Looking For Alaska

  Looking For Alaska, by John Green

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words–and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

The title is so deceiving! I had an idea in my head as to what the storyline would be, needless to say I was completely wrong... This book is just absolutely fabulous, it's by far the best out of the John Green books I've read. So many emotions!

It's hard to find the specific reasons as to why I found this book so enjoyable, just everything together made it what it is, and what that is an incredible story. The characters weren't perfect, but that's why I liked them, they were real. They had their issues and their flaws, but that's what made it good. Most books have a lovely story line with some perfect characters, but it's the ones that have their flaws, that aren't perfect that are much more interesting and they are much more relatable. 

Please, if you haven't read this book already go out and read it, then share it with everyone you know because everyone needs to experience the magnificence of this book!

Paper Towns,

Paper Towns, by John Green

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life–dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge–he follows. 

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues–and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

This book was brilliant! So many of my friends told me how they didn't like this books, they thought the beginning and the end were okay but that the middle was completely boring. I disagree completely, I genuinely loved the middle bit. Q has a poem left to him by Margo, and he's got to find clues in the poem in order to find Margo, and since poetry is the only thing I'm particularly good at in school I loved it! I was constantly trying to look into the poem and find the clues before they found them in the book, I have an unhealthy competitive streak in me that prevents me from being able to just wait and find out what happens, I have to try and beat the book XD.

This book is funny, filled with mystery and adventure yet also the boring reality of life. Oh and of course there's a little bit of love ;) I actually managed to pick up a few facts from this book too which is always a bonus. I would certainly recommend this book if you haven't already, the odds are that some of you will find this book a little bit boring at times, but maybe if you have a go and try to appreciate the poetry and the genius clues left by Margo then you'll find it as interesting as I did.

If I Stay

If I Stay, By Gayle Forman.

On a day that started like any other…

Mia had everything: a loving family, a gorgeous, adoring boyfriend, and a bright future full of music and full of choices. Then, in an instant, almost all of that is taken from her. Caught between life and death, between a happy past and an unknowable future, Mia spends one critical day contemplating the one decision she has left—the most important decision she’ll ever make.
Simultaneously tragic and hopeful, this is a romantic, riveting and ultimately uplifting story about memory, music, living, dying, loving.

I had heard so much rave about this book, as well as the movie. Quite a few of my friends had read the book and/or seen the movie and they were all telling me that this book would make me cry and it was just super sad. However I didn't find that it made me cry (at least not at the sad bits, I always seem to cry at the happy bits), maybe I had imagined it to be this horrifically sad book and that's why I didn't find it that sad, but I still loved the book none the less.

This was one of those books that gave me such a warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy, even though most of it was about some horrific, heartbreaking event. This book wasn't super long which I liked, I managed to read it fairly quickly so the story was just a nice constant flow for me. However this was just another one of those books that has lead me to have such high expectations for the male race, Adam is just so sweet and loving, they have such an adorable relationship which now leaves me expecting this from every boy. So I'll probably spend my life alone with cats or something tragic like that... and you are all welcome to join me!;) This book did end on quite a cliff hanger, which did leave me wanting more. As a result if this I did find that I just sat there wondering what to do with my life for a while, but then I realized that there was a sequel, so it's all good!;) If you want a bit of a lovey dover book to make you feel all happy and gooey, I would definitely recommend reading this book!

We Were Liars

We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury. We are cracked and broken. A story of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which is truth?

Kind Of Spoliery!

If you plan on reading this I will tell you now, this is a sad book.
No one told me that and it came as a huge shock and I cried, I didn't even have any tissues ready! 

This book is magnificent! I honestly don't know what to say about it, I just know that I loved it.

When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be some kind of romance story between two teens from different kinds of families. I was wrong. It was so much more than that, and so much better! Towards the end of the book I was super confused for a solid few chapters, I had no idea what was going on and what to think. Then as I carried on it began to make sense and it hurt! The feels! They were all over the place and it took me a while to recover. 

This review is bad, I'm aware of that. I'm just really struggling to put into word how this brilliant book made me feel. I CAN'T EVEN! I'm so sorry, this review probably hasn't helped you at all, so just go and read this book and you will understand what I am feeling! I recommend this book, go and get it now. Right now. I don't care what you're doing, go and get it!

On a serious note, Amber from The Mile Long Bookshelf wrote a brilliant review that certainly puts mine to shame :')  so go and check that out, it is much better than my own haha!
http://www.themilelongbookshelf.com/2014/06/we-were-liars-by-e-lockhart.html#.VE1wAxYufYA

Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey

Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey, by Ed Sheeran and Phillip Butah. 

With words by Ed Sheeran and illustrations by his childhood friend, artist Phillip Butah (who produces artwork for Sheeran's albums and singles), and accompanying photos, Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey is an exclusive, fully authorised, first-person account by Ed of how he became an internationally renowned singer-songwriter.

In the book, Ed explores his early musical experiences and influences as well as his time recording and touring, right up to the release of his second album, 'x'. The book reveals what drives and inspires Ed as he continues to evolve as an artist, while coping with stratospheric success, and is an honest account of what it takes to make it in the music business.

With Phillip Butah's distinctive portraits of Ed throughout, this is a unique book celebrating a unique musician. It includes Ed's recollections of working tirelessly on the London gig circuit and self-releasing EPs, working hard on finding his sound, signing to Asylum Records and recording his huge hit album, '+', performing at the Grammys, touring with Taylor Swift and sell-out headline gigs at Madison Square Garden. It takes us up to Ed as a musician today, including recording his new album, 'x'

I don't usually read autobiography type books, but this was Ed Sheeran's so of course I was going to read it! I was given this by a friend as an early birthday present, and I loved it! This book was a lot bigger than I thought it was, and it looked a little bit daunting, but as I had a quick flick through the pages I realized that there were quite a lot of pictures, beautiful pictures at that! I should have expected this from the title of the book, but I'm not always the smartest person. 

Something that has always put me off reading books about people's life is the pointless stories that they feel they need to tell to gain a bit of sympathy, or the constant name dropping. However I didn't find any of that in this, of course Ed spoke of the obstacles in his life, but they always seemed to be told in an upbeat and positive which only made me respect him more. This book was pretty informative and it did really show you the journey he's been on to get to where he is now and the hard work he's put in to get things in life. 

It's fair to say that I probably am being biased towards this book because it's about Ed, and I am slightly in love with him. But honestly this is a good autobiography and the artwork is incredible. I think the books costs £18.99 which is really quite expensive considering that the book isn't particularly word heavy, but I loved it none the less and I'm sure that any fan of Ed will too.

Out Of The Ashes

Out Of The Ashes, by Michael Morpurgo.

This story is not a story at all. It all happened.

 On New Year's Day Becky Morley begins to write her diary. By March, her world has changed for ever. Foot-and-mouth disease breaks out on a pig farm hundreds of miles from the Morleys' Devon home, but soon the nightmare is a few fields away. Local sheep are infected and every animal is destroyed. Will the Morleys' flock be next? Will their pedigree dairy herd, the sows with their piglets, and Little Josh, Becky's hand-reared lamb, survive? Or will they be slaughtered too?

 The waiting and hoping is the most agonizing experience of Becky's life . . .
  
I found this book the other day in a drawer and I decided to read it, I wanted to read something light and this was a pretty short book. I don't really know where this book came from, I'm assuming my mum bought if for me a few years ago when I went through a stage of reading Michael Morpurgo but I just never got round to reading it. I wasn't expecting this book to wow me or anything, and it didn't. The book wasn't bad, I just found it all a bit mundane for me. I often read fantasy, adventure, dystopian types of books with magic and action and mystery. But this books didn't have any of that, I knew it wasn't going to be a book that would particularly interest me, but I thought I'd read it anyway.

This book was by no means bad, it just didn't do anything for me. I like to read books that take me away from my normal world, which is why I don't always find books about factual events particularly interesting. However that doesn't mean that I rule out all books based on factual events, it all just depends on the event really. I didn't really feel any attachment to any of the characters in this book, I think maybe it was just a fictional book to promote the events of the foot and mouth outbreak, and because I already knew about this there was nothing new to learn really, nothing that surprised me and no great mystery to uncover. I suppose that to those who aren't aware of the devastation this disease caused then maybe it would be a little more interesting to read, I wouldn't tell you to avoid reading this book, I just don't think that you would be missing out on a great deal if you chose not to.

Teardrop

Teardrop, by Lauren Kate.

Never, ever cry . . .

Seventeen-year-old Eureka won’t let anyone close enough to feel her pain. After her mother was killed in a freak accident, the things she used to love hold no meaning. She wants to escape, but one thing holds her back: Ander, the boy who is everywhere she goes, whose turquoise eyes are like the ocean.

And then Eureka uncovers an ancient tale of romance and heartbreak, about a girl who cried an entire continent into the sea. Suddenly her mother’s death and Ander’s appearance seem connected, and her life takes on dark undercurrents that don’t make sense.

Can everything you love be washed away?


I hadn't actually heard anything about this book before I got it and I hadn't read anything by Lauren Kate before this, although I had been told good things about her fallen series. I won this book on twitter when I entered a mystery prize, and I am so glad that I did otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone out and bought it for myself.

Like I said, I had never read anything by Lauren Kate so I wasn't sure what to think. At first I found it a little bit wordy at times and I found myself getting quite confused reading the prologue, but that was probably just me. However, after I got through the prologue I found it a lot easier to understand and I was really getting into it, I didn't want to put it down! This is definitely my kind of book, a world within our own but we just can't see it, people protecting us from things we are unaware of.

I thought that this book dealt with issues that are becoming a lot more common in our generation, issues such as depression, the loss of a family member, slightly dysfunctional families and most importantly the love and social life of a teen. What I enjoyed most about this was the way it was written, it was real,  it wasn't sugar coated it was written from the point of view of a teen, and teens often are upfront and abrupt.

There was a lot of mystery in this book that kept me guessing. It really made me think about the characters and their actions which I don't always do, often a character does something and I just accept it and I don't question why they did that, but not when I was reading this. There were also many tragic events, and it left me exhausted. All I was doing was sitting there reading, but I was feeling the strain that was put on these characters, it was one thing after the other, things just kept on getting worse. The romance... blossoming relationships, it left me feeling fuzzy inside and girly. I'm not a girly person, but these relationships in books always get me, they're just so perfect but not at the same time and i love it! Oh and there was magic! Well I don't know if you would consider it magic but it certainly wasn't ordinary, and I love that kind of thing.

This book left me on one of the biggest cliffhangers going, and it actually made me panic at first because I wasn't aware that this was part of a trilogy. I was over the moon when I realized it was because I just need more, I want it in my life! What makes it even better is that the next book 'Waterfall' is set to be published on my birthday...so feel free to buy me a copy ;)

If you're like me and you like a fantasy/mystery kind of book, then I would certainly recommend this book, I thought it was brilliant and I'm sure you will too!