Thursday 30 June 2016

June Wrap Up | Faith

The first book I read in June was Unhooked by: Lisa Maxwell. This month I was in the mood for a fantasy, and I just saw this reappear into my life and I decided to pick it up. At first I had really high expectations and then I just went in with no expectations when I saw the Goodreads rating. One of my favourite stories/tales of all time is Peter Pan so I'm always ready for anything Peter Pan related. Another thing is that I LOVE re-tellings. So this book was perfect for me and let me just say that I really loved it! I really just loved all of the characters and the world that Lisa set up. I don't know why but it didn't occur to me that this book would have Hook be one of the main characters even though the title is Unhooked... To me, it was so fascinating to read about and this book often reminded me of Once Upon A Time. So I would say that if you are a fan of that particular TV show, you should definitely go and check this book out. I would rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.



The second book I read this month was Forget Me Not by: Allison Whitmore! I was sent this book for review by, Xpresso Book tours. I really, really loved this book. Possibly one of my favourite reads of the year. There were so many things that I loved about this book, and if you want to find out what those things are, you can read my review HERE.















The third book I read this month was Me Before You by: Jojo Moyes. I'm sure you've heard of this movie considering the film just came out on June 3rd. I really just wanted to read the book before I watched the film, and I absolutely loved it. However, I did listen to the audiobook for the first 75% of the book and then I eventually picked up the book when it became available at the library. I would rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

If you'd like to read my review, you can read it HERE










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Monday 27 June 2016

Me Before You: JoJo Moyes | Review | Faith


Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.


- Goodreads Synopsis



This review WILL be SPOILER-FREE

Sunday 26 June 2016

Writing Update | Faith

Like a lot of readers, I like to write. Ever since I was young, I have been writing in little notebooks, writing plays and I even wrote a sort of Harry Potter script that is a whole different story all in itself. It wasn't until grade 7 did I realize that I actually loved writing. By the time I reached I grade 8 I had came to a point where I was like "I want to write a book." It wasn't really for the idea of it being one day published but more for my own pleasure. Obviously being a 12 or 13 year old, the thing wasn't great. I look back and I'm just like "Wow Faith, you really loved using exclamation points." Anyway, the point is that the story has stuck with me through the years and I'm really determined to finish writing this story, I want it on paper. I just want to feel like I've somehow closed the chapter I started when I was twelve. I also just want to say that I've written something that so many other book bloggers and book tubers have already done. 

Throughout the years, I have been writing multiple drafts of this story but I've never finished. Well I did finish it when I was twelve but I'm not going to count that one. I was never really satisfied with the story or the character POVs but now I am. I have written the first three chapters, and for the first time I am very pleased and overall just very happy with how it turned out. Now, I have a better understanding of the characters and the story so hopefully I can finish this.

I feel like the reason behind me being satisfied with my process is because I actually sat down and planned something for once. None of the ideas that I have come up for this story have changed from when I was younger. It's basically the same idea but I've structured it in a way that will be easier to weave within the story. Also, they've kind of just morphed into different things as I got older.

So I've had this world in my head for years, so I feel like it's developed pretty well in my brain. I don't have an actual description of the story but if you're wondering, this story is a fantasy. For me, this story is a bunch of my favourite things combined into my perfect little world that I get to write about. It's not really a perfect world, I mean it's pretty corrupt at the moment but you know "perfect."

My story is called Sabrina, I know it's very vague but I couldn't see naming it anything else because it's a story about Sabrina who is essentially the main protagonist in my story. Every other title I thought about was just very cheesy and kind of silly so I went with Sabrina. So basically, this story is about Sabrina finding the answers to the questions she has had since she was very young. She quite literally falls into a world of magic and an unexplainable darkness that she is supposed to destroy. Sabrina is a witch, a lost princess as well as the saviour to a colony of witches and warlocks and to the lands she was born on. That tells you nothing really of the story but I suck at summarizing, and I also can't really explain it without it sounding confusing because I don't know how to explain my world. I'll probably dig deeper in future updates.

Anyway, I just thought I would do this kind of update thing for my writing. I don't know if anybody is going to read it but it doesn't really matter because it's more for myself. I just really want to document my process, it's also a way to force me to write when I'm too afraid.

Part of my planning process has involved Pinterest and Spotify. I'm a very visual person, so I often have to see things in front of me in order to get inspiration or to describe a certain place or object.  Also music just helps me understand characters and my world better. A little story, I was listening to People Help The People by: Birdy and I just started to tear up because I just felt so bad for one of my characters and then I realized, he's not real. 

If you're interested in seeing my Pinterest Boards I will link them as well as my Spotify playlists because I am updating them often.

Also are you writing? If so please let me know and tell me all about it!


Spotify Playlists:


Saturday 18 June 2016

Female Heroines In Literature | Guest Post | Emily Wibberly

Hi all! First, a big thank you to Faith and Raquel for having me on their lovely blog. It’s a pleasure to be here! Today, I’ll be
talking about the importance of female heroines in literature. When I first contemplated this topic, I’ll admit, I was a little stuck. Of course female heroines are of the utmost importance in literature. Would anyone dare doubt that? As much as I want to answer no, the reality is likely more frustrating. The more I thought about it, the more imperative I found to address this topic. Strong, complex, independent, real women do no populate the pages of literature in the way they should. However, over the past ten years, YA has done something remarkable. Perhaps more than any other single genre, YA has sought to correct the imbalance—to bring to life countless vivid and varied women—and in so doing, it has shown just how valuable the female heroine truly is.
When I was growing up, I loved English and literature. I loved reading. I loved talking and writing about books. I didn’t think about what I as a teenage girl had or didn’t have in common with the characters I was following. I read Lord of the Flies, Oedipus Rex, Paradise Lost, Hamlet, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby—all books I adored, books I still adore, and yet, not a single one features a fully-rendered woman with real agency. I can’t say if that has changed in recent years or not, but I can say that a quick appraisal of what is commonly referred to as “great” literature will turn up few examples of what I would call a true female heroine. The classics have women, don’t get me wrong. But when they take they stage, too often do they swing between the wicked villain and the virtuous ideal, never settling in the middle, never exhibiting the same psychological complexity as their male counterparts. There are exceptions, of course. Hawthorne gave us a curiously contradictory Hester Prynne, and of course, Austen gave us the quick-witted, lovable and flawed Elizabeth Bennet (among others). Female heroines exist in great literature’s pages—they’re just hidden and outnumbered.
But it didn’t matter to me when I was a student. I didn’t need to be a man to relate to Hamlet’s doubts, to Gatsby’s blind determination. Whenever I came upon a female heroine, it was like a nice bonus, a little something extra to enjoy. I can identify with every character I read, no matter how different he and I are—that’s the gift of literature. It puts you into another person’s head and allows you to experience the same world, the same feelings, from a different point of view. The problem, however, is that I haven’t found the opposite to be true. I haven’t heard many boys and men speak about how they relate to Lizzie Bennet or Jane Eyre. I don’t blame anyone for this, not really. Boys haven’t been in the position of reading hundreds of books without a strong central male hero. They don’t need to seek identification with someone unlike them because there simply aren’t many instances that would necessitate it. The answer, it seems, is deceptively simple: have more books with female heroines.
I still remember the unique feeling I had when I first read a book with a heroine truly like myself. I was in eighth grade, and Twilight had just been released. Now, we can save a discussion of Twilight’s merits and drawbacks for another time, but for the purposes of this post, I knew I had more in common with Bella Swan than I’d ever before had with a character. She was a teenager, a girl, and she thought and acted in ways that were uncommonly familiar to me. I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. It didn’t stop with Bella. Over the next couple years, more and more of these types of books came out. I found myself swept up in the words and worlds of girls who empowered me—girls who were me and weren’t. Who were kind and brave and selfish and smart and flawed and so much more. YA had been born, and with it had come a host of female heroines. Over the past ten years the genre has already grown and evolved, the female heroine has changed. We’ve moved from Bella Swan to Clary Fray to Katniss Everdeen. I, along with the rest of the world, drank them all up. Today, the YA heroine is more varied than ever before. They can still kick butt like Celaena Sardothien, but they can grieve and live like Hazel Grace Lancaster, fall in love like Eleanor Douglas, and discover the world like Madeline Whittier. In no other genre is the scope of the female heroine so broadly explored. I can only hope that as the genre continues to grow, it will show girls that heroes don’t come in any one shape—and show the world that you don’t have to be a girl to want to be like a heroine.


Emily Wibberly:
Emily grew up in the South Bay where she spent her formative years battling zombies on her Xbox, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and voraciously reading everything from The Hunger Games to Jane Austen, where her love for feisty young heroines was born
After graduating from Princeton University Magna Cum Laude in 2014, she began writing. Her debut novel,Sacrificed, was named a finalist in the Young Adult category of the 2015 International Book Awards, the Young Adult category of the 2015 Beverly Hills Book Awards, and in the Young Author category of the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Since its release, Sacrificed has spent more than a year as a Kindle Top Ten Teen and Young Adult Bestseller.
When she isn’t reading the latest YA book, Emily enjoys watching kick-butt action movies with her two rescue German Shepherds, Hudson and Bishop, named after characters from James Cameron’s Aliens.



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Check out Emily's latest release...

The Divined (The Last Oracle, Book 3)

Clio has forsaken the Deities and turned her back on her powers. Unable to trust her Visions, she is left alone and weak on the outskirts of Sheehan.
When the Emperor hears that an Oracle has survived in the Empire, he places a price on her head, forcing Clio to flee to the ancient city of Cearo. But the Deities have other plans for Clio, and it’s not long before she is faced with new foes, including a priestess with uncanny powers.
With rumors of unrest in the Empire growing and alliances within the nobles shifting, Riece seeks out Clio with a desperate plea.
To protect the Empire, Clio will have to return to where her journey began—the sacrificial pyramid of Morek—to fight a new evil in an unimaginable form and confront the greatest enemy she’s ever known: her father.
The highly anticipated conclusion to the award-winning novel Sacrificed (The Last Oracle, Book 1) heralded as a “Must-Read Romantic Fantasy” by USAToday.com

PURCHASE THE DIVINED

Thursday 16 June 2016

Forget Me Not: Allison Whitmore | Review | Faith

Forget Me Not by Allison Whitmore 
Publication date: September 14th 2015

Genres: Historical, Romance, Young Adult

Theodora "Teddi" Donovan and Calvin Wynne have always hated each other. They didn't have a choice after Teddi's bootlegger father killed Calvin's and left them both orphaned. The scandal has fueled gossip in quiet, quaint Brookhurst, New York, for over a decade. When a friendship develops between them as teenagers, they are ridiculed and shunned by the strict society that dictates life in their town. As they grow older, friendship turns into love, and Teddi and Calvin have to choose between their future and the scepter of their past. Spanning continents and decades, Forget Me Not is a coming-of-age story about truth, self-reliance, and the freeing power of love.

- Goodreads Synopsis




This book was sent to me for review. (Xpresso Book Tours)

This review will be SPOILER-FREE

Thursday 9 June 2016

Air Awakens: Elise Kova | Review | Faith


A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond...



The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.



Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.
- Goodreads  Synopsis


This review will be SPOILER-FREE!

This book was sent to me for review.

Sunday 5 June 2016

Review & Discussion: I Crawl Through It | Raquel



Four talented teenagers are traumatized-coping with grief, surviving trauma, facing the anxiety of standardized tests and the neglect of self-absorbed adults—and they'll do anything to escape the pressure. They'll even build an invisible helicopter, to fly far away to a place where everyone will understand them... until they learn the only way to escape reality is to fly right into it. - Goodreads

I decided to write a sort of review more like discussion sort of thing. I found this book to be incredibly unique and interesting.
Hope you enjoy my random opinionated analysis of this book!

Note: Any of the quotes I make are from the book of course

POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!

Friday 3 June 2016

Alice Through The Looking Glass | Movie Review | Faith


After slipping through a mirror, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) finds herself back in Underland with the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Her friends tell her that the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is depressed over the death of his family. Hoping to save his loved ones, Alice steals the Chronosphere from Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) to travel into the past. While there, she encounters the younger Hatter and the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).

- Wikipedia Synopsis




This review will be SPOILER-FREE

Wednesday 1 June 2016

The Last Star: Rick Yancey | Review | Faith


The enemy is Other. The enemy is us.

They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us. 

But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves.


In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves…or saving what makes us human.



- Goodreads Synopsis





This review MAY contain SPOILERS



Reviews: