Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Summary (from Goodreads):

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

SOMEBODY TAKE ME TO AN UNFAMILIAR PLACE AND GET LOST WITH ME. I WANT TO FALL IN LOVE AND PERHAPS EVEN STAY IN LOVE. I WANT TO MAKE A TRUE FRIEND WHO ENCOURAGES ME TO FIND HAPPINESS. I WANT TO JUMP AND TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH.

There are endless reviews of Just One Day on this wonderful world we call the internet and the majority of them say that this novel is an amazing one of personal growth and love. They say that Forman is an exquisite storyteller who seems to craft realistic, complicated and enthralling characters with ease. And I agree.. completely and wholly. But I never doubted this; I never doubted Just One Day would be beautifully written or that characters would evoke an array of emotions in me. After reading If I Stay and Where She Went for me the layered characters and raw storytelling of Just One Day was a given that Forman.

What I didn't completely expect was the effect Just One Day has on me. While reading If I Stay and Where She Went I empathised with the characters, I cried for them and I wanted them to get there happily ever after and while I felt the same things for the characters of Just One Day, I also felt like the story really changed me. I don't think I've read a book that has ever affected me in a way like this one has.

At the beginning when Allyson is surrounded by her tour group but feels so disconnected, I knew Just One day would be an instant favourite for me because Forman seemed to put into words how being alone and being lonely are two completely different things. When Allyson watched the Guerilla Will performance of Twelfth Night I wanted to go out and find something that made my eyes shine with awe. When Allyson got lost in Paris with Willem I wanted to immerse myself somewhere. The moment Allyson told her guidance counselor that she didn't know what to do and she didn't want to disappoint her parents, it struck a chord in me. Everything Allyson does or feels in this book either made me feel understood or made me want to take control of my own life.

What I'm trying to say really is that not only is this book gorgeously written and not only is the love story heartbreaking, Just One Day is inspiring and the emotions appear to fly off the pages and inhabit your very core.

I definitely recommend Just One Day to all of you, it isn't exactly a light summer read but it is a damn good book written by a damn good author. There's no question as to if I'll read Just One Year, reading this book barely gave me any information about Willem and getting inside his head will just be insane.

Music choice: This song has been playing on the radio non stop at the moment and I heard it again a couple of hours ago and all I could think of was this book... 

'I didn't know I was lost'

This is Wake Me Up by Avicii 

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/wake-me-up-single/id659284622

Meme: Stuck In My Head #1 - Resolution

Stuck In My Head is a new weekly meme, hosted here, that spotlights the songs you just can't seem to get out of your head. 

Hey guys! I thought I'd start a meme up so I could share with y'all my very favourite tunes and just generally what is constantly being replayed each week. For this week it is most definitely the song Resolution by Matt Corby... I discovered this little gem on an advert of Youtube and it is one of the few adverts that I haven't skipped, I guess it was love and first listen. ;) 

Since then I have uncovered that Matt Corby is an Australian singer-songwriter who was on the 2007 Australian Idol when he was just 16 ((I'm 16 and this little fact makes me feel a little failure-ish.. why must so many people have achieved so much by the age of 16!? eh?)) and he finished the competition runner up but continued to work on his music career.

Anywaays, it may have taken 6 years for me to find out about Corby but I'm definitely going to be listening to more of his music after listening to Resolution, his voice is amazing and I think I might just love the guy.

If you haven't heard of it before... 

 itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/resolution-single/id649304983

Please do share your Stuck In My Head in the comments or a link to your own Stuck In My Head posts. I would love to have a look and perhaps discover some new favourite artists. Feel free to discuss why you love your pick(s) so much and if you're a book blogger like myself, whether or not your pick(s) remind you of a book you have read or are reading! :) 

Review: Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Summary (from Goodreads):

Saba lives in Silverlake, a wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms where her family scavenge from landfills left by the long-gone Wrecker civilization. After four cloaked horsemen kidnap her beloved twin brother Lugh, she teams up with daredevil Jack and the Free Hawks, a girl gang of Revolutionaries. 

Saba learns that she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Saba and her new friends stage a showdown that change the course of her civilization.

Blood Red Road is just insane.

It is peculiar writing style and it is reading the stars and it is cage fights and it is crazy ass giant killer worms and it is bloodstone growing warmer as you get closer to your heart's desire. And I loved it.

Dammit. As soon as I got used to the lack of quotation marks and deliberate misspellings prying this book from my hands was near impossible. It's honestly one of the most addictive books I've ever read mostly due to the characters that Blood Red Road is about. Saba, the protagonist, is one of those characters that you're not sure you will like at the beginning but as you read on and discover why they are the way they and as you see them change throughout the novel you really start to care for them and understand them. Saba is not a perfect character who is on such a different level you can't relate to her, even though this is a dystopian book the fact Saba has flaws makes her relatable to the reader and just generally makes Blood Red Road a more engrossing book to read.

The other characters such as Emmi - Saba's younger sister - Pa, The Hawks, Ike, Jack etc. are written equally as realistically and all develop as characters as new experiences are thrown at them rather just remaining the same throughout the whole of Blood Red Road. Although I loved most of the characters admittedly Lugh, Saba's twin brother and who being kidnapped starts off the whole adventure/rescue/quest, didn't really appeal to me and this triggered me to not really understand why Saba would go through so much trouble and pain to find Lugh. This is probably because Lugh only appears at the beginning and ending of Blood Red Road and is only mentioned by Saba when she explains how perfect he is so there wasn't much information about him given in the novel for me to care about him. It would have been nice to have seen more flashbacks in the novel about Saba and Lugh's childhood for readers to understand why Saba loves him so dearly but that's only a tiny thing I would have liked changed and I'm sure we'll find out more about Lugh in the next book.

While the basic story line is pretty simple, a girl going to the ends of the world to find her sibling, it's actually very enjoyable to read. I'd really like to find out more about the history of the world in Blood Red Road in the installment because although we did get glimpses of these 'wreckers' and the King we haven't got the full story yet.

So the plot is great, the characters are awesome and lastly but definitely not least, the romance in this book is absolutely adorable. Jack and Saba are officially one of my favourite sort-of-kinda couples from YA fiction, their chemistry is so obvious to everybody around them and to be honest, from the second Jack made his first appearance in the novel I knew he would be perfect for my bristly but lovable Saba.

I can't wait to get my hands on the next book, Rebel Heart, which I believe is already out because I want more Jack and Saba, I want more Hawks and I just really want to know who this mysterious-kinda-creepy-but-weirdly-captivating DeMalo guy is.

Music choice: Simply because of Saba's never wavering need to find Lugh and not because I'm implying an incestuous relationship between the twins.. I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab For Cutie 

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/plans/id79018972

Review: Independence by Shelly Crane

Summary (from Goodreads):

In the fourth and final installment, Maggie and Caleb must tie up all the loose ends of their lives and make a way to be together completely on their own. With everything that happened with Bish and Maggie's father, she's almost reluctant to move on and move out. And now she must figure out all of this...stuff...with Haddock. But of course, nothing can stay simple for the Jacobsons. Enemies who were thought to be dissolved have decided to not go down so easily. And old flames come calling for more than just Maggie. Caleb is torn between leading his family and personal wants. Maggie is torn between Caleb and being the leader of their people. But neither will let what they need most to be pushed to the wayside. They are determined to make it all work, design a plan toward destiny, and make everything right again for themselves and their family.

And then there's a wedding...

If you looked up the definition of 'cute' you would find a picture of this book. This series is the epitome of cute; it is cute bordering on cheesy and cringe inducing. If you aren't in the right mood when reading Independence and every Significance Series novel before this last installment you could easily hate these novels for their overload of cheesiness. Fortunately, after a long withdrawal from romantic YA novels and as I was feeling pretty down from my absolute lack of a significant other (you see what I did there? eh? eh?)  I was in the perfect mood to read a romantic, chick flick-y book about two soul mates.

My expression, late at night/early in the morning, was a constant 'awwhr' shape. I couldn't not enjoy reading this book even though I did have a couple of 'what the' moments.

...I'm not sure why it took me until the last book to say this but what is up with the only heterosexual soul mates, do homosexual Aces not exist? Please do correct me if I'm wrong but there are no significant pairings where both significants are male/female.

Another qualm I had with this read was the fact that Caleb is SO over protective and always there. Earlier I said something about the cheesiness and in most books when either or both of the two people in the relationship are overly clingy or overly protective or fall in love too quickly I wouldn't read past the first couple of pages of the first book of the series, let alone the final novel. To be honest the reason I don't usually read those kinds of books is because they creep me out; the excessive love makes me really uncomfortable.

The sole reason why I was not only able to read this series but actually enjoy it quite a lot was due to NO CHANCE OF IT EVER HAPPENING IN REAL LIFE. For me this read was complete and utter escapism. I was able to look past the fast moving relationship and utter devotion between Caleb and Maggie and all the other significants because in real life people don't touch a stranger and see a mapped out future of them forever and they don't get with-freaking-drawals if they don't touch each other for a certain amount of time and they can't read each other's mind every single second of the day. That is impossible (and when said aloud, veeery creepy... and God, I just realised that I would absolutely hate for somebody to constantly be in my head) and because of the complete impossibility of the story I just wasn't too bothered with it all. If this book had been a portrayal of a realistic love story with Maggie and Caleb acting the way they do in this novel? That would.. no, just no.

Reading this series all depends on what kind of novel you want to read (like always...). If you're the type of person who completely despises excessive love and unrealistic development of relationships in fiction you should really probably give avoid this series at all costs. If you're like me and usually hate these relationships in realistic fiction but could possibly read it in an alternative universe where everything is cray-cray (I promise I just used 'cray-cray' ironically ;) ), maybe give the first novel a go.

But as this is a review for the Independence, the last novel in the series, you have probably read the others and with that in mind... overall this book is a pretty acceptable rounding off to a series. Like its predecessors the story line is put on the back burner to the love story but it's enjoyable to read. Even though this is the ultimate definition of fiction with nothing I can really learn from it to benefit me or affect me in my life I didn't like the lack of homosexual significants, the sometimes just TOO much 'you're mine' and 'claiming' between Maggie and Caled and I found the ending to be a bit too perfect with everyone so happy and jolly.

All in all I liked it but I didn't like bits but I did like it. :D

Music choice: I actually really like this song and although it doesn't completely show the excessive love in the novel this song is cute and I really did find a lot of the novel cute. Also the chorus pretty much sums up everything the Aces believe..

'Until you got love, you know you got nothin'
You're missin' that somethin' that's gonna set you free, yeah
Until you got love, you'll always be runnin'
'Cause love is that one thing that everybody needs'

Until You Got Love by Jon Mclaughlin

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/indiana/id252385135

Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Summary (from Goodreads):

When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he's not alone. He's surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade - a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they came to be there - or what's happened to the world outside.

The Maze Runner is pretty damn original, I can't say I've ever read a book quite like this before. Yes, there is plenty of sci-fi dystopian fiction on the shelves and an influx of them being made into motion pictures at the moment but this particular sci-fi dystopian adventure with its crazy ass ever changing maze and grotesque half flesh half metal killing creatures is just.. wow.

For a girl who likes to relate as much as possible with characters in novels reading a book about a guy dropped into a guy filled world didn't really appeal to me but I'm so glad I gave this a chance. Thomas, our main character, may not have boobs but his clear and raw human characteristics that Dashner writes incredibly well for Thomas and other Gladers in the novel is enough for me to easily relate the characters and to become crazily attached to them.

It's true that I was crazily attached extremely invested in the characters by the the end of The Maze Runner but that's not to say I was so at the beginning. When starting the novel many of the characters blended together, each of them simply a Glader and not separate people, which made it really hard to carry on reading let alone care for any of the characters. Thomas being the only character who wasn't just a Glader even still didn't truly grab my attention at the beginning of The Maze Runner. His behaviour which I would describe as arrogant was extremely irritating to read, he seemed to believe that everybody else should be falling over themselves to answer his questions and grant his wishes.

It is only 100 or so pages in that game changing and unexpected things happen and Gladers turn from Gladers to Chuck, Alby, Newt and Minho. From this point on, albeit the annoyingly repeated thought of Thomas that although he can't remember his past this must be the most traumatic/scariest/happiest moment of his life, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book.

If you haven't read The Maze Runner, I don't want to spoil it for you (this is me presuming you will go read it if you haven't :D ) so I'm just going to vaguely say that the ending AND THE FREAKING EPILOGUE is crazy shocking and if I'm the only one who was surprised I must have missed something really important and this is embarrassing... Anywhooo I am eagerly anticipating reading the next book in this series, I am majorly excited to see developments in the various relationships in the novel and even more excited to see where Dashner decides to take the story line.

Music choice: I seem to pick Linkin Park quite a lot but I think the confused and lost feelings and the desire to belong shines bright in both this song and the book.. 

Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park 

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/meteora/id528435845