Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

Summary from GoodReads

A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan...

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Thoughts on the Book

I read this book when it first came out when blogging was still just a vague idea in my head.  After reading Carry On I wasn't done with the world of Simon Snow, so I felt compelled to reread Fangirl, which fortunately my friend had gotten me for my birthday so I had a copy on hand.

My Review

The story is about a girl, Cath, who not only has to deal with leaving home and everything comfortable and known to start college, a world of unknowns, but also has to deal with the end of the Simon Snow series, which is practically her whole world.

I love this book.  I think it got better the second time I read it.  I love how messed up Cath and Wren are and how, even though they share the exact same DNA and were brought up in the exact same circumstances they deal with everything in drastically different ways.  Cath internalizes everything and locks it down and tries to avoid bringing anyone else into her life, Wren overcompensates with having fun and putting on a good front and blocking everything from actually meaning anything to her.

I love how much both Cath and Wren grew as characters.  When the book ended they were miles from where they started and were closer than ever.    For the other characters, I love Reagan.  She's probably my favorite character from the book, she's so  unforgivingly her own person, if you don't like her, that's your problem.  So much of Cath's growth is due to her, the best thing that could have happened to Cath was Reagan taking her under her wing, showing her that it's okay to be yourself.  Levi I didn't like too much, he's kind of a jerk.  Cath forgives him too easily, but after that he gets better, but I still wouldn't trust him.  But, given Levi and Nick, I'd go with Levi everytime.

My favorite part about the book (although it could be due to just reading Carry On) were the Simon Snow snippets, and the full short story that Cath read within the book.  I love the world of Simon Snow and I love that Rowell was stuck on it too and felt the need to write a story about them.  So great!

I give this one a 10/10.  I loved it when I first read it, and I love it even more years later for a reread.

Carry On

by Rainbow Rowell

Summary from GoodReads

Rainbow Rowell continues to break boundaries with Carry On, an epic fantasy following the triumphs and heartaches of Simon and Baz from her beloved bestseller Fangirl.

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savor his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest, and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his roommate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savor anything.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story — but far, far more monsters.

Thoughts on the Book

I loved FanGirl, so when I heard Rowell was actually going to write Carry On I couldn't wait for it.  I was so intrigued by Simon Snow within FanGirl, as well as Baz.  Only getting glimpses into that world was such a tease.

My Review

This book is about Simon Snow entering his final year at Watford.  After being apart from everyone for an entire summer Simon didn't quite know what to expect coming back to Watford.  The past year ended on shaky ground with his girlfriend, his best friend had been abducted along with him and he didn't know how she was before her parents whisked her away and he was put into Normal seclusion.  Then there was his roommate, Baz, who constantly plots to kill him and who is missing.

Can Rowell write the full Simon Snow series?  Pleeeeeeease.  Or Simon Snow series from Baz's point of view, I'd love to see how fifth year was for him, so much angst and torn feelings, it would be amazing! 

When I started reading this book I was kind of hoping for a satire of Harry Potter, since in FanGirl Simon Snow was the Harry Potter equivalent.  I wasn't expecting (stupidly - how many Rowell books have I read now? Sheesh.) such an amazing completely unique story.  The only Harry Potter similarities were that at the age of 11 Harry/Simon was informed they had magic(k)al abilities and were sent to a boarding school where they befriended the smartest girl in school and the animal caretaker and became enemies with a powerful dark boy from a long line of powerful and dark magic(k)al family.  They also were prophesied to bring about the downfall of a major threat to the magickal/wizarding world.  Other than that totally different.

For my character assessment:  Simon was pretty great.  He was smart and honest and when he set out to solve something he followed through, doing his due diligence in research and planning.  Simon was a little to Mage obsessed at first (that mustache?  Just picturing it - gross! Why would Simon ever want it? Thank Crowley he can't grow facial hair!) but fortunately he got over it, or at least toned it down a lot.  Simon was also a little too obsessed with Baz and what he was doing, in a paranoid sense.  According to Simon everything Baz did had the ulterior motive of killing him.

Penny I found to be a little annoying, she just decides who she wants to be friends with (she could have no more than 5 people that she cared about, and that was encroaching on too many) and she was obsessed with lists.  I loved when she got so excited about finding information for Simon and Baz, only to find out they had solved the larger part of the puzzle and were about ten steps farther than her.  I also really enjoyed that it wasn't her that solved the Humdrum mystery. 

Agatha was very blah.  She hated herself, she wanted nothing to do with the Magickal world and just wanted to be Normal.  I don't get it.  I get not liking being looked down on for wanting Normal friends and not being allowed to marry a Normal, but to turn against everything you are?  Then all she wanted to do was run away since that will solve all of life's problems.  I did like how Agatha really tried to shut Penny out, but unfortunately she was one of Penny's 5 people and therefore Penny pestered her to the point of it was easier to just put up with her than to try to cut her out.

Then there was Baz.  Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.  I freaking loved him.  The second he showed up he became my favorite character.  Then there were the chapters from his point of view, and I loved him even more.  And like I said, I just want Simon Snow and the Five Blades from Baz's point of view.  Baz was such a deep complex character, and once you found out his biggest secret it just all made sense.  I love at the end, if I remember correctly it was the last line of Penny's last chapter, when Penny was, essentially, like "Ooooooooooooooooooh, that explains so much." As a bad guy Baz was awesome, he looked and acted the part perfectly.  As a good guy, Baz was awesome, so smart and strong and helpful.

As for the story, it was great!  The world was a little silly, or at least the spells were silly.  Clever, but silly.  You can't touch this only works if the person the barrier is against knows the song, that totally made me laugh out loud (luckily I was just home with the animals and I'm used to them giving me weird looks).  But the Insidious Humdrum, clever name for what it was, and I loved the resolution of it.  It made perfect sense, and fit perfectly into when the dead spots formed and why Simon is only ever attacked at school.  I also loved how Baz's story fit into the main story line with the Humdrum and Simon's past.  I love how the prophecies fit into everything too. 

The Lucy chapters were a little bit odd, they were like an aside to the reader and it didn't affect the characters or the story at all.  It almost would have been better as a post series prequel.  It actually would have been much better as that because we still don't know what happened to her how is she what she is?  Her story arc left a lot of unanswered questions.

The other part of the book that didn't sit quite right with me was after Simon and Baz's trip to London.  Explaining this without being spoiler-y gets a bit difficult...but, I'll say it would make more sense if it had been Baz.  Simon was just out of the blue with no explanation.  Even afterwards when Baz was trying to get an explanation Simon didn't have one.  But despite that I was still fangirling (pun intended ;-) ) pretty hard at that point.

I give this a 10/10.  I loved every bit of it!  I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good YA fantasy read, or who likes Harry Potter regardless of if you've read Fangirl or not.  And, of course, I recommend it to everyone who has read FanGirl, but honestly, if you've read FanGirl and you haven't read this or even have it on your TBR what's wrong with you?  GET IT! READ IT!

Waiting on Wednesday [25]

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking The Spine allows bloggers to share which books we are most anticipating

This week I am waiting on The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright (January 18, 2016)

Summary from GoodReads

Family can be complicated. Especially when skeletons from the past pop up unexpectedly. For American Evie Gray, finding out her deceased mother had a secret identity, and not one of the caped crusader variety, was quite the surprise. Evie’s mom had a secret life before she was even born, one that involved tiaras.

In this modern day fairytale, Evie is on a path to figure out who her mom really was, while discovering for herself what the future will hold. Charged with her late mother’s letters, Evie embarks on a quest into her past. The first item on the list is to attend Oxford, her mom’s alma mater. There, Evie stumbles upon a real life prince charming, Edmund Stuart the second Prince of England, who is all too happy to be the counterpart to her damsel in distress.

Evie can’t resist her growing attraction to Edmund as they spend more time together trying to unravel the clues her mother left behind. But, when doubts arise as to whether or not Edmund could ever be with an untitled American, what really ends up unraveling is Evie’s heart. When Evie uncovers all the facts about her mom’s former life, she realizes her mom’s past can open doors she never dreamed possible, doors that can help her be with Edmund. But, with everything now unveiled, Evie starts to crack under the pressure of new family responsibilities and the realization that her perfect prince may want her for all the wrong reasons.

Why I'm Waiting 

This sounds really cute, like The Princess Diaries mixed with The Prince and Me.  Both of which I loved.  I can't wait to read this one!

Top Ten Tuesday [23]

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that allows bloggers to share their top ten lists for that week’s topics

Top 10 Debut Authors Who Have Me Looking Forward to their Sophomore Novel

For this one I can only do 5.  The only other debut author I read this year already has a bunch more books out, since he debuted a couple years ago.  I think a challenge for me next year is to read more debuts.

1 - Moïra Fowley-Doyle  

I really enjoyed The Accident Season.  I think my problems with it were more of a cultural thing.  I even stated this in my review: "As awesome as this story was, it could have been so much better.  I'm expecting great things from Moïra in the future.  It's a solid debut, and a lot of authors start a little shaky before they really hone their writing and become amazing best selling authors.  I really hope she is one of these authors."

2 - Max Wirestone 

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss was utterly amazing.  I loved every second of it.  I can't wait for future amazing geeky books from him!

3 - David Hofmeyr 

 

The Stone Rider was a really fun read.  I can't wait to see what happens next!  But since I don't consider sub sequential books in a series as sophomore novels, I also can't wait to see what world he builds in his second series!

4 - Emiko Jean 

 One of my favorite books this year.  I read We'll Never be Apart back in June (while at BEA) and it's stuck with me.  I can't wait to see what else she comes up with!

5 - Constance Lombardo 

 Mr. Puffball was really fun, and I want to see what wacky worlds she'll come up with for her next one.

I'll throw in one extra.  My friend's next book. I can't wait for him to finish a draft so I can read it!  His first book (which I mentioned briefly here) was amazing, and to take a break from that world he started writing another story that, from the little bit he's told me about, sounds awesome.

The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet

by Katie Rorick and Rachel Kiley

Summary from GoodReads

Based on the Emmy Award­-winning “genius” (The Guardian) web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, this is a new novel starring Lizzie’s spunky sister Lydia as she navigates the joys and pitfalls of becoming an adult in the digital age.

Before her older sister, Lizzie, started her wildly popular vlog, Lydia was just a normal twenty-year-old plotting the many ways she could get away with skipping her community college classes and finding the perfect fake ID. She may not have had much direction, but she loved her family and had plenty of fun. Then Lizzie’s vlog turned the Bennet sisters into Internet sensations, and Lydia basked in the attention as people watched, debated, tweeted, tumblr’d, and blogged about her life. But not all attention is good…

After her ex-boyfriend, George Wickham took advantage of Lydia’s newfound web-fame, betrayed her trust, and destroyed her online reputation, she’s no longer a naïve, carefree girl. Now, Lydia must work to win back her family’s trust and respect and find her place in a far more judgmental world.

Told in Lydia’s distinctive, eccentric, and endearing voice, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet picks up right where The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet left off and “offers a fresh take on Pride and Prejudice without ruining it” (The Washington Post, on The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet). Featuring fresh twists, wonderful new characters, and scores of hilarious texts, doodles, and tweets, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet takes you behind the webcam and into the lives of your favorite sisters in a way that’s sure to satisfy existing fans and delight new ones.

Thoughts on the Book

I'm a huge fan of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, so getting this was a no-brainer.  Lydia was always my least favorite character (Wickham and Caroline notwithstanding) but I love the world and I will never say no to more from it.

My Review

This book follows Lydia's story after Lizzie moves to San Francisco.  It's all about Lydia figuring herself out and getting back to a new normal after the Wickham drama.

I absolutely loved this story.  It was everything I wished that The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet was.  Lydia's voice shines through and she's as funny as ever!  I loved being able to see deeper into Lydia, to see more than her superficial party girl persona.  She's extremely intelligent and intuitive and it was wonderful to watch her begin to see that in herself.

So many characters came back, mainly Mary, but Jane was in it a bit, as sweet as ever, and Bing!  I love Bing.  I love how he dealt with Lydia too, by bringing her to where he worked and letting her figure things out for herself and helping unobtrusively.  I also loved Lydia's New York friends, they were so great and really helped her come into her own.  I would so love to go to a party like she went to!  Pretty much any Disney themed party I would love to go to...

There were only two minor things I didn't like about the book.  It needed more Darcy.  We got lots of Lizzie, but Darcy was never with her, I really want to see them interact now that they're together!  The other thing was Mary's story.  It was so...predictable?  It's such a trope.

I give this a 10/10 because it was totes adorbs, duh!  But seriously, it was everything I could have wanted in a LBD story.

Short Story Sunday [14]

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Retold by Alvin Schwartz
Illustrated by Stephen Gammell

This week I'm doing a collection of short stories in one review.  Since each story is so short I'm not going to separate them out.













Section one of this collection is stories to tell to scare your friends.  I found these all to be pretty dumb.  Each one your supposed to start telling, then at the end just scream or shout something, or make a loud noise.   None of the stories has a resolution, just just to catch your listener off guard.

Section two of the collection is ghost stories.  These were actual ghost stories, they were creepy and exactly what should be in a children's book of scary stories.  My favorite of these was The White Wolf and The Guests.  But really, I loved all the stories in this section.

Section three of the collection is about everything that doesn't fit into a different category.  These were silly, but still very enjoyable.  I especially liked A New Horse and Room for One More.  The Dead Man's Brains game was fun too.

Section four is all recent scary stories. These were okay.  The White Satin Evening Gown bothered me, there's no way you can be poisoned to death by trace amounts of embalming fluid on a dress.  It just can't happen.  That story probably caused some poor girls to be traumatized about wearing second hand clothes.  Oh, and fun fact, a lot of fabric is treated with formaldehyde.

The fifth and final section of the collection are "scary" stories which are supposed to make you laugh.  I didn't find any of them overly funny, but The Slithery-Dee did get a chuckle out of me.  

Overall the way Schwartz wrote the stories was very matter of fact, none of them were told to be scary.  And for the first section, you don't need cheap tricks to scare your friends, there are plenty of scary stories with light-hearted endings so you can scare your friends, but not traumatize them.  For the artwork, Gammell's drawing are great! They're by far the scariest part of the book.  The drawings were so creepy they didn't really go with the stories, which all veered towards the side of silly.

I give this collection a 7/10.  It does it's job for little kids without scaring them, but it could have been done better with the same effect.

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween full of spooky happenings and lots of candy!

October Round Up

My October

Another month that has been crazy for me.  I really wish this trend would stop.  I didn't do too much this month.  Construction started on my house, so that's been awful.  It's supposed to be done before the end of the year.  I think the contractor is going for before Christmas.  We'll see.  I got pretty sick early in the month, and that paired with construction workers at my house forced me to go into work every day except for one when I finally decided it was too risky for me to be operating a car and I stayed holed up in my bedroom (one of the few rooms that isn't having work done - at least not until December).  

I did get to go up to Cape Cod to visit my brother and sister-in-law for their birthdays.  It was so gorgeous out there, we had lots of hikes with the puppies.

I received my second OwlCrate.  This month I got a book that was on my TBR list, but I didn't own, so that was awesome!  I'm going to start reading it once I'm done with my current book.

October's Artsy Stuff

I was able to get some artsy stuff done this month.

I made this for my boyfriend for our one year anniversary.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I started a hockey watch.  I need to do some more work on it, I was waiting for charms I had ordered to come in.  But it's made with an actual hockey skate lace.  I made a bracelet too that matches, but is also unfinished.

I also made these snitch earrings.  I was pretty hesitant on them at first, but I think I like them.  I think I would like to open an online store, maybe through this blog, to sell them on.  Would any of you be interested in them?  Or other book-related items?

I made this for part of my Halloween costume.  They're elf ear cuffs.  I want to try to make another pair to see if they come out any better.

A testament to how blegh this month has been, I only did my nails once, for the hockey season opener.  My left hand was the Ranger and my right hand the Canadiens.  The numbers are my favorite players (Zuccarello (36), Brassard (16), Stepan (21) and Lundqvist (30) for the Rangers, Eller (81), Pacioretty (67), Subban (76), and Price (31) for the Habs) The logos I did free hand, and damn the Canadiens logo is difficult to do, it looks so simple...so deceiving while the Rangers was the exact opposite.

October Blog News

Nothing really to report.  I did a lot of scheduled posts this month, so I ended up not missing any Short Story Sundays (whoo hoo!) or missing any days when I felt like death.  So I'm going to try to keep up with that.  Have reviews and other stuff set up for at least a week in advance so if something happens I don't fall crazy behind.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been toying with the idea of selling my jewelry, I looked into Etsy and their business model sucks, so I want to do a poll to see how many of you would actually be interested in buying stuff from me, if I should put in the effort to have a shop within my blog.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments, or just vote a simple yes or no in the poll here.  The link to vote is also in the side bar on the left.