Title of your life

Jamie's got another fun post going, and since I'm not doing this week's TTT, I thought I'd do this instead!  It's like a soundtrack to your life thing, except instead of a soundtrack it's a....book track?  I thought it was going to be super hard (and well..it was kind of hard), but looking through my goodreads list made this SOOOO much easier!


You:

How would you describe your 15 year old self? The Metamophosis
When You Looked Into The Mirror What Did You See: The Looking Glass Wars  
Your 16 your old self outlook on life/motto:  Just Ella
How You Think People Would Describe Your Personality:   The Gates of Sleep, Falling Up, Everlost
Describe An Insecurity In High School: The Wallflower
Describe Your Worst Trait As A Teen:  Diva
Describe the contents of your diary/journal: I Was So Mad
Your biggest Fear:  The End
You excelled at: Queen of Babble 
You were always concerned about: Oh The Places You'll Go
You Thought Your Life Was: Half Magic


I went through this huge transition between my freshman and sophomore year of high school.  I went from being this really shy girl to being really confident.  I didn't want to pretend to be someone else, but I wanted to be braver.  I was pretty universally known as being rather ditzy (which I hated.  I'm smart, but unfortunately not particularly well spoken)..I was always tired, extremely clumsy, and everyone knew I got lost.  I once left the grocery store two minutes from my house and ended up at a church half an hour into the wrong state instead of my house.  I was always afraid as being seen as dumb, but I was more worried about being seen as boring.  I wasn't comfortable being in the center of attention, but I also didn't want to be forgettable.  I had a pretty good high school life once I got more comfortable in my skin, and I couldn't wait to get out of my small town life!

 Love Life:

How would you sum up your high school love life? An Acceptable Time
Describe your most serious boyfriend from high school? Pride and Prejudice
Describe your first kiss: Reckless
Your philosophy on dating/love: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Describe Your Worst Break Up: Much Ado About Nothing

I wasn't much interested in dating, really.  I liked having fun, but I didn't like committing to anyone.  Luckily that meant I wasn't really that invested in anyone which meant no awful break ups!  My first boyfriend was probably the only serious relationship I had (and we really were like Lizzy and Darcy reincarnated. I HATED him for years, and somehow ended up dating him) and by serious I mean I actually called him my boyfriend haha. I'm not even sure we dated 3 months!  Outside of school, that was a different story.  I had a first love and it was quite dramatic in a way only summer things can be, but that's a story for another day.
   
Family

Your relationship with your mom as a teen: Heart of the Matter
Your relationship with your dad as a teen: Close Kin
Your relationship with a sibling: Brutal
What you thought about your parents rules/parenting style: The Crystal Prison
 


I have always been extremely lucky with my family.  80% of the time I had a fantastic relationship with my parents.  There were a couple of rules I thought were ridiculously unfair, but for the most part I knew they had my best interest at heart and that most of the rules were there for good reason.  My brother and I on the other hand had a TERRIBLE relationship until my senior year when he made it to high school (and even then it was pretty hit or miss).  We get along really well now though, so I suppose it was worth it?


Friends:

Describe you and your best friend at 16: Soulbound
Your Social Status: Nobody's Prize

Describe Your Group Of Friends: Waifs and Strays

My high school was pretty good about not being super cliquey.  I had a bunch of different all from various groups of people in the school, which meant that I didn't really have a single group I hung out with.  It did, however, mean that all my friends hated each other hahaha.  I didn't have a single best friend, but I did have three very different best friends, and am still good friends with all three of them!

 
School:

Your Perception Of High School Upon Entering: Here There Be Dragons
Your relationship with academics: Damsel Under Stress
Your Weekends Were: Remember Me?
If Your High School Life Was A Movie It would be called: Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging
A Class You Wish High School Would Have Offered: Life, the Universe, and Everything
Your Senior Year Was: Voyage of Slaves
Describe prom: Wildwood Dancing
When High School Ended It Was:  The Call of the Wild
 


I was always ridiculously busy in high school between swimming, a youth orchestra, a youth wind ensemble, and a quintet, let alone school, so free time was a myth.  Despite all of that, I learned a lot of life lessons and had a lot of fun (as much as one does in high school).
 
The Future

How You Felt About The Prospect of College:  Where the Wild Things Are
How You Thought Your Life Would Be At 23:  Song of the Wanderer
 
When I left home for school, I thought I was going to be this free spirit and I was going to travel the world, just me and a backpack.  Instead I started dating someone despite all intentions otherwise, and realized life as a musician is spent mostly indoors being neurotic, not outdoors.  Although I have done a fair amount of travel, and with a backpack, so I can't complain too much about that.


Your Life Now:

Describe Your Love Life Now: Princess in Love
Describe The State Of Your Friendship With Your High School BFF: The Neverending Story
Your Relationship With Your Parents Now:  Guess How Much I Love You?
Your Thoughts On Your High School Reunion (either if you had it or if it’s upcoming): So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Biggest Lesson You Learned In High School: Bloomability
One Thing You WISHED You Had Learned:  Sense and Sensibility
Advice You Wish You Could Have Given Your Teen Self: The God of Small Things
Something You Could Learn From Your 16 Year Old Self: Be Brave Little Noddy

I honestly have a pretty fantastic life.  I have had a lot of really tragic things happen over the years, but I've always had a really great set of friends to help me and my family is my rock, and on top of all of that, I have a really fantastic boyfriend (who came out of the blue and changed me of my commitment phobic ways...mostly haha).  I'm still rather ditzy and have come to accept this about my self, but I have found myself shrinking back these days and this quiz was actually a pretty good reminder that I did it once before - I was bold and brazen in high school (or it's at least how I like to remember it), and I can be that again!

Thanks again to Jamie for creating this!  I'd love to see your lists, just drop me a comment and I'll go check it out, and if you do this remember to link back to Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner!

The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han

Summary

 Goodreads:  Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.


Thoughts

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god!

Ok here's the thing.  I 100% expected to strongly dislike this, but I keep seeing it places so I thought I'd give it a try.  I mean the cover tells me I should expect a love triangle and stupid boy stuff, as does the back cover description (also what exactly is everything in between brother figure and crush if I might ask?).  And I can't say that doesn't happen, but the love triangle stuff isn't really a main or strong point of the book.  And I expected to hate Conrad because he's the stupid broody boy the main character likes for absolutely no reason.  And I just...agghhh I was so shocked!

I liked this WAY MORE THAN I EXPECTED TO.  I am still having difficulty coming to terms with it.  It should be everything I don't like in YA fiction, but it's just...it's so much like how you feel when you are 16!  Everything feels confusing and complicated (and you always want the boy you can't get).  You also hit a stage where suddenly everyone finds you attractive and it feels strange and  you never really trust that this isn't some trick someone is pulling.  Or at least that was how it was for me when I turned 15, and my experience with boys before and after was very much like Belly's experience (except the boys weren't family friends).

Everything I expected to hate was still there, but it was somehow forgivable because of HOW it was written.  There's just something perfect about the way Han writes the story.  It really was like I was transported back to to the summer I turned pretty (See what I did there.  Eh? Ehhhhh?).  It's the interest in boys all of a sudden, the body image issues, and everything seems like such a big deal all the time!  It was so much more about growing up than it was about romance, and I don't know how to explain that because so much of the book was romance.  So I'm going to give up on that and you're just going to have to trust me on it.

There were things I didn't want to like about this book - for example girl friendships.  I hate that the majority of books I read are about frenemies.  In fact the only books that come to mind about girls with AWESOME friendships are Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Finding Cassie Crazy (aka The Year of Secret Assignments).  I get that girl relationships are weird and complicated and there's usually some sort of feeling of inadequacy and it's a delicate balance.  Han nailed that.  I just wish there was more showing the good part of that relationship too.  And we catch glimpses of it, but as with other YA contemporary books, it's more bad than good.  Part of it is that Belly's relationship with her bff Taylor isn't like her mother's relationship with Susannah.  And I so wish I had a best friend like that, closer than a sister even.  I have AWESOME best friends, but it's not like that.

I also think that Belly can be a very hard character to like at times.  She can be an annoying tattle tale and has a tendency to whine, but I appreciate that she is a flawed character, with plenty to like as well.  It's incredible how easily I related to her though.  I know exactly what it feels like to be with family friends (or really any number of groups of people) and be the only girl  or the only one my age, and you feel so left out.  It makes you feel like you have to compete for attention and you always feel unsettled and excluded.  And it makes you feel jealous and angry and you hate that you feel that way...that's what I'm talking about.  Han just really, really gets it.  And I think it is really hard to write slice of life YA where it doesn't get overly dramatic (also instalove.  It needs to stop), but still captures the...bigness of how everything fels.  The insecurity about how to measure up to others - intelligence, looks, how sexually experienced you are - whether you've gone too far or not far enough.  I think that the way Han deals with this lets me forgive her for the love triangle.  Because there's also BIG life issues in the book (and I will not tell you about them because it will spoil a lot of things).  And somehow Belly's interest in the angsty Conrad is also forgivable.  I mean I could see it as instalove, except that you are given snippets throughout her life.  And he's not often nice, but I've also been there.  I think part of the reason I forgive it is that she's known him her entire life.  (Speaking of the snippets, I was really confused for the first 250 pages because all of a sudden it'd be a completely different time.  Turns out it says what age she was right under the chapter header and it took me 3/4 of the book to figure this out (idiot).  So when you do read this, and you should, read that part too or you'll be confused like me).

And the ending - OH MY GOD I was totally not expecting that! Oh the feels!! And whatever you think it is I am talking about, trust me you are so, so wrong.

 I feel like this review isn't giving a great impression of the book (or rather it's just that I'm completely incoherent).  It really does have everything I hate in a book, but I LOVED IT - it is just done in all the right ways.  It's not even that it was a fun fluffy read.  It wasn't at all, it was angsty and distressing - but just enough so that you wanted to keep reading.  Ugh I just can't stop raving about just how SHOCKED I was about the whole book, but especially the ending and how perfectly the story was captured.  I kinda wish it stopped there, but it's a series.  Which I am expecting to hate.  Even though I was taken aback by this book...I don't trust to like this for more than this one book.  I will say that I'm not sure if I'm giving it better than chocolate pudding rating because I loved it so much or because I was shocked so much (but be reassured that it would get an almost as good as chocolate pudding rating at the very least even if I wasn't so shocked)

Overall

My feelings directly after reading this?  Check my comment on Mad but Magic's blog (which you should totally read btw, their blog is AWESOME).

Words clearly don't exist to explain my emotions on reading this book.  So I will leave you with this:

A to Z Survey

I've been seeing this survey making its rounds around the blogosphere and it looked like fun, so that's what I'm doing this week instead of a Friday Five!

Sponsored by Perpetual Page-Turner

 

Author you’ve read the most books from:

 Oh my goodness...Enid Blyton wins with 58 books hahahah

But if we're looking at most read books with an author that is individual books and not because I read a series by the author, Roald Dahl and Alice Hoffman are tied at 13.

Best Sequel Ever:

I honestly could pick so many, but Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials has been on the mind lately.  The Amber Spyglass is one of the best endings to a series I've ever read.  Actually, it might just be THE best ending.

Currently Reading:

Er..I literally just finished The Crimson Crown which I really enjoyed.  So I guess I'm still in the middle of Mansfield Park?  And I need to review The Magic Warble, so I'll probably start reading that next.

Drink of Choice While Reading:

Usually what I have around? So coffee or tea?  I tend to get too absorbed into the book to remember to eat or drink haha

E-reader or Physical Book?

I'd love to say physical book all the way, but e-readers are pretty nifty too.

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated In High School:

I was sitting here racking my brains out, and then it hit me.  Who have I EVER loved as much as Darcy?  He may have been a bit old for me, but I have had many a daydream about tall, dark, and handsome men like Darcy. 

You are a beautiful, beautiful man Matthew Macfadyen.

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey.  I never would have picked this book up just by reading the back cover, and I am SO glad I did (and I am still clueless as to how it came to my possession).

Hidden Gem Book:

I'm going to say books that you've heard me mention a billion times by now.  Some of my favourite books really don't have a big following and they absolutely deserve one, so these are my top choices:

Abarat by Clive Barker
The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti
Finding Cassie Crazy by Jaclyn Moriarty

I have made a promise to myself to review these books for you guys so I can explain to you WHY you should read them, not just that you should!

Important Moment in your Reading Life:

When I decided reading the Bob books was more exciting than coloring them.  Closely followed by when I read The Trumpeter of Krakow or The Wheel on the School as one of them was my very first chapter book!  (and the other was my second, but I can't remember which one.  I'm leaning towards The Wheel on the School coming first though)

Just Finished:

Oops looks like I already answered this...but I just read the whole Seven Realms series...in two days...I just couldn't put them down!

Kinds of Books You Won't Read:

If I know they are going to be really depressing, it'll will literally take me years to belt up and read it.  I will likely never read Grapes of Wrath.  I also don't handle really scary things...I couldn't sleep at all after I read Misery.  And I thought I could handle scary things...it's just a book, right?  Wrong.  So, so wrong. 

Longest Book You've Read:

Well this is a surprise!  Apparently it's Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart which I find unlikely.  It is 1015 pages though.

Just kidding, I looked up Count of MonteCristo which is 1276 pages, so I'm not sure why that isn't showing up at the top of my goodreads page count? 

Major book hangover because of:

 I had to look up what this is....I'd have to say Skip Beat! because I raged for 3 days when I discovered the series wasn't finished UNLIKE WHAT MY FRIEND TOLD ME.  I never would have read it if I'd known that, but then I would never have read Skip Beat, so that would have been upsetting too.

Number of Bookcases You Own:

Before I moved we had bookshelves against ever wall and in every room (even the bathrooms.  My friends thought my family was a bunch of lunatics haha).  I now only have 4 measly bookshelves :(

One Book You Have Read Multiple Times:

Oh there are so many of these!  I can't possibly pick one.  I brought the books I HAD to have to survive with me when I moved, so the Abarat series, His Dark Materials, the Abhorsen trilogy, all of Tamora Pierce's Quartets (except the Circle of Magic ones, I haven't read those yet), Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series, A Wrinkle in Time Quartet, A Ring of Endless Light and Pride and Prejudice, Finding Cassie Crazy, all of which are falling apart I've read them so many times, Harry Potter...I should stop now...

Preferred Place To Read:

These days I like to go out to the square and read on a bench, but really I read anywhere.  Correction, it's more like I read everywhere haha.

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you've read:

"Believe me when I say:  There are two forces that command the soul.  One is God.  The other is the tide." - Clive Barker's  Abarat.  I'm not religious in the normal sense, but the quote really speaks to me, especially the bit about the tide.

"Nature is never static, I understand. Change is ever-constant, clouds zipping across a sky. It is dynamic, complicated, tangled, mostly beautiful. A moving forward, something newly gained, means that something is lost, too." - Deb Caletti's The Nature of Jade.  Writing like this is why you should read Deb Caletti.

Reading Regret:

I'm not entirely sure I have one?  Maybe not really discovering book bloggers until this year (I sort of half-heartedly started this blog in 2010, but I didn't really get into it until this year.)  I don't have a lot of friends who are nearly as into books as I am, or if they are, they don't like the same books (all my friends like nonfiction.  Seriously.  How is that even a thing?) So when I discovered there was a whole world out there of people like me who could talk for DAYS about books with me, I was pretty mind blown.  So it would have been nice if I'd discovered this sooner so I'd feel a little less lonely and geeky about things haha

Series You Started And Need To Finish(all books are out in series):

Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles

Three of your All-Time Favorite Books:

See this picking only 3 is a real problem.  Let's go with books I haven't listed already...The Lords of Discipline (also known as any book ever written by Pat Conroy), Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  Completely randomly off my goodreads favs, so there you are.

Unapologetic Fangirl For:

Uhh...off the top of my head, I'd guess the Redwall series.  I LOVED those books (at least the first 10 or so of them) and they're considered relatively geeky I'd guess.  Probably the thing I'm most ashamed/love is manga though.  I got into it my sophomore year of college, and it's not usually something I share with normal people.  Normal people being anyone not reading this blog right now haha. 

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others:

Soulbroken by Heather Brewer (it's coming out next week!!), Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray, In the Age of Love and Chocolate by Gabrielle Zevin, and MOST importantly, The Price of Dreams by Clive Barker

Worst Bookish Habit:

Uhhh.....reading a bunch of books and then not reviewing them like I meant to for this blog?

X Marks The Spot: Start at the top left of your shelf and pick the 27th book:

The Cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway
The Masks of God:  Oriental Mythology - Joseph Campbell
The Luncheon of the Boating Party  - Susan Vreeland
Abarat - Clive Barker
....well this is an oddly not very representative list of what I read haha 

Your latest book purchase:

I don't really buy books anymore, I get most of them through bookmooch, friends, or a library.  But my latest mooch on Bookmooch is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

ZZZ-snatcher book (last book that kept you up WAY late):

Pretty much the entire Seven Realms series

If you'd like to participate, please make sure to let Jamie at Perpetual Page-Turner know, and give her credit for creating the survey. She'd like to see your answers, so be sure to link back to her page.

Top Ten Books Partially Set in Reality

 Hosted by The Broke and Bookish

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is our favourite books in "x" setting.  I chose to do books that are set in our world, but are also set in another world - whether it is a magical kingdom, another planet, or even a parallel universe.  I also didn't pick only 10 because....come on only ten?!?  I even tried to make my setting oddly specific so I could do it!  So as always, in no particular order, here goes!

 1.  Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

Come on, wasn't this every kid's favourite book?  (Except Chicka Chicka Boom Boom of course)

Our setting:  Max's bedroom, assumed to be somewhere on Earth

Other world: Where the wild things are, duh!

  

2.  A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray

 

Oh man this series.  Can I just say that everything Libba Bray writes is amazing?

Our setting: India and England

Other world: I actually had to look this up.  Apparently it's just called "the realms" which isn't  a very exciting name.

3.  Elsewhere - Gabrielle Zevin

I completely fell in love with the whole concept of this book.  And all of Gabrielle Zevin's books are amazing as well.

Our setting:  Somewhere on Earth

Other world:  The afterlife

4.  Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

I love that this series deals with fairies, but it's so technologically savvy and there's so many cool gadgets and yay science!

Our setting: Various places on Earth

Other world: Haven City, a fairy metropolis (and various other places throughout the series)

 

5. xxxHolic - CLAMP

Just look at that artwork.  I shouldn't even have to give an explanation.  But it holds a special place in my heart as one of the first animes I watched as well as one of the first mangas I read.  And it's SO GOOD, easily in my top 5 mangas.

Our setting:  Japan

Other world:  This is sort of cheating since it's mostly supernatural events within our world, but it does crossover with Tsubasa which is in another universe.

 

  

6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

If you have eyes and have seen my blog, clearly I'm a huge Hitchhiker's fan. 'Nuff said.

Our setting: Earth (for some reason I always thought it was in England, but I can't confirm that is true.  It doesn't seem to be specified at all)

Other world:  Clearly, the galaxy.  And also the universe.

7. The Dark Mirror - Juliet Marillier

I thought I'd put a different Marillier book up instead of using the same one over and over like a damned radio station.  This one is the first book in the Bridei Chronicles about the Pict king in the mid 6th century.

Ours setting: UK (where the Picts are, specifically)

Other world:  This deals with druids, so it's very connected to the fae and their gods.  You know the more I think about this the more I'm not actually sure they travel to the fairy land or have as many dealings as the Sevenwaters series.  Whatever.  I'm still picking this book, it's worthy!

 

8. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle

There is something so overwhelmingly right about L'Engle's writing.  She is one of a kind and you always get something new out of her writing.  I just reread A Ring of Endless Light so I'll blather on about my eternal love for Madeline L'Engle when I post my review on that.

Our setting: Somewhere on Earth.  Funny how I never pay attention to exactly where on Earth all these books are taking place

Other world:  Other planets, namely Camazotz

 

9. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman

This series completely blew my 12 year old mind apart.  I'm not sure I've had an experience quite like it since then.  And the ending of the last book..I'm not sure I'll ever recover from it.  This is the second book in the series as the first book doesn't meet the setting requirements

Our setting: Oxford - I'm assuming it's our Oxford, it seems very similar to our world anyway

Other world:  Various other parallel universes, including at some point Lyra's Oxford (might not be in this book I can't quite remember).  Most of this involves travel through the world of Ci'gazze.

 

10. Abarat - Clive Barker

HA!  As if I could make a list without Abarat.  In fact I'm pretty sure Abarat is why I chose this setting in the first place.  I've talked about it more than enough, just read the series!

Our setting: Chickentown, Minnesota (ok not ACTUALLY a real place, but it's in our world.  It counts!)

Other world: The islands of Abarat

 

11.  Through the Looking Glass (and what Alice found there) - Lewis Carroll

I've always loved both books, but for reasons I can't remember this one was always my favourite of the two.

Our setting: Earth..England?  I really need to pay attention more

Other world: Through the looking glass

12.  Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone - JK Rowling

It would be blasphemy to have this setting and not include Harry Potter.  Although the magical world is set inside of our own one, it is still very clearly set apart.  (Technically Artemis Fowl is set in our world but underground, so same rules apply)

Our setting:  England

Other world: Primarily Hogwarts

 

13.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

There is nothing more magical or real than walking through your closet into a magical kingdom.

Our setting: England

Other world: Narnia

Honorable mention:

Skellig - David Almond 

 

Skellig doesn't really fit the rules I set for myself, but I wanted to mention it because it is such a lovely book, and I'm the boss and I say I can.  I feel that despite the fact that David Almond is an award winning author, he's never really mentioned much, even in favourite author lists.  He writes really fantastic middle school ageish books that are just...well they're categorized as magical realism and that's a good way to describe them in every sense of the words.

Just a reminder that if you follow me on Google + and wish to continue following me, I'd recommend following me through another source as I am deleting my Google + account, at least for a while.

And that's it for this week's TTT!  What was on your list?