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.

Guest Post - Come Sit By Me Book Tour

 

 

A Books Eternal Glory is very excited to welcome a guest this week. Today we have Thomas Hoobler, the author of Come Sit By Me who wanted to talk about the research he conducted to write the novel. 

"Research I did for Come Sit By Me

For a novel, there are two kinds of research you can do. The first one is to find out as much as you can about the setting, the time, the background, and the subject generally. A good example of this kind is the research my wife and I have done for our mysteries that are set in 18th-century Japan. When people ask if we have ever been to Japan, we say we have visited the Japan that we write about the only way you can: in books.

You have to be careful that this kind of research doesn’t turn your book into an encyclopedia article. You have to use it only as part of the main thing: the story. It’s a place where your characters live.

When I decided to write a book about a school shooting, I read a book titled Columbine by Dave Cullen. Cullen is a reporter who investigated the shooting at a high school in Columbine, Colorado. He was very thorough and I learned just about as much as I could about the school and the two shooters. But when I finished, I decided that wasn’t the kind of book I wanted to write. I also decided that the book didn’t answer the most important question of all: Why did they do it?

 

So I used the second kind of research: I used my imagination.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I didn’t do any research. I had gone to high school. I later taught in a school. In both places, I observed the students around me. I drew conclusions about what motivated people. I saw how certain people were rejected by others, and I understood how that made them feel because I myself experienced rejection. I observed how some people lead others, and saw that some of these leaders were not (in my opinion) good people. I saw that people who were otherwise good shunned people who were unpopular. I saw that people can be cruel and thoughtless. All of this was research for writing about a high school and the students in my book. Anybody who writes stories about people has done this kind of research. Let me add that nobody in any schools I attended ever shot up the place. In addition, none of the characters in my book are exactly like any students I personally knew.

 

When I wrote the book, I felt that I had a character down on paper when he or she acted the way I knew real people behave. When that happens, the characters start to do things by themselves. That’s when you know you’ve done your research.

I think I should mention one other book I used as research. I really struggled to find the right voice for Caleb, the shooter. (If you want to know how a dead person can speak, you have to read the book.) I don’t think I ever knew anybody who was quite so damaged as Caleb. Yet I didn’t want to make him a monster who acts without reason. That would be a cop-out. So I read a story by Nikolai Gogol titled “Diary of a Madman.” That helped me find a way to give Caleb his voice."

 

 

 

 

I just want to thank Kellie Sheridan who initially contacted me about joining the book tour and for also helping set the date and for providing all of the material used in this post. I look forward to seeing the other posts that come as a result of this book tour.

 

 

 

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday - Fairytales & Fairytale Retellings

 
This weeks Top Ten Tuesday was a very hard topic for me as I don't or haven't read any fairy tale books or retellings. This now leads me to what I will do, this weeks top ten will be ten fairy tale books/ retellings that I would like to read.

 

Cinderella - Brothers Grimm and Giambattista Basile

 

 

 

 

Little Red Riding Hood - Charles Perrault

 

 

 

 

Snow While -  Brothers Grimm

 

 

 

 

Hansel&Gretel - Brothers Grimm, Christina Balagtas, Kristin Walter

 

 

 

 

 

 The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen

 

 

 

 

 

One Thousand And One Nights -  Hanan Al-Shaykh

 

 

 

 

Beauty And The Beast - Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

 

 

 

 

Cinder - Marissa Meyer

 

 

 

 

Scarlet - Marissa Meyer

 

 

 

 

Cress - Marissa Meyer, Rebecca Soler

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 



Hannah Smart:Operation Josh Taylor - Melody Fitzpatrick

Title: Hannah Smart:Operation Josh Taylor
Author: Melody Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Dundurn
Publication Date: October 3rd 2015
Available Editions: EBook

Netgalley Synopsis:

To see teen idol Josh Taylor in concert, Hannah Smart is prepared to face bullies, learn terrible secrets, and discover hidden talents.
When thirteen-year-old Hannah Smart finds out that teen idol Josh Taylor (only the most talented singer in the entire world) is coming to her hometown to kick off his first-ever concert tour, she nearly goes into shock. Even more shocking is the fact that her parents one-hundred-percent refuse to buy her a ticket — if Hannah wants to go, she has to figure out a way on her own.

With the help of her genius best friend, Rachel, Hannah hatches a scheme that will surely get the girls to the concert. But when evil Scarlett Hastings sticks her nasty nose in, messing up their plan, all hope seems lost.

Will Hannah and Rachel ever get to the concert? And will Hannah even want to go when she discovers the horrible secret her parents have been hiding?

Review:

I'm getting into the swing of a book per day, it's really not going to be good for me when I return to sixth form in September but I'll love it whilst it lasts. Unlike the other books I've read per day, this book was short, and how short it was actually made it more interesting for me. I picked this book randomly from Netgalley just on the off chance I would get the rights to read for review, I did and like other reviews, I have to be 100% truthful and I'm very grateful for being granted the right to review.

So the length of the book is actually one of the things I loved the most, it's rare to find a short story that is actually great fun to read. The next thing I loved is how relatable the story line is for most or shall I say nearly most of the teenage population when it comes to their favourite band or artist. Once again I love how it wasn't focused on a love relationship, it was just friendship and that kind of sealed the deal for me because not everything has to be about love now any its just great to see a variation in YA books.

The characters were simple and very relatable, Hannah and Rachel are best friends and have the same obsession over a certain artist by the name of Josh Taylor, both characters are smart, Rachel being stated as the more intellectual one of the pair but Hannah has the ability to be perfectly natural in front of a camera and unaffected by nerves whether it be public speaking etc. Even though Rachel and Hannah are the main characters of the book, its great to see the involvement of other characters like the 'rich' characters who basically bully those who they think are of a 'lower class'. I loved the simplicity of the book, how there were only needs for 2 characters to bring the story together but needed a few background characters just to tie it up.

The story, being relatable, had me hooked within the first few pages and I just wanted to see how it ended, my one and only problem was the ending, it all seemed to be a little too coincidental because of how the story actually played out. I'm looking forward to maybe a follow up book or two? just to conclude the journey.

I'm very happy to give this book at 4.5/5, it would of been a 5 out of 5 but the ending just didn't do enough for me. I recommend this book to anyone with an hour or 2 on their hands that they want to fill, to anyone who relates to the teenagers obsession of bands and artists and just to anyone who's looking for a great book to review.

Breakaway - Kat Spears

Title: Breakaway
Author: Kat Spears
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: September 15th 2015
Available Editions: Hardcover and for review, EBook

Netgalley Synopsis:

When Jason Marshall's younger sister passes away, he knows he can count on his three best friends and soccer teammates--Mario, Jordie, and Chick--to be there for him. With a grief-crippled mother and a father who's not in the picture, he needs them more than ever. But when Mario starts hanging out with a rough group of friends and Jordie finally lands the girl of his dreams, Jason is left to fend for himself while maintaining a strained relationship with troubled and quiet Chick. Then Jason meets Raine, a girl he thinks is out of his league but who sees him for everything he wants to be, and he finds himself pulled between building a healthy and stable relationship with a girl he might be falling in love with, grieving for his sister, and trying to hold onto the friendships he has always relied on.

A witty and emotionally moving tale of friendship, first love, and loss, Breakaway is Kat Spears at her finest.

Review:

Well where do I begin? Yet another book in a whole day and let me tell you this, I was utterly surprised with how it ended and that's being very vague with how strong my feelings were. In this review, like most of my reviews I have to be honest, so sticking to that rule I must admit I liked the cover and was interested by the synopsis but after reading the book and looking back at the cover, thought to cover could of been more related to the story. This is my opinion and I admit the cover is nice but I think it could relate more to the story than it does.

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, it was much, much more than that. I also loved how the book was based around one situation and then there were several mentions of several taboo subjects, it felt like the books was one step towards being somewhat, more open about these subjects. To keep this section short my last loved part of the story is the story progression, you were 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 Jason, who's 17 and at the beginning of his book its becomes clear his sister has passed away, and is dealing with his mourning mother without support from his father. He is soon joined by his close friends Mario, Jordie, and Chick. Once you know all of them, you find it odd that they would be friends but the friendship works. The characters clash a few times but also have moments filled with jokes and laughter. When Raine comes into the main frame of the story, there are many moments of sarcasm and laughter.

Each character helps bring the story together, taking the reader on a journey through the eyes and mind of a teenager in a worn down house, dealing with love and loss. I have to admit I was hooked on the book within a few pages, and I was unable to put it down (the proof of this is sitting on wet grass for 45 minutes reading and getting hit with a basketball that was kicked for my dog to chase) I was expecting the story to last for more pages than it did and that was really my only problem with the book/story, it ended so soon just as I had gotten my ticket to get on the emotional roller coaster. If ever possible I would love a follow up book or two just to show their lives in the future maybe months or a year later than when this story ended.

I give the book a rating of 4.7/5 and recommend it to anyone who's up for a quick read or wants to see taboo subjects put into a new light to see from another perspective.