Current Obsessions

Once I find I like something, it's pretty impossible for me to not become crazy stalker obsessed with it. I'm talking telling everyone who will listen, pinning numerous associated pictures on Pinterest and all around geeking out every chance I get. So here's an update on what's currently on my crazy stalker list :)

Books
Eleanor and Park
This book was sooo good it kept me up until 3am on a school night! I'll post the full review soon :)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone Triology

Kickass angels and fiesty demons. 'Nuff said!

Music
Lana Del Rey
She's been around for a while but up until recently I'd only been exposed to whichever of her songs happened to play on the radio. Needless to say, I WAS MISSING OUT! This chicks lyrics resonate in females everywhere, and for good reason too.

5 Seconds of Summer
Mini-One Direction you say? Yes please, I say.
 
Two Door Cinema Club
I actually discovered this band by accident when I was listening to the December 2013 UK Top 40 Singles. I still jam to it every morning on my way to work, so that's pretty much how I know they're legit. A friend of mine also told me that they were in SA some time last year (I responded by silently hating myself for discovering them so late).

TV
Arrow
I watched 1.5 seasons of Oliver Queen:Masked Saviour over my recent holiday and I found that while I've given up on some of the CWs more ridiculous programming (coughVAMPIREDIARIEScough), the network hit a home run with this one. Here's to hoping they don't jump the shark next season and ruin it like they do most of their other shows.

Scandal
Obsessed with this for one reason. Scott Foley.

Individual book reviews coming soon :) <3

Inferno - Dan Brown

Synopsis from Goodreads - 3.65 average rating


In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.


I liked:

• One minute you think you've got it all figured out and the next minute the entire story line is reversed. I'm totes into books that keep me guessing. 
• You dont have to be a Dante buff to follow the logic behind Langdon's decryption of the literary/historical riddles.
• I loathe slow start books, and this was definitely not one :)

I didn't like:

• The ending was a bit on the boring side. None of the crash bang pow of Angel's and Demons or the amazing revelations of Da Vinci Code.

Overall an alright-ish read. I didn't dislike it but at the same time dint love it.

Beautiful Disaster - Jamie Mcguire

Synopsis from Goodreads

INTENSE. DANGEROUS. ADDICTIVE.

Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

I liked:

• Travis Maddox. Duh. We're girls. We love a bad boy. 'Nuff said.

• The looovee :) I love a good love story and I adore happy endings! Granted, he is a bit overboard sometimes but Travis genuinely loves Abby, and I ship it!

• Lots of people shelved this book in the 'realistic fiction' category and for good reason. It seems like it could happen in a real life situation. Minus the corny bet thing. Often the characters in books are too wholesome. They never do anything wrong, and when they do it's something so minor it borders on being insignificant. It really gives us girls a warped perception of what guys should be like. So the fact that Travis is a total screw up 80% of the time is strangely comforting and lots more believable.

I didnt like:

• Travis' crazy stalker tendencies. It borders psychotic. Guys who hit walls and annihilate furniture? No thanks.

• The ending seemed...Unresolved. Although when I later read Walking Disaster it made more sense. 

• Mcguire mentions Abby's cardigans in the synopsis and the first few chapters and then they are never heard of again. Pointless much? (This is a petty dislike but it's been bothering me from the second I put the book down)

• On the topic of Walking Disaster. I loathe it when an author writes the same book from the other main character's perspective. It irks me so so much. I like it even less when each book in a series features different main characters, but that is a story for another day. Yes, some parts made a lot more sense thanks to being inside Travis' mind and not Abby's, but it also look alot of the mystery away from the story. In real life, you only know what's in your own head anyway, you're never going to know everything the other person is thinking and I gotta say, that's how i prefer my reading experiences. 

 Overall, I enjoyed it :) Its an oddball love story with some interesting characters. Highly recommend!
 

Easy - Tamara Webber

I’ve never been super into standalones, possibly because I strongly suspect I have some form of book separation anxiety, possibly because I enjoy having at least a trilogy-length of time to fully come to terms with leaving characters behind.

That being said, theres been a significant increase in the amount of standalones I've been reading lately :)

Synopsis from Goodreads

Rescued by a stranger.
Haunted by a secret
Sometimes, love isn’t easy…

He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior…

The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.

Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth—and find the unexpected power of love.

A groundbreaking novel in the New Adult genre, Easy faces one girl's struggle to regain the trust she's lost, find the inner strength to fight back against an attacker, and accept the peace she finds in the arms of a secretive boy.

I liked:

• Normally the heroine tends to get on my nerves when the inevitable ‘boy rejects girl thinking he’s protecting her’ type thing happens and then the chick lead spends anywhere between 1 to 4 chapters being whiny and unreasonably stubborn/petty. I have to say, Jacqueline is way more mature than your average YA heroine. I approve!

• Addressed a sensitive issue in a mature way, without diminishing it’s severity. I’ve read a few books that throws some innuendos around and it’s never addressed further than that or it’s completely downplayed immediately after.

• The ‘bad boy’ wasn’t really a bad boy. I am positively overjoyed that more and more male leads are emerging that are hot and brainy and that don't come off as total douche bags immediately. Lucas has almost no tendency to psycho behavior except the initial 'I had to get to know you so I obsessively sought you out on campus' thing. No punching walls, breaking furniture, forbidding Jacqueline to see anyone, none of that 'you are mine and only mine' nonsense. Best of all, he didn't need our heroine to fix him. He wasn't broken or damaged beyond repair or going through a bizarre phase only to have Jacqueline make him see the light and change him for the better.

• The epilogue. Normally, Im not a fan. Often feels too forced and structured, but this epilogue wasn’t like multiple years in the future so there was none of the insta marriage, insta children with sentimental names nobody would give their children (Sorry JK Rowling). One of the most tolerable epilogues I've read!

• Banter. I love me some witty back and forths

I didn’t like:

• All Landon's secrets were divulged rather late. Infact, there was a section towards the middle that could’ve been completely cut out and the book would’ve been no worse off. Boo to ‘filler’ chapters!

Read if:

• You're tired of borderline psychotic male leads who would downright frighten you in real life.

• You love lead characters who don't need one another to fix themselves or complete their lives

• You like a good love story (obvs)

Overall a good read, twas sweet, interesting, funny and well worth the 6ish hours spent living in Jacqueline and Lucas’ world. :)

What I'm listening to

The Vamps

I recently stumbled upon The Vamps, and I was pretty much obsessed within 10minutes. They post acoustic indie-ish pop covers of popular songs on their Youtube channel and they are amazing. Brad's voice is something else *swoon*, and since they're acoustic we know its not just autotune :)


Fave Songs: Valerie, Teenage Kicks, Neon Trees Mashup

Kanye West

I am a complete Taylor Swift fangirl, so while I will never forgive Kanye for the VMA incident that shocked the world, I do love me some Yeezy! He's been getting a lot of flack for his 'new sound' but I gotta say, I've had Yeezus on repeat for days now.

Fave Songs: Black Skinhead, Send It Up

Iggy Azalea

I was watching an episode of The Valleys (Don't hate on my love for tacky reality TV) and heard an excerpt of Work and decided there and then it was my new jam. She's an Australian rapper with a butt I'm ridiculously jealous of. She also once dated A$AP Rocky - snaps to that!

Fave Songs: Work, Best Friend (technically she's only featured - but this sh*t is my jam anyway)

Jay - Z

This is pretty obvious considering the world has been salivating about Magna Carta Holy Grain for ages before it's release.'Somewhere in America, Miley Cyrus is still twerking' - need I say more?

Fave Songs: Somewhere in America, Holy Grain, Tom Ford

Whaddya think?

Delirium: Review

I still suffer from 'Post Potter Depression'. Urban Dictionary defines this as 'The empty feeling that comes from finishing the seventh book in the Harry Potter series and realizing there will be no more.' So ever since finishing what I consider to be the greatest book series known to man-kind I've been on the hunt for books to fill the void. Harry Potter Fangirl aside, I do enjoy other books from many different genres, I'm not just a crazy 20year old who hates everything that doesn't centre on a trio of wizards :)

Anyway, I went with Delirium by Lauren Oliver this week, which has been all over twitter/tumblr/pinterest since after The Hunger Games made bank. To be perfectly honest, I was underwhelmed. Maybe the FOX pilot not getting picked up should have been a sign but I thought it'd be a case of  'the books is always better than the movie/tv show'. The book was just alright, nothing phenomenally amazing and nothing terrible either.

I liked:
The way Lena slowly came to realize that there was more to life than just the world she knew
The Hana/Lena friendship
The way Oliver illustrates the frailty of life but in the same breath the fact that you need to be brave and do more than just exist

I did not like:
Lack of development for secondary characters. They just seemed like place fillers.

Favourite Quotes:
“You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".”- Hana

“I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.” - Lena

“I know that the whole point—the only point—is to
find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to
let them go.” - Lena

“The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and
when you don’t.”- Lena

That being said, there was nothing wrong with the book, it just wasn't a 'up 'til 5am because i absolutely MUST know how it ends' type of book. Reading Pandemonium next, hopefully it'll be a page turner :)