Kicking off 2013 with a Mega Flirt Squad Challenge

I don't think I've ever really done New Year's resolutions because I don't really believe in them. For me, I either forget about them or I don't achieve them.

What I generally tend to say is, "this year, I want to get such and such... done" as more of a to-do list sort of thing. I've never blogged about it before (never been bothered) BUT as part of Rachel Harris' 2013 Mega #FlirtSquad (my post about what the Flirt Squad is) Challenge, I'm gonna write about what I have on my to-do list this year.

Firstly, the Flirt Squad is Rachel Harris (author or My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century; as mentioned in my 2012 End of Year Book Survey, MSSSC was one of my favourite books) "street team". We (I have recently joined :D) spread the word about her books and increase the hype around release time.

For the 2013 Mega Flirt Squad Challenge, Rachel has even more swag in addition to what she usually includes with the Flirt Squad...

The challenge entails tweeting different resolutions (refer to link below to Rachel's site for these tweets) from different books that have been included in the challenge. Each tweet earns 1 point and at the end of the challenge (February 1st 2013) winners can receive the following prizes (woot prizes!):

One Grand Prize Winner wins a Super Sized ebook pack featuring:

• My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris (the host)
• Gravity by Melissa West
• All The Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen
• Inbetween by Tara Fuller
• Greta and the Goblin King by Chloe Jacobs
• Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein
• Conjure by Lea Nolan
• Love All by Kelly Hashway 
• Spectral from Shannon Duffy
• Almost and Unmaking Hunter Kennedy by Anne Eliot
• YOUR CHOICE of any one of Nyrae Dawn's books!
• Signed swag from The Collector: A Dante Walker Novel from Victoria Scott
• Signed Paperback of Destiny's Fire by Trisha Wolfe 
• AND a brilliant, hand-designed Angel Academy bracelet from Cecily White!

TWO Additional Winners Win Signed Swag from:

• My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
• Spectral and Gabriel Stone and the Divinity of Valta from Shannon Duffy
• Love All and Touch of Death from Kelly Hashway
• Destiny's Fire from Trisha Wolfe
• Conjure swag pack including a magnet, signed bookmark, and silicone bracelet
• What a Boy Wants bookmarks and Charade postcards from Nyrae Dawn

Now that I've got your attention, if you want to join in the fun, click here to be taken to Rachel's page with the full details on the challenge!

SO... what are my "resolutions" (aka my to-do list) for 2013?

1. To get into book blogging - writing proper reviews more frequently and also keeping this blog up to date; revamp the blog and make it presentable with a rating scheme!
2. Spend less money on useless things - in 2012 I wasted so much money on things I didn't really need. So for 2013 I'm going to cut down on the kpop (only buying CDs for the artists I really support/my absolute biases) and buy books from the Book Depository more (LOL 1 book from Kino is 2 from tBD)
3. Up my technical skills; learn as much as I can about the technical aspects of information systems especially regarding IS security during ITE2 (my 2nd Industry Training Experience aka internship)
4. Maintain my term WAM (this might be harder but I can still try)

Despite me wanting to say my resolutions are the most similar to Cat's tweet "in 2013, I vow to be as bold as Cat, and give in to my artistic side." because MSSSC is the only book I've read out of all those books and I can understand Cat, I realised this only encompassed reso #1 and not the rest! Upon further reflection and reading through the tweets multiple times I realised the most relevant tweet for me is:

"In 2013 I vow to be as brave as Jewel and embrace what makes me unique." from Spectral and Gabriel Stone by Shannon Duffy.

I chose this because, even though I do want to give in to my artistic side so that this blog progresses, my artistic side is also what makes me unique. And while on ITE2, being artistic and non-techy is what sets me aside from the other employees. I want to be brave and think outside the box, bringing my love of design into my learning experience so I can love my ITE2 experience even more. I also need to be brave and set out of my comfort zone so that I CAN become more technical as I chose this and want to get the most out of ITE!

Wew what a post D: let's hope these get ticked off by the end of the year!

Review: The Boy Who Sneaks in my Bedroom Window by Kirsty Moseley

Date Read: December 30 2012 - January 3 2013

Release Date: April 30th 2012

Publisher: Self-published

Source: Bought

Genre: Contemporary

My rating: 

Synopsis:
"Amber Walker and her older brother, Jake, have an abusive father. One night her brother's best friend, Liam, sees her crying and climbs through her bedroom window to comfort her. That one action sparks a love/hate relationship that spans over the next eight years.
Liam is now a confident, flirty player who has never had a girlfriend before. Amber is still emotionally scarred from the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Together they make an unlikely pair.

Their relationship has always been a rocky one, but what happens when Amber starts to view her brother's best friend a little differently? And how will her brother, who has always been a little overprotective, react when he finds out that the pair are growing closer? Find out in The Boy Who Sneaks In My Bedroom Window."

---

This is the first time I've ever given a YA book I wanted to read, a bad rating. Especially one that was so raved about, looked so promising and had me really looking forward to reading it. To say I was extremely disappointed is an understatement.

The following is going be a very ranty, ragey review...

I was having issues with this as soon as I started and 6 pages in I wanted to stop reading. 12 pages in and I wanted to hurl something at my poor laptop where I was reading it from. But friends encouraged me to continue and see how it ended and I thought "well maybe this'll get better". By the last page I was like "UGH, meh". So I thought, "ok I'm going to take a shower and try to think about all the good things in this book and give it a better rating and review". I spent the whole time in the shower trying to come up with the good and just ended up cringing. 20 minutes later and the best I can give this book is 2 stars *extremely sad face*

Having read self-published books before I know there are indie authors out there who can write really good quality and engaging stuff. This just made me want to shy away from self-published books forever Q_Q

There is something called an editor. I'm sure even a self-published author can ask a friend - or friends (much needed in this case) - to read through and pick up simple things... LIKE SPELLING MISTAKES, GRAMMATICAL AND PUNCTUATION ERRORS FML. It was like Moseley had written something straight out, not bothered reading it through herself and decided it was ready for the general public. NO JUST NO. It's impossible NOT to pick up all those mistakes proof-reading the FIRST time. The second and the third time should have reduced them even more. Having a 3rd party read this should have reduced the amount of errors exponentially. If I'm writing an essay that exceeds 1.5k words, I always read through it multiple times and then send it to other friends who don't do that subject, and ask them to proof it for me for just the general stuff. I don't think that happened with The Boy Who Sneaks in My Bedroom Window. Even reading this half-asleep at 4am in the morning I could pick up so many errors.

Let's break this down into all the issues I had:
Issue #1: Tense. There was so much switching between past tense (which is how most things are written) and present tense. Example:
"I definitely preferred it when he looked at me with the angry eyes, than when he looks at me with the soft eyes. I don’t like that at all, it made me feel uncomfortable, it always made my hands shake."
First sentence is in past tense, half of the second is in present tense and then switches back to past... wtf. "I definitely preferred it when he looked at me with eyes than when he looked at me with the soft eyes. I didn't like that at all, it made me feel uncomfortable, it always made my hands shake." Would have definitely flowed better. This tense problem caused the whole book to be really staccato; explanations wouldn't flow through because the sentence didn't seem like it had been put together properly.

Issue #2: Voice. The voice of the MC Amber was just really horrible. She talks in the same style in chapter 1 when she's 8 years old, as the rest of the book when she's 16. The first chapter wasn't a memory either. It was happening in the present and then chapter 2 skips 8 years into the future. An 8 year old does not say "He was a cute kid, with blond hair and grey eyes with brown flecks in them." when describing their brother. I would expect more immature language that's innocent and naive. But at 16, one would also expect quite sophisticated language from the first person perspective, but no.

Issue #3: Perspective. The way this was written, it didn't feel like first person. I felt more like a third person at the way things were being recounted. I wasn't Amber, I was an outsider looking in. Which brings me to...

Issue #4: Telling rather than showing. This is the biggest no-no EVERRRRRRRRRR and my pet peeve of books. I got TOLD so many times how "adorable" Liam is. "He gave me his adorable puppy dog face" - I would have liked to know what his puppy dog face was. Did his blue eyes widen? Do the edges of his eyes crinkle, does he pout? WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? There were these facial expressions used that I was told rather than shown and so I couldn't really feel the emotions associated with them. I was also told Amber herself was drunk. But things didn't look blurred, what people said didn't seem funnier, I (the reader as Amber) wasn't laughing more, things didn't seem different - I've read enough books to know what being drunk feels like. I know from personal experience the effects of drinking. I was not shown anything near what I usually feel. This relates to my next issue...

Issue #5: Word choice. Extremely, extremely poor word choice. If for some reason your vocabulary is lacking because you're blanking or something then you can highlight the word, right-click it, pass your mouse over the "Synonyms" option and find similar words in Word! OR you can ask a friend "what's another word for... or how can I phrase this better?" OR THERE IS SOMETHING CALLED A THESAURUS. Fml the amount of times I was told Liam or some other was "adorable" made me want to head desk.
"That speech was so freaking adorable!" p53 - No... that speech was more "heartfelt" or "sweet" (for lack of better words). The speech bares the person's heart and Amber reacts with "freaking adorable".
"He really was adorable." p114 - Other words include "understandable" or "patient" because that would have been more fitting for the situation at p114.
"He really was just too adorable..." p168
"I really did have the most adorable boyfriend in the world." p183
"Liam was still the most adorable..." p185
And that's not even half of it.

Then there was the sheer amount of "cooing" going on...
"he cooed," p5, p24... basically it was "I cooed", "he cooed", "she cooled", " cooed" SO MANY BLOODY TIMES I WAS GONNA RIP MY HAIR OUT. 14 matches in a book that only has 253 pages. What ever happened "she whispered sultrily" or "he said so smoothly it was like warm honey" OR SOMETHING OTHER THAN A SOUND A BABY MAKES?
*FLIPS TABLE*

Oh wait there's more...

Issue #6: Writing about abuse/sexual assault. This is a touchy subject and while writing about such situations is extremely hard to get right, writing about the emotions STEMMING from said situations shouldn't be too hard. So I'm sad to say that half the time I didn't feel the fear/angst/distress/cold/emptiness/hurt/powerlessness/self-blame/questioning/loss of confidence and whatever emotions that usually comes. I was TOLD of being afraid. But yeah half the time I didn't feel it. I SOMETIMES felt the powerlessness... but not really. There was no loss of confidence, barely any emptiness and need to hide. Half the time said character was happy she really was, their popularity and general "being 16" life, wasn't a facade for the cold fear inside. Apparently it's there, and I saw it come out sometimes but I don't know, I've read other books that deal with sexual assault and they were written exceedingly better. Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect her to think about it day in and day out because it happened long ago but it's meant to be haunting. Sure she has her nightmares and fear of hugging (even from girls wtf but who am I to say) but I didn't feel it. Basically... I HAD NO FEELS. ZILCH. NADA. ZIPPO. HOW EVEN?

Issue #7: No feels. Yeah I can't get over this. This book made me feel nothing. I didn't get scared, I didn't feel sorry for the MCs. I didn't cry, my heart didn't hurt. I didn't feel raw where situations were MEANT to leave me feeling heartbroken and empty. It was a whole big "MEH".

The only reason why I'm giving this 2 stars at all is because I thought Liam is the type of guy young girls should strive for - the sweet guy next door who is supportive and responsible. That's the only thing I liked - that he was responsible. And that's how guys should be.

Some people like this... I mean it's cute I guess but don't expect a literary masterpiece. I think this is something that a Year 12 HSC student would cook up in the Belonging creative section the night before when they run out of ideas - like me. I think even I used a broader choice of words in that 40min I had to write.

Excuse me while I go stick my head through a wall to try expel this book from my thoughts. Such a shame, this is only my 2nd read of 2013 :(

Review: The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Date Read: September 25 2012 - January 1 2013

Release Date: March 1st 2010, this edition June 7th 2010

Publisher: Walker Books

Source: Bought

Genre: Contemporary

My rating: 

Synopsis:
"Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life - and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey's boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie's own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they're the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole wide world exploding.
This remarkable debut is perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Francesca Lia Block. Just as much a celebration of love as it is a portrait of loss, Lennie's struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her is always honest, often hilarious, and ultimately unforgettable."

---

"Oh god," he whispers, reaching his hand behind my neck and bringing my lips to his. "Let's let the whole fucking world explode this time"

This is what I imagine The Fault in Our Stars to have been like if it was high (on pot). The Sky is Everywhere has to have been the most unique book I have ever read. Witty, quirky, raw, emotional and every phrase was so relevant, meaningful and full of life I'm still left wondering how Jandy could put so much power into those words.

I loved absolutely EVERYTHING about this book. There is not a single fault I found with The Sky is Everywhere.

Let me start with the writing. A book's plot don't mean jack if the writing can't draw the reader in. The opening lines of the novel "Gram is worried about me. It's not just because my sister Bailey died four weeks ago, or because my mother hasn't contacted me in sixteen years, or even because suddenly all I think about is sex. She is worried about me because one of houseplants has spots." are freaking brilliant!
And then she describes her Gram as "all six feet and floral frock of her", while her uncle Big has a voice that "trumpets as if from stage or pulpit; his words carry weight, even pass the salt comes out of his mouth in a thou-shalt-Ten-Commandments kind of way".
And this only the FIRST page!

Some of my favourite lines in this book (my #1 is at the beginning of this review):
- "I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open.
And when we kiss, I see that on the other side of that door is sky"
- "'This is Doug,' Marcus says just as Joe says, 'This is Fred.'
'Parents couldn't make up their mind,' the newest Fontaine offers. This one is positively deranged with glee. Gram's right, we should sell them."
"In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: for those revel in the essential mess that is life"
LIKE OMFG HOW AWESOME ARE JANDY'S CHOICE OF WORDS? "Positively deranged with glee" I loved that soooooooo much! And yes I think I'm a messessentialist.

The writing was just so fluid, eloquent, poetic and descriptive in a way I've never read before! The whole thing was like some epic poem that I could understand and appreciate. The symbolism of the sky was really beautiful - I could really relate because of this poem from Kingdom Hearts and this Japanese movie (Koizora ~ Love Sky), both of which talked about the sky being everywhere - the harmony of always being watched over wherever you are.

Now omg the characters were all so beautiful and perfect and flawed in a lovable way! Our main character Lennie (named after John Lennon) is grieving over the loss of her best friend and sister Bailey, leaving her damaged and falling for two different guys: her dead sister's boyfriend Toby who is as damaged and in as much pain as Lennie, and the new boy in town Joe Fontaine whose "Bat. Bat. Bat" eyelashes and beautiful smile make Lennie forget her grief. Both boys are so adorable and sweet. Toby is so heartbroken and the only one who understand is Lennie and despite her kissing him, I couldn't blame either of them. Their love and sadness over losing Bailey caused them to come together to try get over that grief. Then there's the beautiful Joe Fontaine who is like happiness incarnate with that smile of his (it seems all the Fontaines are "deranged with glee") and long as fk eyelashes. Other characters like Gram, Big and Sarah are so distinct and crazy I couldn't help but fall in love with them all!

The story itself doesn't really going anywhere, it's slow and almost languid but in a beautiful I'm-cruising-along-the-beach sort of way. It does progress and I loved the pace - the way Lennie grows and finds out about herself, what Bailey was to her, how she deals with everything and becomes the person by the end.

This is seriously a YA everybody needs to read.

"If anybody asks where we are, just tell them to look up."