Tuesday 25 March 2014

Top 5 Most Embarrassing Unread Books

So I saw this somewhere a while ago, and I'm sorry for not mentioning you if you were the one ho did this first, but I thought it was super cool, and I really wanted to share with you the books that I find myself very embarrassed not having read. So here they are!
  1. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien: I'm... sorry. That is all I have to say for myself.
  2. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: I really want to start on Perkins novels, but I just haven't and I am so ashamed! Nest month? Yeah?
  3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett: I swear, everyone has read this book but me. And I've heard it's so good too! What is holding me back? I don't know...
  4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: I don't really know what to say for myself. This is all kinda sad... but it's The Book Theif!!! Okay, this is on top-priority! Especially since the movie just came out!!
  5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Oh man... it's a highly-read classic with a beautiful cover, over 1 million ratings on goodreads with an average of 4.23... Where have I been?
I'm really interested to know what sort of books that you haven't read, and that you are totally embarrassed by. Leave a comment below or tell me where to find your own blog post or YouTube video. Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Friday 21 March 2014

DNF Book Review: Just One Day

Title: Just One Day
Author: Gayle Forman
# of pages: 368
Series #: 1
Reading Span: February 21st - DNF
Rating: DNF

Ugh... How far did I even get into this? A little over 100 pages? Maybe a little less?

This book was so boring!
Okay, so at first I thought it was sort of cool... Whoa! Look at all of the different places that she's going. I love travel, though I don't do it very often (in the "extreme" way like this), so this was super cool for me. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there...

"Where should we go next?"
"The coffee shop." 
"Great"
"Mhmmm... yummy coffee."

Sure, it's not exactly like that, but that's sure what it felt like to me. And who wants to read about a coffee shop when they can get that themselves?

The bothersome main character...
Man did I dislike her. At first I thought, okay, she's cool. But after reading it and thinking about it I'm so shocked that my feelings took so hard to hit me. She was just so plain, boring, and a wanna be. Okay, okay, I didn't finish the book so I didn't really experience the whole "finding herself" part but come on... I think I'm supposed to like her a little more than that.

"Willem's leaving me!"
"Oh wait, just kidding..."
"Look at my gorgeous friend"
"Look at how plain and ugly I am"
"Let's change my name and be someone else!"

Now I'm sure it goes deeper than that but it bothered me enough that I had to stop reading.

The unrealistic aspect of it all was so, so bad
Once upon a time, there was a girl who went on a trip to Europe with a summer group. Then she meets a guy and decides, oh, I love him because he's attractive. Then the girl decides to go on another trip with the guy she just met... Her parent's would never know, of course, because they are just that oblivious, and the guy isn't a psychopath because psychopath's don't decide to take you on a trip, especially if you just met them.

Sounds dumb, right? Well that's the basic storyline of Just One Day, up until the point I read, at least. It was so unrealistic that I had a hard time caring. That's probably part of the reason that the main character (and other characters too, might I add) bothered me so much. They weren't real.

Ah, the problems...
Despite what I just said above, I think that all of you should check it out. Just One Day wasn't my book, but I can see why it may be yours. Below I have left a list of other review's that I have enjoyed reading about this book as well, all having different opinions. Have fun reading!

Ariel Bissett: Five Star Review (written review)
Christine: Four Star Review (video review)
Bonnie: Three Star Review (written review)
TheBookBasement: Four Point Five Star Review (video review, possible spoilers)
TheBookBasement: Four Point Five Star Review (written review, possible spoilers)

Thursday 6 March 2014

GINS Quote Art

We're almost at the end of our novel study with a post on word art. The purpose of this assignment was to artistically illustrate a quote that spoke to us in our novel. For me, this quote was found on page two. 
"Hold onto your dreams as tightly as you hold to the branches."


This quote holds a great significance to my novel. Tree Girl is all about finding your way when times are tough, and the hardships could, and will happen. The name "Tree Girl" comes from the main character's love of climbing trees, which is what "branches" is referring to in the text. Sometimes, it's easy to let go of your dreams, but this novel (and quotation) expresses the importance of holding onto them tight.

Before I go into why I chose to create my word art the way that I did, I just want to say that I was trying to resemble the cover. I think it turned out quite well, actually. Anyway...

If I had to be honest, my word art is quite plain, but I like it this way. I could have easily changed different attributes of different words, but to be brutally honest, the singular words don't stick out to me. It's the phrase as a whole that brings out meaning and power. By changing some random words, I thought it would look random and distracting, so I kept it the way it is. As for the girl holding her hands up to the tree branches, this is showing her openness to dreaming and climbing the trees. Even the black silhouette was chosen intentionally. I wanted to include the black mystery of it all. That person could be anyone... even you.