My Birthday!

Happy Brithday to ME! Happy Birthday to ME! Happy Birthday dear MYSELF! Happy Birthday to MEEEE!

So now that I'm older and wiser I finally see that I can't do ANYTHING if I have a set deadline, so scratch the Review Wednesdays and just wait around and see when I post something. It's better off that way because then you'll get a lot of posts when I feel like it and little to none when I don't! But at least I'll always come back. I really feel like talking to you about a few amazing books and I've been waiting and biding my time to bash a few of them.

Old people are crancky and mean, so now -since I'm older- I get to be a bit mean too. This means thatI will be writing some unflattering reviews. No longer will I be the girl of 4-5 star reviews!
But I refuse to write reviews for the average books that I read because those reviews suck, you can't be overly enthusiastic  and neither can you act like a total bitch. We all know I only like extremes.

Review: The Hunger Games [series]

I've been neglecting you guys, I know. I'm sorry. So this week I'll be reviewing *drumroll*

 THE HUNGER GAMES.

Yup, you heard me. The Hunger Games. I love the trilogy. It's so awesome. The characters, the setting, the way it makes you reflect on your life, politics and... Just everything. So let's get on with the detailed review. Shall we?
> I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as I can but I'll fut a * in front of every spoilery sentence so you can skip that if you haven't read the books yet.

                    

1) The Characters

Katniss is such a strong character. She cares for her family and friends so much. I mean, hello, she risked her life for them. How many people are capable of doing that? Yeah, she's got her problems but those only add to her authenticity. She's not real-real [obviously! she's a book character], but the fact that she's got both good and bad characteristics makes her real feeling, don't you think? She's also compassionate. Hard headed, yes, but sometimes it's for the best. Seriously, she's one of my favourite heroines of all time. I don''t think I've ever felt such a connection with a heroine. So let me just finish this up with: SHE FREAKING ROCKS!

Peeta. I love the guy for loving Katniss, god knows it was hard at times. Especially for him, * thanks to what the Capitol (stupid fuckers) did to his memories. I also love Peeta for caring so much, he doesn't just care about people he knows, he cares about everyone and everything. He's truly amazing. I can't believe that I didn't like him at first. Can you blame me? *I thought he ditched Katniss for the Careers.

Gale. Well, this one, I liked from the start. And then I saw that he could be cruel and calculative. He used those traits in mostly good ways and he cared about Catnip [ ;-) ] but I just feel that he was a better friend, protector and soldier than lover.

I could talk ínto detail about all the other characters but I'm just going to say short things that stayed in my mind the most.

> Haymitch - a smart and caring drunk, now you don't see that everyday.

> Cinna was probably my favourite character [after Katniss]. Seriously, that guy just rocked my socks. From his desings, the way he thought, the way he talked to the way he always knew how to help. *His death was the one that hurt me most. I freaking loved Cinna, if I knew a Cinna in real life, he would be my best friend. For real. Smart, funny, loving. He had it all.



> Finnick. *Just skip this whole paragraph* His death was so unfair. He was so messed up but scraped it together. He finaly got to be with the love of his life. He always tried to find somehing great in life and he was my third favourite character. I could not believe he died. I could not believe the WAY he died. I had to put the book down and breathe for a while after that happened. THIS. WAS NOT OK, SUZANNE. Finnick shouldn't have died, he just shouldn't have. It's NOT FAIR. Yeah I'm acting like a little kid, but hthe things he said always made me laugh. You could be dying and he'd make you laugh. He was just that type of guy and he deserved happiness. If not for him [and you know he deserved it for all he went through] and me, then for poor Mags and Annie.

I'd love to talk about my [lol, yeah] characters more but I've got to move on so...

2) The plot

You see, I love books that make me think. And did this trilogy make me think.

It made me think a lot about politics (kind of like animal farm did) but it also made me think about family ties and relationships and my social situation. Seriously, if you think about these books a bit you see that we live like them.
 There are sick twists and turns in politics and if you think deeper you just see history repeat itself. Both in real life and in the books.
 Then you think about how the stuff that goes on in the arena is sick, people fighting to the death and other people not caring at all or just watchig and not being able to help. Do we not see hungry homeless people? Do we not see CHILDREN (like in the games) dying in 3rd world countries? Do we not just keep living our lives?


  We say hat it's horible how people in district 13 live, they are controled and their life really isn't special or anything, but aren't our lives the same? Were controlled by politicians, we have to work jobs we hate because we wouldn't survive otherwise, we listen to bosses even if they're wrong because if we said something we'd lose our jobs and not have money and maybe die.
  I love that Suzanne wrote a book that first seems like it has nothing to do wih us and is just a read
about survival, a different life, different time and then we end up being totally capable of relating to it. It's amazing.
  At first I was sad that so many people I cared about had to die or get hurt in the hunger games or in the war but do people not die in war now? And we don't care. Yes we feel compassion with their families but we don't see the soldiers faces and don't know them so we can't truly care about them the way we should care about another human being.

Anther part of the setting/ plot. The love triangle. I have never seen a better written love triangle. At first I thought Katniss was gonna end up with Gale but then I thought she'd choose Peeta, at the beginning of the third book I was resigned to thinking Katniss would, in fact, end up alone. I had no idea who she'd pick and it drove me nuts but I also loved it.




3) The Setting

Panem. I love it. The way many things went 'back in time', even though the books are set in the future. I love how Suzanne made the whole thing work. Set in the future, but so very similar to our world today that we could see ourselves in their shoes.
   The way the capitol is totally different than the districts. I loved the way the author made people from the capitol out to be. I imagined the capitol to look like Vienna -the old downtown houses- with a couple of weird looking people added. I'm right bak to the way this book relates to us, today. Do you see how the people from the capitol dress differently and think different things are important? Isn't it like today? Rich people think of completely different things than poor people do. Also the eating till you're stuffer, throwing up and doing it all over again. Doesn't it remind you of the past? When kings would have banquets and people would eat and then go out back, tickle their throat with a feather... and you know the rest?
   Panem's diversity was one thing that made the setting amazing. We all know that a perfect world couldn't exist and that's why Collins didn't even try to make Panem look good. She made it realistic. And I like it.



4) The thing I've been talking about my whole review

      Rarely does a book make me reflect about my life and whatnot so much. Rarely does a book make me think so much. But 3 books that are amazingly written -seriously, Collins' writing style s golden, just thought I'd throw that in- and make you think? I don't think I've ever seen that, before. But here we have it.
      I don't think I threw this in before, but a great message that the book throws at us: YOU MATTER. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFERENCE.
      I can't tell you what you sould get out of the books. You'll have to look for what they mean to you, yourself. If you haven't read the books, go read them... NOW! And really think about what you're reading. Then come back here. For all of you out there that've read the books: What message did you get? All of them matter.

This trilogy is awesome, unique and MAKES A DIFFERENCE. I respect it and love it and it will always have a special spot in my heart.

5 STARS 

for the amazing genius work.

Farewell, for now.

Happy New Year, my lovely butterflies!

So, I've decided not to write any real posts for another week because we've [as in my school] still got winter break. I'm gonna make the most out of it and read as many books as i can so then I can write loads of reviews.
This year I've decided to post not only reviews and articles but I'll try to scratch up some things about some of my favourite authors and do a special about them [and their work?].

Well, that's it from me for now. Have a wonderful day, week, month and year. :-*
I love you guys.

Merry Christmas, young grasshoppers

Have a great one. I hope you get everything you wished for and more. Are you getting any books? I know I am =)
Have a great tiem wih your families & friends.

Review Wednesday: Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. THIS is the book I told you about. The one I have a love/hate relationship with.

If I was to judge by how much I like the book: 5 stars
But I told myself I'd write a serious review, and I will.

 So, let's got to dissecting this thing and maybe by the end of my review I'll finally piece together what I think of this.

1st of all: the cover(s)

 As far as I know, this book has 2 covers. I like them both. The first one I posted is nice and before I read the book, I prefered that one, but after reading the book the second cover just started to seem perfect. Not everyone likes the covers, but I do. So for this the book gets 5 stars.

2nd of all: the protagonist

 I liked Abby [Pidge]...sometimes. She was pretty strong. She did lose her resolve though [when it came to Travis] many many times, but at least she tried. She wasn't one to break down and cry, she stood up for what she wanted and when she couldn't help herself otherwise she protested by doing a secession.

 I also hated Pidge at times. She and I had serious WTF moments. Sometimes I just felt like writing TSTL all over the place. If she was standing in front of me, I would've written it on her forehead. She could be so blind.  I would've loved to beat her head against a wall until she noticed what we all already saw. 

 At one moment, she was Einstein at another she was as slow as a snail.  I'd give Abby 2 stars, because even though I loved her at times, I despised her at many others. If I was to put together her bright moments and her ..not-so-bright moments, I think I'd get a 2/3 not-so-bright, which is why she got 2 stars.

3rd of all: the other main character

 Travis: unstable, aggressive, dangerous, a drunk, a fighter, he slept around a lot... there were many things that were wrong with Trav. Oh but there were so many things that were RIGHT! He loved Pidge, don't try to deny it. He was funny, smart and he could be a nice guy when he wanted to. I'm not gonna write much about him because to understand me you'd just need to read the book. I should give him a totally different rating, but I fell in love with him, so he's getting [probably undeserved, but IDGAF] 5 stars.

To me, this is Trav. Just add tattoos. LOADS of tattoos.

4th of all: other characters

 I chose some of the character that I thought were significant in some wayand these guys are getting short tidbits of my thoughts flung at them.

Mare: Fun, irresponsible, a good friend, tries to help

Shep: Responsible -phew, good thing, we needed someone  to be responsible in this book- calm

Finch: Cool, but appearances were scarce and far between,  We didn't even know he existed for 1/3 of the book.

Parker: Hate him. Hate, hate, hate... loath entirely. He just... I can't even put what I want to say about him into words. We knew he wasn't right for Abby from the beginning.

Travis' family: I loved those guys, they were funny and reminded me of Trav. PLUS they appreciated Abby.

 I'll give all these guys... a... a... 4 star rating, because I can.

5th of all: the plot

 The plot wasn't that bad, there was a beginning a middle and an end. Plus mobsters, I love the mob/mafia/gangs/whatever... in books, of course.

 I hated that Trav and Pidge had such an up and down relationship.  know that this happens in real life but it seemed a bit too much for one book, I guess. [sorry that I didn't say more but I don't want to give away spoilers]

3.5 stars

6th of all: Trav and Pidge [Abby]

 These guys can both be so wrong, but together, they're so right. Trav loves Pigde more than anything, he'd do anything for her -he might be a bit obsessed, but I'll act as if I didn't see that small flaw-  and Pidge loved Travis, too -in a healthy manor. There's not much to say, to find out more about their love, I'd need to post spoilers, or you'd need to read the book. I'll give their relationship a 4 star rating because isn't love what matters? Obsession can be counted in, but love is the thing that matters the most. 

7th of all: the writing

 The writing wasn't bad, most of the time, it made sense. You see, the problem with this book is , that it's self-published, it didn't have a team of experts working on it. No editors helped the author polish it off but if they had, this book would be a best seller. IT WOULD, trust me, even with everyone dreaming of vampires, werewolves, witches, fae and whatnot, THIS BOOK COULD BE A BESTSELLER.

 I'm giving the writing a 3.5^ that states that if this book got published by a real publisher it could get a higher grade.

So let's see what we get if we put all the ratings together... 3.86 ..which is closer to a 4 than a 3.5 or a 3.

Rationally, this book gets 4 STARS.

Irrationally, it gets 7 stars... out of 5.

What's next this week.

Ok so I don't have the energy to write a real blog post today, but I really wanted to review this book that I have a love/hate relationship with... so I hope you guys won't mind Review Wednesday being on a Thursday of Friday this week.

If ya'll leave 5 comments I'll even see to it that you get an article this week. I'm not sure what it's gonna be about yet. Maybe you could tell me what you'd like to hear about or what you'd like to hear my oppinion on. Whatever =) If you don't give me any ideas I'll probably just write the review. We'll see. Just wanted to let you know about my plans.

Bye for now.

Best friends in books

Have you noticed the trend? Best friends in books are usually daring, funny, a tad crazy, weird, outgoing people that help the main character evolve and are generally awesome, but they don't steal the spotlight from the main character.

Why is this?  -I think that it's mostly because most people can find themselves liking those people, imagining themselves being friends with those weird extroverts.

Don't you love unique people that can help you? Well, unless you're Sheldon Cooper, I'm sure you have at least one friend that's like the typical book best friend. Maybe your best friend is that tbbf type. Who knows, it's just that I've noticed a trend in this. Or maybe it's just that some specific heroine types tend to have these specific besties.

I for one wouldn't want to be a best friend of a heroine. Although they're generally awesome people authors don't waste much time with them. They're there when the heroine needs them and they rarely bother the heroine because I mean our main character has bigger and better things to do then chat with her best friend.[yeah I was talking about girls and their best friends because... I felt like it.]
Tbbf life would suck if it worked like that in real life. Thank god that in life we're all a heroine/hero in our own story and that life doesn't work the way it works in books. Even though we've all wished to live in a book at one point or another - DON'T LIE, I KNOW YOU HAVE! 


Pretty much a good for nothing post but I wanted to talk about this because I felt sorry for typical book best friends.