AT LAST

I DID IT!!

It Begins Again

IT RETURNS

Camp NaNoWriMo Time!

More soon. With progress updates.

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour Review

“Searching, always. And yes, we all are, or soon will be, disenchanted, I still want to know it all: the heartbreak, the fear, the friendship, the anger, the love. All of it.” _

I read this book in two days, shortly after I got it from my local library. Usually, if I can't really put a book down, its fairly good. This book was a little bit of an exception. It was a different kind of book than I would normally read, more contemporary-styled than my usual preference. 

The Disenchantments tells the story of four friends traveling together, touring as a band called The Disenchantments (hence the title). Colby, Bev, Meg, and Alexa plan to drive from their homes in San Fransisco to Portland, in which they are going to drop off one of the members at their new college. Colby and Bev planned to afterwards travel and expore Europe, visiting places they've only dreamed of for many years, and to visit Colby's mother in Paris; A story of music, friendship, and self-discovery. 

First of all, lets just talk about the cover. One of my absolute favorite things are well designed covers, something I aspire to help work on later in life. The cover of The Disenchantments certainly draws you to it. It practically screams out "SUMMER FUN WITH FRIENDS", which is something most of us, young or old, want to relive or experience again. The cover of this book is definitely one of the best parts, which usually can say much about a book itself, especially if most reviews say "awesome cover", "cute front of book", and "appealing design", rather than the book itself. It kinda looks like it was just pulled off of weheartit.com though...

Front cover of book

My favorite character was Colby, who was the main character and narrator of the story, and whom I routed for for a majority of the book. It was interesting to see a story narrated by a young, male boy, especially when most of the other important characters are female. It's just not too common these days, and I liked that aspect of the story.  Colby reminded me of a very close friend of mine, which definitely was a plus when trying to understand and relate to the character. Because I am not an 18 male, I had a hard time fully grasping what the author was trying to portray through him, especially with the themes of self-discovery and romance parts.

Now, I'm not saying this book is terrible, but it really just wasn't for me. I haven't read a lot of books like this before, and who knows, maybe I'll return to this book and find myself appreciating more.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5 stars

Library Books and Summer Reading

The sun... it burns...

The time has come. SUMMER READING!

Now that the stressful school year is over, it's time to kick back and relax with a few good books and nice summer treats. I'm actually really excited for it too, lots of books to read and treats to make. I'm definitely going to to busy.

Our local library has a program to basically "promote reading and fine literature in teen and children in this illiterate world". They have drawings for prizes and everything. They go all out every year. I'm personally aiming at a $50 gift card to our local bookstore. There's a lot you could do with $50 in a bookstore...

Along with signing up for the program, I got 4 books:

A Monster Calls - by Patrick Ness
( Goodreads- Buy it here)
Grasshopper Jungle - by Andrew Smith
(Goodreads - Buy it here)
The Disenchantments - by Nina LaCour
(Goodreads - Buy it here)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Jesse Andrews
(Goodreads - Buy it here)

The Return

I'm just not going to even bother giving an explanation...

Now, time for a change!

I'm going to be writing in here more often, (I wonder how many times I've said that...) but I'm really going to try. I really like writing on a blog, and having one truly makes me happy, even if no one even reads it.

I'm going to experiment more on this blog though, even with different types of content. I've been really into baking recently, and I'd love to share my favorite recipes and tricks, as well as recommending and promoting the sources and people I got them from.

I also have started up getting into photography, and I'd love  to share them.

I won't forget about the books too.

So, happy reading, I guess.

2013 Bookish Goals

WHAT HAPPENED TO 2013?!?!

Well, that year flew by. 

2013 wasn't the greatest reading year for me. I unfortunately did not keep track of how many books I had read, but I think it is somewhere around 40-60 books. Woops...

If anyone was wondering what my favorite book I had read this year was, it was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think. I moved states recently too, if that's impressive at all. 

This year, I hope to do things a lot differently. 

1. Actually use my Goodreads account- I never use it, and I do want to start keeping track of what I read, and maybe it will encourage me to write more reviews .
2. Read 75-100 books- It depends how well I'm doing before NaNoWriMo, but I want to try to read 100 books in 2014. 
3. Use my Blogger account- I want to write reviews and updates and stuff. Maybe I'll even start a YouTube channel. 
4. Read all of the LotR and Harry Potter books- don't hurt me, but I haven't done this yet. I will this year though. Promise.  
5. Volunteer at the local Library- I've always wanted to do this, and so I'm planning on trying it out. 

Though I'll probably end up spending all my time doing homework and scrolling mindlessly through the internet, and rebloging every .gif of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and laughing at pictures of cats stuck in a glass jar. 

Bargain Book Haul

Since I am afraid to put my face on the internet, you are going to have to read this book haul instead of watch it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

We  have this little bookstore in town that sells donated books for cheap prices, and I went with $20. I returned with $14,  fourteen books, and 9 cassette tape movies. They had a thing in the store where you could pay one dollar for a bag to put some books in from a selected area, so I got almost all of my books from that part. They also had a sale of cassette tapes. It was 3 for $1. Including a Harry Potter book, My total was $6. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Here are the books I bought, in no particular order:

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Contagion by Robin Cook

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingam (basically Soul Surfer but by another author)

Land's End by Michael Cunnigham

Redemption Song by Bertice Berry

Boomsday by Christopher Buckley

Pig Tale by Verlyn Flieger

Echelon (Still not sure how to properly pronounce it) by Josh Conviser

Sister Bernadette's Dog Barking by Kitty (ironic) Burns Florey

This is Where I Leave You by Johnathan Tropper

Memories of Anne Frank by Alison Leslie Gold

Let me Tell You a Story by Tony Campolo

American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever

I will leave the Goodreads and the Bookdepository links at the bottom of this post for each book. Please feel free to check out the books, and even get them if you are interested.

The movies that I got were the following:

• Grease 
• Cats
• Starwars: Episode 1
• Spiderman
• Oklahoma
• Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• Peewee's Big Adventure
• Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Know that this wasn't very interesting, but I just that that I might warn you about what is yet to come.

Thanks for... reading?





(Thanks to amazon.com and goodreads.com and other sites for the pictures of the books. I DO NOT OWN THESE PHOTOS NOR THE RIGHTS TO THEM. All credit goes to them)

Here are the links that I labored over for you:

The Time Machine:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2493.The_Time_Machine?ac=1
http://www.bookdepository.com/Time-Machine-Wells/9780141199344/?a_aid=mindlesshootenanny

Contagion:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66469.Contagion?from_search=true
http://www.bookdepository.com/Contagion-Cook-Robin/9780425155943/?a_aid=mindlesshootenanny

Shark Girl:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/615359.Shark_Girl?ac=1
http://www.bookdepository.com/Shark-Girl-Kelly-Bingham/9780763646271/?a_aid=mindlesshootenanny

Land's End:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111081.Land_s_End?from_search=true
http://www.bookdepository.com/Lands-End-Michael-Cunningham/9780099464662/?a_aid=mindlesshootenanny

More soon.