Penny For Your Thoughts: Books to Movies

Hello everyone! Remember these? The last time I did one was literally ages ago, but I've been spending a lot more time reading discussion posts lately compared to reviews and thought it'd be fun and interesting to start writing a bit more discussion-y posts. I will admit, these are pretty hard for me since my thoughts are often to jumbled up I can't put them into words. But, I'll giving this a shot.

So today's topic comes from a recent podcast episode that Claudia and I did (LISTEN HERE) where we talked about books to movie adaptations. I also stumbled across this article on Book Riot who by the way have some awesome things so be sure to check them out! 

The article talks about not caring whether movie adaptations stick true to the books. With the recent explosion of books to movie adaptations in the film industry, I think it's a pretty important and relevant topic to discuss. Let's start off with a general list (off the top of my head) of movies I've watched with book inspirations:

• The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Harry Potter 
• Twilight
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• Guardians of the Ga'Hoole
• If I Stay
• Divergent
• City of Bones
• Safe Haven
• The Longest Ride
• Ella Enchanted
• Aquamarine
• The Lovely Bones
• The Bridge to Terabithia 
• The Book Thief
• Coraline

There are probably a whole bunch more but those are the first that came to mind. Now the ones that I've read the books as well as watched the movies, I bolded. Actually, looking back on the list - I did pretty good in terms of reading books before watching the movies...Either way, let's pick three movies and discuss.

Wishlist Wednesday: Tyrant's Blood

Hello everyone! I recently Googled a list of bookish memes and came across this one hosted by Dani over at Pen to Paper. The concept is simple: pick a book that you're dying to put on your shelves and add a few sentences. It sounded like fun so I'm going to give this a go :)

Tyrant's Blood by Fiona McIntosh

Amazon

Thriftbooks

The second book in the breathtaking epic fantasy of heritage, vengeance, and destiny
A decade has passed since the barbarian Loethar brutally conquered the last remaining, most powerful realm in the Denova Set--though the coveted Valisar Enchantment, the irresistible ability to coerce and control, eludes him still. Ten years since the warlord butchered the Set's royals and feasted on their blood.
But he did not kill them all.
Having secretly escaped Loethar's wrath, the young Valisar prince Leonel has grown to manhood under the protection of the notorious highwayman Kilt Faris. Now the boy king wants more than his rightful throne of Penraven--he wants revenge. But not all of enslaved Penraven wishes for Leonel's rule; indeed, Loethar has spent the past ten years uniting the Set's realms into a peaceful, prosperous empire. And unbeknownst to all, the true inheritor of the Valisar Enchantment is awakening--and a dark threat, far more sinister than even the invasion of the barbarian horde a decade earlier, is poised to threaten the Crown and reveal the most shocking Valisar secret of all.

I currently own the first book in this trilogy and I'm dying to get started! It just sounds so cool and action packed and the covers are so pretty! The trilogy follows a young prince who escapes after his kingdom gets conquered by the tyrant Loethar and his journey to win back his throne. It sounds super amazing and let me repeat the covers are actually nice.

What books are you dying to get onto your shelves? Let me know in the comments and feel free to participate - just click the banner above and it will take you to this week's Linky page!

Foreverly Obsessed,

Top 10 Tuesday: Hyped Books I've Never Read

Hello everyone! It's been so long since I've done a Top 10 and I was going through my blog feed when I stumbled across the topic for today: Hyped Books I've Never Read. That got me thinking about some books I've heard everyone talk about, but I haven't picked up yet for various reasons which brings me to this list: 

1. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

Okay before you go ahead and hate me for the rest of my life let me explain. I grew up surrounded by the Harry Potter books and movies, but for some reason I never got around to reading the books. My parents introduced me to fantasy through Tolkien and CS Lewis instead of JK Rowling. While I definitely want to read the books one day, I pretty much know what happens since it's difficult to avoid spoilers. The bottom line is - I want to read them, but it's hard for me to pick them if I already know what happens so it's on my TBR just not high.

2. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz 

I've heard so many amazing things about this book all over BookTube and I keep telling myself that I need to read it. One day...

3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sadly, the only Neil Gaiman book I've read is the Graveyard Book which I thought was fantastic. I've been meaning to pick this up for ages, but haven't yet...

4. The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

This is another TBR shame for me as I loved the Percy Jackson series. After finishing the series, I sort of moved on and never circled back to it. Gotta remedy that soon!

5. The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons

I have no excuses for this other than I'm scared I'm gonna bawl my eyes out...

6. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Again, I've heard amazing things - the one that's keeping me back is the genre (science fiction and aliens) which doesn't usually interest me, but the buzz has definitely caught my attention.

7. The Girl of Fire of Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson

I have no reason for why I haven't read this trilogy yet...>.<

8. Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

I just really need to read a Morgan Matson book...

9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

I kind of want to wait till more books are out which is why I haven't read it yet, but I'm dying to start!

10. The Darkest Minds trilogy by Alexandra Bracken

This is another genre (dystopian) that I don't read much of, but I really need to start because it just sounds amazing and the reviews are super high!

So that's my list! Let me know in the comments what books you need to read that are super popular on the blogosphere and BookTube!

Foreverly Obsessed,

Priestess of the White

Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan

ISBN: 0060815701
Pages: 608
Publication Date: December 27, 2015
Series: Age of Five

Source: Own

Appearance:

Book Depository Link

In a land on the brink of peace—watched jealously by a ruthless cult from across the sea and beset by hidden enemies—five extraordinary humans must serve as sword and shield of the Gods.

Auraya is one.

Her heroism saved a village from destruction; now Auraya has been named Priestess of the White. The limits of her unique talents must be tested in order to prove her worthy of the honor and grave responsibility awarded to her. But a perilous road lies ahead, fraught with pitfalls that will challenge the newest servant of the gods. An enduring friendship with a Dreamweaver—a member of an ancient outcast sect of sorcerer-healers—could destroy Auraya's future. And her destiny has set her in conflict with a powerful and mysterious, black-clad sorcerer with but a single purpose: the total annihilation of the White. And he is not alone . . . 

Hello everyone! Welcome to my review for The Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan. I've been meaning to review this for a while so it's good that I'm finally getting around to it. 

Auraya has been chosen as the last member of the Five - a group of priests and priestesses chosen by the Circlian gods to lead the people. Her chosing is followed by news of destruction as a new cult called the Pendatrians. To fight against this new threat, the Circlians must make allies with the surrounding kingdoms. In addition to the rising Pendatrian army forming in a nearby kingdom, Auraya has to face the fact that her opinions towards the Dreamweavers may not be shared and her relationship with one of them could possibly ruin her future. 

Going into this book, I was super stoked. After watching a bunch of Would You Rather videos on YouTube and being faced with the question: male or female authors, I was determined to find a female fantasy author to love. When I first stumbled across Trudi Canavan, I was bombarded by so many good reviews on her Black Magician trilogy, but I acquired the Age of Five trilogy first. Anyway, that whole spiel was to say that I finished this book feeling a bit disappointed. Okay, a lot disappointed. While the plotline and the world of the Circlians were rich and descriptive, I felt like that was the only thing the book had going. Everything else fell quite short.

My biggest complaint is definitely the characters. I tried to love Auraya but I couldn't. She wasn't easy to relate to and her character development seemed minimal. She's portrayed as this super powerful and gifted girl who becomes a Priestess for the White and that's kind of it. She's just this special girl who wants to make peace with the world and for everything to work hand in hand. I had hoped her relationship with Leiard, her childhood friend who happens to be a Dreamweaver, would give her more dimension as she tries to change the society's opinion towards Dreamweavers. However, she sort of left it as it is and when she got hurt, she just seemed to run away without confronting the situation. Leiard as a character also seemed a bit flat. He was upright and honorable, but that's pretty much it. His inner conversations with Mirar was pretty interesting though, especially their constant bickering.

Another issue I found with the book was the "holier than thou" attitude that the Circlian society had. Their attitude towards Dreamweavers is a perfect example the religious intolerance that is ingrained in the people's attitudes. The Dreamweavers are these group of pacifist socerer healers who live among the Circlians and they are viewed as "lower" than the rest of society. It's kind of hard to root for the Circlians to win the battle against the Pendatrians if I couldn't get myself to root for the religion in the first place. To be honest, I wanted to the Pendatrians to win...

Okay, let's talk some enemy basics. As the opponents of the "great" Circlian religion, I expected them to be more developed. While they did post a threat in the story and when they were mentioned, the book became darker; overall I didn't feel very concerned for the Circlians. There seemed to be this attitude that the White would win no matter what so it didn't matter in the end. 

Alright, so far my review hasn't been super happy, so let's talk some pros. The Siyee, whom Auraya goes to meet to form an alliance with, have got to be my favorite people in the book. Tryss and Drilli are just some among the hundreds of bird-like people you meet in the novel. As a group, they are honorable and innovative with a passion to help and change the world. While there are a couple of old fashioned grumps, the younger generation just has this enthusiasm that spreads. 

I mentioned the world building and how complex everything was. Each religion for the most part is thought out with their own unique traditions and customs. There's also the political development as the White make allies with the neighboring groups which brought an alluring aspect to the story.

Overall, I wanted more. I didn't hate this book at all, but I definitely expected more. I'm hoping to continue with the trilogy over the summer and hopefully in the next book we'll get to explore more characters and see more development. 

3.5 out of 5 stars

 

Foreverly Obsessed,

Hitched

Hitched by Dawn Rae Miller

ISBN13: 9781511627252
Pages: 229
Source: Xpresso Book Tours
Publication Date: April 14, 2015
Appearance:

Life hasn’t been easy for twenty-three year old Ellie Jacobs since her boyfriend, Fletch, walked out of her life two years earlier. She’s stuck in a consulting job she hates, buried under crushing student loans, and still longing for Fletch despite her best efforts to leave the past behind.
Letting go is hard when everywhere she turns, there’s a reminder of Fletch - from his face on gossip magazines to everyone being obsessed with his company, GroundFloor.
So when Ellie finds herself at a mutual friend’s wedding with Fletch, she decides to grin and bear it for the sake of the bride and groom. But years of anger have piled up, and Ellie doesn’t know if she can last the weekend without going crazy or lashing out.
However, as the wedding weekend progresses, Ellie realizes anger can only take you so far, but love can take you farther. 

Hello everyone! I'm back with part two of my Crushed duology review with Hitched! This book is written from Ellie's point of view and follows her as she navigates her life after Fletch leaves and how they become reunited.

Okay so I'm skipping with the summary that I usually start off my reviews with because I want to talk about the overall plot of the story. Where are all my cutesy moments with Ellie and Fletch? Fine, I got some of it from Book 1 but the time gap between Crushed and Hitched leaves out those moments of their growing relationship and Fletch's leaving. While everything does get explained, I can't help but feel like I've been cheated out of those moments. Anyway, moving on from that little rant, I was excited to find out that Hitched was written from Ellie's point of view because she was such a snarky character in Crushed I couldn't wait to read things from her perspective. Sadly, I didn't exactly get that.

Hitched reunites us with all the characters we fell in love with in book one with Brady's wedding to Sophie. I can't believe how much I missed Brady's humor even though I picked up the two books pretty much back to back with a week in between them. The characters were still golden and still managed to make me laugh. However, the problem lies with the plot. Ellie's pretty angry at Fletch for leaving without a word and then seeing his faces all over magazines as the hottest CEO with his company GroundFloor. Then she sees him again at the wedding and after a couple of interactions, all that anger just melts away. To be honest, I wanted more of a fight on her part, I mean Fletch literally just left. 

Of course there's more the story than that, but this book was rushed beyond words. From Brody's wedding to Fletch and Ellie's engagement and happily ever after, I think the whole book took place over an extended weekend. I had enjoyed the slow pace and gradual development of the plot and characters from Crushed so when I read Hitched I felt myself rolling my eyes a bit too often.

Now, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the book because these characters have still made a big impact on me in terms of how much I adored them. But, this book definitely pales in comparison to the first book and if I had to narrow it down, I'd say to only read the first book. You might be left with an aching need to know more, but the second book didn't do that for me.

3 out of 5 stars

 

Foreverly Obsessed,

Crushed

Crushed by Dawn Rae Miller 

ASIN: B00AM247D2
Pages: 268
Source: Xpresso Book Tours
Publication Date: December 11, 2012

Appearance:

Having it all has never been so hard.
For eighteen-year-old serial womanizer Fletch Colson, life is a game and if he plays by the rules, he’ll win it all: his dream college, his parents’ money, and a hot (if a little vapid) girl on his arm. Really, it couldn’t be easier. All he has to do is get good grades, live a privileged life, and try not to mess up too much. 
However, when he accepts the seemingly impossible bet to change his ways and be “just friends” with smart, beautiful, tempting Ellie Jacobs – a girl who turns his world inside out - Fletch discovers his perfect life isn’t so wonderful. 
As family secrets begin tumbling out, what once seemed simple and clear, no longer feels right, and Fletch must decide if winning it all is worth losing a piece of himself.
CRUSHED is a New Adult book. It has profanity and sexual situations, and is intended for ages 16+.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my review of Crushed by Dawn Rae Miller! I received a copy for review but I promise that everything is completely written in my own opinion! Alright, let's get into the review:

Fletch Colson is the resident playboy and senior year means it's time to take things to the next level. Then his friends pose the ultimate challenge - he must be friends with a girl and not hook up with her. Sounds simple enough, until he finds out who he has to "just be friends" with. Ellie Jacobs is everything his family is not. She doesn't come from a wealthy family and instead works hard to maintain her place in the school. But she has something that Fletch doesn't have and it can't be bought with money. As the two spend more time together, Fletch finds himself questioning the values that brought him up and falling a bit harder each day for Ellie.

This book is one those stories that just takes you by surprise. I didn't expect to enjoy it or feel the emotions that I did since when I first started reading, Fletch annoyed me to no end. His character starts off so cocky and arrogant with such an infuriating attitude I was certain he was never going to win Ellie's heart - and if he did, then she was making the worse decision of her life. Then the layers started peeling back and revealed more of his true character. While I ended up feeling so many feels towards Fletch, there is something extremely stereotypical about his build up as a character. Let me explain, he comes from a rich family and they have secrets that he finds out and when he does his entire life is changed forever. Plus there's plotted marriage and all that fun stuff that comes with building and sustaining a modern day mega million empire. 

Ellie on the other hand was amazing from the start. She's quirky, speaks her own mind, and isn't afraid to let a snobby rich girl boss her around (I'm looking at you Cassandra). She represented the down-to-earth attitude that Fletch longed for and I loved how their relationship actually started off as friendship. Even when Fletch knew he loved Ellie, she refused to move beyond friends because she knew he had some things about his own life that he had to work out first.

Okay so overall thoughts. This book is full of emotional punches that make you suck in your breath and hold in those tears. While I didn't cry, I enjoyed how real this relationship was and how for once despite all the profanity and sexual situations, the romance relationship wasn't affected. 

4 out of 5 stars

 

Foreverly Obsessed,

HAUL: Pop-arazzi Nail Polish

Hello everyone! So a quick little update, I'm working on several reviews right now so I apologize for how slow the blog has been lately. The good news is that summer is officially here which means I'm reading more and hopefully reviewing more as well. There's also something special coming soon to The Little Black Bookmark Podcast so be sure to follow that blog for the announcement! 

Anyway, I recently picked up some new polishes from CVS and I thought I'd do something different and show you guys what I picked up. CVS used to carry Spoiled which was a line produced by Wet n Wild, but they recently changed it and began to carry Pop-arazzi which is a new brand. This was both sad and exciting since I loved the Spoiled polishes, but I pretty much own most of the colors I liked. I ended up picking up 8 different colors from two different trips. 

Color:

The color payoff for each of these polishes were pretty good. In the swatches below, each color became opaque within two swatches. The only one that needed a third coat was Going for Gold since the formula was more watery than the other ones. In terms of how true the colors are to what they appear in the bottle, I'd say that it matches pretty well. 

Left to Right: Short but Sweet, Shell Me More, The Hue is Blue, In Your Dreams

Left to Right: Icing on the Cake, Mauvie Night, Going for Gold, Glam Factor

Packaging:

The polishes come in the standard glass bottle with a plastic cap that is decorated with little polka dots. The Pop-arazzi logo is stamped on the front and underneath there is the name of each polish. Each bottle is said to contain 0.15 Fl oz.

Left to Right: Short but Sweet, Shell Me More, The Hue is Blue, In Your Dreams

Left to Right: Icing on the Cake, Mauvie Night, Going for Gold, Glam Factor

Smell:

This is the worst part of the polish. The smell is absolutely horrible. I can't open the bottle without getting a whiff of it and it makes painting really painful. I can't describe the smell exactly, but I think of burning plastic. I painted Claudia's nails with Short but Sweet and she said the small E.L.F. polishes smell similar.

Application:

For the most part the polishes aren't super streaky or thick. The only one where I have some problem is Short but Sweet as the formula looks a lot thicker. The other ones glide on like a charm and don't makes your nails look as if there is a lot of polish on them. The brush itself is a standard rectangle and isn't super wide or thin. The cap also is easy to grip and doesn't slip out of my grasp.

Lasting Power:

This is the hardest category for me to rate since I don't wear my polishes for a super long period of time. I've wore In Your Dreams and Shell Me More on separate occasions and each lasted me a good two to three days without chipping. I'm going to go ahead and say it's got decent lasting power as long as you make sure to apply base and top coat.

SWATCHES

(Natural Lighting)

(With Flash)

Color: 2/2

Packaging: 2/2

Smell: 0/2

Application: 1.5/2

Lasting Power: 2/2

Total Points: 7.5/10

GRADE: C

That's my review for the Pop-arazzi Polishes! Let me know if you guys have tried them out and what your thoughts are. Also, let me know if you likes these nail polish reviews as I'm a bit of a polish hoarder and own quite a few bottles of nail polish. I'm going to try to remove the nail polishes from the acryllics that I used and see if I can reuse them. If I can't, I'll figure out another way for swatches. 

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you later with another post!

Foreverly Obsessed,