In Summer...

You know what?

Just because you have a blog...

Doesn't mean you'll get around to writing on it every week...

If you're lazy...

Like me.

I know, right?


~

So, either I need to make a commitment and stick with it, or I need to loosen up a bit and not set my expectations so high.

I want to post 2-3 times a month. Hopefully, with this being my busiest school year yet, I can find the time to do that. We'll see.

~

Summer has come and gone in a flash, and I'm left with a bit of nostalgia. I've done so many things in the past three months - things that, two-years-ago I would have thought I'd NEVER experience. I thank God all the time for my amazing family and friends (Especially my friends. They're awesome.)

Masquerade Ball, May 2014

downtown + cupcakes = <3

Busch Gardens

Selfie-ception

at the dock

Credit to Rachel Coker Photography for these next pics.

Birthday fun with this cutie

He Best Trio

(laugh)

our fourth bff

Hope you enjoyed a little peak into my summer, you stalkers ;)

Goodbye, Summer!

CAMP by Elaine Wolf

(Description from Elaine Wolf's site)

A coming-of-age novel about bullying, family relationships, and the collateral damage of secrets.

Every secret has a price.

For most girls, sleep away camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it’s a nightmare. Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy despises spending summers at home with her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy’s autistic younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going away to camp. At Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating “initiation” and to relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers. As Amy struggles to stop the mean girls from tormenting her, she becomes more confident. But then her cousin reveals dark secrets about Amy’s mother’s past, setting in motion a tragic event that changes Amy and her family forever.

CAMP is a compelling family drama that will resonate with teen and adult readers. It will be a strong addition to recommended reading and summer reading lists, and it is appropriate for anti-bullying programs. Mostly, though, CAMP is a mother-daughter story for mothers and daughters to share.

Perfect for all book groups.

Ages 12 and up.

Publisher: Sky Pony Press (June 1, 2012)


~

My Review:

I wasn't sure what to expect when I dove into the world of Camp. For one, I've never been to a sleep-away camp. Blame it on being homeschooled if you want, but the whole "staying-with-a-bunch-of-people-I-don"t-even-know-for-the-whole-summer" thing seems pretty daunting, even though I'm probably one of the most people-person persons you may ever have the chance of meeting.

Let me tell you a thing.

Read this book.

Please.

This book shovels up the gritty truth of growing up and overcoming the obstacles in a life that is stock full of them. I admit that at first I marveled at the horrible actions of some of the characters. Do people really act like that? I wondered. How can anyone be so cruel and power hungry? How can a mother not see when her child is suffering?

I guess I've been taking for granted the life I have. Sure, sometimes my parents don't seem to understand me. Sure, I've participated in teen drama. And sure, I might get the feeling someone doesn't like me.

But some people have it SO much worse.

Now, you may be thinking "Um, it's a book. Those aren't real people and real situations".

You're correct. No matter how much life we pump into fictional characters, there's just no possible way for them to lift of the pages and become a living, fleshly thing. There might not be anyone in this world who have had a life as trialing as Amy Becker's, but I refuse to believe that.


I know the Mrs.Wolf and her publishers agreed that this book is appropriate for ages 12 and up, but with the uncomfortable sexual references and brief scenes I would only recommend this to a VERY mature 12-year-old who's parents said it was okay. I am not personally acquainted with any such 12-year-old, so my recommended age would be:

Ages 14+

And I give this book:

5 stars

~

NOW FOR THE BEST PART.

I recently joined a teen book club being held at my local library. Our book for the month of June was Camp by Elaine Wolf... and my club had the privilege of Skyping with Mrs. Wolf!

I was pretty darn excited, to say the least. On the way to the meeting I jotted down some writing questions I had for her and was completely satisfied with her answers.

~

(Note: These are not Elaine Wolf's actual words, just her advice to me written from the memories in my head and the notes on my paper)


Question #1

What advice could you give about time management, especially directed toward teens who are in school and have responsibilities within their home?

Use your weekends. (I think I forgot to mention I was homeschooled...) focus on school during the week and writing on the weekends.

When working on a novel, try to accomplish two keep-able pages per day.

Another tip she had was to write the first paragraph of any story/chapter by hand.


Question #2

How can someone with no experience of being bullied (in love, having cancer, etc.) be able to write those scenes and emotions in depth?

Imagination is key

Anything you read, hear, see - it's yours to use.

Go out and "borrow" people's experiences.



Question #3

Were you ever worried about people being offended by the sexual content in Camp? Where is the line between addressing a subject and going too far?

I remember her smiling at this.

Writing Camp, she never worried "am I going too far?". The story grew very organically and fleshed itself out as she wrote. Some schools have told her that they would love to put Camp on their reading lists, but were worried that parents would be against it. My parents would probably be against me reading it, if I were younger. I hope that schools can get this book on their lists, and that kids can share it and their thoughts with their parents.

~

And a big "thank you" to Mrs. Wolf for bearing with my questions and encouraging me on my journey as a young writer. You were very inspiring to talk to :)

TFIOS Movie Review

Check out my book review here: TFIOS by John Green

I'm a movie watcher. Say what you like about it frying my brain, but that won't change the fact: I really love movies. So much so, that if one is in the theater that I especially like I'll see it a couple times (or several...).

I've been to see TFIOS twice: The first time with my mum, and the second with my friends. I'll probably end up seeing it again in the near future.

If you're wondering, I did cry. Hard.

Heck, I cried the first time I saw the trailer and shed a small tear every time I re-watch it.

I'm just a very emotional person, okay?

~

Now, my thoughts on the movie...

As for following the book - a big thumbs up! It was pretty much perfect in my eyes.

Casting - Ansel wasn't quite the Augustus I imagined, but he did well. After a conversation with a friend of mine, we agreed that "Movie Gus" was more cocky than confident. But hey, what can you do?

Shai was an amazing Hazel. A+ on casting her!

Truthfully though, it's kind of uncomfortable that Ansel and Shai are brother and sister in Divergent. It just weirds me out.

Even though in the book Isaac is blonde, I still loved him in the movie.

I don't think I can complain much, the cast was marvelous. The movie was beautiful. The feels were real.

(Note: The sex scene was just a tad uncomfortable to watch and seemed to last longer than I'd have liked)



Besides the movie being great, I think we can all agree that John Green is just really cool. I love how involved he was in the making of it. And I just really like him. He's one awesome guy.

Okay?


Okay.

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

I have seriously been waiting for this to come out ever since Shannon Hale first mentioned it's existence. She's one of my absolute favorite authors, mostly known for her exquisite fairy-tale-like stories and more recently, due to it's movie adaptation, Austenland. So, naturally, when she mentioned a possible Sci-Fi novel...I fangirled loudly.

As soon as a release date was set, I frantically requested it from my library so I'd be the first to have it in my selfish clutches. Needless to say, it was devoured in a day.

(From Goodreads) Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit, see something new. She never intended to fall in love. And she never imagined stumbling into a frightening plot that kills her friends and just might kill her, too. A plot that is already changing life on Earth as we know it. There's no going back. She is the only thing standing between danger and annihilation.


Spoiler Free Review:

Maisie was such a fresh character. For one thing, she was Hispanic. I don't remember when I last read a book where the main character wasn't your average white person. Also, she has quite a special and unique physical trait. Secondly, she has a strong relationship with her parents (and they are self-dependent and actually fill their roles as parents, unlike many YA parents these days). I'm sure someone will be able to point out their flaws and say they were horrible parents, but come on, parents can make mistakes too. And as far as YA parents go, they were some of the greats.

The plot was thought out and detailed enough to where I didn't need to know what the cellular-monodegeneratexoid-thingy was, but I still understood what it did. That's one of the beauties of Science Fiction, don't you think so? We don't all have to be nuclear scientists to truly understand the complexity of science. Just reading it you know "Wow, these people are intelligent and...what-in-the-world-is-that-supposed-to-mean? Oh, she explained it. Cool. Wait, what?- Ahhh, I get it!"

Okay, that may or may not have been a completely honest representation of my thoughts.

On to the love interest! (or...the OTHER love interest)

Wilder. 

Oh, Wilder...I'm not sure how I feel about you. Like in all relationships, Wilder and Maisie had their ups and downs...to say the least. At some points I was like: "He's too good to be real", then at others I found myself muttering: "You sneaky little..." 

But hey, that's how you know you've got a good book in your hands. THE FEELS.

Then, there's Luther. 

The childhood best friend. The confidant. Luther is like a brother to Maisie, and like a son to her parents. Both were homeschooled together. Both live in the same neighborhood. 

Both are confused in the area of love.

Love triangles are by far not my favorite, but one reason for that is when the best friend gets pushed aside, and then gets all despondent and vows never to love another. This was not the case in Dangerous.

I shall say no more. I promised. NO SPOILERS.

~

All in all, this book was amazing and has earned it's place in my list of favorites!

(Along with the rest of Shannon Hale's novels.)


~

Five Stars

Ages 14+
(romance, sexual references, and death)

My One Year Blogoversary!

One year ago...I had bright red (temporarily died) hair.

One year ago...I didn't know how to ballroom dance.

One year ago...I was fifteen-years-old.

One year ago...I didn't know what a fandom was.

One year ago...I was the oldest of six children.

One year ago...I sat down at the computer and decided to start a blog.

~

Today...I have my normal brown hair again.

Today...I can dance the cha-cha, waltz, rumba, swing, samba, and foxtrot.

Today...I am sixteen-years-old.

Today...I have too many fandoms to list without taking up this entire post.

Today...I am blessed to be the oldest of seven children.

Today...is the one-year anniversary of my blog!

Blog Accomplishments

3 Most popular posts:

With 236 views: What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang - Book Review 

With 193 views: Vocabulary of a Fangirl - Part 1

With 157 views: Vocabulary of a Fangirl - Part 2

Post with the most comments:

Goose Girl by Shannon Hale - Book Review

Post with the most +1s on Google Plus:

Vocabulary of a Fangirl - Part 2 

 ~

I've posted 65 posts.

20 are book reviews.

List of Reviews 

8 are related to writing.

And 18 are related to music.

~

I had the most fun Writing:

Vocabulary of a Fangirl - Part 1 

 Vocabulary of a Fangirl - Part 2

An Amazingly/Weird Dream 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - Book Review 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - Book Review 

 

 

Thanks to all of you amazing people who follow, read, and enjoy my blog!

A Character's a Character, No Matter How Small

In this post I want to express the importance of 'small' characters; those extra characters that our MC meets throughout their journey.

Many authors seem to forget them. They forget to take time making them real, which makes them seem flat and useless. When you write a story, every character needs personality. At least jot down the basics (appearance, stronger positive trait, strongest negative trait, religion, and influence on the MC). Get to know them. In my opinion, you can't write about someone you don't know and make them seem real.

Granted, you should spend the most time creating your Main Character, but that doesn't mean ditch the others and make them up as you go. Have a plan for them. Give them a purpose. Otherwise, they're just dead weight in your story.

One way to study this is to watch movies and TV shows. Now, before you get all hoity toity with me, hear me out. Movies are stories that we watch, instead of read. When you watch movies, you can understand characters faster than when reading. It's all in their expression, body language, tone of voice, appearance, and personality. In books, it takes time to know a character, but in movies it usually doesn't.

Take The Hunger Games, for example.

-In the book, we slowly begin to know Katniss. Her talents. Her lifestyle. Her government.
-In the movie, you need only to watch ten minutes to know all of those facts and more.

Or, perhaps even a better example is one of my favorite shows: Once Upon a Time.

-Each character has a purpose and sometimes that purpose is even greater than you had expected. 
-Even when the characters don't have a huge impact, we still get a sense of who they are.
-You can make almost every character related to each other in some way, just to make things amazingly complicated.


Also, character profiling is always good practice. My very first blog post was an outline I found online and it has really helped me when I'm creating characters!


Here's the link:

Character Profile Outline


I hope that this post has either helped or inspired you to flesh out and spend time on ALL of your characters.

Towering by Alex Flinn

(From Goodreads)
Rachel is trapped in a tower, held hostage by a woman she’s always called Mama. Her golden hair is growing rapidly, and to pass the time, she watches the snow fall and sings songs from her childhood, hoping someone, anyone, will hear her.

Wyatt needs time to reflect or, better yet, forget about what happened to his best friend, Tyler. That’s why he’s been shipped off to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter to live with the oldest lady in town. Either that, or no one he knows ever wants to see him again.

Dani disappeared seventeen years ago without a trace, but she left behind a journal that’s never been read, not even by her overbearing mother…until now. 


~


Funny story: On my 16th birthday I went to the library to leisurely browse and run my fingers on the spines of books. I bumped into a girl that I had spent last summer volunteering at the library with and we got talking about Doctor Who, Sherlock, and the like. Then she started recommending me more books than I could hold (literally!). The books took up a whole shelf on my TARDIS bookshelf. 

One of those books was Towering:

(my blurb)
Wyatt goes to live with a lady he barely knows, in order to escape his messed up life. He finds the diary of the lady's dead daughter. A mystery starts to unfold before him. Then, he begins to hear strange singing noises that no one else notices. Something bizarre is happening in this small town.

Rachel lives in a tower in the woods, in order to be safe from the people who had killed her mother. She is cared for by another woman, whom she calls Mama, even though she knows she is not. Rachel starts to sense a change coming. Something is about to happen.

~


When I noticed that this book was written my Alex Flinn, I was skeptical. I enjoyed the last book of hers I read (Beastly), but it wasn't AMAZING and the movie adaption kind of sucked.

My expectation for Towering from reading the back: "This is going to be a sappy love story."

"Today, I woke knowing something would happen. Something would be different. I opened my window. I was a long way down. Still, I wanted to leave the window open, to smell the world outside. I would plaay my harp and sing my songs, and the animal, at least, would hear me.

I sang the saddest song I knew, about a girl in love with a poor boy but unable to marry him.

I know where I'm going;

And I know who's going with me.

I know who I love;

But the dear knows who I'll marry.

As I sang, I had once again that strange feeling, the feeling of being listened to, not by birds or squirrels or even deer. I rushed to the window to look. I saw something, or someone, moving. It was walking closer to me, struggling where there was no path, holding on to trees to keep its balance, but still coming closer. Perhaps it was the man I had dreamed of."


Halfway through the book I began to wonder why they had put that especially lovey part on the back cover. Then, it finally started getting sappy. I don't like it when there's some strange, magical connection between a couple, and then all of a sudden they're deeply in love and feel like they'd die without each other. It's unreal.

I mean, sure, love can be magical, but I think it's necessary for a relationship to have a foundation other than "I knew he was the one".

Overall I liked the beginning of the book, but the ending was predictable and the romance dripped with sticky, unrealistic love.


~


3 Stars

Ages 14+