November Wrap-Up

In Books (all ratings out of 10)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ————————– 10 (re-read for School)
Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier ———————————— 9
A Man for all Seasons by Robert Bolt (Play) —————– 8 (for school)
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux ————————- 8 (for school)
Allegiant by Veronica Roth ————————————— 7.5

I also bought 5 books, brand new, hardcover for $5 each from Chatpers.ca, hooray for sales! Vixen by Jillian Larkin, Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr, Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and Poison Princess by   Kresley Cole. I have read them all before, recommend them all highly! If you liked Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr you NEED to read Carnival of Souls (they aren’t related so don’t worry if you haven’t read Wicked Lovely.) Vixen takes place in the 1920’s and it’s fabulous if you like that era, which I do. And I just talked about Sapphire Blue.

And Life

Not much has happened really. I am still dating the guy I talked about during my last wrap up and that’s going pretty well. I haven’t heard from any universities and I probably won’t until February (I am a nervous wreck about this! Seriously!) I have a bookshelf and that’s pretty great. I just got it and it’s over flowing! I have two layers of books on the top shelf, I need another one! What an amazing problem to have!  I have sprained my wrist. Well not actually it’s tendinitis (tendon opposed to ligament) but for all intents and purposes, I have sprained it. I injured it mountain biking in the summer and it never healed properly and then I fell on it in dance class (We were doing improve in Contemporary and it looked really cool so it all good). Anyway it’s my right hand which is my dominant hand so it’s kind of annoying. I can’t write  or type too much or else it starts hurting really badly and because I’m in school not using it isn’t an option so I just wrap it and deal with it. I know that will make it take forever to heal but I cannot just stop writing and typing.  Ice. Ice and ibuprofen.  I went to the doctor yesterday though, for an unrelated reason but I brought my wrist up as well.

Book Rant: Sapphire Blue

RATING: 90%

GENRE: YA, historical fantasy/fantasy

SERIES: Ruby Red Trilogy, #2

Hello my lovelies! So I have just finished Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier it is the second book in a fantastic trilogy. If you haven’t started it is about these two families who have the time traveling gene. A teenage girl named Gwyneth ends up having this gene even though everyone thinks it will be her cousin Charlotte. It’s an amazing set of books so far, go pick it up if you haven’t! If you have already read Ruby Red we pick up exactly where we left off in the church. Spoilers past here!

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“Just say yes or no – that’ll do. Did you plan it all?” […] “Gwen-” […] “yes or no?” […] “yes.”  *Silent screaming* Because we are hearing from Gwen and she has so much self doubt, especially in this relationship, the entire book I was wondering if Gideon meant it. He is so bi-polar! It like he was trying to hid it or something. I really wanted to think he did mean it and then hearing that was more of a conformation instead of a shock. I was still crying, I think that is absolutely the most brutal thing anyone could do to someone else, make them think you were in love with them. And then we get the Epilogue with Gideon and Paul and you know that there was something on that paper that scared Gideon enough for him to break Gwen’s heart. At least that it what I am going with because I really don’t want him to be just a manipulative asshole. I’m kind of confused because I said in my Ruby Red thing that I was so sure Gideon could read minds, he takes lines out of her head all the time. And this book didn’t address that at all! And he thought she has attacked him with a vase and she starts crying and it’s like he can’t read her mind anymore and I was so confused! Clarity needed!

Ok so I mentioned in my Ruby Red book rant that I was picturing my chronograph like a giant bronze disk that they like stood on to time travel. And in this book we get a bit more description so now I am seeing a miniature grandfather clock. This guys, I’m seeing this with gemstones.

They like stick there hand into the compartment and there in a needle. and the vials of blood just disappeared. I don’t know where they went. And then it said when Gwen put her blood in the ruby lit up so in my messed up mind where the pendulum is there was just a light bulb that lit up red. And I’m still picturing Paul and Lucy smuggling this thing out under their coats and in my mind it’s still a good 2-2.5 feet high. The more I think about it the more I realize they probably just time traveled holding onto it and there was no ninja smuggling but I cannot get this mental image out of my head and it’s just so hilarious.

This Ball, I thought it was the day after the soiree but I guess not because we go to meet the Count. The ball has to be what we saw in the first book when Gewn kisses Gideon to distract him from her past self. Maybe. Probably. Yes? Anyway so the soiree, the punch. Oh my God. Maybe when you go back in time don’t drink things when you don’t know where they are? Seriously if it was alcohol you don’t know how much alcohol. I don’t know what the regulations were in the Victorian era! Or is could be abstinence which Gwen actually said. She was really cheerful when she said it too, I can’t say I would have been thrilled at being drugged. No matter Gwen’s mind is somewhat absent from this party. And Gideon just leaves her! He goes and talks to green dress widow woman (Referred to hence forth as GDWW). You would think because its her first week on the job and she has really no training that you would stick pretty close. I don’t get it! Do we need something from GDWW or is there some kind of role he was playing or he didn’t want to draw attention to Gwen by sticking to close all the time? I don’t know, I just want to know if there was some kind of reason for him ditching Gwen for GDWW.  The Count was telling Gwen that Gideon went to see GDWW all the time and maybe that’s where he was coming from when he ran into Paul but it didn’t seem to fit. Oh and at this ball thing that is yet to happen, Gwen runs upstairs crying, could that be because of GDWW? Dammit Gideon! Explain yourself! Ok the Epilogue, lets discuss. Confused. Gideon doesn’t like Paul so why did he rush to help Paul? Maybe the enemy of my enemy is my friend? And I don’t think he wants Paul dead. And Paul, how could you be so stupid! Give the Alistair alliance whatever dude the names of the time travelers! Clearly he is going to try and hunt them down and kill them!

Xemerius is this cute little gargoyle character. I like him and I kind of want one. He’s a super invisible spy friend. I also like this Lesley- Raphael relationship that is going on! They seem like a good fit. This Green Rider thing, confused! what do you think it could be? i never understand treasure hunts in books and they happen all the time! What is so important that you need to code and hide and then pray that the other person understands! Charlotte is a freaking bitch! Sympathy for her going way down. I felt bad for her in Ruby Red and now she’s just taking a temper tantrum like a 4 year old. I really liked when Gwen’s little sister’s show went into the pudding and the butler was just, “Oh I’m glad there is pudding left for Charlotte and them!”

OOH! Prophecy! We see the lion, Gideon, come over to this ruby heart and then push it off a cliff and have it shatter into a million pieces. Maybe it’s literal and Gideon will kill Gwen or maybe its figurative and he breaks her heart. I don’t know! Maybe it’s like Will Herondale and he’s being mean and keeping her away from him for her own good? I am trying to be so forgiving of Gideon for everything because I want him to be a good guy. Maybe he’ll turn out to be an ass-hat and I will be so disappointed! 

I’m not sure how they are going to resolve this in one book! I need the next one right now!

Bye guys! Kisses

Tattoos, Piercings, Uni, Work, and Boyfriends

Hey lovelies! So I am going to take this opportunity of catching you all up on my terribly boring life 🙂 (I REALLY don’t want to do social or calc right now…)

I’m going to start with work because I need some advice right now. My friends tell me to do one thing an it seems like an over reaction to me seriously, advice from someone who ha worked for some time would be greatly appreciated. So there is this new waiter at the restaurant, lets call him Al, he’s 35-40ish years old. About a month ago when he first started, his reaction to finding out I was underage was “dammit” then walking away. Kinda creepy but weirder things have happened. Last Wednesday my boss asked me to come in because we were catering a fundraiser/party thing. Almost no one working. So I’m in the kitchen alone making salad or something, Al comes in and says “I like nice hugs” I was pretty sure I heard him wrong or he was talking to someone else and I just didn’t have context so I say, “Sorry, are you talking to me? What was that?” Without breaking eye contact he says very slowly, “I like. Nice. Hugs.” I’m rattled but my boss comes in and he leaves so no big deal. Later he comes back and says very seriously, “Tell me everything and leave nothing out.” I go, “wait, tell you what?!” to which he responds “Anything you think I’d like to know.” he leaves again. And just whenever he entered the kitchen he sings my name (eg: “Lizzie, oh Lizzie”) but when he addressed me he said “my love.” Not sure if I have told you guys about this but I am weird about possessive adjectives. I don’t like them used in reference to me. So that happened then I went back yesterday for a shift and he patted the side of my butt. To clarify I don’t mean he slapped my ass, he wanted my to move, I would have preferred an “excuse me” but still.  Overall he just makes me really uncomfortable. Now my friends are all telling me I need to report it because it’s sexual harassment but it’s not that serious, right? I don’t want to make a big deal out of nothing. Besides, how would I even go about bringing that up? I told Seth (my Boyfriend, it’s official now, YAY! More about him later) about Wednesday but not about yesterday because I don’t want him to worry. Even with Wednesday he was talking about how he’s worried about me and doesn’t want me hurt etc. etc. I appreciate the concern but I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t know. What do you guys think?

 

Lets see…. school is going fine, except I need to raise my English mark, Social I am shockingly doing really well in seeing as how I really don’t give a shit, Calc I am trying and just that going well for me. My mark is back to an 80 but I have a test next Tuesday that is just going to bring me back down. I did like a page of questions yesterday and was feeling really confident, check my answers and I didn’t get a single one right. Drama is really great, grade 12 is the year of directing and my teacher came up to me the other day and told me she really loved my directing and that I should considering taking it in uni because I had a natural talent for it. That really made my day because she isn’t one to give compliments like that unless she means it! I am so stressed and university! I don’t think I’m going to get into anything an my mom isn’t letting me apply to anything our of province. Seth  has about a dozen scholarships to all over, Canada, USA and I think one in Europe somewhere for soccer and I’m so proud of him but oh my god I wish I had talent! I am so stressed about uni (I know this looks ironic seeing as I am procrastinating hardcore right now, but neither social or calc affect my application average.) How do I life?

What I am excited for in the future is getting my tattoo when I’m 18! I’m getting 5 mockingbirds around my left ankle (it has meaning, don’t worry.)  I am also getting my belly button pierced when I’m 18 and hopefully next weekend I’m getting my helix ring done! I also want a quote tattoo either on my collarbone on my ribs, I’m leaning towards a literary tattoo but I don’t know what. I like some classic JRR Tolkien from  his “All that is Gold does not glitter” poem: “Not all those who wonder are lost” or “The old that is strong does not wither.” I also like Oscar Wilde’s “Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” or  “To define is to limit.” or F. Scott Fitzgerald “So we beat on, boats against the current”  or maybe some Cassandra Clare “I am, after all, what you made me.” I need to start a list of book quotes. There are so many good ones. I want to be really sure before I get it done because it is permanent. Seth is getting a full sleeve of a Celtic tattoo that runs in his family, I am so beyond glad he didn’t have that when he met my parents. He has studs in his ears and even just that earned him a few questionable glances. He’s a total gentleman though so hopefully my family won’t be too bad. My older brother was a jerk to him but that was probably just because he’s my older brother. I love him though. I know  shouldn’t say that yet but I do. He makes me really happy.

So that’s life right now. Bye beauties! Kisses!

Book Rant: Allegiant

RATING: 75%

GENRE: YA, dystopian

SERIES: Divergent Trilogy, #3

SERIES RATING: B+

Hello my darlings! I know it says I have been reading Sapphire Blue and I am like half way through it, but then this book happened. It took me for freaking ever to read (I’m sorry!) because school. I have also read A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt (play) and reread To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee for school though so…counts right? Ok so  Allegiant by Veronica Roth and this series. It is the last book in a trilogy so it’s really hard to give a non-spoilery summary. But go start it the first on is Divergent get back here when you are all caught up for we shall talk about all the things! Spoilers past here!

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THE END!!!! ALL THE EMOTIONS! ALL THE FEELS! Ok so as soon as Caleb volunteered to die I was like “Shit, Tris is going to take over this.” I’m not happy that our main character died, I love Tris and she’s grown so much, she is such a great character but if she hadn’t died I feel like I really would have been very dissatisfied with the book. The way it was written she had to be killed or it just would have been ridiculous. And it makes sense to with her character, she always thought of herself as selfish throughout the series but she’s not. She never felt like she was giving enough so it made sense that she would die for this. Veronica Roth killed off so many people in this book! Edward, Tori (was that necessary?! Really? Just had to kill her then make her brother be alive.) Uriah (again, same thing). I thought someone big was going to die, I actually thought it would be Christina or Four. I thought Four was going to die saving Tris. And being perfectly honest I would have been ok with that. Again not happy, but not super upset. I just never connected with Four that much. When she got shot and we see her mom for like 0.5 seconds I thought her mom wasn’t really dead and she has come in as back up and Tris isn’t really shot, her mom shot David and she’s just in shock or something. And then it says she had the  bullet wounds and we know that this is really Tris’ death. Her mom’s coming to take her on. Actually I was in denial until Christina said it. I was holding onto the hope that she was just dying and unconscious and then Caleb came in a redeemed himself and she’s going to be in a hospital or something.

Ok honestly up until the ending, nothing happened in this novel. It was so much build up in the last book for nothing. I expected like a big ordeal. I honestly thought that maybe there had been a WW3 or a plague and this was a group of people who had been protected and saved so that when they left the city the world would be ready to start again. It was just one big experiment and that was a bit of a let down. It wasn’t that it was a bad way to take it, it’s just that I kind of had this huge survival struggle idea going into it. In this book we got a lot of information dumped on us, everything about the GD and GP people. Whenever I saw that I actually had to take a second to process which group we were talking about. So the Genetically Pure and the Genetically Damaged are just not getting along, the had a civil war 80 odd years ago, and somehow the GPs have managed to cover up every single war or conflict ever so they can essentially use the GD people as scapegoats.  I don’t want to say I didn’t care about it but, I didn’t care about it. We already have this situation in Chicago and I wanted that to get fixed and I just couldn’t care about the other issues while that was still happening. I found it too much to be introduced in the last book.

The fringe scenes. Why did we go out into the fringe with Nita? So Four could guard a door?! It was useless. We then go out again with Tris and see some good stuff and nothing comes of it. Detail appreciated, it’s really well written, Veronica Roth’s descriptions are fantastic, but nothing came of it. I felt that most of the whole Bureau thing was very terribly predictable. And slow. In Divergent things were happening all the time, Insurgent was calmer and less action but things were still happening all the time even if it wasn’t a bunch of fighting. This book was a bunch of Four whining about his insecurities and his and Tris’ relationship and a lot of planning (so much planning going into these terrible, predictable plans!) and then nothing ever happening. We have really promising action in the first few chapters, they are going to break out of the city, yeah! Excitement! We get out and…nothing. They aren’t needed, they can’t do anything, nothing. When Amar walks out and Four is like “wait no! You’re dead!” and Tris has that moment of thinking she is going to see her parents I immediately thought Matrix and got so excited! But then it was he faked his death and I was still excited, there is a lot of ways that could go. And she just didn’t go with it. There was a lot of potential and it just fell flat. Am I being too harsh? Maybe I was expecting too much.

The dual POVs. Ah…this, no. Just no. I found myself often forgetting who I was reading from. I would leave mid-chapter because I have other stuff to do, come back and keep reading and be really confused as I try and figure out who is talking. Normally in dual POVs you can tell who is talking especially if its a guy vs. girl ordeal but this one I just couldn’t unless Tobias was complaining and being insecure. I was really irritated at Four for most of this book. It didn’t seem like the strong Four from the other two, then again maybe it was the fact that we were in his head. But someone said this, I’m 90% sure it was Tris though it might have been Amar, that Four always needed someone to hold to. His Mom, Nita, Tris he always had to lean on someone in this book and that frustrated me. I didn’t like the way he treated Tris throughout this book and how he reacted to her warning about Nita. Its like when he found out her wan’t divergent he just caved in on himself. I get it, traumatic to think you are something and be told you aren’t but it’s not like he’s normal. He’s still an amazing soldier, and he can resist serums and all that.  I loved the part where Tris gets so mad at Four for being apart of that stupid thing with Nita because she said everything I wanted to.

What was a really sweet moment though with Four is when he is reunited with his mom and he gives her this ultimatum and she just hugs him and is like “let them keep the city and everything in it.” It was so touching and I’m so glad that he has someone. It would have been so funny the thing with Peter after he drank the memory serum, but given what was happening I didn’t find it as funny as I normally would have. I have a silver of hope at this point because Christina hasn’t announced her death yet. The chapters after where it’s just Four I was just “I don’t care, I don’t care. I don’t care.” I’m just really upset right now, Four, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore! The scattering the ashes was pretty sweet, I did smile a bit at that.

Oh I almost forgot, the statue with the slow change. I adored this symbol but I was also slightly confused at the logic. Originally it makes sense, the slow change eroding the rock and Tris says “what if is came out all at once? Wouldn’t it cause more damage?” well no, it wouldn’t. It would make a big mess, but it could be fixed, the slow erosion can never be reversed or stopped as long as the water drips. And then we have at the end the water all coming out at once and yes it appears to be moving quicker, but in the long run its making less change. The symbolism just confused me.

Overall I am satisfied with this conclusion but I’m not particularly happy with it, I you know what I mean. There is closure and I think if it had been done another way I would have been really frustrated with it. I’m just really sad about it right now. Divergent is still my favourite and I’m going to say this is my least favourite. That’s all for this book, bye guys!

Bookish Pet Peeves

Hello my darlings! So I’ve been renovating my house and by extent my bedroom for a long time. And I just got a bookshelf! I’m so excited! Because for the past…year-ish? Maybe? Probably, yes. All my books have been in storage in boxes minus my Catching Fire which I lent to my guy-friend at the same time that I was packing up my books. Got it back two months later without a dust jacket. And obviously all the books I bought after my books had been packed up. BUT I HAVE A BOOKSHELF! So I got to put all my books on it and get them out of storage! So beautiful! Now while I was arranging my book on this bookshelf I realized I have a lot of bookish pet peeves. (I also found some books I had totally forgotten that I owned so that was great) Anyway, I made a list just for fun!

1. Cover changes. This annoys me the most of all the things. It just drives me crazy when mid-series the cover design get changed. I know I am not alone in this. I’m pretty sure this pisses everyone off. For example:

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2. When one book in a series is hardcover and the rest are paperback or vice versa. Because they are then different heights and it drives me insane.

3. This is a weird one and what it boils down to again is me wanting my books to look uniform within a series. Dust jackets. I don’t mind when a book doesn’t have a dust jacket, if it’s a stand alone. But if it’s in a series (and sadly I’m missing pretty much all my dust jackets on the books I had out during the renos because I’d take them off to read the book and then they would vanish) I almost just want to get rid of the dust jackets just so they all look the same! Or re-buy them or something! That is how much this bugs me!

4. I’ve bought used books before from Chapters online and normally they are in fabulous condition with the exception of COFA and CA when the dust jacket had a production error I guess? It looked like the printer had run out of ink when they were making them. So, that why those ones have no dust jackets. Not the point. Anyway on all these used books they draw a black sharpie line across the top of the pages. What’s funny about this one is that it’s not a big deal. When it’s on the shelf you can’t even see the line so who cares? I do, apparently! Because it fills me with rage.

5. This is another weird one, but paperbacks can’t stand up by themselves. I know that’s really an obvious statement but when you’re arranging books on a shelf and you put a paperback down it just falls right over and the act of the book falling over really bugs me. STAND YOU WEAKLINGS!

6. This one has to do with not the appearance but of the actual story. When you have really exotic names that are really complicated. And that not what bothers me because then I will just go by the first couple letters in the name to get my bearings and then their name becomes whatever my first attempt at saying it in my head was after a glancing. Regardless of how far off the pronunciation might be. (ie: Magnus Bane was Mun-da-gus Bane until I discussed this series for the first time with another human being which wasn’t until after COLS. Yeah. It was kind of embarrassing.) So anyway, the weird exotic names don’t bother me because I got this system but what throws me is when you have a few weird, exotic names that all look similar at a glance. Because then people start getting mixed up in my brain.

And those are all my strange bookish pet peeves! I had fun making this list and I hope you got a few laughs reading it. What are your weird book pet peeves? Bye y’all! Kisses!