Currently Reading | Update

The end of the month is almost near and, of course, like with every month I have barely made a dent into the TBR Pile I gave myself to read in the month of March. However, I am still going strong! I have just barely started the first book in the Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead, Bloodlines and I’m really enjoying it so far! I’m only on chapter five though, so I guess I wouldn’t really know. I’m enjoying Sydney’s voice and I can’t wait for more Adrian! I really do love that boy.

A big thing I’m hoping for in the Bloodlines series is closure for Rose and Adrian. Things were left pretty badly between them in Last Sacrifice and I just really them to work things out in this series and to hopefully become friends again. Because I really do love them together, they have hilarious lines together and their friendship has always made me smile. And although I don’t ship them (Romitri and Sydrian forever!) I just want them to have that friendship again because I really miss it. I want them to be happy. All I’m asking for is closure, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for right Richelle?

Another book I’m currently reading right now is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. I’m reading it for my ninth-grade English class. My thoughts right now are pretty meh. The instalove is really killing me. I mean come on guys isn’t Juliet like thirteen? THIRTEEN! And she’s already in love, like what? And plus Romeo’s all:

“OMG I’m in LOVE with Rosaline! Why doesn’t she love me? Poor me, I’m going to cry by myself now.”
*few pages later…*
“Rosaline who? She was totally four pages ago. I’m in love with Juliet now!”

I really don’t think it’s my kind of book, I’m pretty sure I’m too cynical to read Romeo and Juliet, to be honest. So before anyone kills me for dissing their favorite book/play or whatever, know that everyone has different tastes and Romeo and Juliet just isn’t my cup of tea. I’m really not enjoying it and I’m constantly rolling my eyes at every page. Oh well I guess we’ll see how this goes. I hope I’ll be able to get used to Shakespeare’s language eventually because it still takes me a while.

That’s it for all I’m reading right now! I really want to start Confess by Colleen Hoover soon, I’ll probably start it after I finish Bloodlines (the first book only not the entire series! I can’t wait that long!) I’m super excited for that book and want to start it as soon as possible! What are you currently reading right now? I’d love to know! Feel free to tell me in the comments! Also, share your thoughts on Romeo and Juliet it’s a pretty well known story so I know there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions! Be nice though, we all have feelings!

Bye and happy reading! 🙂

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Insurgent Movie Review

Insurgent Movie Review

Director: Robert Schwentke
Release Date: March 20, 2015
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Adventure
Rating: PG-13

*Warning spoilers for both movie and books! Read at your own risk!*

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To put it shortly, I didn’t like the movie overall. But let’s start with the things I did like. The list is short trust me. 1) Peter. Peter was literally the queen of sass in this movie. Miles Teller does such an amazing job. He actually makes me like Peter, which is pretty amazing

1) Peter. Peter was literally the queen of sass in this movie. I love Miles Teller’s portrayal of him, he actually makes me like Peter, which is amazing because my hate for book Peter is strong. Peter saves this movie for me, he brings the humor in more dark and serious situations and I loved every moment he was on screen. I’m so glad they chose him to play Peter because I cannot see anyone else who could be a better Peter than him.

2) Caleb. Let me just I hate Caleb with a burning passion. But Ansel Elgort’s portrayal of Caleb is hilarious. I’m thinking about the scene in Amity compound where Tris and Peter were fighting and in the background you can see Caleb all scared and running away from them. That part made laugh so hard, Caleb is so annoying it’s funny. I like how the producer’s are showing us how iffy Caleb is and how you can’t really trust him.

That’s it. Those are the only things I liked about the Insurgent movie. The list of things I didn’t like is much longer because it’s everything else. Which is shocking to me because I was actually excited for the changes in the movie, since I didn’t like the book Insurgent that much. But in all honesty I hated the movie more than I hated the book. Which is saying a lot. It really makes me sad though because I wanted to like it so much.

First of all, I didn’t like the whole thing with the box and the tentacle wire machine. That was stupid and totally unrealistic. How are a box and a tentacle machine (that we assume Erudite built) connected? How would a box know when I person passed a simulation? How would box know what simulation to give to each person? It doesn’t. I don’t care how futuristic this movie is, it’s not possible. Unless there’s magic involved, which I don’t think there is. If a box can do that why can’t the box just be like that machine that scans your brain and instantly knows you’re Divergent? It would be so much easier.

On the topic of the machine scanner. Are you serious? You cannot tell what faction a person belongs to by scanning their brain. People get to choose what faction they want to be in. They can either listen to their aptitude test or not. A machine cannot scan your brain and know who you are. Also the percentage of how “Divergent” you are? What? Again it’s not like it’s a disease. In Allegiant, you learn that being Divergent just means you’re a normal person. You don’t have a percentage. Either you have normal genes or you don’t.

A big part of what I loved about the Divergent trilogy were the characters. Lynn, Marlene, Uriah, Zeke, Shauna, Christina, all of them. But in the movies these characters don’t play big parts, they’re barely mentioned. Which takes away a huge part of the books, the Divergent trilogy has so much to do with emotional trauma. That’s why Tris didn’t want to hold a gun, in the movies the emotional traumas take a back seat. Tris never had that gun complex. And although I did find the gun complex annoying in the books it still plays a huge part on the emotional trauma and I feel like it should have been included.

During the suicide scene, there were three characters up on a ledge. Lynn’s brother, a blonde girl (who we later find out was Marlene), and Christina. Marlene dies in this scene, but the audience doesn’t care because they never got to know her. In the books, Marlene’s death created a bigger impact on the reader because her character played a bigger role. We loved Marlene and it makes me sad that the people who don’t read the books will never find out how amazing of a character Marlene was. The movie is mostly Tris and Tobias (yes guys, his name is TOBIAS. T-O-B-I-A-S), the other characters don’t get to play their roles which is depressing for us readers who love them so much. Uriah gets a small moment of screen time and then he’s shot and basically disappears for the rest of the movie.

The scene where Tris woke up from “dying” and her and Tobias have this moment where they’re just holding each other. I was literally screaming, “YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!” and they didn’t. The Tris and Tobias I at least thought I knew would have flown into action immediately. I just, ugh. I can’t.

About Tris and Tobias, it’s implied they had sex right? In that scene right before Tris leaves for Erudite headquarters we have Tris and Tobias taking off clothes. Did they have sex? And if they did. No. Just no.

In the end after the box opens and all of the factions see the video we have a scene where all the factions mix together and start talking and socializing while racing toward the fence. This scene was cute, I’ll give it that. But it’s totally unrealistic. If I were just told that my entire life was basically a lie and that there’s probably something wrong with me I’d be pretty mad. I wouldn’t suddenly hold some random persons hand that I’ve never talked to before so we could frolic in the meadow together. No I’d be mad, I’d be screaming.

Also can we talk about the fact that Evelyn kills Jeanine in the end? WHAT? No. That’s Tori’s job. Speaking of Evelyn the actress they got to play her looks younger than Tobias. I could not get over how young she looks. Is she Tobias’s sister? Or is she his mom? Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to tell unless you told me. I was rolling my eyes every time Evelyn was on screen.

The entire movie was just so unrealistic, cheesy, and overall annoying for me to watch. Scenes that should have been serious and dark caused me to laugh instead. There was a group of people behind my friend and I who clapped when the movie ended and it took all of my willpower not to lash out on them like Tris would. I really don’t know how they’re going to make Allegiant into two parts. I don’t even know how Allegiant will even work out. Allegiant was a super long info dumping book with barely any events. I really hope the producers reconsider that idea. I’d rather not watch two terrible movies.

Just my opinion, if you liked the movie and book that’s cool. Everyone has different taste always keep that in mind before you say anything mean to someone. What did you guys think of the movie? I’d love to know your thoughts! Do you see the things I’m getting at? Were you cringing the entire time like I was?

2 out of 5 stars

★★

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Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman | Series Book Review

Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman
(Unwind, UnWholly, UnSouled, Undivided)

Genre: Dystopia, Science Ficiton

Synopsis:
(from GoodReads)

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.
The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child “unwound,” whereby all of the child’s organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn’t technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

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Neal Shusterman, thank you so much for blowing mind away. Let me start by saying that I recommend this series 100%. There are times where the books can seem slow, especially in UnSouled, but trust me it’s totally worth it. Everything builds up to that one mind-shattering moment. Everything is just a side part to this bigger picture. The parts that may seem slow are actually paving the way for the story.

These books make you question your humanity, it gives you the large question of: Is unwinding all that bad?

At first I would have answered, yes completely. Those kids don’t deserve what they got. And I still strongly believe that. Neal Shusterman provides you with the POV of both the unwinds and the people who support unwinding. Which was genius because it’s because of that that made second guess myself. I know it’s crazy, but if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’d do. If I were in that life or death situation where I knew the only way to save myself was to accept an unwound part, would I accept? Would I, even knowing that the part came from a living human being who didn’t deserve to be unwound. Would I still accept it? I’d still like to say no, that I wouldn’t accept it, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t know, and won’t know until I truly experience it.

You’re constantly wondering if these events were to happen in life whose side would you be on? If you were put into someone else’s shoes, what would you do? And although it scared me, I loved every minute of it. There’s a part in Undivided that makes me want to become a vegetarian because of what one character says, but I know I couldn’t do it and that’s what sickens me the most.

These books are haunting and always had me at the edge of my seat. Always had me questioning everything. There are like a hundred different villains in this series, some play a bigger part than others, but all of them are important. You never know who you can trust in this big bad world. You never know if you can even trust yourself. Good guys can turn bad. Bad guys can turn good. People you thought you could trust turn against you. I went into the last book thinking I knew who all the bad guys were, but oh was I so wrong.

Some of the bad character though truly believed that they were doing good (if that makes sense) and that’s one of the main reasons that had me hating them even more. They were so selfish and twisted, but I loved every minute with their characters when I didn’t want to strangle them. The villains were so brilliantly written and the multiple POV’s helped you to understand their motives and what was going through their minds. And although I hated most of them I couldn’t help but also feel sorry for them.

Connor, Risa, and Lev go through so much character development throughout the series. That’s one of the reasons I all them so much, it feels like you’re watching them grow up and you can’t help but feel so proud of all their accomplishments or heartbroken when something bad happens to them. I connected with the characters so much that sometimes it was hard for me to continue reading because I knew something bad was going to happen to them and I couldn’t do anything to stop it or help them. I could only read on.

My favorite character is Hayden, he brought the humor in all the dire situations. In one POV, we’ll have someone in a drastic situation which will leave me nervous and scared for that characters life and then we’ll switch to Hayden and he’ll make me laugh, even when I don’t want to laugh. My emotions were all over the place with these books.

There are multiple point of views in the Unwind series, Connor, Risa, and Lev are probably the main ones, but they most definitely are not the only ones. Every persons POV that Neal Shusterman adds has a purpose. They’re all important and they all add to the story. The story wouldn’t have been as good as it was without them. All of the characters were so different from each other, different personalities and they came from different backgrounds. And I applaud him for that because it’s hard to create so many point of views and make all of them important while also making the characters different from one another. It’s another reason why I love the Unwind series so much. Connor, Risa, Lev, Cam, they are all such different characters who come from different family backgrounds, but they were also so similar in many ways. All of them were fighting for that one goal: to get rid of unwinding.

I love all the character so much, it’s going to be so hard to let them go. But I’m so proud of each and every one of them.

Literally one of the best series I’ve read in such a long time. I love it so much. Amazing job Neal Shusterman, you are a genius and you seriously deserve a medal for this masterpiece. These books seriously need more hype and more people need to read it! This series is the kind that will stay with me for a very long time. I doubt there will be anything like it, it’s truly one of a kind.

Amazing ending as well, it ties up most loose ends, however I still wish we got a bit more story for the other characters, but the series was so amazing overall.

Unwind: 4.5 out of 5 stars ★★★★½
UnWholly: 5 out of 5 stars ★★★★★
UnSouled: 4 out of 5 stars ★★★★
UnDivided: 5 (hundred million) out of 5 stars ★★★★★

Series Overall: 99%

“I’ve got you… under my skin…”

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Buy Unwind

Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Nobles

Buy Complete Unwind Dystology

Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Nobles

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Monthly Update | February 2015

February Update 2015

Currently Reading:

1. Undivided (Unwind #4) by Neal Shusterman

Books Read in February:

1. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
   ★★★ (3 out of 5 stars)
2. I Was Here by Gayle Forman
   ★★★★ (4 out of 5 stars)
3. Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
   ★★★★ (4 out of 5 stars)
4. Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout
   ★★★★ (4 out of 5 stars)

March TBR:

1. Bloodlines series (Bloodlines, The Golden Lily, The Indigo Spell, The Fiery Heart, Silver Shadows, The Ruby Circle) by Richelle Mead
2. Undivided (Unwind #4) by Neal Shusterman
3. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
4. Just Call My Name (I’ll Be There #2) by Holly Goldberg Sloan

GoodReads Reading Challenge Progress:

So far I’ve read 18 books out of my goal of 75 this year and according to GoodReads I am 6 books ahead of schedule.

Books I Bought/Received in February:

1. All Fall Down by Ally Carter
2. The Selection Stories: The Prince and The Guard by Kiera Cass
3. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
4. Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
5. The Ruby Circle (Bloodlines #6) by Richelle Mead

TBR Jar Pick:

Still The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, I didn’t even pick up the book this month, whoops.

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Overall an okay month. I’m a bit disappointed because at the beginning of the month I was on a roll with reading. I flew through Obsidian and Onyx in four days, but nearing the end of the month I was preoccupied *cough* playing Pokémon *cough*

But this month I am determined to start (and maybe finish?) the Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead, now that it’s over. It’s going to happen guys! I also plan on reading Just Call My Name by Holly Goldberg Sloan because my French teacher loaned me her copy a few weeks ago and I still haven’t touched it yet and I feel bad keeping it for this long.

That’s it for this post, what was your favorite book that you read in February? I’d love to know!

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