Reading something different

I’ve finally found myself reaching the last few weeks of my university career and it’s a bit overwhelming, to say the least. So, to distract myself from the inevitable nostalgia, and from the towering pile of work looming over me, I looked for something to read.

I don’t have any unread books left on my shelves at the moment and I was running out of ideas, until I came across a BuzzFeed post one evening. It was a post about Harry Potter fanfiction. I’ve always been skeptical when it comes to the topic of fanfiction. I made the mistake of reading some One Direction fanfiction earlier this year and was disappointed in the lack of grammar, spelling, punctuation or general writing skill. Of course, I should have known Harry Potter would be different. Harry Potter fans, like myself, are no longer teens. They are wiser and more devoted. They are people who love literature and reading, and who are just as invested in the world of Harry Potter as I am.

This pic is sourced from here.
It was a fan-art sent to Bex-chan, but I couldn’t find who created it.

Let’s talk about Twilight

Yes I know, it’s been 10 years since Twilight came out, it might be a bit late to be posting about it. But I just re-read the books, and now I have some things I want to say. So here goes.

I read Twilight when I was 13 years old, one year after it was published. The movie came out in 2008, three years after the book was published. During those two years, it felt like I had the book to myself. I loved it when I first read it – what 13-year-old wouldn’t? But when I tried to tell people how good it was, they looked at me like I was mad. I remember standing in front of my grade 8 class, doing a book review oral on Twilight. I had found it in the library and was the third person to ever take it out, even though it had been on the shelf for a year. I tried to tell my class that the vampire wasn’t the bad guy, that he didn’t drink blood or kill people. He could go out during the day and didn’t sleep in a coffin, but it was all a foreign concept back then – the idea of a vampire being good, or sexy. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my point across. So I gave up, I stopped talking about it, bought myself a copy (which is a super old hardcover that has a different cover from the red apple we’re all used to), which still sits on my bookshelf today, just a tad bit tatty.

Sadly I’m not home, otherwise I would have put a pic of my copy, but for now this will have to do. Pic sourced from here.

A Magical Escape

The story begins with Prospero and the Man in the Grey Suit starting a game. We don’t know the rules, we don’t know when it will start and we don’t even know both of the players. All we know for sure is that it is a game played with magic.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is one of the most incredible books I have ever read. It was published in 2011 and I cannot believe that I waited until now to read it. For four years I missed out on unbelievable imagination, beautiful writing and a storyline that keeps you hooked until the very last word.

Picture sourced from here.

Zoo is un-bear-able (ha ha get it? Animal puns!)

Recently, a new TV show called Zoo premiered in the US. It is based on the James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge book of the same name. I have been somewhat hooked on the show, despite the fact that I find it wildly unlikely that anything like its plot line would ever happen. So I decided to read the book and see if it could give me more clarity on the apocalypse-by-animal angle.

The answer is no. I was not convinced. Actually, I think I’m enjoying the show more than the book; which is saying something since so far the only similarities I’ve managed to find are the main character’s name and a lion attack in Botswana. Aside from that, the show has done it’s own thing completely (so far).

This might turn into a rant, so prepare yourselves for spoilers.

Image sourced from here.

Finally a bit more Mia

Like many girls around my age, I grew up reading The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. In fact, I think I’ve read almost every single book that Meg Cabot has written, save for a couple of the ones from her Mediator series. I just love her style of writing. Her characters can always make me laugh and her stories pull me in when I need an escape.

Royal Wedding comes 8 or so (my math skills are horrendous) years after the end of the 10th book in the series, which many people thought would be the last. Getting to see what has happened in the life of the charismatic Princess Mia was such a delight. It was like jumping back into my teenage years, but, just like me, Mia has grown up.

Picture sourced from here.

The Heartbreakers

The Heartbreakers by Ali Novak is the first book that I read through NetGalley. It was the first of the books I requested to be approved by the publisher and I was really excited to start reading. I have to say I was not disappointed.

The book is about an 18-year-old girl called Stella, who is one of three siblings. Two girls and a boy, who just happen to be triplets. Her identical twin sister, Cara, has been fighting cancer for a number of years and her health is deteriorating as they come up to their 18th birthday.

Stella and her brother, Drew, think it would be a brilliant idea to take a road trip and get Cara’s favourite band, The Heartbreakers, to sign a CD for her, despite the fact that they both despise the famous boyband.

Image sourced from here.

Trying Something New

I recently discovered a website called NetGalley. The site is aimed at publishers and ‘professional readers’. Now I’ve never considered myself a ‘professional’ reader before, despite the fact that I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. However, according to NetGalley, anyone who likes to, ‘review and recommend books online, in print, for your bookstore, library patrons, blog readers, or classroom’ is considered a ‘professional reader’. I found this extremely cool and am definitely planning on adding it to my list of skills/achievements on Facebook.

A girl online writing about Girl Online

Last week I finally read a book I’ve been looking forward to reading since last year. Girl Online by Zoe Sugg, the YouTube sensation who is taking over the world.

I’ve been watching Zoe’s videos on YouTube for over a year now. She has two channels; her main channel (called Zoella), which contains fashion and beauty videos, and then her vlog channel (MoreZoella), on which she sometimes records her daily life. She is a charismatic and bubbly person, with just enough humour and charm to make me wait excitedly for the release of her videos every Sunday.

Something that I realised after watching her vlogs for a year, especially when she was a daily vlogger (she posted 10-15 minute long videos every day about what happened in her live the previous day) is that it becomes very easy to start feeling as though you know Zoe personally. You learn what she wears, what she eats and who her friends are – pretty much all of the details that you would learn about your own friends…except Zoe is still technically a complete stranger.

Take a trip to the Scottish highlands

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon was published 25 years ago, before I was even born, but has recently become popular again due to a new hit TV show based on the book. Outlander was the first in a series of 8 books, the most recent of which was published in 2014.

As usual, I could not bear the thought of watching the on screen version before reading the book, and so I delved into it despite my heavy workload. This was before my exams at the end of last year and I didn’t manage to get more than halfway before studying had to take preference. Plus the show (which I had managed to keep ahead of while reading) hit a mid-season break, which meant that I had a few months to get around to finishing the book before the show started off again.

I then forgot about the book until spotting articles all over my Facebook timeline proclaiming that the midseason break of Outlander the TV show was over. I couldn’t believe that I had put down such a brilliant book for so long and immediately dug it out again. It took me less than 2 days to finish, even with lectures to attend.

So what makes this book so brilliant? There are a lot of contributing factors – timetravel, a female heroine, a hot Scottish bloke…and quite a lot of sex.

Image sourced from http://roberthuntstudio.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Robert_Hunt_illustration_gabaldon.jpg

Better than Lord of the Rings

I’m about to make a bold statement.

Last year, in my English 3 class, we had an elective called British Modern Fantasy, and in it we studied The Lord of the Rings saga (it’s not a trilogy). I loved it of course; it is pretty difficult not to love Tolkien. However, there is a certain similar set of books which I personally think are better than The Lord of the Rings.

The books I’m talking about are the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. The first book is called Eragon  and I read it for the first time when I was about 12-years-old. The series grew to be extremely popular among young adults as the second (Eldest) and third (Brisingr) books were released. There was a three year wait between each book, which meant that by the time the final book (Inheritance) was released I was almost 18, and I have to say that I was in no way patient in each of those three year gaps.

I had such conviction during the Christmas holidays that I was going to sit down and read every book on my list that I had been wanting to read but had not gotten around to. This failed miserably. I spotted Eragon on my bookshelf one day towards the end of the holiday and I couldn’t restrain myself from plucking it off the shelf and starting to read it. Before I knew it, I was just as engrossed in the series as I had been back in high school. I sat and read them at every spare moment. I sped through them at a pace that alarmed even me, especially since the entire cycle consists of about 2 779 pages. I realised with only 4 days to go in my holiday that I still had the whole of Inheritance to read. I knew that I couldn’t take it back to Rhodes with me because 860 pages was a few too many to fit into my carryon bag. Let’s just say I may not have spent as much time with my family as I should have in those last few days. (I did manage to finish it, in case you were wondering).