A little quote, just a little quote

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind." - Neil Gaiman

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." - Neil Gaiman

Totally stolen from Google Images

Indisputable Winner

I have found it.

My indisputably favorite movie.

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

The title in English is just Amélie, but because I like the French one a lot more, here is the translation of it: The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. 

This movie... I have grown up with it without ever seeing it. My parents love it too, and so bought the soundtrack. I grew up with the music from this movie. This year, however, I got it for Christmas. 

Wow. I mean, just, simply breathtaking. 

This movie is the story of a young girl Amélie who grew up in a really dysfunctional family. She dealt with it by imaging a whole world of her own, seeing magic and beauty in all the ordinary things around her. Then, when she was old enough to leave home, she moved to Paris. The thing is, Amélie is very, very shy. She is quiet and passive. Until one day, she finds something that changes her life. From then on, she decides that she wants to make all the people around her happy. Thus ensue many adventures of the most delightful kind. 

What I love about this movie, other than Amélie (played by Audrey Tautou) and Nino (played by Mathieu Kassovitz), is how it was shot. It's very unexpected and unconventional. Which makes it very hard to explain. But the effect is beautiful and original, very romantic and fantastical.

I really recommend this movie. It's the kind of film that I believe cinemas were created for: heartwarming, emotional, and profound. 

One warning though, it is rated R, so there are scenes that may be, ah, inappropriate for kids.

And it's in French, but don't let that stop you. Watch it with subtitles, I don't know, but do watch it somehow.

A controversial topic and a stroll through my new acquisitions

For Christmas this year, I asked for, wait for it...

A Kindle.

Get away from me with your torches and pitchforks, I don't need to justify my actions to you.

But I will. Because I think it's an interesting discussion, Kindle vs. Book. 

First off, let me state that I love physical paper books. I love the smell, the feel, I love flipping through the pages. I love books and I always will.

However, I think that Kindles have their place too. They are lightweight, small, and you can carry a thousand books in your pocket, which is very convenient for me because I do tend to travel a lot. 

Now, here's my reasoning. I don't think Kindles and physical books should be in conflict. I think that they actually complement each other. I know people that didn't used to read at all until they got eBooks and were able to access whatever book they wanted at a click of a button. Now, they read a lot and all the time. Then, there are people who just don't want to read on a screen, and so they don't and that's that. I really don't see why there's a conflict. Now, some will say that eBooks are the reason book stores are a dying breed. Well, that may be true, but Amazon is a also a valid cause of death: it's so much easier just to order a book online and have it delivered to your house. 

That said, I do miss bookstores a lot.

So on my brand new awesome-tastic Kindle, I currently have two books: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (because I love it very much and I really wanted to have my own copy) and Stardust by Neil Gaiman because I can't get my hands on it at the library. I'm really excited to started reading it.

Other than that, my brother got the three book boxset of the Divergent series, and as I haven't yet read Allegiant, which is the last book, I stole it temporarily and am about 2/3 of the way through. I can't really remember the plot line from the other books, but I do really like this series. Yay dystopian fiction!

I'm also currently reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. I'm having trouble getting into it: when I actually do read it, I really like it, but I have trouble making myself pick it up. It's weird. The book is insane, I love it, it's like a modern Alice in Wonderland. 

The last book in the pile is Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton. I follow him on Facebook, on his page also called Humans of New York. He's a photographer who takes pictures of strangers on the streets of the Big Apple and asks them one question. That question usually leads to a very interesting insight into people's minds. It's fascinating and this book is a collection of three years worth of work. It's very inspiring, and a beautiful book. I read it in about an hour, it's basically a picture book, but so worth the time. 

What books did you get for Christmas or any other holiday?

What is your opinion on the Kindle vs. Book situation?

Leave your answer in the comments below!

Happy Holidays! (a little late, but oh well)

The last in the quartet

It is done!

I have done it!

I have finished all four John Green books. (I'm not counting his collabs, because I haven't read any of those yet.) The last one that was left for me to read was An Abundance of Katherines.

Let me start by saying that this may be my second favorite John Green book, after The Fault in Our Stars. It was really funny and witty and I just really liked the story.

So basically, this is the story of a boy named Colin. Colin is a senior in high school and he has just been dumped by the 19th Katherine in a row. Because you see, whereas other boys have types of girls they like such as blondes or brunettes, Colin likes girls named Katherine, with a K. And now, at the end of senior year, Katherine the 19th, or K19, has left him.

To heal (or attempt to patch up, at least) Colin's broken heart, his best friend Hassan takes him on a road trip to nowhere. They end up in Gutshot, Tennessee, looking for the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (you may have heard of him, he's the one who sparked one of the biggest wars this world has ever seen). They end up meeting a girl named Lindsey and staying at her house after her mother offers them a job collecting stories about Gutshot from the residents. 

Colin, however, is finding it hard to focus on local gossip, because you see, Colin is a former child-prodigy. He is very smart, very good at remembering things and very upset that he hasn't made the transition from "prodigy" (someone who is good at learning things) to "genius" (someone who is good at thinking up new things). Desperate to matter, to be remembered, Colin decides that his mark on the world will be a mathematical formula that can invariably predict the outcome of a romantic relationship. 

The reasons that I liked this book are as follows. 

I liked the characters. I like "John Green's formula" as people call it, the fact that most of his books have a nerdy, quirky boy with the funny best friend, who falls in love with a popular, mysterious girl. I know a lot of people criticize that but I do like it. So Colin. Not an overly likable character. You honestly can't blame the Katherines for dumping him. He's self-centered, very focused on his own intelligence, and yet that's why he's a good character, because how many authors can successfully pull off a smart, self-centered main character and still make the story progress without completely changing who he is? Hassan, the funny best friend, is indeed very funny. I like him. His character doesn't have a lot of depth, he's comic relief, but he's good at what he does. Lindsey, I thought, was a nicely 3-D character. She had several faces, which I liked because don't we all? She was flawed, but not so much that the book focused on it. 

I liked the story, and the setting, because it was the perfect place for stereotypes and John Green did not fall into the trap at all. 

Finally, it's a feel good book. It's not great literature, it won't make you rethink your life, but it's time well spent. It made me read under the desk in class and stay up late at night to read "just to the end of the chapter", which I haven't done in so long and felt so good. So, if like me, you are recovering from a reading hiatus, this is a good book to get you back into reading. If you aren't on a book hiatus, good for you! You should read this if you need a break from the other drama-filled, heavy with sadness, YA books. 

That's all for now!

Pirates, warriors and dogs... what's not to like?

So I recently read a book called The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King.

I picked it up because I liked the cover, to be honest, and because the plot summary was really intriguing.

This is the story of a girl named Saffron Adams, who is actually the 101th reincarnation of Emer Morrisey. See, Emer was born in Ireland in the seventeenth century. When her village was attacked and her parents and brother killed, she was sent to live with her brutish uncle. The only good thing in her childhood was Seanie Carroll, her first and only love. Before she could grow up and marry him, however, her uncle sold her as a wife to a rich man in Paris. Upon her arrival, she runs away and ends up boarding a ship to Tortuga in the Caribbean. From there, she struggles to survive in a world of loveless men, an object among many, no one. But Emer is not one to suffer through a bad situation if she can help it. She escapes once again and becomes a sailor, hidden as a man. Eventually, she becomes one of the most feared pirates of the Caribbean. But she can't escape her past forever. She is eventually cursed to live 100 lives as a dog before she can return to the world as a human.

100 dog lives later, Saffron Adams is growing up in the Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, with all her memories of the last 4 centuries intact.

This was a great book, I couldn't put it down. I read it in two days and loved every second of it. I'm a sucker for pirate stories, I have to admit. It was well written, the plot was really imaginative and I liked how the book starts at the end of Emer's life, then flashes forward to Saffron Adams present day, then back to Emer's childhood, then to Saffron's childhood then back again. It sounds really complicated when I say it like that, but it makes sense in the book. 

I would caution the faint of heart though, she was a pirate and has frequent daydreams of mutilating people who annoy her. Also, she was a sold as a prostitute and the book dealt with rape, so keep that in mind.

Other than that, it was really good, I enjoyed it tremendously. 

Updates and things! (lots of music)

Time for an update, I think.

All righty then, this will be a really eclectic post. I will throw information at you and in between, I will give you links to songs that I have been listening to non-stop, deal? I tried to keep the songs in a sort of theme and not too all over the place. Just click on the name and be whisked away to musical paradise.

1. Come and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell

2. I've finally picked up a book again! It's been so long! (I'm so ashamed, it's been a good three months since I haven't read for fun.) I actually had a list of books that I wanted to read and I went to the library, so I tried to find them. They had one that I was looking for, and I got two others that I hadn't planned on borrowing.

3. Indigo by Tom Milsom

4. These books include: The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King, An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. So far, I have read the first and half of the second and have enjoyed both tremendously.

5. The Winner is... by Devotchka

6. I may review The Dust of 100 Dogs soon, because I really liked it and highly recommend it. There are pirates. And 17th century Ireland. And modern-day Pennsylvania.

7. Your Hand in Mine by Explosions in the Sky (this is all instrumental)

8. I went to see a show yesterday called Nerds: Bill and Steve's Excellent Adventures. It was fantastic! I absolutely loved it. My friend invited me to the opening night and it was incredible. The show was actually written and first put on in 2007, and did very well, but then stopped showing. It was re-written to accomodate the progression of technology since then and yesterday was the first time it has been put on since. The show is about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and their evolution and rivalry since the 70's. It was hilarious, brilliantly written and very well cast. The actors did a phenomenal job and the music was just... I loved it. If you have the opportunity to see it, you definitely should. (We also got great - albeit useless glasses - and got to meet the cast, which was amazing.)

9. Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine

10. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is slowly becoming my second favorite John Green book. The Fault in Our Stars (and probably always will be) my favorite, then An Abundance of Katherines, Looking For Alaska and finally Paper Towns. 

11. The Way We Were by Carrie Hope Fletcher

12. We're reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in English class. As it has been stated several times by famous people that I admire as being their favorite book, and as it has appeared on every single list of "100 books every young adult should read", I'm excited to see what it is. We've only read a few chapters, so I'll keep you updated. I like it so far.

13. I See Fire by Ed Sheeran

14. I've run out of things to update you on, so I'll comment on the weather. It's getting cold, just in time for the holidays, and rather wet, so I'm hoping for some snow for Christmas. I always hope for snow on Christmas. It's happened maybe once in the last nine years.

15. New Slang by The Shins

And that's it!

Since we're having a very music-y post, here are a few more titles (that didn't necessarily fit with this list).

Thks Fr Th Mmrs by Fall Out Boy

I Just Wanna Run by The Downtown Fiction

The Middle by Jimmy Eat World

Not Your Fault by Awolnation

Ready To Go by Panic!At the Disco

Just the story of a mad man with a blue box

Tomorrow, in case you weren't aware, is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

To celebrate this, I will be giving you 50 quotes from the show. These will mostly be from the New Who. To make this more interesting to those persons who don't revere watch Doctor Who, I have picked out quotes that do not really need context and that will hopefully make some kind of sense.

1. "You're a brilliant man! I'd call you a genius but I'm in the room."


2. "Doctor, they've got guns." "And I haven't, which makes the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine."


3. "From a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, time is more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."


4. "The universe doesn't implode if the Doctor dances."


5. "Time Lord. Last of. Never heard of me? 

Not even a myth? Blimey, the end of the universe is a bit humbling."

6. "

Correctomundo! A word I’ve never said and will hopefully never say again."

7. "

You fought her off with a water pistol? I bloody love you!"

8. "

We have an intruder!" "

An intruder! How did he get in? In-tru-der window? Bye-bye!"


9. "Not impossible, just a bit unlikely!"


10. "Nah, I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring."


11. "Sorry, I’m the Doctor, I’m very clever."


12. "You’re not gonna make the world any better by shouting at it!" "I can try!"


13. "I’m going to die." "Well, so am I one day." "Don't you dare. "Okay, I'll try not to."

14. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically... run."

15. "You know when grown-ups tell you everything is going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?" "Yes." "Everything's going to be fine."

16. "I'm the Doctor, I'm worse than everybody's aunt! And that is not how I am introducing myself."

17. "You're soaking wet." "I was in the swimming pool." "You said you were in the library." "So was the swimming pool."

18. "Letting it get to you. You know what that's called? Being alive. Best thing there is. Being alive right now is all that counts."

19. "Time isn't a straight line. It's all... bumpy-wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff. Like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays."

20. "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant." 

21. "The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes - very rarely - impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.

22. "When you're a kid, they tell you it's all... grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better."

23. "We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"

24. "I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far flung hopes, and the dreamer of improbable dreams."

25. "I'm the clever one, you're the potato one."

26. "My mother's cooking." "Good! Put her on slow heat and let her simmer!"

27. "Before I go, I just want to tell you - you were fantastic! Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I!"

28. "I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there."

29. "There's always something to look at if you open your eyes!"

30. "Would you mind not standing on my chest, my hat's on fire."

31. "Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyways."

32. "Logic, my dear Zoe, only enables one to be wrong with authority."

33. "I'm not running away. But this is one corner, of one country, on one continent, on one planet, that's a corner of a galaxy that's a corner of the universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and growing and never remaining the same for a single millisecond and there is so much - so much to see."

34. "Shut up, I'm making deductions, it's very exciting."

35. "Never turn down tea if it's offered. It's impolite and that's how wars start."

36. "Crowds lines the mall today as the Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill returned to the Buckingham Senate on his personal mammoth."

37. "What's a horse doing on a spaceship?" "Mickey, what's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective."

38. 

"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?" "Lot's of planets have a north!"

39. "Nonsense."

40. "When I say run, run!"

41. "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow."

42. "Would you like a jelly baby?"

43. "Sorry, must dash."

44. "I wonder..."

45. "Fine."

46. "Who am I?"

47. "Fantastic!"

48. "Allons-y!"

49. "Geronimo."

50. "

When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies. And nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment accepts it."

(I hope you appreciate that it took me two hours to find all those quotes.) 

Happy 50th! 

Warm and toasty books

So now that it's starting to get cold around here, I am filled with the desire to read winter books and watch winter movies. I have a little compilation of a few books that just make me feel warm and cozy on those cold winter days.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern which I previously reviewed here. I still love it very much.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. I don't know why but this is a very winter-y book for me. 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. The name pretty much says it all, but it really is a magical winter book.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. This is just the perfect winter day book. 

My other winter book tradition is to just skip to the winter chapters in Harry Potter. Most of the time, nothing exciting or adventurous is happening, it's just classes and day to day life at Hogwarts. Which is why I love it. As much as I enjoy reading about all of Harry's adventures, what I absolutely love about the Harry Potter books are the simple life scenes, the classrooms, the homework, the hanging out with friends and there's a lot of that in the winter chapters. Also, I love the Yule Ball chapter in the Goblet of Fire. 

I know that there aren't very many on the list, but that is my mission this winter: to find more wintery books to read. If you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

The Great Consulting Detective

So today is the last day of October, and also the last day for me to do an October Series Series post.
Originally I was going to review some kind of spooky series, but I couldn't think of any. As I am currently dressed as John Watson for Halloween, I will review the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, even if that doesn't really count as a series so much as a collection of short stories.

I feel like Sherlock Holmes is a character that everyone knows about, whether they've read the books or not, but they don't exactly know who he is. I just knew that he was the most famous literary detective of all times and that he had a companion named Watson. Then my friend got me into Sherlock BBC and I fell in love with it. I picked up the books at the library, hoping that I wouldn't be disappointed and that it wouldn't be too difficult to read. 

I couldn't have been more surprised.

The writing is wonderful, it's sarcastic and subtly hilarious. The books are written from Dr. John Watson's point of view as he helps the great consulting detective Sherlock Holmes unravel the mysteries of victorian London. The cases are brilliant, well thought out and exciting. The setting is exactly what you would imagine a victorian-era detective would call his home. And then there's the man himself.

In the tv series, Sherlock is a very cold, rude, sociopathic man, who can occasionally be very unintentionally funny and sassy. He's incredibly intelligent and frowned on by his peers (excluding a few individuals such as John and Lestrade). I found that the tv series was very true to his character in the books. They didn't try to make him more, I don't know, heroic. In the books, Holmes is a jerk. To everyone. He is very intelligent and quick, he knows how to get what he wants when he wants. He isn't your typical do-gooder, because you know that if he wanted to, he could be the most dangerous criminal in the streets of London. However, you can see that he isn't heartless, that Watson really does matter to him and that he is inherently a good person. 

Then there are other characters, such as Holmes' brother Mycroft. In the books and in the tv show, Mycroft is incredibly intelligent and strange. He holds a very important post in the government, but he doesn't want to be a detective like Holmes the younger. He doesn't like legwork. He's a great character, but we don't see much of him in the books. He has more appearances in the tv show.

To wrap this up, we have the criminal, Professor James Moriarty and his henchman Colonel Sebastian Moran. Moriarty ranks among my top villains of all times. He is cunning and witty, deadly sharp and a completely psychotic wreck. He is calm and quiet, doesn't get his hands dirty, but gets the job done. He is the spider at the center of London's crime web. In Sherlock BBC (because this review is basically turning into a comparison of the show and the books), Andrew Scott portrays a Moriarty that is quite different from the one we are used to. He is loud and Irish, very casual in his manner, but very classy in everything else - for a murderer that is. He knows how to mess with Sherlock, he knows how to get him to do exactly what he wants. I thought he did a phenomenal job as Moriarty, because he is a villain that you are genuinely scared of. He feels no remorse, he doesn't care that people have died, or that people will die. He just wants to play the game. And it's terrifying. 

Well this was a different series series post. More of a comparison. Ah well, hope you enjoy it anyway!

Read the books. Watch the show. Sherlock Holmes is a great character, no matter how you see him, on page or on screen. And then of course, there is John Watson, who is one of my favorite characters in any series ever. Talk about being an inherently good person: Watson is the epitome of goodness.

Happy Halloween!

Random Renaissance Revolution Ramblings

Ten points for alliteration.

Okay, so recently in my social studies class we have been studying the Renaissance, which is a fascinating period in time.

I don't particularly care for the whole religious aspect of it (mostly because of the many hours of notes I had to write on it) but what I really like are the artists, the writers and the scientists.

Learning about the people who let go of everything that they had been taught, everything that was considered to be true and to doubt it, to rethink it, to question the limits of knowledge just makes me really proud, in a strange way.

It makes me proud that at a time of impossible dreams (think Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel), there were humans who transcended the limits of their world and discovered amazing things.

Just think about it: today, when we drop something, we know that it's because of gravity. Even children know that. But hundreds of years ago, Newton established that law, and consequently deduced how planets orbited the sun. It took him twenty years to fine tune it. Imagine what his amazement would be at the word "gravity" coming out of a child's mouth today!

Then there are people like Descartes who thought about thinking (which is a really cool yet confusing thing to do) and thought about how thinking cannot start with an answer, but with a question. Only at the end fo your thinking do you have an answer.

My friend Addie (whose blog you should definitely read by clicking here) has been learning a lot about Vincent Van Gogh for a while now, reading biographies and the letters he wrote, etc. It seems like a really good idea, to just pick someone whom you admire and learn all that you can about them (please don't stalk people that are still alive, I'm talking dead geniuses). As much as I like Van Gogh, I think I'd rather focus on the writers and thinkers of the Renaissance. Here are a few of my possible choices of study:

- Sir Thomas More: he wrote the book Utopia about a perfect society during a time where the Catholic Church was trying to establish their idea of a perfect society. He was later killed, then posthumously recognized as a saint (Canonized, by the way, is the proper term. New vocab word of the day.) I find him to be a very interesting person, from what I've read so far, which is to say, my textbook.

- Galileo: discovered that the four moons of Jupiter orbited Jupiter in the same was that the Earth orbited the sun. His discoveries rocked the entire human perception of the physical world. He was threatened by death if he did not publicly admit that the Earth was motionless. As he left the trial, he muttered: "Nevertheless, it does move." (Again, this is from my textbook, so don't quote me on it.)

- René Descartes: a french thinker who discarded all traditional ways of thinking on his quest to seek "probable knowledge". He believed that human reasoning was the best road to understanding. Eventually, he was left only with doubt, and deduced that the doubter must then exist. He's the guy who said "I think, therefore I am." Although, I imagine he said it in french, considering that's where he was from. "Je pense, donc je suis", I suppose.

Leonardo Da Vinci: of course. He was an amazing man, I find it mind-blowing to see everything that he had imagined, created, drawn, and to discover that today we use some of the things that he invented. He was one of the first to dissect a human body to see how it worked (as gross as that is, it is pretty incredible and let's ask ourselves, where would we be if he hadn't?). He was a genius, there's no other word for it. I think he's an incredibly important and interesting person. (That's another ten points for alliteration.)

There are probably others, but those are the ones that really stuck with me. Feel free to suggests others in the comments below!

I'm thinking I'll maybe research them and write an essay or something about them. It's mostly for my personal knowledge and curiosity, but I'm a very goal oriented person, so the goal here is going to be to write an essay eventually.

Paper Towns Ad Placement (just kidding)

Paper Towns 

by John Green

I had particularly high expectations for this book, because I absolutely loved The Fault in Our Stars and because John Green is such an amazing person in general. I also knew that the main character and I have something in common (take a wild guess as to what it is). All that to say, I unwittingly set the bar pretty high. And I must say that as much as I love John Green and the way that he writes, this book fell a little flat.

Let me explain.

First, a brief description. Quentin and Margo Roth Spiegelman have been friends since they were little. However, high school happened and we all know that high school is that dreadful time where people change and friendships split. Luckily, both were pretty well off: he had his solid group of friends and she was the most popular, drop-dead gorgeous girl in the school. But Margo Roth Spiegelman is very different from all the popular girls. Because this isn't her element; high school isn't her world. So one day, she vanishes. Not for the first time, but at the very end of senior year, it's a critical moment in all their lives. 

Here are my pros and cons (by now you know that I love lists):

Pros:

- Well written

- Very different from traditional coming-of-age stories

- Well-rounded characters

- A very interesting perspective on Orlando, Florida

- I liked the way the book ended (no spoilers, have no fear)

Cons:

- The characters (as they usually do in John's books) sound and act a lot older than they are

- The ending sort of... happened. Does that make sense? It was good, but it didn't quite live up to the build-up

- Not as interesting as it could have been

Okay, let me dissect my criticism for you. First, the characters in John's books usually sound older than they are (yes Augustus Waters, I'm talking to you). It's an easy mistake to forgive, but being in high school myself, I don't know anyone who acts like his characters do.

Second, I liked the ending itself, I guess. I liked that it was non-traditional. If you've read it, hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about. However, there was a lot of tension, a lot of anticipation building up to it and it fell short of the expectation that we were given. That may have been the point, which is something to consider.

Lastly, the idea was very interesting, the descriptions were as well, but there were some passages that just dragged on and on and on and you were left pushing through to the next chapter, which is never good. Again, though, that may have been the point. 

In conclusion, it was okay, not his best, but if you love John Green's style, you'll probably like it.

Leave your opinions on Paper Towns in the comments below!

Also, in case you didn't know, John Green and his brother Hank run a channel on YouTube (as well as a million others, but this is their main). You can check it out by clicking here.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society

by Trenton Lee Stewart

Okay, so this is a series that is near and dear to my heart for several reasons. 

First of all, I find it pretty ageless. Sure, the main characters are all about 12 years old, but the story and the way it's written is enjoyable for all age groups (well, I'd say maybe starting at 8-10 years old, just because it's a little complicated). Secondly: the writing. The writing in these books is brilliant. It's clever, it's witty without being sarcastic. The plot is well thought out, the characters are human with flaws and imperfections. The villain isn't just bad, the protagonist isn't just good, the characters have secrets. There is the main plot, plot twists for seemingly unrelated plots and then bam! It's all connected in the end. I love it.

The characters are my babies. I love them: Reynie, Kate, Sticky and Constance. Of course, I love Nicholas Benedict as well, he'd make a great grandfather, but the four main characters are my favorite. They make a good team because they're so dysfunctional on their own that they really all need each other. I have always admired Kate the most, because she is exactly what I wanted to be like when I was younger: smart, adventurous, friendly and funny, surrounded by friends. She just incarnated my idea of a perfect person. So there will always be a special place in my heart for Kate. 

To give you the basic premise of the story. Four children answer a strange newspaper ad to pass tests. They don't know what these tests are or what they mean, only that they are for gifted children. As it turns out, these tests were their acceptance letter into a secret society that is combatting a man who wants to take over the world thanks to radio waves. These four children become best friends and name themselves The Mysterious Benedict Society in honor of the man who originally created the test, the head of the secret society: Mr. Nicholas Benedict. The Mysterious Benedict Society have many adventures: they travel, have to solve riddles and puzzles and outsmart the bad guys. 

I suggest you read this series, even if it is a kid's series. They're very... smart books. Yes, that's a good way to put it.

If you've already read this series and you loved it, may I suggest The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart. It's the prequel to TMBS. I got it as a present for my brother and ended up keeping it for myself because it was so good. I was a little iffy about it at first, but it met my high expectations. 

Before I go, I'd like to point out that I made it! I wrote the September series series before the end of September. Two days before the end, but still! It counts. 

Indecisions, talented people and emo-pop

So here is the explanation for the title.

I have many things to say.

I have had no time to say any of them.

So because I can't decide, here is a brief summary of all of them.

1. First and not relevant to anything, I got a Pandora station (a free custom radio station, which is awesome) and it keeps describing the music I listen to as "emo-pop" and I don't know how to feel about it. I also have Owl City and Taylor Swift (that I turned off, so that's not the emo-pop). Yeah, I have a wide range of taste in music.

2. I have managed to read two books in the last two weeks. You don't know how much of an achievement this is considering how awfully busy I have been! More on that later, but I read Paper Towns by John Green and The Book of Fred by Abby Bardi.

3. My friend Addie over at A Functionally Messy blog introduced me to a website called Figment that you can discover by clicking here. I absolutely love it.

4. I have joined an after-school literary magazine and my god, you wouldn't believe the level of writing talent that some people have! We had about 45 minutes to write something, anything, using at least six of the words that we had all written up on the board (our favorite word, in any language we wanted and of course, someone wrote a beautiful word in Icelandic and we just kept pestering him to know how it was pronounced). I wrote a short story (that I had to read out loud, which meant that I stressed myself out so much I couldn't breathe. I have trouble sharing what I write, let alone reading it out loud!) A few people wrote poems that just left us all breathless. They were absolutely fantastic, well written and powerful. It was a great moment.

5. I'm sure I have something else to say... Maybe not. You may have noticed that I like lists. There are lists posted everywhere in my room, my notebooks, everywhere. My brain just works by lists.

As for the books I read, I will be posting reviews soon! And the series series I promised.