The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger

This is another book that I picked up because of the movie. Unfortunately I was a bad reader and watched the movie before I picked up the book. I am actually glad I did it this way around because of how different they are.

Both the book and the film are centred around 17 year old Bianca Piper and her struggles involved in her being labelled as the DUFF. While the film focuses on Bianca trying to solve the problems in her love life, the book is different. Bianca's love life does play a large role in the book but it also involves her issues at home and with her friends. In the book Bianca is characterised as a teenager better than in the film. The book allows her to go through more teenage issues that can be related to on a broad scale.

While reading this book I noticed a few topics that it brought up were ones that I had never really taken the time to think about.

One of the topics that this book brought up was labels. Specifically labels given to teenagers in high school. This book made me realise that everyone is given a label no matter how hard you try to run from it. Nowadays the labels given to people when they are in high school are getting more and more creative and are also getting a lot more personal. This book though helped me to realise that you don't need to let these labels define who you are. I know that this is easier said than done and sometimes it doesn't work but trust me, they don't all last forever. The only way you can stop seeing yourself as the label that others have given you is to stop seeing others as the labels they have been given.

Another topic that came up was distracting yourself from your problems. This is the topic that I related to most in the book. It made me realise just how often that I did things as a distraction from my real problem. I have allowed problems to get continually worse until I cannot avoid them anymore. This is something that Bianca goes through in the book. She continually uses Wesley to keep her mind off of the problems with her parents and her friends until she can no longer avoid the problems.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I liked how Kody Keplinger was able to make readers laugh and think at the same time. I liked her writing style and her characters and would love to pick up another of her books.

The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner

I want to start this off by saying WOW!!

From the minute I picked up these books I knew I was never going to be able to put them down. This world, this crazy fast-paced world, is one that I could not get enough of. The ending of every book left me both speechless and wanting more all at the same time. I am sad to say that the only reason I picked up these books was because of the films being released and not because I discovered them on my own. I am glad that I did find them though, no matter how or why it may have happened.

Book one was the one that captured my love for the series. The characters were all so authentic and made me wish that I could be a part of their world just for a minute so that I had the chance to meet them.
In a way I didn't need to be a part of their world though, I felt like I knew them and what they were like just from the words on the page. The language that they used took me some time to get my head around but after a few chapters it didn't matter what words they were using because I knew what they were saying. I understood their language and the way that they lived and the feelings that they had. I became a part of the group of people who were fighting for their lives everyday with the hope that there was something better on the other side of the crazy maze that they lived inside.
What I liked most about it all was that the relationships between the Gladers were ones that you make in everyday life, their bonds were just stronger because of the madness they were going through. The plot of the book was so different than most dystopian novels too. Yes, there was drama and yes, it was a survival story but it was such a different take on the whole thing. I loved how fast-paced the action was and loved that with every turn of the page there was something different going on.

Book two was a continuation of the first book. I started where the first left-off and so did the action. From the replacement of people in the group to the addition of a new group all trucked into a new environment, the book was action packed.
While this book introduced new characters and allowed you to get to know them, it also allowed you to better understand the existing characters. It allowed you to see how they would react in different situations. It was almost like you were WICKED and were watching this new experiment play out.
Overall the second book was a great sequel but I did feel that it was dragged out in places. Dragged out may be the wrong term to use because I felt that the information was all relevant and helped with the storyline but after beginning with so much action and ending with so much action, the middle seemed to be lacking something. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the book, I did, I just felt like there was something missing when compared with the first book in the series.

The third book was by far my favourite. The Death Cure was packed with everything that the other two books had and more. The plot of this book was to put an end to the experiments that the characters were going through. Somehow James Dashner was able to slip more emotion into this book than the others. The action seemed to be endless and the emotion seemed to be real. I could not put this book down. This book actually left me in a state of depression when it finally ended. This was not because of the ending itself but simple because it was the end. It was the end of Thomas' story and I wasn't ready to let him go yet. I sat on my couch in my living room just holding the book to my chest in a state of numbness. I tried re-reading the last few pages again and again but each time just seemed to make it worse instead of better. I was so bad that my mum even told me to put the book down and stop reading it.

Once I finished these three books and recovered from them ending, I decided to pick up the Prequel. The Kill Order tells the story of Mark and his comrades dealing with the beginning of the disease that Thomas and his friends are experiments to find a cure for. This book took me the longest to read. It was not as action filled as the others due to it being more of background on the Flare and how it came to be in the first place. I didn't feel that it was as good as the others but I would still give it a 3/5 stars.
The parts of this book that got me the most were the prologue and the epilogue. The prologue is from Teresa's point of view as she prepares to sends Thomas into the maze. It shows how she really felt about him and what they were doing. It made me realise how much he really meant to her and it made me forgive her for awful decisions she made in the trilogy. The epilogue is from Thomas' mother's perspective. It is the few moments that surround the time that Thomas was taken by WICKED. It shows that his mother gave him to them because she had caught the Flare and she knew that he could do great things to save other people from the fate that she was facing. It also explained how he got his name, Thomas was not his name when he left with WICKED.
Does this mean that Deedee is Teresa???

While reading these four books I discovered that James Dashner's writing is just incredible. He writes in a way that makes me remember exactly what happens weeks after I have finished reading it. His writing grasps my attention in a way that no other author has really done before. It makes me feel like I am there with the characters following them in their journey to save their friends. I honestly cannot get enough of it! His books are ones that I will read over and over again, I don't think I could ever get bored with them.

I will definitely be picking up more of James Dashner's books, including The Fever Code when it is released. If they are anything like this series then I cannot wait to get my hands on them.

Happy New Year!

OK, I know this is late, 20 days late, but this is the first chance I have had to sit down in front of my laptop and write something that was just a few words of a moan in a tweet.

Last year turned out not to be a great year to be reading, let alone starting a blog about it. I did it anyways. It was something that I have wanted to do for a while but just never got around to it. I think I did ok considering that this was my first year on here and my life was crazy last year.

All of this talk about how crazy last year was makes me sound like I am super busy all of the time and never stop but in reality there were just a lot of things to be done and milestones to be hit.

Last year I finished high school, I got my first job, I had my 18th birthday, I partially moved out of my family home, I started university and I made a blog in between all of that.

All of that doesn't seem like much but when it all come one after the other it turns into a crazy time.

All of this just seems like excuses for not reading or writing, or even being on my book-related twitter but really I'm just filling you in, whoever you are, on what my year has been like.

This year seems like it will be a little quieter than the last but I'm just going to take everyday as it comes. I have a truckload of books to read already and I cannot wait to tell you about every single one of them. I am doing any challenge or anything this year, I'm just going to see where the land of books takes me. My target on Goodreads is to read 30 books this year and hopefully I can do that in amongst everything else.

A new book review should be up soon about The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Happy New Year and happy reading,
Emily

Books + Age = ??

When did society decide that there was an age limit to how old you can be to read a certain book and for it to still be considered acceptable?

For example, who's to say that I can't pick up a Mr Men or Little Miss book and read it from cover to cover and enjoy every word of it? This is with remembering that I am 18 years old and I could probably do that in around 5 minutes. I loved reading those books when I was younger and when I think about the stories now I still smile. I loved the adventures and the characters and how I could relate the things that they did to things that happened in real life. They made the world seem simpler and a little less scary.

The reason I was thinking about this was because I was on the bus yesterday reading Peter Pan by JM Barrie and people began looking at me strangely. I understand that it is considered a "children's classic" but the story is loved by so many people, all of a variety of ages, I just happened to be the one who decided to read it on the bus. I was reading this book not because I thought it would be a good read, I knew it would be. I was reading it because I love the story of Peter Pan. I enjoy reading it and it reminds me of my childhood.

I don't understand why there needs to be an age where you have to stop reading certain books. Who says you can't pick up a book that you read when you were 10 and read it again when you are 20 and still be just as in love with it. Who made these rules?

I mean Harry Potter is one of those books that you can read at any age. Just think about it. If you were to go into a coffee shop and see an old man sitting in the corner reading the first Harry Potter book while at the opposite end of the shop was a little girl reading the same story, how would you react?

I bet most of you would begin to think about your own memories of reading the book and how you felt when Harry, Ron and Hermione first met. I bet you think about how old you were when you first picked up the book. What if I was to tell you that the little girl was reading it for the second time while it was the first time that the old man had read those words. How would you react then? Would you judge the old man or would you smile and appreciate that he was taking the time to read it?

Ok, I understand that some books need an age restriction because of the content. I understand that it would be highly inappropriate to give a 10 year old a book like 50 Shades of Grey to read. But that is a restriction, not a limit.

Isn't one of the best things about books the fact that you can go back to them again and again and still fall in love with the story? But how can you do that if you grow up and exceed the age limit? I always find a new sense of love for a story when I re-read a book, even books that I read when I was 5 or 6 years old.

A lot of adults (I don't yet consider myself to be a fully-fledged adult) I know said that they couldn't wait until their children were old enough that they could read books to them. This was just so that they had a reason to go into a book shop and go to the children's section and pick up all of the picture books they loved while they were growing up. Yep, the truth is kids, your parents had you so that it was acceptable for them to read their favourite books again... sorry to break the news to you.

I know that the limit is just how books are categorised in bookstores and how advertising companies know how to advertise the book but it is still something that people stick to. In an ideal world people wouldn't judge others but that is not the world we live in.

The stares will just have be accepted.

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Although the cover of this book gives off the impression of a cute little romance of two people who go on a road trip, which it is, it is so much more than that too.

The book starts with a series of emails and school reports followed by Amy sitting on the front steps of her house watching the world go by. This is before she meets the handsome young man that she is going to be travelling across the country with. This is before the detour and the healing.

The reason for the road trip in the first place is because Amy is moving and someone has to take her mother's car to the new house. Amy is moving because her whole family has fallen apart. Her mother has a new job, her brother is in rehab and her father died in a car accident that she blames herself for.

Though the main reason behind the book is to watch these two strangers fall in love in the most unlikely way, I felt that following Amy's journey of reconnecting with herself and forgiving herself for "the accident" was the best part of the book.

 Amy blamed herself for the accident because she was driving when she could have easily blamed her brother as it was him that they were driving to. This shows how much Amy cared about her father. He was more of her twin than her brother was and I think that is why it hit her so hard.

I could never imagine losing my father that way and him and I are not as close as Amy and her father. Losing a parent is just something that no child wants to think about, let alone try and move on from while you are alone.

I think that is why Amy had such a hard time coming to terms with her father's death. She closed herself off from the world and her mother and bother weren't ready to talk about it with her yet. I think the detour with Roger helped her to see that talking could help and that people can help you get through difficult times even if they don't know who you are.

I think that Morgan Matson was so clever with the way that she developed the romance throughout the book while also integrating Amy's life into the story. The development was so subtle that I barely noticed it until I was nearing the end. This is such a clever and insightful read for a romance book and I would highly recommend it.

A book you can finish in a day

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

"Don't Panic!" This book is a great read.

Yes, I know this book is not one that is normally read by an 18 year old who spends most of her life on a bus so normally would take longer than one day to read but let's just ignore that.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is just one crazy adventure.

There is one Earth-man left who's best friend is an alien from another planet. The two of them get thrown off of the ship which they got picked up by when the Earth got blown up before getting picked up by another ship seconds before they died in space. On this ship they come across a depressed robot and get taken to a planet that is run by mice.

Confusing, right?

Let me explain my theory on why it is written the way that it is.

I think that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is written in such a strange and complex way to give the reader a better idea as to how everything is being documented. It also helps the reader to understand how Arthur and Ford are seeing things. It gets across their emotions and views at a specific moment when something crazy is happening, such as talking to mice for example.

This book is definitely the kind of book that you would pick up when you wanted something fun to read. I wouldn't pick this book up thinking that it is an easy read because it isn't really. It's not that the language is complicated or that the story is hard to follow but the writing style can get confusing at times.

Overall I loved this story. I loved the crazy characters and the crazy world that they get to be a part of. I am most definitely going to pick up the rest of the books in the series.

A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet

City Of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

This is the final book in the Mortal Instruments series and what a great final instalment it was. It was a book that I had been wanting to read for so long, so when I was finally able to get the book and sit down to read it I was over the moon. 

I loved the story of this book but I felt that the second half was a lot more exciting and gripping than the first. I felt that the first half was just a lot of explanations and build up while the second half contained all of the action and major plot moments. I would also say that this book was too long. It took me 27 days to read this book and by the end all I wanted was for the book to end. I hated feeling like that because when I was reading it I loved the plot of it and how to characters to developed. 

Before I get into anything else I just want to write a little about Simon Lewis now. HOW COULD CASSANDRA ALMOST KILL OFF SIMON?!?! I sobbed like a little baby while I read the scene of Simon giving up his immortality and his memories of the shadow world to free them all from Edom. It honestly broke my heart to read about how all of his friends felt like there was something missing from their lives but when Simon said it I could have screamed I was so happy. I also loved that Magnus was able to fix Simon to an extent so that he could be a part of the shadow world again. 

I loved meeting all of the new characters in this book. Emma was really just a mixture of Jace and Clary. She was good and loving but also tough, closed-off and secretive. She and Jules were the perfect pairing but I think that she will realise that she doesn't want to be Jules' parabatai as she gets older and I hope that she realises it before it's too late for her to change her mind. I felt sorry for Emma when we first meet her because she loses her parents in such an unexplained way and nobody is willing to look into it or her to allow her to have some closure over what happened. I loved how she was awestruck by Jace and Clary too because of the stories had heard for the older Blackthorn children. It was almost how someone would feel if they met a celebrity, in a way Emma was meeting a celebrity. It just so happened that it was two Shadowhunter celebrities. 

I loved all of the Blackthorn children too. Helen and Mark are the two controversial children who are part Shadowhunter, part Fairie. Both feel that they have to prove themselves as Shadowhunters because of this. Then there is Julian or Jules as he is called by his family and Emma. Julian is a smart, headstrong boy who would do anything for the people he cares about and would protect those people with his life. Then there is the twins, Tiberius and Livia or Ty and Livvy. These two are inseparable and are really the only two people who fully understand each other. They really are stereotypical twins. The youngest two are Drusilla and Tavvy. These two are not really described much other than they are small and are typical Blackthorn children. 

Ok, so the whole heavenly fire thing... why could Clary not have just stabbed Sebastian in the last book? I mean, it could have saved a lot of lives and a lot of problems would have been avoided. Jace wouldn't have had to learn to control anything, Simon wouldn't have lost all of his memories because nobody would have had to go to Edom to fight Sebastian because he would already be dead, Jordan would still be alive, Emma's parents would most likely still be alive and the Blackthorn's would all still be together. Yes, Sebastian was heavily guarded and yes, it was easier for Clary to stab Jace but still! 

I could honestly sit here all day and write about this book and how amazing it was, how annoyed I am at some of it, how it toyed with my emotions the whole time and how I would happily read it again. I would happily read the whole series again and I cannot wait until the next series comes out. I'm just glad that it should be soon.