Anniversary, thanks lovelies! Plus Random Life Discussions

It’s so beautiful! Happy Easter!

Today is my one year anniversary with WordPress, apparently! I was informed thusly by the wonderful WordPress people. It been a good year, I’ve had a lot of fun and thank you to the amazing people who read my blog! It is greatly appreciated! ❤ Kisses and HAPPY EASTER! How are you celebrating? I’m working tonight which isn’t as bad as it sounds.

What else is happening in my life? We haven’t talked in awhile, internet friends. I am getting my graduation photos done on Wednesday and I’m debating going back to brunette. I saw this super pretty dark brown-red colour (different brand than the one that turned my hair orange. Still don’t like those people) but don’t know how that will look! My mom has auburn hair so I guess I technically could pull it off. Though my skin is darker than hers. I know, there is surprisingly someone more pale than I am. Anywho, this is the colour:

 

It will, unfortunately fade to blonde though! I have like 5 inches at the top of my head that have never been bleached, just dyed repeatedly as my roots grew. Let’s be honest, I mostly want to go back to brown becasue I’m so lazy with my roots. I wait until they are at least an inch and a half before I even consider re-dying them.  Perhaps I’ll try a dirty blonde. Ah so many choices!

I have once again injured my wrist! My left this time. There is this super cool move in my contemporary dance where we fall into plank by flipping side ways out of a hinge. yes it hurts. I have permanent bruises on my arms right now. But it looks super awesome so the price of bad-ass dance moves!

I finally received my copy of Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor! I have been waiting for this book since August AND IT IS SIGNED!!! If you don’t know this book series, don’t even finish this post! Go Goodreads it then pick up a copy! I also finally got my copy of World After – that I ordered in DECEMBER. Thanks Chapters. Way to be on the ball.

School is so stressful right now, I don’t know how some of my friends are doing Bio and Chem plus another class. I mean. I have psychology 35 but that’s not a class. I have 6 quizzes left to write and a final and I’m done. In theory I could be finished by May. I won’t be, but in theory if I worked. I am #206 on the waiting list for my second choice university. Which is essentially a rejection as there are 100 and some seats. But I’m in my first choice as long as I don’t crash and burn in Chemistry. I have a tutor though (He’s super cute, just putting that out there…) and he’s really helpful so that’s good!

What else…I have no leggings right now. It’s really upsetting. All four pairs I had have turned see-through so that is unfortunate. I’ll have to buy new ones becasue I don’t what I’ll wear to tap and contemp. otherwise. I’m a dancer! This is a legitimate issue! My guy friend just laughed at me and was like “it’s ok, you don’t have to wear leggings, you have jeans.” Sigh. First world problems, I know. I sound super shallow and I accept that.

Oh I have Easter break now so I have all of next week off! And all of my friends have left me! There are 3 big school trips going on, one to London/Paris, one to Germany/Switzerland and one to Costa Rica so most grade 12s are on one of the three, then the remaining people are going going places with their families. I know one guy friend that isn’t going somewhere but we both work. C’est la vie. I’m going to Greece in August so I’m happy with that and I don’t mind staying here. I finally have time to read and sleep and run, it’s finally nice outside. It was snowing all last week. Canadian problems.

My life is boring as soup! But how is everything going for everyone else? What is happening in your lives that you wish to share? Bye darlings!

Book Rant: Ignite Me

 

I just noticed the eye has a bird in it!

GENRE: YA, dystopian

SERIES: Shatter Me Trilogy, #3

SERIES RATING: B+

Hello, hello my beauties! I have already finished Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi, I was reading until about midnight last night I couldn’t put it down! This is by far my favourite novel in this series. If I was going to rate them from best to worst, it would be #3, #2, #1. All of them were good though. If you don’t know this series, it is a dystopian where the world has essentially been destroyed and then rebuilt with a warlord style government called The Reestablishment. Juliette, our narrator, is one of the few people who have been “mutated” and acquired special abilities; in Juliette’s case, her touch is lethal.   She was placed in solitary confinement until Warner, the young commander of Section 45, take interest in her power. The writing is very poetic, very smooth and I highly recommend them! If you haven’t started the series I’d recommend check out about now. If you are up to date except this book, If you started this series you should be way ahead of me seeing as how I’m late getting to this, as per usual. I’m sorry! I have to many books to read! Anywho, we have gone to battle and Juliette as been captured by Anderson and saved by Warner and they are with the Medic twins and that is where we pick up the story again. It’s a really quick read, I want there to be another book in this series! Spoilers beyond this point, read the book, then come back!

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Can we just talk about how much I freaking love Kenji!? In Shatter Me I didn’t really care about him he was just there, thrown in at the end. And now he is easily my favourite character. He is always first and foremost Juliette’s friend, no matter what stupid shit she does or if she’s doing something he doesn’t agree with, he always has her back. Which I really loved! It was so great that she had this amazing friend who truly cares about her. When they are on the roof at Adam’s house where Juliette is admitting she’s scared and doesn’t want to do this without Kenji, and he just looks are her like she’s nuts and says “Who said you were going to do anything without me?”  And Juliette is just shocked. And thought this was a great contrast between Kenji and Adam and the people who are good for her and really care about her. Kanji and Warner don’t care who they’re working with, Juliette needs help so that’s it for them. That’s all they need as far as convincing. In shatter Me Kenji seemed like a failed comic relief, but as the series went on and you got to know his character it was so perfect. he has had a hell of a life and he ties to be funny for other people becasue he knows that they are going through hell to. It’s really sweet when Juliette first finds Kenji and she brings him back to life a bit. It just shows that it’s not a whole one way relationship, Kenji needs her too.

Adam. Ahhhh. So many times in this book I wanted to punch him in the face. Juliette puts it really well when she’s comparing Adam and Warner, Adam can’t really have loved her becasue if he did it didn’t matter what she did to him, he would always care for her and try not to hurt her and she knows this becasue of Warner. She has done nothing but hurt him (even if not intentionally) but he still loves her and wants her safe and happy, regardless of what that mean to his happiness. I sort of understand where Adam is coming from looking out for James, but it’s really not about that. Because they eventually come to the base where James would have been safer all along. Adam just doesn’t want to lose claim of Juliette. She broke up with him a month ago and he still views her as his property even when he says he doesn’t love her anymore. It’s very possessive and I really hated him for it. The world is ending, think big picture and stop being so selfish! When he grabbed Juliettes arm then put Kenji’s hand on her I was so furious! And we can’t kick him out becasue of James. He really was endangering everyone and the mission becasue of his stupid claim he decided to lay on Juliette. She “broke up” with him probably 4 times in this book trying to get him to stop and then he has the nerve to say, “stay out of my life. I want nothing to do with you.” Seriously?!?! She clearly has moved on and you just don’t want to accept that. Man-up and do your job.

My absolute favourite line in the book was when Juliette was talking to Kenji about her relationship with Adam and trying to put into words why it wasn’t working. “[Adam] and I would end up like water going nowhere. […] It’s fine for a little while. You can drink from it and it will sustain you. But if it sits too long it goes bad. It grows stale. It becomes toxic.” This was so beautifully put. Because her relationship with Adam was growing toxic. He wanted her to still be the little girl he knew and she just wasn’t and it was keeping her down. You could see, and I think Kenji mentioned it, that without Adam she was more sure of herself and knew what she wanted and with him she just cried and was very, very weak. I love how Tahereh Mafi wrote this in, I’m not sure if it was intentional but it was very good, but the writing style changed and evolved as Juliette grew. In the first two books there is a lot of repeating and crossing out and in this book there isn’t any. She’s not afraid of her own words.

I said in my Shatter Me thing that I would never like Warner, but that was short sighted of me. I do. I really like him with Juliette and I really like him as a character. He’s very real. And he does what he has to do, even if he’s not proud of it. And he never kills without reason. I don’t think I have ever changed my mind so much about a character. Ever. We were only seeing from Juliette’s POV though and she doesn’t know Warner’s story. When his mom dies and Juliette goes and sits with him, I was ready to cry. It was so touching as so human. I wonder how Warner’s touch affected her, becasue he would absorb it. Would it hurt himself becasue she can;t even touch herself? Oh my gosh, his closet! I couldn’t stop smiling at this part where she’s looking over all the clothes and we learn that Warner is really a fashionista. When she told Warner that she’d only ever had one bath and Warner just picks her up and is like, “ok time for a bath!” I was laughing! It was so cute.

OH Warner finding out he and Adam (by extension James) are brothers. I was expecting shit to go down and for him to be really mad at Juliette for not telling him, but Warner is so sweet and just happy and he wants to spend time with them now.

I was so scared that Kenji or Warner was going to die at the end. I was so nervous! But it’s ok no one did. I wanted more though! The end didn’t feel rushed, it was satisfying. I just wanted more!  Ok that is it for now! Let me know your thoughts! Bye!

 

Book Rant, Novella Edition: Fracture Me

Hi everyone! This is going to be super short (the novella itself is 60-or-so ebook pages), but “Fracture Me” by Tahereh Mafi. This is the novella that comes between Unravel Me and Ignite Me, the 2nd and 3rd books in the Shatter Me series. This is a dystopian series and I’m really enjoying it so far. The first novella, “Destroy Me” is told from Warner’s POV and comes between the 1st and 2nd books is highly relevant to character development and the plot in general really. I think it should be mandatory reading, just put in the back of Shatter Me or the front of Unravel Me. This one on the other hand I didn’t find nearly as necessary. I could be wrong as I have yet to start Ignite Me, but it seemed like more of a true novella. It is told from Adam’s POV this time and are reading the last scene from Unravel Me and the whole battle thing. I will put a brief spoilery section so if you haven’t read Unravel Me and “Fracture Me” you might want to head out. Bye-bye.

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I’m very glad Kenji and James are ok. That was the biggest thing in this piece. James and Adam I just love that relationship so much! I’m so glad James didn’t die. He couldn’t have. I can’t believe there are only 8 of them left. The medic twins are dead it sounds like. It makes sense that they bomb omega-point and I’m not sure why I never thought it would happen. That was really the important detail in the novella I think, becasue Juliette is dead apparently, but no she not. Her being alive though means that she likely doesn’t know what has happened so we probably won’t see that in Ignite Me. It’s comforting to know that Kenji, James and Adam are alive. Even thoughI’m sure that’ll come up halfway though Ignite Me or something. She and Warner are going to come up with some badass plan.

Ok I need to see wtf is going on now, I’m so confused and curious, so I’m gonna go dive right into Ignite Me! Bye lovelies! Kisses!

Book Rant: Emerald Green

  GENRE: YA, Historical fantasy/fantasy

SERIES: Ruby Red Trilogy, #3

SERIES RATING: A-

Hello lovelies!  I finally got around to reading Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier. If you don’t know what this series is about search up my Ruby Red Book Rant, I explain the whole premise. Or Goodreads it or something. Overall I really enjoyed this series, it’s a nice, fluffy, cute fantasy read. I must admit though that this book was my least favourite of the three. We pick up right where we left off after Sapphire Blue, so let’s get to it! Spoilers past here!

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The beginning of this book was so freaking slow! For literally the first third all she did was complain about Gideon. Which at first I understood because he did pretend to be in love with her to manipulate her. The I realized, THEY HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER A WEEK AND A HALF!

Really, girl? Really? Most of my sympathy evaporated at this point becasue it was just so crazy. I still felt bad for her becasue her crush doesn’t like her back and that sucks, but it seemed way to freaking dramatic. And it might not have bothered me, if it hadn’t been a whole third of the novel. And then at the end of the novel when they get together and are both going to be immortal forever together in love I was just rolling my eyes. Great, now you have known each other for two whole weeks! And you’re 16 and 17, what are you doing? You have barely been alive! It was like Romeo and Juliet wanna be except Romeo and Juliet always made more sense to me becasue people DID get married at 14 (and it was better written and romantic and I love that play). Sure you have been through a lot together, but still, 2 weeks! I will admit though, when Gwen gets stabbed and Gideon is crying and panicking and telling her he loves her and then she wakes up and he’s so happy, that was cute. My heart smiled.

Apart from the insta-love which I just wasn’t feeling, I really enjoyed this book. I loved how she was always going back in time to see Lucas and get advice on everything and they were being a team 60 years apart.  It was so funny when they got the chest and Charlotte told on them and then she’s with Gideon and he’s asking what they use it for and Gwen doesn’t blink, “Poker.” and then makes up this plausible, detailed lie about them playing poker. I still thought Gideon could read minds at this point, so I was amused, but that’s not a thing apparently so…awkward. I wish we had addressed Gideon having a power! I was so sure he could read minds, there was so much build up to that! He would pull lines from her mind! Then I thought maybe he could heal people. I didn’t expect Gwen to be immortal. Didn’t see that coming. I thought maybe she’s going to be a ghost? I love that when she goes home she so happy and telling everyone she loves them.

Cynthia’s green party. Ok I was a little confused becasue Gideon agreed to go with Charlotte and then obviously goes with Gwen. And he just never talks to Charlotte about that and she doesn’t make  big deal about it. You would think that there would be some kind of scene becasue he already agreed to take her! Unless Charlotte was lying just to bug Gwen, that just occurred to me. That’s probably it. I thought it was really funny though, and I felt bad for Charlotte. That would be terribly embarrassing.

It was so sad and touching when Gwen found out about Lucy and Paul being her parents and she’s talking to her mom and she’s talking about how happy she made them and that she’s the reason for them having kids of their own and it was really sweet.

When they run through the subway (Ah! So stressful! when would you do that? They said the train was coming in four minutes and they running around on the tracks!) to travel back in time into those tunnels and they run into past Gideon and Gwen goes to talk to past-Gideon, and she’s tries to go talk to Present-Gideon bout what to do. And he hits himself over the head with a flashlight! I burst out laughing! I was unfortunately in public and got a few weird looks from people. but it was too funny that they brought that back in to play from Sapphire Blue.

Ok jumping to the very end, she takes a sip of the wine! WHY? It was clearly poisoned! Or was that part of the plan? We never got to really hear their plan and that was frustrating! There was a lot of that in the book where we are told something happened, but we don’t get to see it. Then she revels herself so soon. The whole point was to buy time so I don’t understand why she did that, just let him shoot you! I expected Gideon to be prepared, but not in the I’m-immortal-now way but in the more conventional bullet proof vest or even reappear in a different room (becasue thy just reappear where ever they are standing, they are supposed to go back to the same place but it’s not like it required.) But immortality, that works too.

Xemerius, I love all his commentary becasue he says almost exactly what I’m thinking. Like when Gideon shows up to see Gwen and they are in her bedroom! And then they’re in the middle of making out and Lesley calls ans says she’s coming over. Turns out she’s actually just in the hallway with Gwen’s family and cake. That was cute. Xemerius comes back and hey start arguing about his ability to eat a pigeon. So amusing. 

That will be all for now! I have psychology to do and I have procrastinated all day. I’ll talk to y’all later! Bye!

Book Rant: World After

GENRE: YA, Paranormal-thriller

SERIES: Penryn and the end of Days, #2

Hello, hello! Today we are talking about the masterpiece World After by Susan Ee! I’m gonna tell you right now, this writing is amazing. Love or hate the story, anyone would have to admit it is beautifully written. If you don’t know this is an apocalyptic world where angels have come to destroy humanity and Penryn is a 17 year old human who is kicking some ass really just trying to keep her little family together. If you have already read Angelfall, Penryn, her mom and Paige who has been cut apart and sewn back together are  with the resistance. The un-dead girl, the crazy lady and a monster all in a camp with people scared out of their wits, what’s the worst that could happen? Spoilers past this point!

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Ok so we start off in the back of a truck where we left them with Penryn being dead/not really dead and at this point all the poison has worn off so she’s just pretending to be dead to just process for a bit. Then she finally decides it’s time to get up and is wondering the best way to go about this without terrifying everyone, and then she’s just like “ah screw it” and just sits up. Then afterwards where everyone is freaking out and she has a gun to her head she’s “Ok I didn’t really think that through…” And Dee/Dum don’t even bat an eye. Their friend just came back from the dead after being brought to them by a angel with demon wings, oh must be Tuesday. Mom is freaky as always. Being locked in the car with her was horrifying. I still don;t get the eggs! Is that just a reference I’m supposed to get? Or are we just accepting it as crazy? I like how Clara said that although the world was crazy, it didn’t mean their mom wasn’t. Because in a world being taken over by angels, it’s possible she is possessed by devils, or she could just be nuts.

We get to this camp/school place and those 4 guys attack her and she kicks all their assess. So great. Penryn is such a great character becasue she is so strong and so sure of herself and her abilities.   Then we get the visions with the sword and I thought that it might be Raffe having some connection through the sword to talk to her and know whats up, but it’s just a magical sword. It was really cool how it taught her to fight though and showed her memories. And it has the longest set up for this joke. At first it’s barley even funny. Mild giggle funny. “Can I name your sword” “No it has a name” “What is it?” “Pooky-bear.” Then way at the end of the book we have this conversation with Raffe:

“Have you named her yet? She likes powerful names. Maybe you could appease her by giving her a good one.”

“Um, I could name her anything she likes”

“She gets named once by each carrier, if you’ve named her she’s stuck with it for as long as she’s with you” 

“Damn it…”

“What is it?”

 “Pooky Bear”

 “Pooky. Bear.”

“It was just a little joke. I didn’t know.” 

“I’ve mentioned that names have power, right? Do you realize that when she fights battles, she’s going to have to announce herself to the opposing sword? She’ll be forced to say something ridiculous like, ‘I am Pooky Bear, from an ancient line of archangel swords. ‘Bow down to me, Pooky Bear, who has only two other equals in all the worlds.’ How is she going to get any respect?” 

I had this hysterical laughing fit. And then latter, all the swords actually bow down to Pooky-bear! I missed Raffe and Penryn’s banter through this book. It wasn’t bad though, sometimes when the male lead vanishes from the book (almost every book 2) you really dwell on it. But we didn’t see Raffe until almost the very end and it didn’t bother me that much. There was just so much going on with Penryn.

The creepy locusts are human! Back in my Angelfall book rant I was talking about “why are they doing this? This seems like so much extra work. They clearly can destroy us without this extra step.” but it is actually Urial, the politician was cutting up these kids to look like nephilium so it would look like Raffe wasn’t doing his job so he’d get less votes! What? Good to know politicians are dirty no matter what species, but seriously? Cutting up children? I get they aren’t human and they see us as lower life forms buy we don’t cut up baby bunnies! And these locusts are people that he’s using to simulate an apocalypse. All the angel people are friends with fallen angel so they want the apocalypse so Urial thinks he can get their votes this way. I’m not sure what he thought was gonna happen when he announced this at the party! You are telling a bunch of soldier who have spent the last month is a place they don’t know, fighting for a reason they don’t know, that not only is there “conformation” they are doing the right thing, but they are going to get to possibly have their friends freed from hell! There is so much tension! It’s like he threw a bone into a pit of starving lions. They starting killing humans, fighting each other, it’s a free for all! And Urial is just standing there up on stage. I still want to know more about Angel-ville! Is there actually a God or was Gabriel calling he shots? If only one person gets to talk to God, how would you know?

What I’m wondering is if any of these humans turned locus will be able to keep their conscious like Paige did.   Paige obviously is messed up and wants to eat people, but she kept her humanity about her an knows that that is wrong and she shouldn’t. She can control the locust though, I’m not sure what’s going on. We had that human doctor hinting that he did something special to her when she was “made”. It was really disturbing that there are so many humans in on it! It was also cool how Penryn ended up being one of the “twins” she saw in Angelfall. I enjoy tie ins.

Angels can’t swim. We have a weakness! Until this point angels have been all powerful or so we thought. And it turns out they didn’t mean to cause all the earth quacks and floods, it just happened when a large number of them entered from heaven or wherever.  And on top of that we have this weakness where they are helpless in water. I was really nervous that the sharks were going to show up before Penryn got out of there, but they didn’t. We need to take this fight to the water, now that we know this. Somehow this information needs to be utilized. Paige can help with her mind control or something.

That is it, I think I hit most of the high points. Let me know what your thoughts were! Bye!