giving the academy a rain-check

okay, so. it's common knowledge around here that i like books. and that i think that writing competition shows should be on tv just like cooking competition shows, remodeling competition shows, and who looks prettier competition shows. and since it is award season (is it? i honestly have no idea. is there even an award season or do award shows just kinda happen throughout the entire year? i've never actually watched an award show ever in my entire life. i plan to sometimes, but then i forget. i do enjoy the gif sets that appear after an award show though. anyway, let's just pretend that i know what i'm talking about and that it is awards season, okay?)  i think that books should be awarded right along with movies, tv shows, and music. and yes, i know that books do get awards, but where is their televised glitzy show with a red carpet and readings from the top books of the year and trophies given to the authors? it just doesn't seem fair, if you ask me. so i will be awarding some book-oscars. the nominees are all of the books that i picked up to read last year (you can find the complete list with all of the authors here) because they must have done something right to get picked up, you know?

i'm adapting all of the categories that wikipedia tells me the academy awards use as best as i can. and now, without further ado, i present to you our winners: 

Best character (male) in a leading role (leading role means narrating to me): tobias (allegiant)

Best character (male) in a supporting role: gus (the fault in our stars) 

Best character (female) in a leading role: cather avery (fangirl)

Best character (female) in a supporting role: reagan (fangirl)

Best children's book: wings of fire: the lost heir

Best short story: life on the refrigerator door (since i finished it in half an hour it counts as a short story)

Best narrating voice: lawrence (when we were romans) 

Best costume design: the divergent trilogy

Best author: rainbow rowell

Best nonfiction story: discovery of luray caverns 

Best nonfiction short story: climbing everest: tales of triumph and tragedy on the world's highest mountain (this was a library book so i can't tell you which exact story was my actual favorite)

Best editor: it would NOT go to the editor of the tmi series, the divergent series, chose the wrong guy, or the host for sure 

Best story in a foreign location: stolen

Best action story: trash 

Best character descriptions: the host

Best self-published book: off with her heart

Best title: chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger 

Best book: fangirl

Best cover design: the fault in our stars

Best dialog: eleanor and park

Best setting description: stolen

Best world-building: the mortal instruments series (cassandra clare)

Best play: long day's journey into the night

Best poetry collection: teaching my mother how to give birth

this was a lot harder than i thought it would be. i wanted to have ties for almost every category, and the books that i read later in the year were freshest in my mind which was slightly unfair. if i read through the list again, i'd probably change half of them. i would also like to point out that i really  liked the beach street knitting society and yarn club even though it's not bolded in the previous post or the recipient of any of the awards here. i have no idea why because i really enjoyed the book. a lot. 

if you feel like awarding your own books, then let me know who wins. 

*It's Time - Imagine Dragons

in fact it's phony as hell

i think that a lot of the rules of good writing apply to good living too. you should live your life the way you write. or maybe it's that you should write the way you live your life. actually, whichever one you're doing right, do the other one that way too.

the number one rule of writing is to "show not tell," and i think that applies to the way you act as well. we all hate it (and if you don't then you should) when an author writes a character and tells us, "by the way, this character is really smart. really. trust me on this. like one time, he got straight a's in all of his classes and didn't even have to work for them. he's just really that smart." and then the character doesn't actually do anything to show us that he's smart. ever. but the author continually tells us that he is. if you wrote a character that acted smart, then we are smart enough to know that he is smart without you telling us. (too many smarts in that sentence. ugh.) if you feel that you need to tell us so often then you are going down one of two paths that are equally wrong. path one: you could think that the reader is not smart enough to make his or her own deduction on the smartness of the character based on what he does alone. or two: you are writing this character poorly and failing to show us that he is smart, so you need to let us know he is in whatever other way you can. both of these are paths that you should probably get off of. right now. forget about the map just turn to the side and walk. you'll eventually find yourself somewhere better. 

along the same lines, if you have to continually tell people something about yourself like, "i'm a nice guy," then you are doing something wrong. you are either belittling the other person's intelligence by refusing to believe that they are perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that you are a nice guy and/or unwilling to believe that they have the mental faculties required for them to make the decision on whether or not you are a nice guy (and by make the decision i obviously mean make the decision that you wanted them to make). (in plain english: you think they're too stupid to see how nice you are.) or you are doing something at the moment (or in a very long string of moments more likely) that make you seem like you are not a nice guy and so you feel the need to constantly remind people that you are, in fact, a nice guy and they shouldn't forget that fact just because you are currently acting like an asshole. in both cases, you are telling not showing. and in both cases i am inclined to think that you are not a very nice guy. you are probably coming off as either arrogant, proud, creepy, pedantic, or hypocritical and none of those are good things. 

so, in life as well as in writing, show. don't tell.

*Back 2 Good - Matchbox 20

but stay awhile and maybe then you'll see a different side of me

oh my goodness, you guys. so last night i read stolen by lucy christopher, and i just... it was not a good idea. if the book taught me anything it was that, in the off chance that i am ever kidnapped, well, i'll be one of the worst stolkholm syndrome cases in history. i mean, i always kind of figured i would be, what with my tendency to feel more sympathy than hatred for most bad guys in stories, movies, and tv shows. i've always fallen in love with the tragic car crashes of characters. (i can't explain it right here without going on forever, but it's really only certain archetypes of bad guys that i'm talking about. i do not fall for every bad character to hit the page/screen.) add to that that i was already feeling mentally crappy, and it was just ridiculous.

just as a warning to the very small margin of people who both read this blog still and are likely to read a book that i read, this post is going to be chock full of spoilers. and no, it's not really going to be a review. it'll be more like emotional word vomit revolving around the story and the characters. it will also probably be too long.

the story starts off with ty kidnapping gemma from bangkok airport, where she and her family are waiting for a connecting flight on their trip from london to vietnam. (he basically drugs her, changes her clothes, puts a wig on her, and gets her on another flight.) he takes her to a deserted desert in australia, where there is nothing but a house that he built and lots and lots of sand/rocks/spiky plants. no people. no roads. no electrical lines to trace back to civilization. just the desert. oh, and they get a pet camel. we learn that gemma fleetingly met ty when she was ten (she's now sixteen) and he has been "watching" her ever since then. (gemma remembers it as a brief encounter with an old tramp living under some bushes. ty was not at his best at the time.) anyway, after ty meets gemma he starts building himself a house in the middle of the australian desert far away from people because people pretty much are the worst thing ever (man after my own heart, he is). three or so years after that he realizes that he wants to take gemma with him because she never seems to fit in with the people around her. he wants to save her like she saved him. as she grows older, he also falls in love with her. and that all leads to the whole drugging incident at the airport. his social skills really aren't the best. after about a month, with gemma constantly telling ty how much she hates him and the desert, he makes a deal with her. after four months of living with him, if she still hates it, he'll take her back to civilization. (she had made a few unsuccessful escape attempts, one of which resulted in ty rescuing her from the edge of death.) things start getting better between them then, but just as she starts to fall for him, too, she gets bitten by a snake. he takes her to a clinic that flies her to a hospital, and stays with her when she asks him to even though he knows it means turning himself in. (now would a bad guy do that? how do people not love ty?) he goes to jail, she goes back to her parents, and she's writing the whole book as a letter to him, partly as a form of therapy and partly to explain to him what she felt and hold him accountable for what he did.

when i first heard of the book, they said that you would get stolkholm syndrome when reading it. i get stolkholm syndrome with every book i read, i thought, this shouldn't be any different. but i was wrong. so wrong. it was so much worse. i fell in love with ty the second he showed up at the airport, as is my way, but i did get stolkholm syndrome too, it was like too separate things, and by the end my heart was literally breaking for him. it was very not healthy.

there are only three books that i have ever cried in in my entire life. i've gotten a lump in my throat for a bunch, but actual tears? only three. that was then, this is now in sixth grade was the first book to draw real tears from me, and even then, it was not much. the fault in our stars had tears streaming silently down my cheeks for a good part of it. and then there is stolen. stolen had me sobbing.

stolen is the kind of book that people either hate or love, depending on how you're wired mentally. also if you go for the vulnerable, broken people or not. i am the kind of person that was telling gemma to shut up and love ty already, to not testify against him, to not let him wind up in jail. like i said, i do not have very healthy relationships with my fictional characters. i mean, yes, what he did was wrong, but he was not a bad person. like gemma says, "it's hard to hate someone once you understand them."

there's a point in the book where they're talking about cities and gemma says that people love what they're used to. ty responds to that with, "people should love what needs loving. that way they can save it." and oh my god, you guys, i died. that quote crushed me. right up until the very last page (who am i kidding? it still  is.) that quote was wreaking havoc in my brain and my heart and i just can't.

and although i hated gemma at the end, i also liked her. i admired her and loathed her, i understood what she was doing and resented her for every minute of it. this book was definitely an emotional roller coaster. and i think the fact that gemma was fighting against everything the whole time made it all so much stronger for me. it was real. she didn't just fall in love with her captor because he was there and it was easy.

there are very few books that make it to my five star list on the first read. this was definitely one of them, though.

*Unwell - Matchbox 20

i'm a waste of breath, of space, of time

"Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once upon a time there were four girls. One was pretty. One was clever. One charming, and another one was mysterious. But they were all damaged, you see. Something not right about the lot of them. Bad blood. Big dreams. Oh, I left that part out. Sorry, that should have come before. They were all dreamers, these girls.

One by one, night after night, the girls came together. And they sinned. Do you know what that sin was? Their sin was that they believed. Believed they could be different. Special. They believed they could change what they were - damaged, unloved. Cast-off things. They would be alive, adored, needed. Necessary. But it wasn't true. This is a ghost story, remember? A tragedy.

They were misled. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. What can't be.

There, now. Isn't that the scariest story you've ever heard?"

~Felicity's scary story, A Great and Terrible Beauty, pg 313-15, Libba Bray

i was reading this book (i could have sworn that i read it before from the title but couldn't remember it and while reading it again there are a few points that jog my memory but enough that doesn't to make it feel like i'm reading it for the first time) and this part jumped out at me, so obviously i copied it into my blog. i took out all the interruptions and stuff so it's not exactly how it was written, but whatever. the last paragraph is one of my greatest fears i think. 

it also brings to mind this part of bright eyes' song, waste of paint:

I just sit and watch the people there. 

And they remind me of wind up cars in motion.

The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.

And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense.

All your life's one track, can't you see it's pointless?

But then, my knees give under me. 

My head feels weak 

and suddenly 

it is clear to see that it is not them but me, 

who has lost my self-identity.

As I hide behind these books I read, 

while scribbling my poetry,

like art could save a wretch like me, 

with some ideal ideology 

that no one can hope to achieve.

And I am never real; it's just a sketch of me.

And everything I made is trite and cheap and a waste 

of paint, of tape, of time.

*Waste of Paint - Bright Eyes

stay gold

when i was searching my bookcase this evening for White Oleander (which i still cant find. grr) my eyes fell upon The Outsiders by SE Hinton which is one of my all-time absolute favoritest books in the entire world. it's been a while since i last read it, so of course i picked it up to reread for the millionth time tonight (this isnt an exaggeration... i have so many parts memorized from the number of times it's been read). i really truly love this book, if you didnt know, and think everyone should read it. i remember a friend and i read it to our class in sixth grade... most of them didnt really appreciate it.

anyways, anyone who has ever written anything in their life has been affected by what they read. the ones that deny it are the ones that usually end up being plagiarists in my experience. until i read The Outsiders tonight, i hadnt really realized what a huge influence it had over my writing. i mean, i always knew it was one influence, but didnt really grasp the extent. i dont steal scenes from SE Hinton and try to incorporate them into my own writing (though i noticed some parts that i apparently did just that :/) but some parts jumped out as what my subconscious mind is always aspiring to live up to while writing, and always falling short of.

it's not just what she writes, but it's how she writes it.

her books arent long, they dont have the fame and popularity of harry potter or twilight, they're not going to be studied in classrooms for all of eternity like the classics, but they are great books.

side note: sorry if my words arent flowing right... i cant seem to get the thoughts to translate into words very well today for some reason.

*Stay Gold - Stevie Wonder

why do i tire of counting sheep?

i’m tired
of you, and
i’m tired of
Miss Irony;

i’m tired of OCD,
i’m tired of poetry,
i’m tired of counting
and miscounting sheep,

i’m tired of losing my mind
to cosmetic con artists who make
more money than banks,
who make more sense
than a vending machine;
who make their mind up,
down,
not minding their dirty,
shady business.

oh, how i envy those poisoned Disney Princesses

i’m tired of blitzkrieg alarm clocks that snooze louder than me,
and
i’m tired of vinyl pinups (un)dressing up my hypnophobic lids
and
i’m tired of the poltergeist who keeps fucking up cushion clouds
and
i’m tired of my revolving eyelash nightmares opening too soon;

and i’m most certainly tired of the technicolor monsters
living six feet under my bed–
the ones that scream me caffeinated lullabies,
beneath bedlam bedbugs, to scare me awake,
so i can daydream of dormancy
the next morning.

the crows have risen,
and the roosters snore
until i wake up from
midnight reveries to
old Spanish castles.

i’m tired
of sleeping.
i’m tired
of insomnia.
i’m tired
of lethargy.
i’m tired
of tiring.

i’m tired.

*CholoroformBoy

*Fireflies - Owl City

happy endings gone forever more

i have this thing for well-written, unhappy endings. death. separation. unrequited love. whatever it might be. yes, i love a happy ending as much as the next person, but tragedy appeals to me just as much... sometimes more. when i watch a movie, even when i'm counting on the predictable happy ending when the hero and heroine live happily ever after, a small part of me is hoping for the complete opposite. it's hoping that the hero really does die in the war. that the heroine does leave him with a shattered heart. i dont know why. it might be because it's more realistic in a way, or maybe i'm just a complete cynic with a heart of stone. whatever the reason, if jack and rose both lived and grew old together, if rhett didnt leave scarlett (not taking the sequel into consideration), if sirius black didnt die... the stories just wouldnt be as good as they are when they pull at your heart strings and leave you with a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes (yes, few endings bring me to tears, but you get the idea).

speaking of endings, i cant believe michael jackson died. despite everything people said about him - of which i believed nothing - no one can deny that he was super talented. he had a huge effect on countless peoples' lives as well as the music industry. i dunno but he always seemed immortal in a way to me. it felt like he had been around forever and would be around forever. his death was a wake up call. a friend of mine had tickets for his comeback tour, a concert that was said to be unmissable and is now to never happen.

you know what's kinda scary?? a lot of the actors i grew up watching, singers i grew up listening to are dying. scientific ideas and theories about the universe that we learned in school are now considered wrong and outdated. i'm getting old, people, and i'm not sure i like it.

*Happy Ending - Mika

a whole new world that has since been in disguise

new books are amazing. one of my favorite smells ever is that of a new book. the pages, the binding, the ink. and the sound it makes as it's opened for the very first time. and that moment when the entire world is just a breath away because the possibilities are endless. the book can take you anywhere, make you anything. take part in the civil war, travel through time, witness unrequited love...

books are my escape. i have had major crushes on book characters, and i have hated characters with an unhealthy passion considering they're fictional. i have been to places that i could never even hope to dream up alone. whenever i get sick of reality, books hold fictional havens for me to escape to.

people treasure photos and other mementos to remind them of the places they've been, the milestones they've passed. i treasure my books. each book in itself is a family video, a photo album, a box full of souveneirs. within its pages i can relive my favorite adventures as many times as i like.

i envy writers, even the worst of them. not a petty jealousy, but more of an envious admiration. they had the intelligence, the creativity, the wit, the perservence, the guts to create these other worlds and characters so believable you can almost forget that they aren't real and put them out there for the world to love or hate. my biggest dream, as i'm sure you're all sick of reading about by now, is to hold a newly printed book in my hand with my name embossed on the spine as the author. my absolute fear of failure pretty much puts a stop to that dream, though. i think that fear also inspires some of my love for books. because, unlike with people, you can never fail a book. you can never not be enough or disappoint. the characters pour out their hearts and souls, the book tells you their complete life stories, and you don't have to share anything. sharing stuff is not something i do often... or ever. so it works out great.

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

Scotty liked all of the books that i recommended

Some of my favorite books that everyone should read. They're in no particular order, but you should read every last one of them.

1. Hawkes Harbor by SE Hinton: "don't let it be dark... don't let it be dark..." I just finished rereading this book for the hundredth time. It's kinda different from her other books, in that it has more of a fantastical edge to it - it has a vampire character. She manages to make her vampire into a human without losing any of the spine-chilling horror inherent in vampire nature in a way that Stephanie Meyer can only dream about. Definitely my favorite vampire novel that isn't just a "vampire story." Plus, Hinton's writing style is always just amazing. If you haven't read her other books, read them NOW.
   
   
2. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: "tomorrow is another day..." This is one of the books I have memorized from how many times I've read it. The length may be daunting to some, but I promise there's not a dull moment in the whole 1000+ pages. I love Rhett Butler. He's definitely one of my biggest fictional crushes. I've always admired Scarlet's strength and courage too. But Ashley needs to die.
   
   
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: "come to finish me off, sweetheart?" A relatively new book (came out in September) and from the YA section (i think the reading level was age 12) this book was fantastic. A very quick read. I picked it up and couldn't put it down until I had finished it a few hours later. The plot really draws you in. It can also be read on a variety of different levels - and the author actually intended this. It can be read as purely a love story, but also for thematic analyses. Lionsgate just bought the movie rights like a week ago so I'm super excited to see that when it comes out. Also excited to see who they pick for the characters.
   
   
4. The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling: "you're a wizard, Harry!" If you haven't heard of this, crawl out from under that rock you've been living under for the past decade and go die in a fire. If you have heard of this but refuse to read it, go die in a fire. If you're planning to read this or are not sure, get to your nearest library/bookstore NOW and read it. seriously. I think that this book has the most diverse fan base ever. Children, adults, males, females, english-speaking, non-english-speaking... Harry Potter fans cover them all. That's saying something.
   
   
5. The Cider House Rules by John Irving: "goodnight you princes of maine, you kings of new england..." Though most people I know hate this book, I absolutely loved it. It's very pro-abortion and has a few scenes that you should be warned about before starting, but it was a really great book. It follows the character Homer hrough his whole life, which I always wanted a book to do. I heard the movie was good but refuse to watch it. They took out Melanie, a main character! How could any interpretation of the book leave her out when she had such a central part?
   
   
6. The World According to Garp by John Irving: "imagining something is better than remembering something." Another Irving book that I loved. A little far-fetched and eccentric a lot of the time, with a few explicit scenes in it too, but the narrative style Irving has amazes me. And his take on reality is great.
   
   
7. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card: "loving her won't make her love me..." One of Card's least known novels, but definitely my favorite. It's a twist on a modern fairy tale with a plot and characters that you actually want to read about it. Action, romance, fantasy... this book has it all and more.
   
   
8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Gatsby turned out all right at the end..." A book that most people don't read just because it's assigned in school. Like Hinton, Fitzgerald's writing style is one of my favorites. Gatsby's timeless love for Daisy, the dreary helplessness of the time hanging down over everyone, the American dream... it all makes for a wonderful story. Read the rest of Fitzgerald's novels too. They are all awesome. This Side of Paradise. The Beautiful and the Damned. Tender is the Night. The Last Tycoon (he died before finishing this one).
   
   
9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: "make my happiness - i will make yours." I love Rochester. I love Jane. This story is a classic and a book everyone should read. Jane is an orphan and leads a hard life as she struggles to find the love and happiness she deserves.
   
   
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: "nothing but our own vanity decieves us." Another great classic. All of Austen's books are worth a read. I chose this one for my list because Mr Darcy is another of my top fictional crushes. Elizabeth is also one of my favorite heroines. With two amazing characters and a great style of writing, you really can't go wrong. The movie was beautifully done as well.
    
    
11. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine: "Ella will always be obedient." A friend of mine in fourth grade introduced me to this book on a field trip. I remember the day perfectly. I devoured it and it has been one of my favorite books ever since. Though written for a young audience, I can still read this book over and over and enjoy it as much as the first time. The movie, while good, was nothing like the book.

*Tire Swing - Kimya Dawson

i'm a suspect. i'm a traitor.

In the spirit of procrastination, I dedicate this post to Severus Snape, who in my opinion is one of the best characters ever written. if not the best. and no, i'm not talking about his character itself, i'm talking about the way it was written. hate him or love him you can't deny the fact that JK Rowling did an amazing job on him.

from the first moment we see him, we are not sure if he is good or bad. he seems to hate harry, but he's a hogwarts teacher so he couldn't be a really bad guy. could he? he looks like he's trying to curse harry but is actually saving his life. he's head of slytherin. he was a death eater. he told voldemort about the prophesy. but dubledore trusts him with his life. on the other hand, so does voldemort.

throughout the entire series you are left guessing, especially at the end of the sixth book. is snape good or bad? and when you seem completely convinced of one side, there are those little pricks of suspicion that send your confidence crumbling. you end up right back where you started.

and then, finally, we find out that he really was good. he wasn't a "good guy" necessarily, but he was fighting on the right side. and only Rowling could make that so believable. She didn't make him pure evil the entire way through and then suddenly change her mind and say oh by the way he really was good. but she didn't make him transparent. he was not a really nice guy that was drastically misunderstood. he is perhaps the only good guy that could be considered evil without becoming really far-fetched. the way she wrote his character is pure art.

i can't help but compare him to a character that was supposed to have pulled off the same thing in another big franchise book, Alice in Breaking Dawn. Meyer has Alice disappear one night and we are supposed to be left guessing if she did it out of complete selfishness or for some greater good. it might have just been me, but i thought it was completely obvious that she hadn't really deserted them. and not only because Stephenie Meyer has an issue with writing any kind of darkness into her books. i mean, even her bad guys are just "misunderstood." back to the point, when alice shows up at the end, there was no suspense. no feeling of omg she's back! no excitement at her return because it was so expected.

with snape, the revelation about which side he was really on actually meant something. i wanted to know. i believed it. i was impressed.

like i said, greatest character ever written.

*Chase This Light - Jimmy Eat World