for my word. Lastly, I would just like to mention that although I clearly did not like this book it does not mean that you couldn't love it. Just because I do not enjoy the love triangle thing does not mean that others don't enjoy it. Perhaps a light dystopian with a romance is exactly what you need out of a book. Everyone has different preferences and if you really want to read this book then go for it! You should never let anyone else sway your opinions. 

Review Time!! Unwind by Neal Shusterman

From Goodreads

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

I went partially insane buying books these last two weeks guys. This is just one of the books I picked up, but at is point I think it’s going to be a favorite for January. I rated Unwind 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I was so blown away by this book. Neal Shusterman uses some intense social issues such as abortion rights, and social responsibility to create the society of Unwind. The protagonist, Conner, lives in a world where parents have the choice to Unwind their children anywhere between 13 and 18 years of age. Unwinding is basically a complete organ donation. Every part of an Unwind is saved and used for people who need them after accidents, due to disease, or birth defects.

The Good:

This was one of the most original story concepts that I have read in a while. I was completely freaked out by the idea of unwinding. I found myself thinking about every bad thing I had ever done and wondering if I was at risk of being unwound. I loved how Shusterman touched on many issues through the different reasons people chose to have their child unwind. His belief about Americas social welfare system is one of the many subjects touched about in this book. Besides uwinding the other law that has come into effect in this future world is Storking. This means that if a baby is left on your doorstep and you did not see who did it then it is now your legal responsibility. One particularly tragic flaw in this storking system is illustrated by Conner, the main character, but I won’t ruin it for you.

If you’re like me, then you see a movie in your head when you read a book like this and boy did I get scared sometimes. During one particularly important scene towards the end of the Harvest Camp scenes I found myself so disturbed that I literally had to put the book down for a day and just think happy thoughts.

The Bad:

The history of this future society does slowly make its way into this book but I do wish that it would have come sooner. Most of what you find out about the war and how unwinding and storking came to be is very vague. I was especially disappointed by the explanation of how the two sides of the war came to agree on this crazy unwinding idea. It just could not have been that simple and I would love a whole book on just the history of this world because I am left with an insatiable curiosity!!

Overall:

In the end guys this is a 5 star book for me even with a few minor let downs here and there. I would completely recommend this book to anyone looking for a really engrossing read. I will say though that some of the emotions brought on by this book and some of the questions it evokes can get a bit mature. Definitely recommend this  for anyone of unwinding age and above.  

My Late New Years Resolutions

Now into this second week of the new year some people have already begun to struggle with their new years resolutions. I am kind of a late bloomer this year so I only came up with my resolutions recently. As you can probably guess, my main resolution this year was to start my blog. Finally, I have accomplished something! After three years of saying I would do this, but never taking the time out of my always insane schedule, I can't even express my joy. Whether or not anyone is actually reading this right now is besides the point (although it would be nice). So far so good, on the resolutions.

In addition to this blog I did make some other resolutions and I thought I would share them with you because sometimes it's good to put your promises in writing.

1. Start a blog-  Once again thank-you Internet for existing and you wonderful people for reading my rambles.
2. Read 50 books- I spoke in my last update about how I have been obsessively watching everyone's reading challenges on Goodreads. My challenge last year was ridiculous (100 books) and my actual number was just embarrassing  This year I set my challenge for 50 books, still difficult but hopefully I don't  embarrass myself once again. *prays to book gods*
3. Take pride in my appearance- On a typical day you will find me sitting on my school desk (falling asleep) with my hair in a bun and no makeup on, clearly wearing the first thing I found that morning. Well, I decided that this year I should make more of an effort to pick out my clothes ahead of time, make coffee, and do my makeup. This one is important to me because I will be finishing high school soon and I don't want to continue this lazy trend all through college. 
4. Have a nightly routine- You could consider this a part of number three but I'm not going to. In addition to being better about my mornings, I want to improve my nightly routine. No more falling asleep with makeup on, passing out doing work, and overall just not taking care of myself. I want to plan when I go to bed, take a shower, wash my face, and tuck myself under the covers. This may be the last item on my list but it just might be the most important. 

Overall, just like everyone else, I want to improve my life this year. In other years, I have skipped on writing new years resolutions because they are cliche and never work. Now, I have realized that no one can decide what you are capable of but yourself. If I say that I want to accomplish something, or make a change than it's on me to do it. Only you can create your own reality so I'd like to make my 2013 pretty dang amazing.

What about you? Any new years resolutions that you would like to share or just thoughts on resolutions in general. Comment! 

On Shell Soon - Updates/ What to expect this week

Hello there!

First of all, I hope everyone had a happy and productive first week of the new year. I am very proud of myself this week and have made quite a few decisions about this blog. I do plan on doing these weekly updates of just what I am reading and what post you can expect soon to be here. These will also serve to kind of keep me up-to-date because I don't plan on making any promises I can't keep.



This week  I finished reading Matched by Ally Condie and will be posting a review of that within the next few days. I did leave my star rating and initial reaction of it on my Goodreads if you would like to check that out and more.


Click this link if you would like to stalk my bookshelves or we could just agree to be friends. I would really like that too .-. My Goodreads



Speaking of Goodreads, I have been obsessing over everyone's 2013 Reading Challenges. It is so fun to see how much all your friends are planning on reading for this year. I have also even enjoyed seeing the general Goodreads communities Reading Challenges and it's awesome to see everyone pumped about reading and being really supportive. Many of my favorite Booktubers have recently posted videos talking about their 2013 reading goals. I will be writing a few 2013 reading resolutions myself plus my overall feelings towards the annual Reading Challenge.

Expect both of these things by the end of the week. Until next time!

Here are a few of my favorite 2013 reading resolutions videos: