Burn Girl - Mandy Mikulencak

Title: Burn Girl
Author: Mandy Mikulencak
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Publication Date: Sep 1, 2015                    
Available Editions: Hardback and for review EBook



Netgalley Synopsis:

I knew what to do when Mom died: tidy up the motel room, get rid of her drugs. I wasn't afraid of being alone. I'd been lonely for years. But the scariest thing was that now I'd no longer be invisible.Arlie's spent years living under the radar, trying to keep her addict mom out of trouble. She's used to keeping out of sight from the law, from her stepdad, and from anyone who might ask about the burns on her face.

One day everything changes: suddenly her life has social workers and school and new rules to live by. Her mom's brother—some guy named Frank—wants to give her the stable home she's never had. Arlie's not sure if she needs rescuing. But maybe she's ready to be part of the real world. Especially if it includes people like Cody, the first guy she's met who knows what it means to be different.

But when someone from Arlie's past life comes calling, she'll do anything to keep her new world safe.

Review:

I was granted the right to read this book before its publication date and in return I must give a honest review. This book, I chose to request just out of curiosity from the synopsis and title. This book took me around 2 days to read with a few breaks here and there.

I loved several parts of this book, mostly how it wasn't all based around a relationship between two teenagers. I also loved how the book wasn't based around a typical teenager with a normal family in a normal situation. To keep this section short my last loved part of the story is how it involved other characters frim other backgrounds etc.

Bringing up the characters I have to admit I was quite happy with the few characters there were, I really liked Arlie as the main character, she is strong and loyal, but her mum’s death has left her with all of these emotions that at times lead her to do some dumb things on occasion. Mo was a ideal best friend to Arlie, always there for her, willing to do anything and always offering her opinion on her actions.  The relationship between Mo and Arlie was really well written, the friendship was explored in such depth and it was interesting to see how both girls push the limits of their friendship. Frank is Arlie' uncle, her mothers brother who takes her in after the tragic event occurs. Frank doesn't mind giving up his old life for Arlie and is quickly accepting of her. I enjoyed reading about the development of Arlie’s relationship with Frank and how she learns to start trusting people and accepting that she now has a stable life and living in a stable home.

After a roller coaster of emotions, I finished the book, the only thing I don't like about the book is how Cody wasn't explored as much as he should of been, he suddenly popped up and became a part of the story, I would of liked to of seen a little more of a friendship/bond building development.

Besides that, there isn't anything else I could pick up as bad, I give this book a rating of 4.5 out of 5 just because of the Cody thing, he turns up out of nowhere and plays what I say is a near main character of the book. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good book to read and to those who want to explore a different teenage life.

Thursday Thoughts - Friendships

I think friendships are one of the best parts of life, like hey there random human who I've just met can you tell me about yourself? and then boom you either click or don't and when you do it's amazing.

When I was three I started school/nursery and there I met a friend who I will call S for this post. Since then me and S stayed friends, we have gone through the whole of primary together until I left my secondary school to move schools. We continued to talk and even though we don't see each other a lot we are best friends. I'm now 17 so I have know S for a mind blowing 14 years and we are still close as ever, we rarely argue and we have laughs and long conversations and she's so supportive. I'm lucky to of found a person I could share so long with and not regret a single moment.

I have friendships in sixth form, and they're great because they're always willing to have a laugh which makes my day when I'm down, they never fail to make me smile and I can not wait to go back and see them and just get back into our routine of laughs.

Its weird, how friendships work really, its heart breaking when they never work out how we want them to, I always want to treasure my friendships with people because there are very few people that I can trust but I'm afraid of being soppy with people.

To anyone with a great friendship out there, treasure it, laugh joke, play fight, watch movies, play games, keep that person in your life because you've connected so much since you discovered that person and they would clearly mean a lot to you if you've been friends for a long while through rough times.

Top Ten Books That Would Be On Your Syllabus If You Taught X 101

This weeks Top Ten Tuesday caused me to struggle, just to choose the topic I would teach, but after much deliberation I chose Diversity in Young adult.

These books were all on my top ten Tuesday list on the 21/07/15 due to them celebrating diversity. After much thought I didn't change any of them as they all celebrate a different part of diversity or helping us understand another part of the same type of diversity therefore creating a better, near perfect syllabus.

THE ART OF BEING NORMAL BY LISA WILLIAMSON

KERIS STAINTON: SPOTLIGHT ON SUNNY

 

 

 

 

LICCLE BIT BY ALEX WHEATLE

NONE OF THE ABOVE

 

 

THE ONE THING







OPENLY STRAIGHT








THE BEFORE NOW AND AFTER THEN








OUT OF ORDER






NO TILDES ON TUESDAY







THE WAY WE BARED OUT SOULS



Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke And The Bookish.

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The One Thing - Marci Lyn Curtis

Title: The One Thing
Author: Marci Lyn Curtis
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Publication Date: Sep 8, 2015
Available Editions: Hardback, EBook




Netgalley Synopsis:

Ages 12 and up
Maggie Sanders might be blind, but she won't invite anyone to her pity party. Ever since losing her sight six months ago, Maggie's rebellious streak has taken on a life of its own, culminating with an elaborate school prank. Maggie called it genius. The judge called it illegal.

Now Maggie has a probation officer. But she isn't interested in rehabilitation, not when she's still mourning the loss of her professional-soccer dreams, and furious at her so-called friends, who lost interest in her as soon as she could no longer lead the team to victory.

Then Maggie's whole world is turned upside down. Somehow, incredibly, she can see again. But only one person: Ben, a precocious ten-year-old unlike anyone she's ever met. Ben's life isn't easy, but he doesn't see limits, only possibilities. After awhile, Maggie starts to realize that losing her sight doesn't have to mean losing everything she dreamed of. Even if what she's currently dreaming of is Mason Milton, the magnetic lead singer of Maggie's new favourite band, who just happens to be Ben's brother.

But when she learns the real reason she can see Ben, Maggie must find the courage to face a once-unimaginable future...before she loses everything she has grown to love.



Review:

I was given the rights to read this book before its publication in return I must give a truthful review of the book.

The cover caught my attention first, how the background bought out the bright title and the details, I read the synopsis and I kind of automatically felt curious about how it would all work and lets say I don't regret being curious. I managed to finished this book over the period of two days with a few 2 hour periods of reading.

I loved several parts of this book, mostly how it wasn't like other books I had read, it wasn't all based around a relationship between two teenagers. I also loved how the book wasn't based around what I call an ordinary teenager. Not only this but how it unravelled really intrigued me and I got so into it my heart dropped when I got to the end. To keep this section short my last loved part of the story is the story progression, I was automatically into the story and always fully aware of what was happening.

Bringing up the characters I have to admit I was quite happy with the few characters there were, based around Maggie who's aged 17 and blind, but somehow she can see after hitting her head. She's funny and very much like me (as much as its weird to admit) I mean it in the sense of who she is when she's with people. Ben is a 10 year old who loves the company of Maggie very much after confessing his love for her minutes after first laying eyes on her. He's the brainy, kind boy who easily finds trust in anyone, he also holds Maggie's 'I see you' secret exactly that. Ben's older brother Mason happens to be the lead singer from her favourite band. He thinks she is using his younger brother just so she can be around him but that's not quite true, eventually she comes clean to him and when she can't see around Ben but other people too, does she come to a conclusion and confides in Mason. Mason has a tough outer shell and he has it for a reason but once you know him well enough it's no bother. He's talented, fictionally cute and an ideal big brother.

The characters were well written and added their own little bit to the story that I loved so much. They all seemed to bring something to the story that without, wouldn't, so to speak, finish the book. I'd be happy to buy this book 1000 times over to share it with everyone.

The story had me interested within the first chapter and I was simply unable to put the book down. It was such a beautiful story, keeping spoilers out it. Part of me wants another book just so I can see the characters again but I'll be happy even if there wasn't a second book. I had no issues at all and give the book an overall rating of 5/5. I recommend it to anyone who just wants something to read, with a great plot and very much loveable characters.

Thursday Thoughts - Writing

Finally after several years, around 4-5 years I finally informed my mother that I enjoyed writing and at the time we were discussing my future and the rest of my education, I informed her I loved writing after she asked me what I loved to do, her response unlike most, was positive. She said I could be an author and write several books, but not everyone is as understanding as my mother was on the 'I want to write books' front.

I guess writing was my way to express who I truly was as I faked to be someone better and loveable. My best friend, informed I want to write is supportive and really encouraging when it comes to me writing, she once made a point of me writing and she could create the covers. Others, an ex or two, a large proportion of my friends, many others find that writing is only a pass time and not an actually career yet they fail to see that several people out in the big wide world made a career when it came to writing.

I write to pass time, re-live a time, create a new time. I do it because everything I see, hear or do stores itself in my mind and over time it arranges into a perfect sequence that I can write, it usually happens at 2am most times, I would be in bed and staring at the ceiling when suddenly this fantastic story unfolds and I have to wake up fully and write it down as soon as I can in fear that if I don't write it down in that moment, it'll soon disappear and that opportunity will never come around again.

The thing is, writing, is beautiful it creates worlds, breaks and mends hearts, it gives us 1 or 200 lives to live and it is beautiful, so to everyone out there who writes for a pass time or writes as a passion, you are creating life and its an amazing thing, keep with it, people wont support you if you want to make a career out of it but I do, don't let them steer you away from writing, if you love to do it stay with it, if you think your writing sucks, get a friend to read over it. Truth is aspiring writers start to get sick of their work because they work on it over and over and they see it over and over but a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh mind full of imagination will love the work and you can get good quality feedback and constructive criticism.

If you love to do it, keep at it, you have worlds and life inside of you.

Top Ten Tuesday - Auto Buy Authors

 

Being low on funds, I'm working this list about authors who's books I would automatically buy if I could. I usually find it hard to ask for things, mostly because I think money could be spent other ways for the better and not on me, but my mom always says when I eventually ask to buy something either in store or from the internet (usually books) that I rarely have anything so of course I can. I still don't ask often, I treat it as a kind of reward of sorts so even though the list contains auto buy authors its going to be 'if I could afford to buy them.'



J.K.Rowling

 

 

 

Holly Smale

 

 

 

 Patrick Ness

 

 

 

Carrie Hope Fletcher

 

 

 

 

Giovanna Fletcher

 

 

 

John Green

 

 

 

Darren Shan

 

Veronica Roth

 

 

 

Suzanne Collins

 

 

 

Stephen King

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke And The Bookish

Concentr8 - William Sutcliffe

Title: Concentr8
Author: William Sutcliffe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
Publication Date: Aug 27, 2015                    
Available Editions: Hardcover, EBook





Netgalley Synopsis:

In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What’s good for society is good for everyone.
Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They’re not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick – the only one Blaze really trusts. They’re not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it.
What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random – a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn’t even have a good phone – hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator? They’ve got a hostage, but don’t really know what they want, or why they’ve done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they – and we – begin to understand why.

This is a book about how we label children. It’s about how kids get lost and failed by the system. It’s about how politicians manipulate them. Gripping and controversial reading for fans of Malorie Blackman and Patrick Ness.

Review:

I was given the opportunity to read this book before its publication date in return of a honest review. Unfortunately I had to force my way through it, it simply didn't grip me at all. This book to me was really boring. I barely enjoyed it to any degree. It sounded promising and exciting but the book for me, didn't deliver. I cant even say I know where William Sutcliffe was trying to go with this book, maybe that was my fault for maybe not understanding or maybe it was written in a way it just didn't get the message.

Im not good with characters changing point of view. I would be able to handle two point of views but no more. I got confused with who was who several times. The characters were written badly, they all seemed to be the same characters except for Karen who finished every sentence with a question mark, to what seemed to be for no reason and it begun to drive me crazy. The characters spoke about pointless things and I didn't care for any of it. It was probably just to make the book longer. Unfortunately in my eyes there is nothing worth saying about the characters.

The story lacked excitement, things didn't seem to flow smoothly and even though things were happening, it felt like literally nothing was. It was so boring to read but I forced my way through it. The ending was okay and there's not much I can really say. I didn't really care for what happened and slightly predictable, I only didn't care because I thought they lacked any sort of emotion to connect to me with.

There's not much I can really say. I have never read a book by him before so I don't know what his writing style is, but part of me was expecting a lot from the book. The little parts at the start of the chapters were interesting but they didn't feel like they fitted there or even belonged in the book, it felt like they were used to add some sort of length to the book.

I cant say I'd recommend this book to anyone. Depending on the books plot I'm not sure if I can read another book by William Sutcliffe. It makes me sad to say I can only give this book a 1 out of 5, it just simply didn't do anything for me.

Thursday Thoughts - Confusing Emotions

Have you ever been in the position where you feel so many emotions you're not sure how you can function?

I've been in that position so many times and even I find it hard to deal with. I often get all of these feelings of both negative and positive kind, I often become so overwhelmed I don't speak or do much and then I get asked the questions of.
"are you okay?
"what's up?"
"do you want to talk?"
and I never quite know what to say or do because as much as I appreciate the support and the need to know I'm okay, I  just simply can't explain how I feel when it comes to all of these overwhelming emotions.

I always hope for the days to be the happy emotion days and to eliminate the negative ones but we cannot always get what we wish for.

The thing is, emotions are a part of who we are, with days that are positive, come days that are the opposite and as much as we try to avoid those days, sometimes it's impossible to stop, maybe you don't know those emotions are taking you over on those days and you become vaguely confused as to why you feel so negative all of a sudden, but it is important that we let someone know how it happened and then "let it go like a fart in the wind" as some people might say.

We all strive for the good things in life and It's wonderful, use the confidence you build up to excel the good things, and never let a bad day or thought drag you down so you begin to lose your good days. And when every emotion plays a part in your day just sit down, turn on your favourite movie, drink your favourite beverage and speak or surround yourself with the best people you know and know that the confusion you feel with your emotions doesn't last for ever and some days it will happen probably more than once but you have the control over whether you let those emotional days take you over or whether you take control over them.

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Authors I've Read The Most Books From

To put them on the list I'm going to go by a rule of if I've read 3 books or more from the same author. Even though the topic was easy for me to do I could only do 8 because other authors I had read I had only done 1 or 2 books and I just wanted to stick with the 3+ rule.



Suzanne Collins (3) - The famous Hunger Game trilogy, oh how I loved reading them, ill re visit them some day in the future.

Holly Smale (3/5) - On my shelf I have them stored in order, I have 5 books and so far only read 3 but that number shall grow soon.

J.R.R.Tolkien (4) - Im looking to grow this number too, J.R.R Tolkien' writing never failed to interest me so hopefully one day I can expand my books owned and books read numbers.



 

John Green (4/5) - Much like Holly Smale, I have more of John's books to read but I have to find time to read so many books its hard to fit them all in.

 

Dr Seuss (6) - To what I remember, I count 6 books from Dr Seuss that I've read, one day I'll go and binge buy them all at the age of 20 and pretend they're for someone else.

 

Roald Dahl (8)- We used to have two copies of most of the books so me and my sister would either lie on our beds and read parts to each other taking it in turns or we would both read the same book to ourselves as we lay on our beds. I'm not entirely sure where they are now.

 

J.K Rowling (8) - Even though not long after reading it, I lost my copy of The Tales Of Beedle The Bard im still 8. Of course I read the Harry Potter series but I'm yet to get my hands on her most recent books she published under Robert Galbraith and The Casual Vacancy.

 

Dame Jacqueline Wilson (15+) - I read them from when I was ten until maybe 13 and they're all now stored in the loft to find a new home with someone who's going to read and enjoy them as much as I did.

 

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke And The Bookish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



What I've Been Doing When I'm Not Reading.

So my last post was a book review of Geek Girl Geek Drama by Holy Smale which was posted on the 7th. Since then I should of read another book and reviewed it (based on my history of books in a day or two) unfortunately I haven't been able to keep up that history.

Since the 7th I've worked on my first digital drawing which I finished today,  I read wattpad fanfic that wasn't all that good, I tried to make my way through two books but both seemed to fail. 

My head has been elsewhere the past few days but I'll post tomorrow of course for Top Ten Tuesday and I shall continue to try and make my way into a few books to stay on track and keep my blog active.

Geek Girl Geek Drama - Holly Smale

Title: Geek Girl Geek Drama
Author: Holly Smale
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers 
Publishing Date: March 5th 2015
Available Editions: Paperback and EBook

Book Synopsis:
Harriet Manners knows many things.

• Shakespeare invented 1,700 words including puking, assassination and eyeball.
• A raindrop that a raindrop that falls into the Thames will pass through the bodies of eight people before it reaches the see.

And she knows just how badly auditions can go, especially when you’re a model. But she has no idea what to do when her arch-nemesis Alexa decides the school play is the perfect opportunity to humiliate her…

Review:

This book was one of the several I has bought on my little haul in July, it bought it mostly because it wanted to complete the Geek Girl book series and well this book is what I like to call 2.5 as it isn't a thick book like the others but  kind of a little filler created for world book day of 2015. Never the less I bought it alongside the two other Geek Girl books.
This book being only 134 pages long took me around an hour and half to read in full with no breaks and the background whining of my dog trying to get out to my mother on the front garden.

I really love the humour in the Geek Girl books, its not offensive humour but I do tend to find myself snorting whilst I read this (thank you Holly) The story even though a filler was still great, it spoke of events you would only know of if you had read the past 2 books.

Character wise you have to love Harriet, the intelligent sometimes funny girl who is always under appreciated and the victim of others and lets not forget her best friend Nat who's dream she stole on accident, but Nat continues to be the intelligent supportive funny best friend to Harriet. Lets not forget Toby who's the stalker of Harriet, stalker friend in all truth, he has a fascination with her and everything she does, he likes to listen to every word she says and every action she does and is sometimes very helpful with the information he collects from being Toby.

As I've said the book was a kind of filler for the gap between Model Misfit and Picture Perfect, I loved it all the same, and I was intrigued with the way in which Holly writes and portrays the characters. I'm completely fascinated by Holly Smale's writing and will probably buy her work no matter what it is and I'm not ashamed to admit that.

I had no issues with this book at all and I enjoyed reading it, therefore I have no problem giving the book a 5/5 for a rating and I recommend it to anyone who reads the Geek Girl series and hasn't read 2.5, to anyone looking for a little laugh or a short read.

Thursday Thoughts: Trophy Hunting.

So this isn't a normal post, as you can tell from the title. This subject was chosen by me after me and my mother spoke about it quite a lot, more than anything this post is going to primarily be information on a topic I've thought and seen a lot of in the past week or so, and in the past week or so we have been hearing a lot about the shooting of Cecil the lion, a victim of Trophy Hunting.

The definition of Trophy Hunting is:

• Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. Although parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial (usually the skin, antlers and/or head).

Cecil was a 13-year-old male Southwest African lion who lived in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was a major attraction at the park and was being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford as part of a larger study. Cecil was shot by Walter Palmer, an American recreational big-game hunter, who had wounded him with an arrow from a crossbow. He was then tracked, and on 1 July 2015, approximately 40 hours later, he was killed with a rifle. The killing drew international media attention and sparked outrage among animal conservationists.
Walter Palmer paid an estimate of £35,000 to kill Cecil. Cecil being one of the dominant males of a group, the other 'dominant' male is now a danger to the cubs of Cecil as he now wants to declare dominance. Luckily no bad news has come and Cecil's cubs are safe for now.

Sabrina Corgatelli has also been under attack after posing with the dead animals she had killed on her recent guided hunt in south Africa, she defended the hobby stating that "everyone thinks were cold-hearted killers and its not that" and that "here is a connection to the animal and just because we hunt them doesn't mean we don't have a respect for them."

Every year, trophy hunters kill thousands of wild animals, primarily in Africa. They prefer to kill the most beautiful, the biggest and the rarest. Wealthy trophy hunters pay big money to local cash-stripped governments for permits that grant them a choice of which animal to kill. The list of “huntable” species is very long and includes more common species such as impala, black bears, common zebra, giraffes, and baboons, but also endangered species such as elephants, leopards and white rhinos (the Western African black rhino  has also been declared to be “extinct”).

There is also no regard for species protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) such as the African elephant or leopards. In fact, the more rare the animal, the more thrill to kill for the “big game” hunters, and the higher the price for the permit.

Since Cecil was hunted and killed, Trophy hunting has been the topic of many discussions and on every news channel. Trophy hunting needs to be stopped, the slaughter of innocent and sometimes endangered animals needs to be brought to an end, we need to take further steps to protect the animals of the world. It's very sad that it took the murder of Cecil to bring trophy hunting to the attention of many people, trophy hunting takes place maybe everyday and we have been oblivious to it until now.


I know this was just information you may or may not already know I just wanted to share it with you after I had thought a lot about the topic this week. Feel free to talk in the comments about the topic. Thank you for visiting the blog and reading this post.