My Favorite Books of 2014

Back in 2012, I read 58 books over the course of the year. This year is just sad in comparison, as I am currently only at 18 books. Life has become much busier over the last couple of years, and my reading has taken a hit as a consequence. But that doesn't mean I can't feature some of my favorite books of those 18 that I've read this past year!

I have a kindle paperwhite now, which you would think would help with the reading, but lately the library decides to give me all of the books I've put on hold at once, so I don't have enough time to finish them all before they're due back again. So annoying! Suppose maybe that means I should just starting buying some or something, but I've always been a bigger fan of the library than outright buying novels unless I already know I love them and will want to read them again and again. And let's be honest, those books I would buy hard copies of anyway.

Okay, now that I've rambled on a bit, let's get to my favorites of the year!

 

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

Synopsis: Amara is never alone. Not when she's protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they're fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she's punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can't be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes. Nolan longs for a life uninterrupted. Every time he blinks, he's yanked from his Arizona town into Amara's mind, a world away, which makes even simple things like hobbies and homework impossible. He's spent years as a powerless observer of Amara's life. Amara has no idea . . . until he learns to control her, and they communicate for the first time. Amara is terrified. Then, she's furious. All Amara and Nolan want is to be free of each other. But Nolan's breakthrough has dangerous consequences. Now, they'll have to work together to survive--and discover the truth about their connection.

Why it made the list: The premise of this book seems super out there, right? But somehow it works so well. Nolan and Amara are both interesting characters, and come from very different worlds. It's actually a lot of fun to see two such different worlds collide in such an unexpected way here.

Cinder and Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #1 and #2) by Marissa Meyer

Synopsis of Cinder: Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.  Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Synopsis of Scarlet: Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison--even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive. Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Why they made the list: This is another series with an interesting premise, though I admit I was reluctant to read it at first. A cyborg Cinderella? Sounded too weird. But I think the problem was I thought she was going to be completely robot or something, which is not the case. Cinder does follow some of the Cinderella story conventions, but also veers off onto its own course. Scarlet is less about Red Riding Hood and more about the world Meyer has built, but it is fun to see these characters loosely based on fairy tale classics.

Graceling (Graceling Realm #1) by Kristin Cashore

Synopsis: Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight - she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug. When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po's friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace - or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away...

Why it made the list: This is one of those fantasy epics, though not so epically long that you get worn out or anything. It has a love story and some royal intrigue, along with the whole powers thing. I haven't read any of the other two books in this series yet, but hopefully they are just as good.

Ruin and Rising (Grisha Series #3) by Leigh Bardugo
Synopsis: The capital has fallen. The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne. Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army. Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Why it made the list: To be fair, I've enjoyed the entire trilogy, so it's not really a surprise that the third and final book made my list this year since the other two have made it in the past. This one took a little bit longer for me to get into, as the beginning was a bit slow. But once things started picking up, it moved at a quick pace and keeps you guessing at how it's going to end. A fitting end to the Grisha trilogy.

The Secret Place by Tana French

Synopsis: The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, on the grounds of a girls’ boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says, I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM. Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad—and one morning, sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. The Secret Place, a board where the girls at St. Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.

Why it made the list: Honestly, I have enjoyed all of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad novels, and while I'm not sure this one is my favorite or anything, it's still well-done. The novel goes back and forth between the perspective of the detective and the girls, taking place both during one day and in the past, leading up to that day. Although there are certain aspects of it I'm not a huge fan of, overall the mystery is solid.

I still haven't had a chance to read The Young Elites by Marie Lu yet, but that is a top to-read on my list. I'm also intrigued by All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrell. Honestly, my to-read list is quite long right now (you can view it over on Goodreads if you're curious), but if you have any recommendations for anything I should check out (or anything on my list that I should put at the top), please do let me know! I'm always interested in hearing about good books. I tend to like YA novels, as you may have guessed, but am open to all sorts!

My Favorite Books of 2013
My Favorite Books of 2012

Friday Round Up

 It's the last Friday before Christmas, people! How is it already the end of December?! Craziness. Do you have all of your shopping done, or are you waiting to do some last minute? I'm pretty sure I'm done. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything! Okay, now on to the rest...

I'm sure you've heard about the Sony hacking attack by now. It started back around Thanksgiving and has been ramping up into a fervor through this week when basically the hackers said they would attack any theaters who decided to show The Interview. After many theater chains pulled out of showing the movie, Sony itself decided to cancel the release. Now, the hackers are gloating about their victory and saying Sony is not allowed to release the movie in any format (and using terrible grammar to make this new demand). The FBI has also confirmed that North Korea is likely responsible for these attacks, which honestly once they threatened the theaters really became more of an act of terrorism than a cyber crime. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims, and I think this attack clearly fits that moniker as it was all about intimidation. While I understand the aim to keep everyone safe by pulling the movie, I think this sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. Isn't it the US policy not to negotiate with terrorists? And now we've just handed these people a win. What will they, or anyone else, demand next? People are pulling their showings of Team America, a studio has pulled a Steve Carrell movie that had something to do with North Korea. Where does it end?

Okay, moving on. We all know Photoshop is used way too much on celebrities these days, making them look thinner or getting rid of any supposed "imperfections." But apparently this photo manipulation has been going on since before the advent of the modern computer! These pictures show before and after of a photo of Joan Crawford from 1931 that was retouched, but by using chemicals in a photography lab. And it took six hours rather than maybe 30 minutes or something. 

Speaking of old photos, how about some rare historic photos? Some of them are kind of sad, some are just cool, and some are plain interesting. One of my favorites is the picture of Sweden the day after they changed the side of the road they are supposed to drive on. Ha, I can't imagine the kind of chaos that would cause now. The picture I featured above is of some workers building the Golden Gate Bridge. Scary!

To end on a completely light note, have you ever wondered what your zodiac sign says about your dating habits? Then check out this article that goes over just that! Reading over the few of people I know, they all made me laugh as they all seemed pretty true. Of course, the zodiac stuff is just for fun, but it's just that - fun. I'm a Capricorn, if you're curious.

Okay, that's all for this week! Happy Holidays to all!

My Favorite New Shows of 2014

Is it just me, or has this year been somewhat paltry in terms of awesome new TV shows? I was racking my brain trying to think of what new shows I have enjoyed, and came up with a whopping two. Two! Now that's just sad. To be fair, I didn't even try watching most of the new series this year, but it didn't seem like very many of them have been making waves aside from the ones I mention at the bottom here that I wanted to watch, but haven't gotten around to.

But let's get to these two shows that I felt were worthy enough to make the cut this year...

The Flash

The Flash started his journey over on Arrow, which was a much smarter attempt to launch a new series than Supernatural's sad backdoor pilot. Anyway! Yes. The Flash started on Arrow, in a way, but this series is not nearly as dark as its predecessor. Obviously there are still dark moments, but it is also laced with some humor and lightness that Arrow definitely does not have. Now I have to admit, I am a few episodes behind on the show, but I fully intend to catch up and keep watching, so it's definitely on my keeper list.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

I feel a little weird including this, as it's not really your typical show-show. But I enjoy that it's only one night a week rather than every night, and he always seems to be pretty spot on in his observations on what is going on in world news. To be honest, I don't watch the regular news very often, so it's always good to have a bit of a catch up segment for those things I may have missed.

Now for the shows that I would like to see, but haven't had a chance to quite yet: Outlander. True Detective. Peaky Blinders. Transparent. I've also been hearing about How To Get Away with Murder a lot, but for some reason that one doesn't call to me quite like the others.

Are there any others I have missed that you think I should check out?

My Favorite New Shows of 2013
My Favorite New Shows of 2012
My Favorite New Shows of 2011

Friday Round Up

Some of you may have noticed that I missed last week's Friday Round Up. Sorry about that, but I was out in Florida and honestly hadn't much looked at the internet all week, and didn't even remember until Friday was almost over that I missed the post. I'm sure you're all just devastated (I kid).

Anyway, here we are back at it again! And can you believe we're only two weeks away from Christmas right now? Where has the month gone?!

Speaking of Florida, did you hear about the Orion launch last week? (For those who don't know, the Orion is a spacecraft that they are hoping to take humans to Mars in the coming years, pretty cool stuff!) I tried to watch it in person, but was foiled. On the first day, wind kept delaying the launch, then they had a mechanical issue, so it got delayed to the following. Cut to the following day, and when the rocket is going off, we run outside, only to find that it's all cloudy and rainy. No rocket trail to be seen. We did sort of hear it, but it was kinda sad. But! Not so sad? I got to go to Harry Potter world at Universal Studios. My plan is to write up a review of sorts with some of my pictures and possibly some video; hopefully it won't take too long!

It's the end of the year, so there are quite a few best and worst of 2014 lists going around. I've even got a couple coming up in the rotation. Mine are about books and TV, but this one is all about the worst movies of 2014. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with them putting Horns on the list, because while it was a bit all over the place, it certainly does not deserve a worse spot than Transformers, in my opinion, which I barely could stand to sit through half of. Seriously, why do those movies keep making money? It really bums me out, because honestly, all of you people who saw Transformers? I wish all of you saw, say, Whiplash, which is actually worth seeing.

I did mention that I will be featuring my favorite books of 2014, but here is Kirkus' official list of the best YA books of 2014, which honestly tend to be my favorite genre. You can also see what their lists for other categories are as well, if you're not so into the young adult novels. Honestly, I haven't read any of the books on their list, but I'm sure they are all pretty good. I only have so much time for reading, though. Sadness.

Now for something different - have you ever wondered what would happen if you drank a bunch of Coke every day? Well, one guy decided to try drinking 10 cans of coke for 30 days to see what would happen. Needless to say, not good things. He gained a bunch of weight and became kind of addicted to it. Another woman tried sticking a tooth in a cup of coke to see how well it would fare. Yeah, not great either. Gross. I pretty much never drink pop (or soda as you may call it), as I'm not a fan of carbonated beverages in general, but this just gives all the more reason why we shouldn't. Yuck.

I don't often see sizes listed as "one size fits most" in clothing stores, but apparently it is a thing in some places. Buzzfeed decided to have a group of its female employees all demonstrate what certain pieces of clothing would look like on different sized women, and let's just say the only person any of the clothes looked halfway decent on was the girl who was a size 0. How many girls do you know that are a size zero, regardless of their height? Not a lot? Yeah, me either. One of my best friends is pretty tall and she has a hard time just finding clothes that aren't cut too short for her waist or legs. I often have a problem with pants not having enough thigh/butt room, or if they do, then the waist is too big. I mean, every girl comes in a different size. One size fits most is just silly.

And, just for fun, let's end it with a cat picture:

Such varied and pretty kitties!

Until next week!

Supernatural 10x09 "The Things We Left Behind"

After a few episodes dabbling in lighter fair, tonight the show got back down to business with the larger arc of the season. This episode was ostensibly about parents and how they can be quite the influential factor in one's life. We even get a little story featuring John Winchester, which is quite nice, as the boys hardly mention him much anymore, and he was the whole impetus for them getting together back in the pilot. Anyway!

Castiel, after his crisis of conscience some time ago, has decided to seek out the daughter of his former vessel, Jimmy Novak. Turns out his daughter Claire is not doing so hot. Her mother took off shortly after the whole incident back in season four, and after her grandmother died, Claire has more or less been on her own. And not doing so well, at that. In and out of foster care, all that fun stuff. Cas, wanting to help her out, decides to break her out of juvy, or wherever she is, and she promptly steals his wallet and runs off back to this guy she apparently was living with for some time.

Thinking this is surely a dire emergency, Cas calls up Sam and Dean to help him track her down. Actually, this episode didn't have really any hunting in it to speak of, or any fighting of creatures or the like. Have they done that before? I mean obviously The Benders were people, but that was more of a mystery. I'm kind of drawing a blank. Interesting!

Anyway, the brothers do, in fact, help track her down, just as she's about to try robbing a convenience store to get money to help out her surrogate father Randy pay off some loan sharks. Honestly this story is a little bit boring. I did enjoy the stories from Dean, but the rest? Eh. Basically, Claire goes back to her beloved Randy, who promptly sells her out to the loan sharks for certainly nefarious purposes, but the boy come just in time to save her.

But, because we've also had renewed worries about Dean's Mark working in mysterious ways, things do not end there. Instead, Dean gets cornered by the loan shark's heavies, which is not so great for them as he's been having dreams about killing people. And... yeah. Those guys didn't stand a chance. Sam is understandably worried about this turn of events, because Dean didn't really have to kill them in that situation. Which means he just killed a bunch of humans rather than a bunch of monsters. Uh oh.

Meanwhile! As you may recall, Crowley captured the witch Rowena, who turns out to be none other than his long lost mother. Apparently she was quite a terrible mother back in the day to her young son Fergus, and the now-named Crowley isn't so hot on forgiving her for abandoning him when he was eight years old. Rowena happens to be quite cunning, though, and manages to turn Crowley against his fellow demon by making him think said demon was working against him. Who knows what her motives are in this situation. Does she actually want to reunite her family with Crowley, or is she just waiting for her chance to abandon him once again?

I'm afraid that's all she wrote for this week, though. And now we're heading into the winter hiatus. I was kind of expecting a more action-packed episode than this one, which was much more contemplative. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing? Hmm.

Random Thoughts:

- When Randy first came on screen, I was like who is that guy! I definitely know him from something. My boyfriend came in and said he looked familiar too. Well, turns out, he used to be on Days of Our Lives. Yes, that's how we both knew who he was. Is that sad or what? haha

- Dean seemed to be eating an awful lot throughout the episode. Did he have a feeling he may be going darkside again, and wanted to enjoy food while he can? He also asked Cas to promise to take him out if he does go down that dark path again, but we never actually heard Castiel promise to do that.

- What happens to Claire now? Will they just send her off somewhere, or will Cas try to be sort of her dad for a while?

- I think one of my issues with the show right now is that there aren't any super clear goals. Like, they want to get rid of the Mark of Cain, sure, but that kind of feels like it's on the backburner right now. What is Cas' deal? He was rounding up angels, now he's feeling guilty about messing with human lives... Not sure where his story is heading. Crowley - I mean, what is his goal? He's the King of Hell, what else is there for him to go for at this point? He seems a bit bored himself. Maybe this is all building to something? Hopefully. I'm not even saying things have been bad, because actually this season has been quite good so far. Anyway, just some random ramblings for you.

Quotes:

Dean: Some chick bolting on you is not an emergency. That's... that's every Friday night for Sam.
Sam: Dude.

Castiel: Is ketchup a vegetable?
Dean: Hell yes.

Gerald: My mom used to burn me with cigarettes.
Crowley: Nobody cares, Gerald.

Dean: Whoa, Miley Cyrus, settle.
Claire: Easy, Hasselhoff.

Castiel: Do you think Claire's in trouble?
Dean: She's hanging out with a guy named Randy. She's in trouble.

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