I'm So Happy I Could Melt! (Alternatively, I Couldn't Be Happier)

     As I write this, I am sitting in a small armchair in room 419 of the Georgian Terrace Hotel, in Downtown Atlanta. It is freezing outside, my hair's wet from a shower, and there's a dress laid out on the bed. 

     Why?

      I'm going to see Wicked. 

      *cue explosion noises*

      I got Wicked tickets for Christmas - Sam got them for her birthday - and this morning at nine o'clock, my parents, me, and her left Callahan bound for Atlanta. At 5 we've got dinner reservationsat The Livingston and...at eight...

       THE SHOW STARTS

      I'm really excited and I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SEEING WICKED. I've been dying to see this for months, and now it's happening. 

       Yes...

       I couldn't be happier...

      Simply couldn't be happier...

      Look what I've got

      tickets at eight o'clock

      my very own happy endingggggggggggggggg

    You're very welcome for that Wicked pun. ;) As I've still got some things to do before I can flop down with a book and WAIT IMPATIENTLY, I'll cut this short. BUT. I am going to have a post tomorrow about - you guessed it: Wicked. :D 

     

[Book Review] Killer Instinct

Lemme tell you guys a story.
Mariesa told me a while ago that The Naturals was really good, and I read about a quarter of it before it had to go back to the library. This is about two months or so ago.
And then, December Reading Challenge starts. I think, oh, hey, The Naturals! I'll finish that!
So I did. Last Sunday.
And I've been in a sort of reading slump waiting for the next one to get in at the library.
AND THIS AFTERNOON I GOT IT.
I GOT IT AT ABOUT 5 O'CLOCK
AND FINISHED IT
JUST NOW
SIX HOURS LATER.

IT WAS AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER AND I SQUEALED AND SCREAMED AND LAUGHED AND I LOVE THESE BOOKS SO MUCH OKAY.

*coughcough* Okay. I'll stop screaming and, you know, actually review.

Killer Instinct-5 stars.

I'd Call It... YA Criminal Minds? It has a distinct Ally Carter-ish feel about it--brooding guys, thrilling chases, FBI involvement... no sign of Interpol, yet. ;)
In a Few Words... Cassie and co. pick up where The Naturals left off, only this time, someone's messing with Dean. Cue a freaky game that spans a few hundred pages, multiple dead ends--and bodies--AND squeal-worthy scenes between Cassie and Dean. <3
I'd recommend this to... Definitely not a children's book. :P Fairly graphic when it comes to the murders, and there's the creepy factor that comes with Cassie being a Natural profiler. Lia is questionable as always. :/ So...PG13?
I'm Left With... "I rose up on my toes, my body pressed against his, and returned the kiss, the pain in my face fading, washed away with the rest of the world, until there was only this moment--one that I hadn't thought I'd live to see."


Really though. Killer Instinct.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes, can I please have the third book? Pretty please? *bats eyes*
I just.
I cannot.

My ship sailed. 

My characters lived!

bUT I NEED MORE.

*pointed look at JLB and Jonathan Stroud*

I'm waiting on book three from both of you.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS!

Last month, I was in a reading challenge, and it was a-maz-ing. We had a facebook group and everything. *nodnod* There were certain challenges, like...

Read a book with blue on the cover!

Read a book that starts with the first letter of your first name!

Read a book a friend recommends!

Read a book in the genre you've read least! 

*happy sigh*

Gaahhh. I miss my August Reading Challenggeeeeeeee. Seriously, besides Summer Workshop, that was easily one of the best things I've participated in this year. <3  But anyways, I was looking at my shelf from the challenge on GoodReads, and there were just so many good books. 

Soooo, guess what I decided to do?

 Book recommendations. 

Prepare to be dazzled. :D

The Grisha Trilogy, by Leigh Bardugo

Ohmygosh, these were good. Like, really, really good. I just. DARKLING. NIKOLAI. GAAAH. 

The first book is Shadow and Bone. 

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Two words: Fantasy. Russia.
That should completely convince you to read them. But if it doesn't...um...yeah, fantasy Russia had me sold. Besides that, though, there's the characters (NIKOLAIIIII (although he's not there till the second book)). And the magic system. So cool.

The Leviathan Trilogy, by Scott Westerfield

ASF;KLjsdG;LKDJFG"sD;LKFSOLJdf9OPWEJLFVSDLKMFsklm<cN

[deep breath]

Sorry. I just.

These books.

THESE BOOKS.

[clears throat] Um, basically, Leviathan is a steampunk World War 1. It's Clankers (traditional mechanics and machines) versus Darwinists (Fabricrated creatures). Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I love these. <3

  It is the cusp of World War I. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ genetically fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet. 

Aleksandar Ferdinand, a Clanker, and Deryn Sharp, a Darwinist, are on opposite sides of the war. But their paths cross in the most unexpected way, taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure….One that will change both their lives forever.

 I absolutely loved the steampunk-ness of it. But besides that (which is why I initially wanted to read them) Deryn and Alek were really fun to read about. OH, and I almost forgot the coolest part of them.
[drumroll]


They have pictures.
Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath are all full of illustrations showing scenes from the books and they are insanely cool.
So yeah. Read it if only for the illustrations. <3

Beastly, by Alex Flynn

Beauty and the Beast, in modern day New York City. The 'beast' (aka Kyle/Adrian) is a rich jerk who goes to a fancy private school. 'Beauty' is a poor girl who loves to read and goes to Kyle's school, too, but only because she got it on scholarship and has to work hard to keep herself enrolled. 

Eeeee, I loved this. I'm a sucker for retellings, and Beauty and the Beast is one of the coolest stories to retell. 

This wasn't a serious book. It was funny and light-hearted and cute.

I am a beast.
A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright--a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll stay this way forever--ruined--unless I can break the spell.
Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly . . . beastly.

 Kyle, you snarky little cutie.

If you want to see more of my books from last month, check out my GoodReads shelf for the challenge above. :)
Bonus: currently reading...

Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Story time before the actual review! Yay! :}

So I went and saw a double feature of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire last Thursday, and at the end, when my friends and I were just standing around waiting for the lights to come on, I heard the beginning notes of Atlas by Coldplay, which is on the Catching Fire soundtrack. And I fangirled and danced a bit and sang quietly to myself right there in the middle of the almost empty theater.

This was so me.

So I was all "OMG I MUST BUY THIS SOUNDTRACK AND LISTEN TO IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL I HATE IT". Well, not really...but that was the general idea.

I finally got around to looking up the actual soundtrack on Youtube and this is the best album ever to be released in the history of everything.

In my opinion. *cough* Anywaaaaaaays...

ISN'T THIS THE BEST THING EVER?

So. The soundtrack. I'm gonna talk about it. Yeah.

I am definitely buying this, so I guess that says something in itself. 

Even songs by people I generally don't listen to (read: Mikky Ekko and Christina Aguilera) were songs I loved.  There were a lot of bands I hadn't heard of that I fell in love with, so that's good. Or bad, considering the amount of money I spend on music already...

And this is my final opinion on this soundtrack:

Precious....yessss this is my precious yess...we will buys the precious, yesss we willl....

Until next post!

--Emma

It's the Circle of Inspiration (aka never ending plot holes...)

    Disclaimer: This post is full of fandom gifs. Proceed with caution.

So. Inspiration, aka that feeling where you go from this:

 To this:

I don't know about you guys, but I generally leap up from wherever I am and find my laptop and starting writing. And I'm very excited, so I start picturing what this beautiful thing I'm creating is gonna be like when it's famous and I'm super rich and everyone knows my name. And I have a couple of movies out depicting my life story.

I've been working on this for a little while when I reach a plot whole and I don't know what to do. At all. So I sit at my computer and look like this: 

And this:

Also this:

But then I have this really good idea for a scene that's like 10 chapters later, so I leave the plot hole for now and start writing the Scene. 

My face

                                      

I look at the clock and crap it's 3 am already so I close down my laptop and go to sleep looking like this:

Flash forward and it's the next morning. I get up, get dressed (possibly), eat breakfast, and pull out the laptop to work on the next Great American Novel and I'm stoked for this, 'cause it's a great idea. Really.

I stare at the screen for a few minutes, hoping that inspiration will come. It doesn't. I look like this:

And as much as I may want it to, I just can't write anything. I don't even understand what I wrote! So I close out the document and leave it to collect virtual dust in the farthest corners of my computer. And then a while later I'm looking for something on my computer and see that story, and I open it up because it was actually a pretty cool idea (either that or I completely forgot about it and just wanna know what this weird document is).  And this is my face:

And then the cycle begins all over again...

I actually haven't done that with what I'm working on right now (yet o.O)...but other attempts at writing? I have 1000+ Word documents on my old computer to prove it to you. So, what about you guys? Tell me in the comments!

Later nerds. :)