Summer Beach Reads 2015
0Hey y’all! I just posted a new video to my YouTube channel!
I filmed this back in July when my family went to the beach. With school starting back up again soon I’m really missing the sand and the sun and how perfect that weekend was, especially because it meant lots of time for reading. These are some of the books I took with me and that I think are perfect pool/beach books.
What books do you like to read at the beach? Let me know 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Love always,
Lauren
Favorite Book Covers
0I am the type of person who gets really excited when I finish a great book and feel like I need to share its amazing-ness with the world. However, I never really had any close friends who were as enthusiastic about reading as I was when I was growing up. They would listen politely as I talked about this book I thought they would enjoy, only for them to reply with, “Sounds interesting” or “That’s nice” without another thought.
One of my best friends has been a great book buddy. We have the same tastes and would share books and discuss the things we liked in each one back in our high school days.
While I love that bond, I wanted to talk with more people about the novels I was reading, the worlds I was exploring, and hopefully learn of stories that would become new favorites.
Then last April I stumbled across this wonderful little community that I didn’t know existed on the Internet.
That community was BookTube.
Here were people sharing their opinions on books and getting all hyped up over their respective fandoms. And something told me to give it a shot.
I did try to film a video back during Labor Day weekend last year (which was forever ago), but I got so nervous and camera shy that I put it to the side.
I’ve figured, “Okay, it’s a new year, time to give this another shot.”
So while I work on overcoming the camera shyness, here’s a quick little video of some of my favorite covers. I’m curious to know what your favorites are so please share them in the comments either here or in the comments on the video 🙂
Love always,
Lauren
All the Emotions
0So I recently finished my final edit of my first book (at least until I send it to an actual editor who will tell me whether it sucks or not). I am currently a mess of emotions. Excited. Relieved. And a little worried.
When I started this book, it wasn’t like all the other stories I had started before. This one really pulled me in. It was like the characters were real and that I was actually with them, following them around, hearing all their jokes, experiencing the events of the book with them. Especially with my main character. She spoke to me so clearly that it’s hard to imagine her not being a real person with real problems that needed to be fixed.
I have plenty of other ideas. In fact I’m working on my second book now (not a sequel, but features a few of the characters mentioned in Book One). But I wonder if I will ever feel like that again, have my entire world wrapped up in a character, a setting, a story…or is this a one-time thing?
I really hope not. Because that feeling was amazing. To be swept up in a world, to actually interact with the characters, see the things they were seeing, feel the things they were feeling…it’s addicting.
Are there any other writers out there who feel that way? I know there must be.
If you are writer (whether it be published, fan fiction, or for your own enjoyment) and have felt something similar, please leave a comment below. I would love to talk about it with you.
Have a great week, lovelies!
Classic Corner | Peter Pan
0Peter Pan was always one of my absolute favorite Disney cartoons growing up. The idea of flying out your window to a land free of responsibilities was so wonderful and though I knew it wasn’t really real, I spent many a night checking my window in the hopes that the boy who never grew up would stop by and whisk me away to see mermaids and fairies.
To be honest, that’s probably the reason I’m so in love with London. Six-year-old Lauren’s logic was that Peter Pan only visited London so our family needed to move there straight away before I grew too old.
So with my 21st birthday being this month on the 23rd, I decided to revisit Peter and Wendy and Tinkerbell. I read the original story before when I was younger, and I’ve seen a live recording of the play on a VHS at my Grammy’s house (ah, VHS tapes. Remember those?) so I know that it can be a bit darker, but that doesn’t stop this from being a great story. I mean, it’s a classic.
Along with the original story, I picked up my copy of The Little White Bird that I got last Christmas from my aunt which includes Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, which further explain how Peter got to Neverland and formed the Lost Boys.
What’s your take on Peter Pan? Did you ever want to visit Neverland as well? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
(Also, the edition in the picture above is from Barnes and Noble and was only $10. Not a bad price for a pretty hardback.)
Band Geek Book Recommendations
1Music is a big part of my life. I started playing clarinet when I was ten years old all the way until my second year of college. You can’t spend nearly a decade of your life doing something without it affecting you, especially when six of those years were dedicated to marching band, the most nerdy and intense activity on the planet.
Music is also what led me to meet my best friends in the entire world. This can be said for any group/organization, of course, whether it be drama or lacrosse or what have you, but with music you are connected by something so unbelievably powerful.
Like all band geeks who are/were ever deeply involved within their band program, whether it be marching or concert only, I used to get very excited about all things band related. Even now I sometimes still do. Old habits are hard to break 🙂
The biggest thing I got excited for was when I stumbled across several marching band themed novels and poetry books targeted for young adults. As band camp is kicking off around this time, I thought today I would share with you a few of the books that I enjoyed back in my high school marching days.
Band Geek Love – Josie Bloss
This is the very first YA marching book I ever saw. The title reached off the shelf and dragged me in.
Band Geek Love follows Ellie Snow, a senior who is the section leader of her band’s trumpet section. She is also a soloist for the upcoming season. Band is Ellie’s whole life; nothing can distract her from it. That is until a sophomore named Connor transfers to their school and joins Ellie’s section. Ellie fights her growing feelings for Connor to avoid any bad breakups and awkwardness in the section, but is it worth it if the price is denying herself a shot at love?
The sequel, Band Geeked Out, continues Ellie’s story and shows her struggles with deciding if she should go to the university close to home and study music, or go off and explore new things.
Notes from an Accidental Band Geek – Erin Dionne
Elsie Wyatt was born to be a French horn player, just like her father and her grandfather. Wanting to one day be as great a player as her father, Elsie wants to attend a prestigious summer music camp, but in order to qualify she must broadened her musical repitore and join her school’s marching band. Elsie’s journey is not easy; she struggles with making friends, learning to play a mellophone, and not tripping over her feet, but as the season goes on she learns to have a bit of fun, and begins to wonder she should focus on being another family legacy or simply be Elise.
Major Crush – Jennifer Echols
Ex-majorette and pageant princess Virginia Sauter gets rid of the glitter and auditions to be drum major of her high school marching band. She wins the slot, but has to share with Drew, a boy whose family has held the drum major position for generations. The two do not see eye-to-eye about anything, but as they start to spend more and more time together, they realize that maybe they share more than just the title of drum major.
A friend lent this to me a few years ago. I planned to read it as a joke because it sounded super cheesy and hilarious, but it turned out to actually be pretty good once you get past the description.
*This particular book is no longer in print, but you can get it as an eBook.
The Secret Life of a Teenage Siren – Wendy Toliver
Roxy desperately wishes she could get the cute guys in school to notice her, but being a band geek isn’t exactly the most alluring thing in high school. On her sixteenth birthday, Roxy’s grandmother reveals a secret: she is a siren. With a few notes on her flute, Roxy is able to snag dates with any guy she sets her sights on. But there are two rules if she wants to remain a siren: don’t tell anyone the secret and don’t fall in love. Keeping the secret is simple, but can Roxy really stop herself from falling in love?
Band Nerd series – DJ Corchin and Dan Dougherty
Get ready for 152 pages of marching band stereotypes and general geeky goodness summed up in rhyme. DJ Corchin paints a great portrait of what it’s like to be in the band, whether you are in it now or were a member twenty years ago. Any band nerd will love it.
A third book was released in October 2014 entitled Band Nerds Confessions and Confusion, which no doubt contains even more silly anecdotes and quotes of general geekiness.
Three more band related books that I personally have not read, but do have on my eReader are Major Pain, Confessions of a Teenage Band Geek, and The Line series, all by Courtney Brandt. I don’t know too much about them apart from Confessions and The Line being about a girl on the drum line. I really want to start these soon as they appear to be quite quick reads that I could knock out in a day or two.
I hope my fellow band geeks enjoy this little list! Even if you were never in band, you should think about picking up one of these, if only to give you a look into what exactly makes band kids so amazing and wonderfully geeky 😉
Book Review | The Beast Within
0Hey there Literature Lovers! Today I’m reviewing The Beast Within.
The Beast Within by Serena Valentino is a re-imagining of the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. It focuses on the Beast when he gets cursed and his transformation. In this particular story, the Prince doesn’t turn into his beastly form right away after the curse is placed upon him. Instead we see how he slowly evolves into the character we all know. We also get more of an opportunity to see him interact with the servants in the castle, as well as the people from the village.
This re-imagining touches on one of the plot holes from the 1991 animated movie: why the heck does no one in Belle’s village know about the castle? It’s not that far away, and surely they would have remembered that they used to have a prince, or at least the king and queen who had lived there? Why don’t they remember? Due to the curse and the prince’s slow transformation, we see the effects of the curse gradually take hold of the villagers, including Gaston, who was the Beast’s best friend when they were younger. We also have a moment where Beast sees Belle at a ball, but only the back of her head and only really notices her when she arrives at the palace to save her father because he was teasing Gaston for having a crush on her.
I don’t know how canon this particular story is in the Disney universe, but Disney Hyperion published it so it has to mean something, right? Or it could be a cash grab. The world may never know.
Overall I really enjoyed this story and I am looking forward to seeing what other “villians” will get their backstory told next.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 Stars.
Have you read The Beast Within? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Thanks for reading!
Classic Corner | Breakfast at Tiffany’s
0Hey everyone! Sorry that this month’s classic came a little later, but I was busy with finishing up summer classes so unfortunately reading had to be set to the side.
However I did manage to get a three week break so I now have more time to knock out my TBR pile, and sitting at the top was this beauty.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote is very similar to the film (although obviously the book came first). The 80-page short story is told from the POV of a man who used to live in the apartment above Holly Golightly’s apartment, and of all the interactions the two had together. There were a few differences here and there in the story, like the ending, but it was every bit as magicial
Capote originally wrote this with Marilyn Monroe in mind, but it’s really hard to picture her as Holly. The way she speaks, the way she acts, everything about Holly is so Audrey. Of course that could be my opinion because I saw the movie first, but I stand by it.
The 50th anniversary edition is currently out and includes three short stories by Capote: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory, which is a memoir of Capote’s youth.
This was easily one of my top books of 2015, and I would highly recommend this to anyone, especially fans of the movie.
Happy reading!
E-Books versus Real Books
0Ah, the age-old discussion of which is better: hard copies or online copies.
Everyone has his or her preference, of course. Some people like having the physical copy to hold and display proudly on their shelf once they have completed it, like it’s a literary trophy. Others like the convenience of having twenty books stored in an online library that you can pull up with the touch of a button and you don’t have to cart around a heavy hardback in your purse.
In the grand scheme of things, I think both are acceptable mediums. I don’t think that eBooks are going to make physical copies obsolete, though there certainly are people out there who think that.
I do personally prefer the physical copy of the book because it looks pretty on my shelf, and there is always something so wonderful about actually turning a page instead of swiping on a screen. Hey, that’s just me.
Also, it’s kind of hard to get the smell of the book from an eReader. That should be the next feature for eReaders: a little euphoria jet that sprays the scent of the paper and the ink.
I never really wanted a Kindle or a Nook when they first came out. I think that if I had been introduced to them at an earlier age I would have saved my money for one or asked it as a big gift for Christmas or my birthday, but by the time they had been released on the market, I was too attached to the physical copies and didn’t see too much of a point. I did get the Kindle app on my phone a few years ago (because it was free) in order to have a few books accessible at all times. You never know when you are going to have some time to kill.
Like I said, I prefer the physical books. However eBooks certainly have their pros.
Obviously, convenience is the big thing. You can pull out your eReader or your phone and pull up a novel no problem whether you are in line at the post office or waiting for a class to start. They are also great when you want to read in the car when it’s dark outside.
My favorite thing about having a Kindle or a Nook is that you can usually access a book that is no longer in print. There have been a few books on my To Be Bought list that were taken off the market, and I wasn’t willing to pay fifty dollars for a 250-page mass market paperback from some independent seller on Amazon. The books in question, though, were available fairly cheap as eBooks so I went ahead and bought them. Would I have rather had the actual paperback? Sure. But for five dollars or less, I have no complaints with having the eBook.
So which do you prefer: Real Books or eBooks? Feel free to let me know in the comments below!
Book Review | The Distance Between Us
0
The Distance Between Us by Kasie West is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Caymen who lives with her single mom above the antique doll shop her mother owns. One day Xander, a rich, handsome, and charming boy comes to the shop to pick up something for his grandmother. The two begin talking and start to take an interest in one another. Caymen was taught by her mother at a young age not to trust the rich, and she decides to ignore Xander. But Xander’s persistence convinces Caymen to give him a shot, only to learn that her mother’s warnings of avoiding the rich might be true. In the end Caymen and Xander decide they are willing to work through the obstacles of their different financial backgrounds in order to be together.
This was a cute and quick read, the kind of summer time book you read in one sitting while lying in a hammock with a glass of lemonade. It was quite easy to fly through this story. It was a bit of a cliché story in a way, with the poor girl and the rich guy falling in love despite the protests of everyone around them, but something about the way Kasie West told the story made it new and different (if that makes any sense).
I thought it was cool how they were trying to immerse the other in something completely out of their comfort zone at the beginning of their friendship, although I personally thought Caymen’s choice of visiting a cemetery and digging graves was a little much. But hey, that’s just me.
Regarding the characters, I really liked Caymen. I couldn’t personally relate to her life, but I had no problem getting into her mindset and seeing things the way she saw them. She had such a strong voice that pulled me in, which is always important.
Would I classify The Distance of Us as my absolutely favorite young adult contemporary? No. But I did enjoy it a lot. I think I gave this about a 4 on Goodreads, and I am looking forward to reading some more of Kasie West’s works as I did enjoy her writing
I’d love to hear some other opinions on this story. Feel free to leave me a comment below. I’m curious to know what other contemporary books you enjoy.
Thanks for reading!