Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys Review

  One statement before I start: I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. So my review may be a little biased towards the good in the story.

(Disclaimer: Apologies if I spell any names wrong, I listened to it on audiobook)

PROS:

*The Characters. Asdfghjkl all of the characters (excluding for Alfred) grew on me throughout the story. Joana + Florian= OTP. They're absolutely adorable. Emelie's storyline was so incredibly sad. I had so much compassion for her, that poor girl. I have no clue how to spell her daughter's name (I listened to an audiobook) but how sacrificial she was for her was heartbreaking in a good way. I loved the somewhat minor characters Eva (I love how she said sorry after or before every 'offensive' thing), the Shoe Poet, Ingrid, and the orphan boy.

*The Storyline. It makes me sad that the core storyline (not the characters obviously) actually happened. This story really opened my eyes to WWII.

*Alfred?? It's not his character itself that got him a place on the pro-and-con list. It is totally for Ms. Sepetys. The way he saw things, the thoughts he had, the general distaste for most of humanity..She wrote him in a way that made me absolutely sick. I applaud you, Ms. Sepetys.

CONS:

*Alfred?? She made me detest him. His thoughts/though process is, again, absolutely sick. (to the people who haven't read this book yet: 1. GO READ IT NOW PLEASE and 2. He's a Nazi.)

*The Writing. Well, some of the writing. For the most part, I liked it, but some of the sentences seemed a tad awkward.

I know this seems like an extremely short and kind of vague list but I can't put in to words how much I loved it. All I can tell you is please go read this. (There is some slightly gory stuff towards the end, comment if you would like specifics. I did not think that it was too bad though.)

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars.

E.C.

What's Coming Up

Hey! I'm going to quickly explain what's coming up:

Every Monday: Book Review

Every Wednesday: Various book-related, my writing-related, posts

Every Friday: Writer Interview

Hope you will enjoy!

E.C.

My Six Favourite Series

Most of my favorite series are relatively unknown but are absolutely AMAZING. I've wanted to make a post about it for a while and I'm excited to be finally doing it!

(ps One thing before I start: I've decided that I'm going to attempt to make a blog post Monday-Wednesday-Friday, with a review once a week. We'll see how this goes...)

(pss these are in no particular order)

1. Literally all of Wayne Thomas Batson's books because I can't choose just one series of his to recommend to you. He is very easily in my top three favorite authors. Warning: If you read his books, you aren't going to want to read anything else because his writing is absolutely amazing. Here is a list of his series that I own & love:

1. The Berinfell Prophecies trilogy (the first book being Curse of the Spider King). It's about teenage elves that don't know that they're elves and ahhh it's just so good. One of the characters has blue skin and everyone is so amazing and adorable and *happy flails*

2. The Isle trilogy (the first book being Isle of Swords). This series is so good, and it has pirates in it, who are amazing.
3. The Door Within trilogy (first book being the Door Within). This is probably my least favorite series of his, but it's been a while since I read it...and even with it being my least favorite, it's Wayne Thomas Batson so it's still good.
4. The Dark Sea Annals series (the first book being Sword in the Stars). I loooove this series. There are only two books out so far but if I remember correctly there are supposed to be 5-7 books in this series. also, loOK UP THESE COVERS IF THAT ALONE DOESN'T MAKE YOU WANT TO READ THE SERIES I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL (they're even more gorgeous IRL I can't even)

2. The Dreamtreaders trilogy (first book being Dreamtreaders). The first book is my least favorite but it definitely gets better as it goes along. And the world building and characters are <3333333

2. the Merlin Spiral trilogy (the first book being Merlin's Blade) by Robert Treskillard. This. Series. Man. It's a retelling of Merlin and they are absolutely amazing and he's working on a companion series and I am SO. EXCITED. (99% sure this blog post is just me flailing about my favorite series)
3. the Out of Time trilogy (the first book being A Time to Die) by Nadine Brandes. I received the last book in the series on Friday night and finished it early Saturday. THIS. SERIES. I highly recommend this series, the storyline is so cool and the characters <3. ('specially Jude. I LOVE JUDE) And the covers. GORGEOUS.
4. The Maze Runner series (first book being the Maze Runner) by James Dashner. Okay so technically the first book is the Kill Order but you need to read the original trilogy first sO YOU CAN BE CONFUSED LIKE EVERYONE WAS BEFORE WE HAD THE PREQUELS. With these books, you either are a crazy fan (like yours truly) or you don't like them at all. I'm not going to judge you either way. But yes I love these books. Read themmmm.
5. The SWIPE series (first book being SWIPE) by Evan Angler. These books are SOOO. AMAZING. The writing is a bit more middle-grade but the story itself is more young adult if that makes sense. I perceived it as a take on the Rapture/right before it. But I love this series, there was supposed to be a fifth book but I think for some reason it's not being published. *cries for eternity*

6. The Blood of Kings trilogy (first book being By Darkness Hid) by Jill Williamson. This series is set in medieval times and it is soo good. It involves a form of telepathy and ahhhh. The books are quite big go read it now). And the characters are my precious children.

Make sure you comment and tell me whether you've read any of these series, or plan to, and tell me YOUR favorite series!

E.C.

A (mostly) Spoiler-Free Review of A Time to Rise by Nadine Brandes.

So I received ATTR in the mail on Friday evening. (Two weeks before its release date, but who's complaining? Definitely not me.) I finished half of it before I had to give in to sleep (sigh) because of a particularly bad headache. But I finished it Saturday, less than 24 hours after I started it. #noshame

So I'm going to write a little review! I've never written an actual review before, so this is going to be...interesting.

PROS:

*Jude flashback(ish) scenes. (For those of you that don't know, Jude is pretty much my favourite book character ever). Those scenes made me so happy but sad at the same time. (I may have gotten teary eyed..)

*Solomon. I'll be honest with you, I despised him in ATTS. I think * SPOILERS * Jude's death was too fresh on my mind * END SPOILERS *, and I may have (accidentally) imagined Sol looking like a ugly Westley (from the Princess Bride). But I like him much better now, and don't imagine him like an ugly Westley. :)

*Russia. I have this really weird obsession with Russia. I don't know much about it (yet) but it intrigues me. (Mostly because in one of the novels I'm writing is set in Russia, and the main character is Russian) Yeah, I don't fully get it either. But anyways. That part of the book made me happy.

*The Ending. The ending was happy. I am so not used to happy endings in books, so this was a nice surprise. And the last line made me so happy (those who have read it know what I'm talking about).

*Skelley Chase. I love how his storyline ended SO MUCH. That is all.

*The Cover. Again, I'll be honest with you, I wasn't to crazy about it when it was first revealed. But it is so much prettier in person.

CONS:

*Parvin (kind of). I felt like she was kind of wimpy in this book. After all she's been through, I guess I'd imagine her more...brave, maybe. I'm not sure how to word it, and it may be just me feeling that way. But anyways, yeah.

*Solomon. (yes, he was on the pros list too. Shhhh.) As I said I definitely grew to like him more, but he seemed way too perfect. I mean, I get that he loves Parvin and wants to save the world and all, he just seems too flawless. Again, that may be just me.

*Erfinder Hawke. He annoyed me to no end and the way he treated Sol made me sad.

Overall, I really liked this book. It was a great end to an amazing trilogy. 4.5/5 stars.

You can buy the first book in the series here.

E.C.

I Disappeared...Again.

Well, I seemed to disappear of the face of the earth. Again. Sorry about that.

I don't even have a valid reason. I knew about my blog, I just didn't feel like posting. Sorry again.

Here are some things I would like to put up posts about in the near future:
>Book Reviews
>Character Interviews (?)
>Fellow Blogger/Book/Writer lovers in general Interviews (?)
>Possibly some art

E.C.

Genderbent Bucky Barnes Cosplay!

Hey Everyone! *insert Spidey here*

So I found out that my dad and I are going to be able to go to a comic convention next month! We are only going for a day, not the whole weekend, so I only needed one cosplay.

I was (and am) super excited and I immediately knew who I was going to cosplay.

I am going to do a genderbent version of The Winter Soldier AKA James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky AKA my favourite character ever.

As soon as I knew that I was going to be able to go, that it wasn't just a "maybe", I drew what I wanted to do.

(this is technically the second draft of what I wanted to do but whateves)

Once I looked up about 17 tutorials for Bucky's arm, I decided that I was going to crochet the glove and hand. (I was already planning on doing the little glove thing he has, but I wasn't planning on doing the fingers.) Thankfully it worked out great and was quite easy!

 (I crocheted a fingerless glove, making holes for the thumb area and the space in the middle. After crocheting up the space in the middle, I did the thumb and the fingers. It's a snug fit but I think that that will be good.)

My mom took me that night and we got the things that I needed. (except I forgot the glue, which was highly necessary, of course). First thing that I made was the skirt.

(You can't see it (going to make sure you can when I go to the con), but there is red tulle underneath.)

Using this tutorial (with a small bit of altering) Bucky's mask was made. 

Instead of using pleather I used leftover fabric from my skirt and instead of velcro I used elastic (To keep it on my head).

I found a leather jacket at goodwill (you'll be able to see it in the final picture) and cut off the left sleeve. I also found a wide belt there, where I'm going to have a holster for a foam knife and possibly a gun though I might find a way to put it on my back.

The arm wasn't challenging once I figured out how in the world I was going to make this thing.

First I made a 'cast' of my arm so I'd have a form to work on when I was attaching the foam to my arm. I used plastic wrap and tape and stuffed it with grocery bags (tape off the top but not the bottom). Then I slipped it on a paper towel holder to hold it up while I was working on it. I used craft foam from walmart (about 4 sheets all together (I used it for the arm and the mask)) to make the metal strip-things. Worbla would work well but it is somewhat expensive. I began using E6000 to glue it on. Don't use this. I am planning on taking it to the con for repairs but other than that I won't use it. It does not stick well if you're doing it on a sleeve like I did; not sure about other mediums. We went and bought Gorilla Glue sticks (the kind you put in your hot glue gun) and that worked great. Make sure you leave a small space on the inside and outside of your elbow so you can bend your arm. After glueing everything on I used Rust-Oleum metallic silver spray paint- about 3 coats. I then used a gloss top coat but I would not recommend using that.

I'm super happy with how everything turned out! (I may have almost cried when I finished it...) Especially since this is my first time making a costume (and going to a con. :)

Here is the (mostly) finished product. I don't have the props yet and the star was not painted on at this point.

and here's a random picture with the star. *jazz hands*

I hope you enjoyed, sorry for the long post! :p

E.C.

Edit: made and painted a foam knife but I haven't found a play gun to paint for a reasonable price. Grrrr. 

Captain America: Civil War "Review"

Hey guys!

So I got to see Captain America: Civil War last Thursday! I went as AoU Scarlet Witch and my dad went as Tony Stark (I painted the arc reactor on a shirt). :D

Here is a small review. Mostly just saying what I like and didn't like about it.

Pros:

Bucky bucky BUCKY buckyyyyy

STAN LEE'S CAMEO

I loved Falcon and Bucky's friendship! (Can you move your seat up?)

Wanda and the Vision!

Spidey was awesome

the Vision in actual clothes

Did I mention Bucky?

Backstory for why Bucky did what he did 

Cons:

SHARON CARTER I CANT LIKE no

The movie felt kind of anti-climactic to me

Spidey's suit

That funeral scene... I didn't like it. It didn't feel very.. heartfelt to me.

The guy that I thought was the main villain died like two minutes in???

Martin Freeman's American accent

All in all, I thought that it was good. 3.75-4 out of 5 stars.

E.C.