Where the Magic Happens...

I

t's true what they say. Most of the time, the great things only happen when you get out of your daily routine, overcome all your fear and doubts and do that new thing you've been eyeing for so long.

As I said, most of the time, the magic only happens where your comfort zone ends.

That, though, also depends on these two factors.

1) You are ready to step out of your comfort zone.

2) You step into the right direction.

These two might seem obvious, but especially when it comes to books, I find that it can be quite difficult for both of them to be true.

I, for example, have been getting tired of good ol' YA contemporary lately. After turning to it for the past two years, it was enough.

I did not need any more of those bullied highschool girls with their mysterious boyfriends and difficult family situations in my life and right now, I start feeling a lump in my throat when I look at all those other contemps still sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read.

At first, I thought the time had come for Adult novels. 

I felt like now that I'd obviously had enough of my old passion, I could step right out of my comfort zone, into the Adult genre.

Did not happen that way. 

First of all, I was maybe fed up with that old thing, but not really ready to try something new. Especially something so...uh...drastic. 

And then, I'd never thought about the fact that there are so many adult genres that it's incredibly difficult to decide where to start. Also, every book I grabbed had like...700 pages.

As soon as a friend of mine told me that Bridget Jones is actually from the 90s where they only had uber-dimensional cell phones and NO facebook - I gave up. That was just it. I could not handle it.

Now, without revealing the hysterical teenage girl that I am (deep in my heart), let's get rational again. Jumping straight into adult books did not work for me. I was, after all, not ready to leave YA and also not willing to head straight into Adult books. It even got me in that kind of personal reading crisis where I had no idea what to read and, therefore, had to empty the Amazon.com bargain section - and my wallet.

In the end, I decided to branch out - but in a different direction. Instead of contemporary, I am trying dystopian novels again - which I thought I was done with, too. And I want to read more Fantasy again and finally start with Manga.

Basically, what I'm saying is that we all get to the point where we are in need of something new and exciting that sets itself apart from everyday life (or reading, in this case).

What I learned in the past few months is that there's no need to venture into something you don't even want in the first place. It's enough to just grab that one book everybody else loves that you never thought you'd pick up, be surprised, and have a new favorite genre!

Summer Lovin' Readathon - Wait-it's Friday already?

Today's theme is Book Shimmies. Basically, everyone else shares how they're doing with their reading. How far have they gotten, how tiny are their TBR piles?

I think I'm going to spend the day hiding in a dark room where noone can see my blushing face.

Because, after successfully finishing The Year of the Great Seventh on Tuesday (or Wednesday?), I started Ashes and...am halfway through. That's right, I had 2 (or 3?) days with nothing to do and I chose to read a solid 250 pages. My laziness reached new - unbelievable - levels.

I won't even go into all the excuses I could come up with - which basically revolve around The Sims 3 and 2 Broke Girls (seriously, that show? Uh-mazing!!!)

I will just vow to get some decent reading done these last few days. 

FRIDAY - read at least four hours 

SATURDAY - read at least 1.5 hours (work)

SUNDAY - read all day until 5PM (except for library time from 10AM to 1PM)

This way, I will hopefully finish Ashes before the weekend, then start either Hourglass or Shadows on Saturday, finish either one on Sunday and start with the one of them that's left. If that made any sense.
Should be doable, right? RIGHT?

Review: The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.

Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.

Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

A Long Story Short:

I love Sarah Dessen's novels, her writing, but The Moon and More completely failed to amaze me. I didn't like the main character, or any of the other characters. The plot was slow, or non - existent, and towards the ending we got a fast-foward instead of solved problems and meaningful messages. In my opinion, this was a boring beach story and nothing more - sorry!

Review for You:

I'm going to spare you the introduction and get straight to the point: this one was an epic fail. Frankly, I haven't been this disappointed with a book in...months? And by a Sarah Dessen probably never.

I mean, The Moon and More definitely annoyed me in a way that was similar to her debut novel, That Summer.

Too slow, nothing happening, no character development. 

Basically, all the things I love about Sarah Dessen were in there - but everything else, the fundament a good novel needs was nowhere to be found.

Let's start - literally - at the beginning.

It's never a good sign to lose interest in a book after the first chapter, but I could have handled that. It took me awhile to pick the book up every time, but I managed and promised myself that things would get better the more I read. It was Sarah Dessen, after all.

Instead of starting the book with a crucial scene - or just a funny introduction, we were thrust into everyday life at a beach house company that the story took place at. 

I think everyone knows these kinds of people who you have just met but who start telling you their whole entire life story and situation right away. No introductions, no small talk, they go straight to the point.

That's exactly how the narrator, Emaline, was for me. The story mainly focused on her everyday life. Which meant her work at the family business, chores, work, a night out at a diner, work, chores, catfights with sisters, work, chores,...

You get the point. And in between were page - long monologues about her parents' story,about her stepdad, her sister, herself, everyone else in the smalltown she lives in.

Now, all of this still isn't the big problem I had with The Moon and More. 

I could have even handled the rather boring setting. Sarah Dessen is known for letting all of her books be set in Colby, a little fictional beach town. And she is also known for constantly mentioning the beach on her blog. After a while, it was just too much beach and beach atmosphere for me to handle. I felt like she was writing the book more for herself than for the readers. It was more a description of how life at the beach could be like if you weren't there for a vacation but lived there year - round and that irritated me. I personally don't care about the beach or life at the beach and I don't want to read a whole book if beach work/life is the only thing it deals with.

Addititonally, I hated pretty much all of the characters. Emaline freaked me out with her ongoing selfishness. Luke was a nice guy until he seemed to turn into that totally strange creature that can only be explained by a sudden swap of brains - and certainly not character development. Emaline's family was plain weird (seriously, what's with all of their hanging out in her room all the time???) and - even worse - completely one-dimensional. 

Anyway, that's still not what made me dislike the book so much.

What had me so annoyed, eventually, was the result of everything mentioned above. It's not like the sheer amount of little problems added to one big one. It's more that without likeable characters or plot or story development, there's not much the book can offer you. There's nothing I want to remember about The Moon and More.

Emaline - and every. single. other. character - completely failed to show any development at all. Which made it impossible for me to unravel a message behind those 400+ pages of story.

Also, Emaline's life at the end of the book was so similar to what it was like in the beginning that I honestly think it wasn't even worth it to read the story about her summer at all.

Overall, I'm sorry to say that I just don't recommend the book. I didn't like it and I can't see why anyone else would. However, Sarah Dessen still remains one of my favorite authors of all time and that's why I highly recommend her novel The Truth About Forever, Lock and Key, Just Listen and What Happened to Goodbye.

Summer Lovin' Read-A-Thon...Better Late than Never!

Day One - Class Orientation

Oh, hello, guys! First of all, I'm late. And then, I'm also Laura, eighteen years old, living in Germany, reading in English, Thinking in Sarcasm and Blogging/Speaking in code most of the time.

As of right now, I find myself in that weird summer between Highschool (the German version) and University where I do a lot of firsts and a lot of lasts, but most of all I am lazy all day and drive my mom insane.

As you can tell from my blog, I love YA and read almost anything but. Lately, though, I am setting my radar away from your average contemporary and on to new horizones :D

Oh, and I talk to much. And just for the record: I am always late.

And these are the books I want to read this week:

Day Two - You're the One that I Want

Bookish Ingredients for Your Perfect Summer

A fun, fluffy and funny series. You know it's perfect when you manage to finish one installment in a day easily.

I'd suggest The Pretty Little Liars or The Lying Game Series by Sara Shepard if you're up to some mystery.

The Confessions Series by Louise Rozett if you're up to some teenage drama.

My Choice this year:

The Heist Society Series by Ally Carter

A Huge, Epic Series that will stay in your head all the way until next summer

The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling

The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare

My Choice this Year:

The Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead

That one Trilogy You Have Been Wanting to Pick Up Forever:

The Under the Never Sky Trilogy by Veronika Rossi

The Delirium Trilogy by Lauren Oliver

My Choice this Year:

The Hourglass Trilogy by Myra McEntire

The Ashes Trilogy by Ilsa J. Bick

So...You guys scare me! The Top Ten Most Intimidating Books I've ever read

Books that are scary because of their length:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead

Reached by Ally Condie

Partials by Dan Wells

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

And the ones that have pretty heavy duty content that sometimes I just don't think I can handle:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This is one of the few Adult books that I read - and it did make me cry.

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Be prepared - I guess every Hopkins book will weigh you down. But then again, she also manages to save you from yourself. If needed.

Tempest by Julie Cross

This one is not particularly said, it's just complicated. Time travel almost always results in my brain knotting itself into weird twists!

July Books

The Ones I Really Want:

Squeelworty Sequels!

Sorry, I'm just not that into you:

The Summer Lovin’ Readathon is a week-long readathon event hosted by seven independent bloggers! (Oh, Chrys!, Tumbling Books, Effortlessly Reading, Love Life Read, Shelf Addiction, Read Sleep Repeat, and Reviewing Wonderland)

Spend the week reading at your own pace, when and how you want to. There will be daily challenges for awesome prizes and opportunities to get points toward the Grand Prize Packs.

As if that weren’t enough – the week will end with a 24-hr marathon readathon! Twitter parties, mini-challenges, games, prizes given EVERY HOUR, and more chances to get points toward the Grand Prize Packs.

Sign-ups will be open through July 6th. I’m in, are you?!