Thoughtful Thursdays

Hey Fellow Readers!!

Today I was thinking about some of my favorite quotes from books and thought I would start sharing them with you.  So I introduce to you........ Thoughtful Thursdays!!

This week I've found some gems from Stephenie Meyer, an author I have enjoyed reading since 2008.  I hope you guys like these I've picked out, it was hard to narrow them down to my favorites, but these are some of them from all of her books.  I've even included some from the one she sadly did not finish, but she does have the draft posted on her website for anyone interested.  I wish she could have finished it even after it got leaked, but I respect her decision to leave it unfinished.
Where to find the draft



“I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

 “I decided as long as I'm going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

“Death is Peaceful, Life is Harder”
-Stephenie Meyer, Twilight 

 “I honestly have no idea how to live without you.”
  -Stephenie Meyer, New Moon

 “Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made.”
 -Stephenie Meyer, New Moon

 “Look after my heart - I've left it with you.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse

 “I promise to love you forever - every single day of forever.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse

 “Life sucks, and then you die...”
-Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

 “Fire and ice, somehow existing together without destroying each other. More proof that I belonged with him.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

 “It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what you say. It's not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.”
-Stephenie Meyer, The Host

“Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.”
-Stephenie Meyer, The Host

“You never know how much time you'll have.”
-Stephenie Meyer, The Host

“I felt horribly obvious. I wished I were invisible to myself- that I could see the illusion so that I could trust it”
-Stephenie Meyer, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

 “My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?”
-Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun

 “Just like a kitten that thinks its a tiger.”
-Stephenie Meyer, Midnight Sun
 

Christmas!

Hey Readers!!

So, Christmas is in just a couple of days and I can't wait to spend some extra time with my family.  With that being said, I'm going to take a break from writing until next Monday, the 28th to give myself some time with them. 

I have a few books I'm bringing with me so during down time I'll still get some reading done, so don't worry, I'll be talking about new books soon! I may or may not be reading The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and am pretty pumped about it.

I hope you all have a Happy Christmas, and I'll see you before the New Year!!

Love you guys!!
Stephanie

Eleanor and Park, A Review

Eleanor And Park
By: Rainbow Rowell
My Rating: 3/5 It was good, but not great

I had very high hopes coming into this one because I had just come off my high of reading Fangirl.  Not saying this book was bad, it definitely had some great things going on for it.  I loved the 80's references she threw into the book.  Example, all the talk about music he was introducing her to and also the different comic books they would read.  It just left me feeling kinda blah.

Eleanor has moved back in with her mother and step-father in Omaha, with all of her younger siblings.  She walks onto the bus as "the new girl" drawing all of the unwanted attention from her soon to be classmates.  Eleanor's fire red hair and her body shape are both working against her.  She's not doing herself any favors with her unique style of dress, crazy even for the eighties.  I do admire Eleanor for being herself and for how quirky she was because I honestly can't say the same about myself while I was in high school.

Park isn't exactly popular, but he gets along with the popular kids so that means they tend to leave him alone.  He is half Korean, which stands out more in a primarily white school he is in. His life is the complete opposite of Eleanor's, he has one other sibling, loving parents, and a nice house.  The first day he sees Eleanor on the bus he feels embarrassed for her.  Not a soul would move over and let her sit with them for fear of being made fun of.  Begrudgingly, Park looks at Eleanor and tells her to sit down with him.

The story follows the two as they live very different lives, and how they slowly go from bus friends, to being in love.  Eleanor eventually opens up her world to Park after she tries to hide everything from him.  Most of this story felt very real to me.  I could see the two sitting by each other on the bus, her reading the different comics he would bring every day, then eventually listening to music together.  First love is a hard thing to get across with out it sounding too Romeo and Juliet.  Rainbow Rowell did a pretty good job with it. 

Stephanie

Me, And Earl, And The Dying Girl

Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl
By: Jesse Andrews
Rating: 3.5/5 Liked it, but would not read again

There seems to be a cult following for this book and either you love it, or you absolutely hate it.  To be honest, I didn't exactly hate this book, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

The narrator (Greg) kind of got on my nerves in the beginning, in the way he kept saying "you shouldn't read this book, it's so bad" or "you will probably want to come punch me in the face when you're finished with this book" just didn't sit well with me.  I can appreciate how he was trying to be funny, and maybe a little cheeky. I do however think the book could have stood on its own with out it.  Towards the middle I really started to get into the story, and the characters.  I laughed more than I thought I would during a book with "Dying Girl" in the title.

One thing I did like about this book is the fact that the author wrote some of the passages in film script formatting.  He mentions in the first chapter that he is more of a filmmaker not a writer. Now that I think about it, that probably explains why I was thrown off in the beginning.  So, in the long run I feel like I learned a little about film making, even though Greg and Earl were pretty bad at it.

Earl and Greg are just "coworkers" they hardly ever define themselves as friends because Greg is obsessed with being able to blend in while in class, or at home.  Earl is extremely crude, makes super offensive jokes, and has the worst dialect to read. That was one of the hardest things for me to get past was how Earl was written. However he does have some pretty good lines, and can be super emotional but I still could not get past his dialect. 

Then enter The Dying Girl, Rachel.  She is diagnosed with leukemia at the beginning of their senior year, and her story I did appreciate.  He didn't write about Rachel to make you feel deep things about her situation, (he states that very clearly in the beginning) nor would he put paradoxical lines in italics.  He never sugar coated the emotions she was feeling and how the treatments had an effect on her daily life.

In the end this book is hardly about cancer, its really just about a teenage boy trying to define himself, trying to be less (or more) invisible and bringing a little more focus on his future.  I did like how realistic this book felt, it wasn't a hard read, even for someone with cancer treatment history.

If you're looking for something a little different, I recommend picking up this one.  

Stephanie

A Review, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl
By: Rainbow Rowell
My Raiting: 5/5 Would read again

If I only had a few words to say about this book they would simply be, READ IT NOW!  If you like a fun, easy read this is for you.  The characters are all very relate-able and believable, however the plot was a little predictable, but I honestly enjoy that in books.

This is my first Rainbow Rowell book to pick up, and she did not disappoint.  Other books by her are Eleanor & Park, Attachments, Landline, and Carry On all of which are now higher on my list of books I need to read.

Cather (Cath) and Wren are twin sisters on their way to college.  Cath assumes she and Wren will room together, because why not? They have been rooming together for eighteen years, why change things now? While Wren, the more outgoing of the two, decided she wanted a new roommate in college and to shed her childhood of writing fanficion about a world centered around Simon Snow.

The world of Simon Snow is sprinkled throughout the book with little snippets of the fan fiction she is writing, and of the actual story they are drawing from.  The Simon Snow serious has a vague resemblance to another orphaned boy who can do magic.  I won't say who that is, I will let your imagination take care of that one.

Cath struggles to make new friends, (she has plenty on the internet!) especially with her new roommate Reagan. 

Regan is an upperclassman who applied to have a private room, but she got paired with Cath.  Regan spends most of the start of the book out of the room, Cath thinks its weird but she likes having the room to herself most of the time.  Regan is the polar opposite of Cath; Reagan is strong-willed and outspoken, some may even call her "rude" although she started to grow on me as the story progressed just as she did towards Cath.

Will Cath break out of her shell, and see there is more to life than Simon Snow?

I honestly could go on for ever about this book, but I just want you to read and experience it for yourself.  So, save yourself from me rambling on and on about this and go check it out as soon as possible, you won't regret it!

Stephanie

Your Public Library

Hey Readers!

Alright, my question of the day is, Library or bookstore?

I saw this question raised the other day on a group on Goodreads, and it got me thinking about my own bookish habits.  I love supporting local bookstores, and buying books brand new.  There is just something about the way new books smell, and feel.  It's pretty close to an addiction for me.

As you know, the down side of doing such things is the fact that books can get expensive, and quick. So I started buying books secondhand to save myself some money.  It worked, but in turn I had ended up with too many books on my TBR shelf to be acceptable.

My plan to remedy this was getting a library card at my local library.  At first I was a little skeptical, I mean, do I really want to touch a book that so many other germy hands had been on?  Not to mention the state of some of the books there are slightly depressing.  Looking past all of that, I walked up to the counter ready to get a card of my own.  The process was completely computerized (at least at my local library) and it was really quick.  They even took my picture to make sure it's really me checking out books.

Libraries have so many resources available to card holders and its all free! Yes, free! There is a fee to do things like sending or receiving a fax, making copies, and printing things from the internet.  Those fees are relatively low, and seemed reasonable to me.  My local library even had a section dedicated to researching family history, which I thought was super cool. There is even a "family history specialist" available some days to help with your research.

Did you know they even have foreign language programs you can check out? You could learn a new language for FREE!  That is another cool thing that I have yet to check out, but I am super interested to look into all the options they have.

Your local library may even have some E-Book options for you E-Readers out there.  Personally, I can hardly read from a screen, whether it's my phone, laptop or a tablet.  I really, really like the feeling of a physical book in my hand and getting the satisfaction of turning the pages, which brings us back to my book addiction.

Overall I love the library and will continue to check out books, along with picking up a few new ones as well. Let me know what you think, will you be giving your public library a chance?

Thanks for reading!!
Stephanie

About the blog

Hi!

The name is Stephanie (or Stevie if you're paying attention to the blog title) and I am finally starting my book blog!

I know, you're thinking "ugh, not another book blogger" and I don't blame you at all.  I do plan on being different and not just doing a constant stream of book reviews.  I want to share my love of reading with you and hopefully inspire you to pick up more books yourself.

I haven't always been a reader, to be completely honest, there was a time when I dreaded reading.  In school I always skimmed books I was supposed to read fully, and kind of fluffed my way through all the tests and that got me by. Don't look at me like that, we've all used a Spark Note or two!  Reading never seemed "fun" to me, just something I had to do for my classes.

All of those feelings changed when I found Harry Potter, then the Twilight saga and realized I did like reading more than I thought I did. I spent many nights in my room reading all night to find out what happened next to Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I can not tell you how many tears I shed during that whole series, but I would not change a thing.

So please, give me a chance to ignite a love for reading within you.