Book Report: Second Helpings

My first day of orientation is tomorrow morning, which means I should probably go to bed, considering how I've been averaging nine hours of sleep these days...

My female roommate seems to be much more of a social butterfly than I am -- she's pretty much out at bars every night this past week. She's invited me to tag along a couple of times, but today and yesterday I pretty much just stayed in and had my "alone" time. At age 23, I really should stop caring about what other people think of me, but I can't help but wonder if she thinks I'm a hermit.

Part of the problem is that I've heard soooo many older med students here talk about how awesome my roommates are, and how I'm so lucky to be living with them. And it's true -- they're great. But it's putting all the pressure on me to be awesome enough to be part of this trio...

Anyways, today I drove downtown to run some errands. For starters, I've been deathly afraid of draining my car battery, so I haven't really been using the A/C in my car, which resulted in me literally soaking my shirt through with sweat. It was disgusting. I also was so stressed out about trying to find parking downtown that I forgot about an unprotected left turn and got majorly honked at.

But the good thing about today is that I ventured over to the New Orleans Public Library and got my library card. It's not a very fancy library--I've gotten so used to self-checkout stations at Duke and my home libraries in California that it was very strange handing my books over to the circulation desk and see the lady judging my book selection. But this library has lots of YA books I've been dying to get my hands on.

What sucks though is that adults aren't supposed to hang out on the second floor (where they keep all the YA books) because it's supposed to be an environment for youths. So the lady at the 2nd floor desk had to ask me how old I was and give me the spiel, and then I politely responded that I was only going to browse through the shelves and not plunk myself down next to the teenage young'uns.

Anyways, I found Megan Mccaferty's Second Helpings, which I've been waiting to read for a while now, ever since I finished Sloppy Firsts. So I stayed in tonight and read the whole thing.

Second Helpings by Megan Mccafferty

Okay, before I start... I've realized that reading books like this rubs off on me. It was the same thing with Saving Francesca -- after I read something with a very strong witty narrative voice, it affects the way I write. I just looked at that giant slab of mumbo-jumbo at the top of this post and did a double-take.

Anyways. I'm going to drop spoilers left and right, so please disregard if you plan on reading this book with virgin eyes.

So, I had quite an internal debate with myself about whether or not I liked Sloppy Firsts or Second Helpings better. Second Helpings was a bit off-key for me in the beginning, because Jessica came across as a lot whinier and unfunny than I recalled in Sloppy Firsts. The whole part about her summer camp I just wanted to skip past, because damn it, I wanted to read about Marcus Flutie. But on the other hand, this book had WAY more Marcus Flutie, which is pretty much the main reason why I picked up this book in the first place, considering how things ended in Sloppy Firsts. Also, we saw way more of Jessica's grandmother, who I totally imagined as Betty White because she's just that awesome.

In the end, I think I'm going to have to give it to Sloppy Firsts. For some reason, I feel like I laughed out loud more times with the first book, which also had a stronger narrative arc. Plus with this one, there were quite a few times when I wanted to shake Jessica and be like, "If you're so desperate to lose your V-card, why are you still dating Len Levy if he's so insistent on abstinence and you obviously are still in love with Marcus Flutie?!" I also didn't really sa-WOON over the scene where Marcus Flutie and Jessica finally get their shit together. I mean, I totally fist-pumped when they finally figured out their feelings and whatnot, because I've been shipping them since Day 1, but it takes A LOT for me to be impressed by love song lyrics/poetry. Sorry, Marcus Flutie -- I like you a lot, but your poems don't do it for me.

(Though I wonder if it'll be different if I'm ever on the receiving end of these things. I read somewhere today that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are currently working on different continents, write handwritten letters to each other. I make fun of my ex-roommate's romantic boyfriend fantasies all the time, but I have to admit that I used to tell myself I'd be super impressed with someone who knew how to write an actual letter to me... kinda like how Koala said she'd be super impressed with someone who gives her his jacket when she's cold. Are we at an equivalent level of pathetique here? Actually, don't answer that.)

Anyways, I'm not going to read the rest of the Jessica Darling series. Why? Some credible sources have told me not to bother with Jessica's college and post-grad years. Kind of like how I've taken other people's advice not to read Mockingjay or Allegiant, I will just stop myself here unless I find myself incredibly bored one day and decide to see for myself. I can imagine if the series goes up to five books, Jessica and Marcus are bound to break-up at some point, and I'd rather just imagine every thing is fine and dandy when we close the pages on their high school graduation.

Okay, I need to go to bed. Toodleloo.

Delirium and Death

God, New Orleans is hot.

I've slowly been settling into my new place. On Tuesday, I will finally have a mattress to sleep on! In the meantime, I've been sleeping on the couch in the living room. Which is okay in the sense that I can sleep pretty much anywhere, but the couch is right next to the front door, which means that I notice whenever my male roommate runs off to his rotations early in the morning.

I have a tendency to wake up earlier if I'm expecting something. So for some inane reason, I naturally woke up at like 5:30 am because I was expecting him to be up rummaging around in the kitchen. And then I realized I was hallucinating sounds, so I tried to go back to sleep, but then he came out of his room at like 6:30 am, and then I feigned sleep until he left. Then I drifted in and out of sleep for like the next three hours as my female roommate came in and out of the kitchen.

All this in-and-out sleep confused my poor brain.

The Anathema has appeared in the night numerous times, but last night was the first time I'd ever dreamed that he was dead. How he died, I can't remember. The only thing I distinctly recall was a conversation with his grief-stricken mother, who was collecting copies of every edition of The Fault in Our Stars in his honor, including some special edition narrated from Hazel's father's point of view (shut up--it made complete sense in my subconsciousness). I should have recognized this was a dream as soon as this ludicrous conversation appeared, but in the midst of it all, I felt a lot of strange, real emotions about this revelation that the Anathema was dead. When I finally woke up, I realized the truth: nothing would change, because in a way, the Anathema is already dead to me.

I lay there on the couch at 5 in the morning, pondering about this. I'm not a fervent believer in the occult, but I do harbor an amused fondness for "weird" things like dream symbolism and tarot cards. I'd told Rogue just a few days ago about the time I visited a witch's house in Durham, and how my professor had drawn the Death Card when we did tarot readings. The Death card is not necessarily a bad card. It symbolizes rebirth, transition, and the start of something new. And in light of the fact that I've just moved to a new place and will start classes in a week...

But the most striking to me is that the Anathema was the one who died. Because on my last day in California, my mother told me that even my father--of all people--had told my mother, "Tell our daughter to hurry up and find a boyfriend. Can't you teach her how to get a man or something?"

God, now even my father is concerned about the fact that I've been single all my life? I was mortified.

People have asked before why I didn't find anyone in college. As if I could control someone's feelings in return. The boat runs two ways. There were interested people I didn't feel anything for, and when I started seeing the signs, I kept my distance. There were others I had a shallow interest in, but not enough for me to do much about it, especially when these people usually had their sights set elsewhere. My answer was always that I didn't find anyone interesting, but I've come to the conclusion that my brain has been culpable.

The Anathema is not a real person. The Anathema is a concept that I became so emotionally invested in, that in the aftermath, I became afraid of feeling something that intense ever again. In reaction to four years of anger, sadness, self-loathing, and small bits of euphoria, I essentially numbed myself for four years after.

Is this the end of the Anathema's reign? Who knows. Thanks to the delirium of drifting in-and-out of sleep, for a while I became very confused about whether or not the Anathema had actually died in real life and even logged onto Facebook to check. In short, I need some caffeine.

Parental Units

I don't talk much about my family on this blog, but it's occurred to me in the recent years that there is a wealth of stories in this untapped area. I tell most of these stories verbally to friends for amusement, but the only time I've really ever written any of this down has been for class.

One time, in Professor Hijuelos' class, we had to pick three personal photographs and write an essay related to those photographs. I ended up choosing three different ones and writing vignettes related to each. Turned out the most interesting one to my classmates was my parents' wedding photo. I described in great detail our living room mantel, in particular: lots of Lego sculptures of pop culture icons, such as Ronald McDonald and Yoda. When I went into the story of my parents' wedding photograph, I talked about how they met at a Pizza Hut, and how they didn't really have a wedding or honeymoon--they invited a friend to take pictures at the courthouse and then invited aforementioned friend out to dinner at Pizza Hut afterwards.

My classmates ate this shit up, I kid you not. They started pondering about the implications of first-generation immigrant frugality and the celebration of American consumerism on the fireplace mantle, the symbol of the hearth and home. The only thing I'd ever thought about our Yoda Lego statue was how my father had proudly brought that statue home when Target threw a promotional event for when the Star Wars Episode 1 first came out to see who could guess the correct number of bricks, and I wondered what proportion of the ballots came from our house. (Including my cousins and grandparents who were visiting that summer, and we probably each filled out like 5 ballots per person... yeah.)

Speaking of Target, just today, I went with my mother there to buy some things. Among the other household necessities, she picked out four gift cards and asked the cashier to put 10 dollars on each. Why, you may ask? Because my dad collects Target gift cards, which most people may not realize often come with nifty toys (like balsa wood airplanes or Pez dispensers) and slick designs. He buys gift cards, and then uses those gift cards to buy more gift cards, essentially cycling money through an endless string of Target gift cards without actually buying anything.

Anyways, why am I writing about this? Just now, I got into another argument with my mother, which was really more of an aftershock related to the fight we had before about my editing fees. I mentioned in my previous post about how she has a tendency to pull unrelated crimes out of the ether, but good golly, her attempt today was absolutely egregious. It was infuriating. But if you're curious about how my mind works, it goes like this:

1. THIS MAKES ME SO [fill in emotion here].
2. I need to convey this in writing. / How can I use this for my own writing?

I was planning to rant about it, to get it out my system, but then I realized: A) I've already talked about this before and I don't want to sound like a broken record; B) I hate whiners and don't want to become one; C) Negativity is not good for the soul.

So I decided to try writing about something more light-hearted instead. And still ended up coming back to it in the end. Sigh.

Pacific Summer Blues

I'd been wanting to drive down to Big Sur for a while now, ever since I wrote Sea, Land, Sky for my Fairytales and Contemporary Retellings class. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been on that coastline--we'd gone camping near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park when I was little, but all the camping trips from past summers have sort of melted into a blur, so I couldn't remember anything with much clarity. To research for my short story, I had to rely on Google Images and Wikipedia articles in order to capture the Northern California coastline where the fictional water horses dwell.

So when S contacted me about making a day trip down the coast, I readily agreed. We made no set plans for a destination, other than to drive down Highway 1 and stop whenever something caught our eye. Two things came out of this trip. One, I'd been fearful of finding out that I'd completely butchered my descriptions in the short story. Turns out the setting was perfect. The cliffs, the beaches, the clear water, the forests and ranches--I could picture the story unfolding all around this area. Even the rearing waves, dark with tumbling kelp, reminded me of horses.

Two, I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have grown up in Northern California. While I was in Europe, I kept thinking, Why doesn't the States have gorgeous architecture like this? Why is everything so beautiful here? Yesterday, I realized that there's beauty all around in the States--you just have to get off your lazy ass and get out of the city to find it.

Monterey, Fisherman's Wharf

Carmel, Garrapata State Park

Carmel, Garrapata State Park

Carmel, Garrapata State Park

Big Sur

Big Sur, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Big Sur, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

Progress Report No.10

This post will be less writing-specific and more about what's going on with my life, though writing has been a huge chunk of it these days.

I have one week left in California before I head back to New Orleans. Everyone's been asking me if I'm excited or nervous or whatnot, but truthfully? I'm kind of dreading it. I'm dreading getting to my house and finding out that my car battery died while I was gone. I had issues with it before I left, and I even had a dream last night about trying to start my car. I'm dreading all the small-talk I'll have to do with new people to make new friends, because even though I've gotten A LOT better at small-talking, it doesn't mean I've gotten over my dislike for it. I'm dreading having to go to class and study again, because a part of me is scared that this is going to be like college freshman year all over again. (And trust me, I do NOT want that shit show to happen again.)

I got into an argument with my mother earlier this week. In hindsight, it was kind of stupid. The thing with my mother is that she usually presents well-meaning advice with a loud angry voice, which ends up making me defensive, which then pisses her off, which escalates into her roaring and me crying silently and not saying anything. And then we don't talk for the rest of the day.

She was harping on the fact that I edit a lot of friends' writing without expecting anything in return. It's not really one specific friend or anything, so I don't mean to single anyone out, but the truth is that I've done this a lot, especially with school assignments and college apps. So I think her well-intended point was that I should start thinking about setting some sort of fee-based system (since time is money, blah blah blah), but I got defensive and said I don't want to charge friends and I've never charged anyone so I don't feel comfortable starting that now. And then she got really angry, and reminded me about one person who e-mailed me out of the blue asking if I could look over their grant application (which I did), and she was like, IS THAT PERSON A FRIEND? YOU CALL THAT A FRIEND? WHAT KIND OF A FRIEND IS THAT? THAT'S CALLED BEING USED. And then, as my mother is wont to do, she started pulling out all sorts of other crimes from the ether, like my grades could have better in college, or my study habits are terrible, and then... she said, "You have time for it because you make time for it. You like editing. Your first love was always English. You wouldn't have taken all those science classes if you didn't have to."

And I dunno, that really hit me in an uncomfortable way. Because let's say society was reversed and humanities were so much more valued than science, and people made jokes about biology majors working at Starbucks.... I don't think I would have taken such a science-heavy curriculum. And this happens just as I'm about to embark on the fun times that is medical school....

In other news, since the last progress report in mid-June, I've written three chapters in the last month. Last night, I finally finished Ch. 16, which turned out to be a whopper... over 7,000 words. I wrote around half of it in one day, and it sucked the life out of me. I'm not an emotional person (I didn't cry reading or watching The Fault in Our Stars, though I felt something), but by the time I finished writing the last scene in Ch.16 (let's just say it takes place at a cemetery), I was drained and just wanted to go to bed.

Also, sort of related (sorry for the jumpiness) -- I was at Graydyl's place last weekend, and she had me watch a bunch of episodes from season 1 of Hemlock Grove. There was a character in there who would constantly say something like, "I aim to be a writer, so I want to understand people's motivations." GAHHHHHHH SHE WAS SO ANNOYING. Am I like this?? Graydyl kept teasing me with, "Is that what you think too, writer?" If I ever come across like this, someone please smack some sense back into me.

Book Report: Saving Francesca

 Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

I reviewed Melina Marchetta's most famous book, Jellicoe Road, last year. I liked it a lot, but now that I've read Saving Francesca, I have to say Melina Marchetta is one of my favorite YA writers. Her writing isn't lusciously poetic like Laini Taylor or Francesca Lia Block, but her characters always make me wish I could be their friends too.

Saving Francesca is about a 17-year-old girl of Italian heritage at a private Catholic, former all-boys' school that recently opened its doors to girls. Instead of the typical trope that paints this situation like a teenage girl's paradise, Francesca ends up dealing with a bunch of stinky, gross, sexist boys and hangs out with the few other girls that she doesn't really get along with. Meanwhile, her mother has suddenly succumbed to a bout of acute depression, and her family struggles with this situation as her mother seems to get worse and worse. 

This book reminded me of Megan McCaffrey's Sloppy Firsts, in the sense that it's focused on realistic, everyday life. Some people might find this boring, but I usually don't have any problems with slice-of-life stories--especially if the narrators are as hilarious as Sloppy Firsts' Jessica Darling or Francesca Spinelli. (I'll admit I laughed out loud multiple times in this book.) The plot of Saving Francesca isn't wildly dramatic, but all of the characters are wildly interesting. Francesca was sarcastically funny (if sometimes boneheaded, like your typical teenager), but her friends and family members were also great. I liked most of these side characters, but my favorite was definitely Jimmy Hallier, one of the crude boys that Francesca meets in detention. He is a riot.

"We get to Annandale and he takes out a cigarette and offers one to me.

'I try not to indulge. It's a filthy habit,' I tell him.

'I love that word filthy. I love the way you force it out of your mouth like it's some kind of vermin you want to get rid of.'

'You've had vermin in your mouth?'"

Besides the characters, I also really liked how the Italian cultural aspects were woven into the story. One of my complaints about Eleanor and Park was that I felt that there was too much of an emphasis on Park's race and so much untapped potential in exploring Park's culture, especially in a dual-heritage home. There's a brief part in the book where Francesca stays at her nonna's house and her nonna hosts the Rosary. There's a little backstory about how William Trombal (Francesca's love interest)'s grandmother stole her nonna's famous S biscuit recipe, and they've been fighting ever since. William Trombal's grandmother brings a batch of those S biscuits, and so Francesca decides to take action:

"So during the Glorious Mysteries, I put them in the bin, wrap up the garbage bag, and take it outside. I know the Virgin Mary will understand. The Jews are a lot like the Italians, so I'm sure there were jealousy issues between her and the other women of Nazareth."

I wasn't a big fan of Will Trombal--he wasn't as interesting as Jimmy or Thomas Mackee, the other boy that ends up playing a role in this story. So the romance part didn't really do much for me, but if you're at all interested in YA contemporary and have patience for naive and stubborn heroines (who will eventually learn her lesson, obviously), this book is worth checking out.

And now, I'll end with a final quote related to the gross but kind of endearing Thomas Mackee:

"For a moment I can't help thinking how decent he is--that there's some hope for him beyond the obnoxious image he displays. Maybe deep down he is a sensitive guy, who sees us as real people with real issues. I want to say something nice. Some kind of thanks. I stand there, rehearsing it in my mind.

'Oh my God,' he says, 'Did you see that girl's tits?"

Maybe not today."

Battle Cry

Money cannot buy 

All the love that's here tonight 

All the love that's here tonight 

It's just you and I 

So lift your hands toward the sky 

Lift your hands toward the sky

I asked you once, Whose song is that? What I meant to ask was who you had written it for. Instead, what I'd asked was a matter of possession, ownership. But the funny thing about songs, I've learned, is that once you release them into the air, they belong to no one and everyone at once. The melodies and harmonies weave into the fabric of life outside of you. It's the song on the radio when a boy learns that his friend was killed on duty, it's the song that the DJ plays when the high school sweethearts share their last dance at the senior prom, it's the song looped on repeat as a woman hits rock bottom, lying in bed and wallowing in self-loathing at how her life has turned out. Your songs, so personal and so vulnerable, become a part of another person's memory, a trigger that can both heal and hurt--depending on the circumstances.

Take the sun and you still grow / Lose the light and you still glow

As I hear those last chords rising in the darkened sky, I close the pages shut on us. The symphony of the night has already started to buzz with static, and I won't be able to hear you for much longer. In time, I will become nothing more than a ghost conjured by an acoustic trigger. I am translucent, and a crystal wind passes through me. I lock these memories in my chest, not because I fear you will lose them, but because from now on, you will write new ones--hundreds and thousands extending beyond the years I never had.

So sing with me your battle cry
Sing with me your battle cry

 --"Battle Cry" by Angel Haze ft. Sia

Book Reports: "The Raven Boys" and "Lips Touch Three Times"

Off to a slow start with Chapter 16 (sigh). In the meantime, I chopped my hair really short yesterday (like Miley Cyrus length), and now I'm back again with a second round of book reports.

1. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

I've only read one other book by Maggie Stiefvater, Scorpio Races, which I liked a lot. That book was based on the Scottish water horse myth, which I've always been intrigued by (I wrote my own short story on water horses, after all), and her writing was very skillful in creating atmosphere. I haven't bothered reading Shiver and the other books in that series (which is what put Maggie Stiefvater on the map in the first place) because I'm not terribly big on paranormal romances, but I heard a lot of good things about The Raven Boys from my go-to book recommender, Forever Young Adult.

The Raven Boys is kind of hard to explain/summarize, but it was completely my cup of tea, and I adored it. I've always been interested in stories with a tinge of creepiness but not outright horror. There was a manga I read when I was younger called Tarot Cafe, and since then I've always been interested in tarot cards used as foreshadowing in fiction. Other elements that were totally up my alley were prophecies, rich private school boys, and spirits.

The heroine of The Raven Boys is Blue Sargent, who comes from a family of fortune tellers and mystics. She doesn't have those magical psychic abilities but for some reason is able to amplify the powers of others around her. Everyone who has ever told her fortune has seen that if she kisses her true love, he will die. Early in the beginning of the book, she goes to the cemetery with her aunt, and to her surprise she sees the spirit of someone who will die within the coming year. Her aunt tells her that the fact that she can see his spirit means that either he's her true love, or she'll kill him.

Later on, you find out that the boy whose spirit she saw is Gansey, a rich student at the local private all boys school who's desperately hunting for something. I won't give away what he's looking for, but his reasons were quite... well, you'll see. You also meet the rest of the "Raven Boys": Ronan, Noah, and Adam.

This book was great. I loved the interaction between the four boys, who were all very well characterized, and the mysterious elements were unique and thrilling. What sucks is that this was the first book in a series... so I'm gonna have to figure out how to get my hands on the second book, The Dream Thieves.

2. Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor

Obviously everyone who read this blog knows I am a HUGE fan of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, and I admire-envy Laini Taylor's way with words. So, OF COURSE I was going to read this book sooner or later. This book basically consists of three stories, each revolving around a kiss. At the beginning and end of each story are illustrations by Laini Taylor's husband, Jim Di Bartolo, which are gorgeous. I kept flipping back and forth to look at the illustrations as I read, since some of them depict specific scenes in the story.

The first story "Goblin Fruit" is about a high school girl who catches the attention of a very handsome new student. Immediately, it sounds like Twilight, though I'll just go out and say that it's not about vampires. I won't spoil what happens at the end, but let's just say if Twilight had ended up with Edward seducing Bella to dine on her blood, and Bella willingly going to her demise... then that's basically the gist of what happens here.

The second story "Spicy Little Curses Such as These" was my favorite out of the three. It reminded me of a fairy tale, mixed with a spin on the Orpheus myth. Due to a bargain between a demon and a human ambassador to Hell, a girl is born cursed with a voice that will kill anyone who hears it. Though no one knows for sure if the curse is real, out of fear she remains mute her whole life. In time, a soldier falls in love with her after reading her lost diary, and after they meet, she falls in love with him as well. The story takes place in India and uses a lot of eastern ideas on the concept of hell, and this was the story that started reminding me of Francesca Lia Block, though I feel like Laini Taylor's poetic style is a little more restrained. I was impressed by how the ending neatly wrapped up certain things in the story, which was a pleasant surprise.

The third story "Hatchling" has more of a fantastical feel that for some reason made me think of Howl's Moving Castle. This one also veers more towards Daughter of Smoke and Bone territory, with some fantasy terms and supernatural creatures. This story involved a lot of flashbacks, which reminded me of how some people were turned off by the huge chunk of flashback about Madrigal and Akiva in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I didn't mind Madrigal's story in that novel, but with this one I felt that it became a bit too flashback-heavy. This story almost felt like a precursory experiment before Laini Taylor ended up fleshing out a full universe with related elements in DOSAB.

If you like Laini Taylor's writing and slightly creepy fairy tales, this book is worth reading. In particular, I enjoyed reading the words and sentences masochistically and asking myself, "Ughhhh why can't you do this?" Here's one of my favorite passages:

It was bound in floral linen and filled with girlish script. "The secrets of a blushing maiden," he quipped with a smile that brought his dimples out, and he flipped it right open with no scruple to preserving the maidenly modesty of its writer. Indeed, he expected none. He had endured his sea voyage in the company of the "fishing fleet" -- English ladies hying themselves in India to catch husbands -- and he felt as if he had barely escaped being drugged and dragged to the altar. He thought he knew the character of English girls in India, and surely this diary would be more of the same.

Tucking Gaffney's lighter back into his pocket, James began to read.

His smile wavered. It clung for a time in disbelief and then fell away in stages [I love this sentence!]. The little book did indeed hold the secrets of a blushing maiden, but they weren't the sort of secrets he'd expected, and by the time his train arrived in Jaipur, James had read the diary through twice and found himself--against all expectation--to be half in love with its writer.

And there were other great lines scattered through, but too many to quote here without giving the story away.

Book Reports: "Cress" and "The Moon and More"

Finished writing Chapter 15 last night--a short one, involving the scene where Rory pierces her own ears with a sewing needle. I had to do a bunch of Internet research for this one, which involved watching people pierce their own ears on Youtube. Haha my recent search history would appall my mother.

Checked out seven books from the library on Sunday. I figured I should write reports for two of them while they're still fresh in my head.

1. Cress by Marissa Meyer

I reviewed the first book in The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder, almost two years ago, but I just realized I never wrote a review for the second book in the series Scarlet. It's also rather hazy in my head, so I can't recall in any great detail what happened between Cinder and Cress.

In any case though, I will judge Cress on its own merit, and I have to say I was impressed with how Marissa Meyer handled this book. There are many, many characters in different places to keep track of in this book, and it tied together rather well. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by how she wove the Rapunzel elements into this futuristic setting. Cress has been stuck on a satellite orbiting Earth for seven years. Her "prince" is a wanted criminal and spaceship pilot who is such a Han Solo, and I never would have thought to adapt the "blindness" element from the original fairy tale, where the witch tosses the prince out of the tower and he loses his vision.

Also, there's something I want to talk about that is spoilerish. So... SPOILER ALERT.

Okay... so with Cress, Marissa Meyer TOTALLY cranked up the heat. Scarlet and Wolf have a tender moment in an early chapter before she gets abducted by the Lunars, so you don't get to see as much with those two. With Cress and Thorne... I knew the kiss was coming, since Marissa Meyer set it up so early, but it was still a fist-pump-worthy moment when Thorne kept his promise to Cress. Those two were adorable, especially the awkward conversation after they survived the battle and the normally smarmy and charming Thorne seems really nervous about having not lived up to Cress' expectations haha. As for Cinder and Prince Kai... maybe I need to reread Cinder again, because I wasn't quite feeling it with those two, though I still totally fist-pumped in that scene. You know which one I'm talking about.

END SPOILER.

Anyways, overall this series doesn't match my adoration of say Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I am looking forward to reading the fourth book, Winter. Hopefully it'll be a great finish to the series.

2. The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Like pretty much all the other girls in high school, I was a big fan of Sarah Dessen in high school. Even now, when I go home I'll usually reread one of my top three Dessen favorites: The Truth About Forever, Just Listen, and This Lullaby. I stopped reading her books after a while though, because the others just didn't meet up to the Key Three and felt like a letdown. Well, since I had time this week and was feeling in the mood for something more warm and light-hearted, I decided to give The Moon and More a shot.

The story takes place in a beach town that I imagine is probably around the Outer Banks of North Carolina. (Dessen is from Chapel Hill, and since I spent the last five years in Durham, North Carolina... well, you imagine things.) It's a world I am not accustomed to at all--that is, a small town with small-town mentalities--but it was rather refreshing to read about this. The main character, Emaline, is about to head off to college in the fall. She works at her family's real estate business that accomdates a lot of summer tourists, and the story has the usual elements of a Dessen tale--family issues, funny and endearing friendships, love interests, an oft-repeated phrase thematically tied to the novel's title.

Where this book didn't follow the well-beaten trail, however, was where the love interest comes in. At the beginning, Emaline is with Luke, her easygoing boyfriend of four years (since ninth grade). They have some issues, and he ends up cheating on her, which usually is a dealbreaker GTFO thing for me when it comes to fictional characters, but in the end I couldn't hate him. It's obvious throughout the book that he and Emaline's lives have been closely intertwined and that they'll always on some level care for one another. He's always there for her even after they break up, and really, I chalk their story up to a case of bad timing. When you're about to head off to college, I think anyone would get restless and start to wonder what else is out in the big wide world. If they'd met later in life and remained just as compatible, then maybe it would have worked out.

Dessen introduces a second male lead, Theo--a film student at NYU. There were a number of things that Theo said that I could relate to--like his emphasis on education and city culture. I wasn't exactly like Theo, who reeked of Northeast money and privilege, but seeing as I went to Duke, I definitely felt like Columbia University is a different level than the fictional East U that Emaline ends up enrolling at. (I also couldn't believe why Emaline didn't bother applying FAFSA, but whatever.) So on one hand, I'm kind of from Theo's world. But on the other hand, good god... I can't count how many times I wanted to give him a smack on the head. He's so incredibly pretentious with a very skewed perception of his own abilities, and no humility whatsoever. I thought he was pathetic in all sorts of ways and couldn't believe why Emaline started dating him.

Anyways, yeah I just totally spoiled everything, but I'm glad Emaline didn't end up with anyone. This kind of ending felt very true to life. The only problem? The book wasn't a very exciting read for me as a result. I didn't feel particularly invested in Emaline, who I couldn't completely relate to because of her small-town mentality. I liked Luke better than Theo but knew the timing was off. Normally I'm really big on Dessen's side characters (e.g. Kristy and Monica from The Truth About Forever, Mallory from Just Listen, Dexter's band in This Lullaby), but I wasn't super into Morris and Daisy (didn't feel fleshed out enough to me). There was a bigger emphasis on Emaline's relationship with her biological father and half-brother, and while the resolution to that was also true to life (some people won't change no matter how hard you wish otherwise), it also made me feel like the storyline was stagnant.

So I guess my issue with this book was... it was too true to life? I already knew I dig fairy-tales, but I may have to ponder a bit more about why I was relatively bored by this book.

Obligatory Europe Photo Dump

Hello, hello--I HAVE RETURNED. Back to life, and back to love!

Or, more aptly--I have returned to California. The last two weeks were utter chaos, with the drive from North Carolina to Louisiana, finishing up my job, moving all my possessions and whatnot. I have three weeks of freedom in my childhood home, and these past three days have been utterly splendid. I finished writing Chapter 14 last night and figured now was as good of a time as any to finally write this blog post. It always feel great to wrap up a chapter, but mannnnn it's always a struggle to jump back into a groove for the next one.

I don't particularly feel like detailing any of the incidents on my Europe trip. In hindsight, there weren't really any epic tales to tell. Lots of sightseeing, eating, the usual. I picked a handful of my favorite photos that I took during the trip. I'm not really into photography, but I was quite happy with how some of my shots turned out. I'm also too lazy to write captions, seeing as I already wrote 250-something captions for Facebook, so I'll just leave it at that.