Well, Hot Damn

 It's not every day your cat runs across your keyboard and suddenly you're looking at a blog you completely forgot existed for 10+ years.

I don't know that I ever would have found my way back here without some sort of cosmic cat interference, but I'm iooooooooooooooooooowe

Sorry, cat ran across the keyboard again. I'm HAPPY to be back. Let's get some life updates going, shall we?

First, I did not major in English and, as a matter of fact, I'm still pursuing a degree. YES REALLY. I changed course a few times, took several years off in general, and now...well...I'm getting ready to apply to nursing school this upcoming year. When I was scrolling through my posts about dissecting the cat my Junior year of high school I was cackling like a mad witch. Life really comes full circle, doesn't it? Especially in regards to those pesky, type A anatomy professors who really want to make you ride the struggle bus downhill in a snowstorm. So crazy.

Something that hasn't really changed is my love of reading, though I've slowed down immensely since the days I had wildly unbelievable amounts of free time due to unemployment and general kid-less-ness. I will have read 80ish books by the end of this year, and this is the second year I've been fully back into reading. I have never fully stopped losing myself in a good book, but there were a couple unfortunate years after the birth of my first son that I did not read as much as I would have liked.

Oh, yeah, I have sons! Two of them! And what's crazier? I had them with the boy I went to homecoming and prom with and who was picking me up to go see all those scary movies way back in my posts. I may have been wishy-washy on my career path but GOD I knew I would be marrying that man back when I was covered in cystic acne and cotton candy scented body spray.

I won't let my cat's hard work go to waste. I will be updating this blog periodically, if only for myself. I can't say that it will be often or even consistent because if I've learned anything about myself from scrolling through 3 years of my teen angst is that I've never been good about holding myself accountable.

Here's a pic of little Galaxy to satisfy the cat tax

Between Shades of Gray

Hey guys! I'm back! I haven't read a whole lot since I last posted because I was busy with finals and stuff. Oh yeah, I graduated high school, by the way. It was pretty awesome. :)

Anyway, I've read a few books but I finished one today that I felt deserved it's own post. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.

I was just browsing books on Amazon and it was in the 'customers who bought ____ also bought these' section. I was iffy about it because I'd never heard of it before, but after seeing the overwhelming number of positive reviews I was sold. One person in particular stated "If there's only one book you read this year, make it this one" so I assumed that if it made that positive of an impact on someone, then I would at least like it a little bit.

I liked it a whole lot more than a little bit.

Short summary:

The book is about a 15 year old girl named Lina who lives with her parents and younger brother in Lithuania during the early 1940s. One day, her entire life is thrown into turmoil when she, her mother and her brother are thrown into a crowded train car and shipped to a work camp. She is labeled as a criminal by members of Stalin's army and is exposed to many horrors that take her life from care-free to horrifying. Lina finds solace in drawing portraits of the people she comes in contact with and attempting to discover the fate of her missing father.

Some things I learned:

I for one never recall learning in depth about Joseph Stalin's 'purges' in school. This book actually taught me a lot of things that I never learned in school. (And they told me I was wasting my time reading so many books). These purges claimed anywhere from 20 to 60 million lives, including children and infants. The majority of these deaths were of those who did not support Stalin's reign and spoke out against him. The rest of the deaths were of their families. It is argued that the majority of these deaths were not 'intentional' by Stalin's army but were a result of starvation, illness, or exposure to the elements. Only about 1 million were personally shot by officers. Regardless, the numbers are staggering and the simple fact that they don't actually know how many lives were taken is upsetting and shocking.

A Conclusion:
And so, I must say I recommend this book. It is a beautiful story about an amazing family and group of people and is an amazing way to get an in depth look at one of history's less explored events. It is very sad and often a little grotesque, and although it is recommended for 12+, I found it to be a bit graphic in describing it's scenes of death and abuse. However, it is very realistic and does not 'sugar coat' the historical events. It's a fascinating look inside of the minds of the victims of Stalin.

Next, I'm reading Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson and I expect to be finished in the next couple of days. :) Talk to you guys soon!

LOTS OF BOOKS.

Hey there ya'll! (is that appropriate? Am I allowed to say ya'll or should I just not?)

It's almost summer and hopefully that means that I'll get to do a few more legit book reviews. I've just been really busy. That's a total lie. I guess the truth is that I've just been reading so much lately that it's really hard for me to review each and every one. But today I'm just going to run through the list of books I've read since I last posted and give you a brief compilation of my thoughts on the book. I'm just going to assume that you already know what the book is about so I don't have to go into a long summary or anything. :) Thanks for being patient to those of you who are still with me, here. :) (I'm going to start at #28 because it's the 28th book I've read this year. The first 27 can be found on my last post.) Also, rating is on a scale of five *'s.

28.) The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry- I'm a Lowry fan. I loved The Giver series and I figured The Willoughbys would be similar to the series. I figured it would be a bit dark, and I was very wrong. I found that it was insanely clever. It was disguised as an innocent parody of classic stories meant for children, but it actually carried an awful lot of adult messages. As a quick example, the middle Willoughby child, Jane, is constantly battling her brothers and other male characters in the book due to her gender. It's addressed in a funny way, but the Jane's feminist nature carried a lot of weight with me. The book is intended for children 8 and up, but I think that people of all ages could appreciate it's message, particularly those who grew up reading fairy tales about perfect families and children. It really flips those stories on their heads. (Rating: ****)

29.) Hate List by Jennifer Brown-I went into this book with very high expectations and as a book lover I really should learn my lesson with this. I figured that it would be emotional and sad, but I just thought it was annoying. Let me state one fact about the book before I continue: The book was inspired by a Nickleback song. Now, I'm not saying that's entirely bad...okay I am. The book wasn't the best, in my opinion. I didn't care much for Val. I thought that she had a desperate-to-be-different attitude that I just struggled to grasp. I did, however, appreciate the flashbacks to her relationship with Nick before the shooting. Those few moments were the only time I felt any sort of emotion at all. (Rating: **)

30-34.) The Delirium Series (including Hana and Raven) by Lauren Oliver-So this series was introduced to me by my very dear friend Sage, and I freakin' loved it. The premise of it itself sounds so cliche and silly but it is so well done. Never in a series have I had so many freakouts in such a close span of time. Luckily, I didn't have to wait between novels. If I had, I might have died. It is such an intense series. All of the characters are very dynamic which is usually hard to come across particularly in series. I fell in love with Alex, I fell in love with Julian, I hated them both and then loved them again, it's crazy guys. It's absolutely crazy. I can't even tell you how crazy it is. Please just take my word for it and read these books. The three novellas are all less than 100 pages each and add great depth to the book that came before it. (The order is Delirium-Hana, Pandemonium-Raven, Requiem-Annabel) DO NOT SKIP OUT ON THE NOVELLAS. I'm going to be honest, I didn't read Annabel. Once I finished Requiem I was in shock for quite some time and was a bit mad at Lauren Oliver, to be honest. Give it a shot. I'm serious. (Rating: *****)

35.) Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell-There have only been a few books recently that I've been so excited to read that my palms literally got itchy until I got my hands on them. Unlike Hate List, Eleanor & Park did not disappoint. It was amazing. From page one, I was utterly in love with Eleanor. I felt like she was the character that most resembled my personality, possibly out of any book I've ever read. Rowell eloquently grasped what falling in love in high school is like, realistically. Without all of the ooey gooey stuff. In fact, Eleanor and Park don't even share their first kiss until the book is almost over. The author I would most compare Rowell to would be John Green which is the highest compliment that I can give to an author. It was beautiful. (Rating: *****)

36.) Just Kids by Patti Smith-I hate nonfiction with a bloody passion. However, I was forced to read this book because I really didn't want to fail english. Luckily for me it wasn't bad. Other than Patti's incessant name dropping (boastful at best) I thought the story was great. Robert and Patti's relationship was so remarkable it's almost difficult to imagine that it ever happened. I don't know that I would've chosen to read it on my own, but I really didn't think it was that bad. If you're interested in what life was like in the late 1960s, or if you're a fan of Smith, give this one a shot. (Rating: ****)

37.) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card-So my dad gave me this book when I was about 11 and I was never able to finish it because...well, there's really no reason. I probably started it and made it halfway a dozen times and I was finally able to conquer it this week after an intense 7 year battle. And it was really good! I'm normally not a sci-fi fan. At all. But this was a sci-fi story that was almost believable. The ending was rather intense and was so worth the kind of slow pace of the first half of the book. Also, Ender was really cool and I'm feeling a bit guilty about my major crush on him because I don't believe that at any point in the book he's older than 11. (Rating: ****)

38.) Room by Emma Donoghue-This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it. I've wanted to read it for quite some time and I really liked it. Ma was such a strong character throughout the whole novel and Jack's voice narrating the novel was a really fresh idea. For those who don't know, the story is told from the perspective of 5 year old Jack. Basically what is happening is Jack's mother was kidnapped at the age of 19 and has been held in her captor's shed for 7 years. Her strength as a mother ultimately saves herself and her son's life. I highly recommend this book to just about everyone. It's rather hard to get through because of how realistic it is, but it's very much worth it. (Rating: *****)

OKAY THAT'S ALL I HAVE FOR NOW! I have a small stack of books I got from Salvation Army that I'll be reading this week so I'll let you know how that goes. :) Right now, I'm reading She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb but it may take me awhile because finals are next week and all that fun stuff.

Talk to you soon! I promise!

I'm terrible at this blog thing....

Hey guys! It's been... A long time. Why does it seem like that's how my posts always start? Oh we'll. I kind of suck. Hopefully I still have a few of my followers! My main point for this blog post is to show you a list of the books I've read so far this year. But first, I just wanted to point out how crazy it is that I'm 3/4 of the way through my senior year of high school! My graduation is in June and I am absolutely thrilled. However, I am a little nervous about what lies ahead. One step at a time, I suppose. :)

I've also been doing a lot of writing. Nothing good, but writing none the less.

Now to the best part! Books! The following is a list of everything I've read in 2013. Ready? :)

1. Matched-Ally Condie
2. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas-John Boyne
3. Every Day- David Levithan
4. Beautiful Creatures-Kami Garcia
5. The book Thief-Markus Zusak
6. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist-Rachel Cohn
7-15. Series of Unfortunate Events 1-9-Lemony Snicket (don't judge me. I've never read them before.
16. Wintertown-Stephen Emond
17. If I Stay-Gayle Forman
18. Ruby's Imagine-Kim Antieau
19. How They Met and Other Stories-David Levithan
20. Girl, Interrupted-Susanna Kaysen
21. Mister Death's Blue Eyed Girls-Mary Downing Hahn
22. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time-Mark Huddon
23. The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
24. Let the Right One In-John Lindquist
25. The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold
26.Marley and Me- John Grogan
27. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan-Lisa See


That's it so far!! I've read a lot of great books and I've still got a lot of books to go. I hope to at least make it to 100 and beat my record last year! If you have any recommendations, let me know!

Warm Bodies Movie Review *MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

So my friend won tickets to an advanced screening of the upcoming movie Warm Bodies starring Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't go. Fortunately for me, she gave me the tickets! So my boyfriend and I were really excited for the opportunity to go!

As far as the theater itself went, it was not the best. Long story short they collected everyone's cell phones. Of course I understand it was for security purposes, so the movie wasn't recorded and distributed, but it was kind of snuck on us. They let us past the ticket collector and guided us to the auditorium that the movie would be in and then kind of jumped out with plastic bags and made people hand over their electronics. I was really uncomfortable with this and refused. We decided to take our electronics back to the car, except I took my cell phone back in. I felt uncomfortable about leaving it with strangers or in the car. Luckily, they took my word that I didn't have it on me and we were let in.

The second mistake on the theater's part was the fact that there was a couple with a very young toddler who was disruptive. It wasn't even the toddler that bothered me, it was his mother. She spanked him multiple times and wouldn't leave the theater. Finally, a manager came by and said something to them. Still, they didn't leave. The manager gave them multiple warnings until they finally left. At last, I could focus entirely on the movie.

The biggest thing that stood out to me were the parallels to society. 'R' has a flashback to how things were before the plague spread at the beginning of the movie: everyone was disconnected and focused on their electronic lives. (The irony of this, of course, came in the form of the smuggled cell phone in my pocket). This, to me, was like how we are turning into zombies. We are constantly plugged in. Luckily, there's a way to remedy this: love.

All in all, it was a great movie. However, the whole "tell a girl to stay put and she runs away" thing is getting old. But it helped to progress the story. 'R' was a completely lovable protagonist and the movie was funny and heartwarming. I would recommend it to pretty much anyone who's looking for an all around movie. :)

okay, that's all I have for you guys!! Go see Warm Bodies on February 1st!

Books Read in 2012

So, it's almost the end of 2012! :) I put together a list of all of the books I've read this year! I am 2 books away from 90, and so I'm going to try to read two books by 11:59 PM tomorrow! Wish me luck! And until then, check out the list!

1. Running from Solace-Nakia B. Loushaul
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns-Khaled Hosseini
3. The Summer I Learned to Dive-Shannon McCrimmon
4. A Long Way Gone-Ishmael Beah
5. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children-Ransom Riggs
6. Divergent- Veronica Roth
7. Insurgent- Veronica Roth
8. Where the Heart Is- Billie Letts
9. Sisterhood Everlasting- Ann Brashares
10. The Unseen-Luke Alistar
11. Drew in Blue- J.M. Kelley
12. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake- Aimee Bender
13. Remembrance- Michelle Madow
14. Vengeance- Michelle Madow
15. Timeless- Michelle Madow
16. The Hunger but Mainly Death Games- Bratniss Neverclean
17. The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
18. Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins
19. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter- Seth Grahame-Smith
20. Learn Me Gooder- John Pearson
21. When I Found You- Catherine Ryan Hyde
22. Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady!- Birdie Jaworski
23. Raising Able- Carolyn Nash
24. Elephant Girl- Jane Devin
25. Ain't No Sunshine- Leslie DuBois
26. Into the Free- Julie Cantrell
27. Ketchup is a Vegetable- Robin O'Bryant
28. Scorpio Rising- Monique Domovitch
29. Breaking Twig- Deborah Epperson
30. Anywhere but Here- Jenny Gardiner
31. The Day We Met- Dusti Bowling
32. Ten Things We Did- Sarah Mlynowski
33. The Yellow Wallpaper- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
34. The Color Purple- Alice Walker
35. Thirteen Reasons Why- Jay Asher
36. Dream Land- Sarah Dessen
37. Gerald's Game- Stephen King
38. The Memory Keeper's Daughter- Kim Edwards
39. Okay for Now- Gary D. Schmidt
40. Please Ignore Vera Dietz- A.S. King
41. Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keyes
42. Midnight Sun- Stephanie Meyer
43. Breaking Dawn- Stephanie Meyer
44. It's Kind of a Funny Story- Ned Vizzini
45. The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern
46. Snow flower and the Secret Fan- Lisa See
47. Damned- Chuck Palahniuk
48. Angel- Mary E. Kingsley
49. A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving
50. My Name is Mina- David Almond
51. Will Grayson, Will Grayson- John Green
52. The Knife of Never Letting Go- Patrick Ness
53. The Fault in our Stars- John Green
54. Paper Towns- John Green
55. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight- Jennifer Smith
56. We the Animals- Justin Torres
57. Wintergirls- Laurie Halse Anderson
58. White Oleander- Janet Finch
59. Playing with Matches- Carolyn Wall
60. Coraline- Neil Gaiman
61. The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
62. The Notebook- Nicholas Sparks
63. The House of Scorpion- Nancy Farmer
64. Kristy and the Snobs- Ann M. Martin
65. Spirits in the Trees- Morgan McDonald
66. The Phoenix Rising- Olivia Burgess
67. We Need to Talk About Kevin- Lionel Shriver
68. Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
69. The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chbosky
70. Dr. Franklin's Island- Ann Halam
71. The Fifth Child- Doris Lessing
72. The Kingdom of Childhood- Rebecca Coleman
73. An Abundance of Katherines- John Green
74. Looking for Alaska- John Green
75. The Lover's Dictionary- David Levithan
76. The Host- Stephanie Meyer
77. The Almost Moon- Alice Sebold
78. More Tales to Chill Your Bones- Alvin Schwartz
79. The Talk Funny Girl- Roland Merullo
80. 13 1/2- Nevada Barr
81. Carrie- Stephen King
82. The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood
83. The Realm of Possibility- David Levithan
84. Revoltingly Young- CD Payne
85. Wonder- RJ Palacio
86. Red Run- Rob Cornell
87. The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden- Jessica Sorensen
88. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close- Jonathan Safron Foer

Short, Sweet, and to the Point!

Hey everyone!

Sorry it's been so long and I hope you all had a merry Christmas! I don't have much to say today, except that I got an iPad mini for Christmas (with which I am currently typing this blog post) and I love it! It's very cute and I've found lots of apps on it that have come in handy with writing and such.

Also, I used the Christmas money I received to buy 5 new lalaloopsies (did I ever tell you guys I collect them?) and I ordered a sixth which is on her way! All in all I had a fantastic Christmas, and loved spending time with my family. I hope you all did too! What did you get for Christmas? Tell me in the comments below!