Fruits Basket, Volume 1

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Book: Fruits Basket, Volume 1 by Natsuki Takaya

Pages/Format: 200/Paperback

My Thoughts: I love Fruits Basket!  Fruits Basket is a manga series written/illustrated by Natsujki Takaya.  It’s about the Tohru, who’s an orphan.  She ends up living in with the Sohma family who are possessed by the spirits of the Chinese Zodiac. 

I first heard about Fruits Basket in high school when we watched part of the anime series in the Anime Club I was involved in.  A few years ago, I discovered it was actually based on the manga, so I bought the first couple, and found I loved it!  There are a total of 23 volumes- I only have the first 15 volumes, so I’ll definitely be reviewing the those.  I’ll see if I can check out the remaining 8 from the library.

So onto Volume 1.  We get introduced to Tohru, her two best friends, and several members of the Sohma family.  For the first book of the series, it’s pretty good.  I had some trouble with it the very first time I read it (I’ve read it a few times) because it was my first time reading a manga, so I wasn’t used to it, but I picked up on the flow of it pretty quickly. 

I really don’t have any other thoughts on it, but it’s very cute, and pretty funny.  Volume 1 hints at some darkness, which happens later on in the series.  The artwork is pretty cool too- it’s a lot more detailed than I ever expected. 

Rating:I give it a 5 out of 5.  Even though I’ve read it a few times, sometimes it’s a little hard to follow what’s going on, though it’s more that it’s been a while since I’ve read it.

Percy Jackson And The Olympians: Book 3

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Book: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

Pages/Format: 312/Hardcover

My Thoughts: Of the 3 books I’ve read, this is probably my favorite.  It was fast-paced and I couldn’t put it down.  In The Titan’s Curse, Percy goes on a quest to find Artemis and his friend Annabeth, who both go missing. 

I didn’t find myself annoyed with Percy, or comparing the series to Harry Potter.  I still find there are similarities, but they weren’t noticeable in this book.  The mythology element has been one of the very few redeeming qualities of the series, and I loved the focus on Artemis in this book.  I’m still not of the 1st-person perspective for this series, but it worked well for this particular book, and his writing style didn’t bother me like it did in the previous 2 books. 

I was iffy on whether I wanted to continue the series, but this book made me want to finish it.

Rating: I give it a 4 out of 5, because I liked the focus on Artemis.  Plus, it sets up the last 2 books in the series fairly well.

Writing Can Be Hard

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It was a struggle to write last week.  I’m not sure why, but it happens.  I managed to work on something different almost every single day, but I had to force myself to get it done a couple times.  It was a good reminder, though, that writing isn’t always easy, and sometimes I don’t want to write.  But I usually feel better after I write, so it wasn’t a total loss.  Plus, the fact that I’m still writing 5 months after the end of November is a pretty big accomplishment.  Ususally my writing is limited to the month of November, and while my pace has considerably slowed since then (no more 5000 word days), I am still writing.   

Not taking a break helped.  The couple times I tried to work on anything NaNo-related, I always waited at least a month before going back to working on it.  And it failed.  I still have some momentum going which is keeping me going. 

I’ve had no problems researching my historical fiction, although it’s pretty much been reading about Henry VIII at this point.  It’s been helpful, because it gives me insight as to what life was like when he was king.  But it’s been slow reading, because I’m taking notes as well.  Plus, it’s a little tedious, but thankfully not as bad as when I read Wars of the Roses.  That was tedious, but I’m totally willing to read it again, mostly because I’m considering doing something related to it.  Plus, it sets up the Tudors, so it’ll be good to have that background, even if I never use it. 

I managed to write during the morning, which worked really well.  It was nice to get it done early, and know that it was out of the way.  

I think I’m going to try something different this week and write for 10 minutes 5 days this week, plus finish up my character profiles.

I’m slightly frustrated that I gained 3 pounds over the last week, but it wasn’t a surprise because I ate way more than I needed to.  It’ll be hard to not turn to food as a way of dealing with things, but at the same time, I really need to change that.  There are better ways of coping than to eat.       

To all the mother’s out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

Carrie Underwood

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Carrie Underwood is one of my favorite singers ever!  Carrie is one of the American Idol winners, back when I used to watch American Idol. 

It’s hard to rank her albums, but if I did, I’d say Some Hearts is my favorite, followed by Play On and Carnival Ride.  I always feel better after listening to her music, so her music is something I listen to when I’m feeling depressed and want to feel better.  Or even when I’m in a good mood, and want something upbeat, she’s someone I can listen to.

As for favorite songs by Carrie, I really like So Small, Just A Dream, and Crazy Dreams off Carnival Ride, Temporary Home, Undo It, and Play On off of Play One, and Don’t Forget To Remember Me, Some Hearts, Jesus, Take The Wheel and Starts With Goodbye from Some Hearts. 

Anytime I listen to her music, or see her on tv, I tend to think about my grandpa, because we used to watch Americal Idol together, and he really liked her.  She seems very gracious, and has no problem returning to American Idol- it seems like she’s always thankful for her time on the show, which I haven’t seen from a lot of the other contestants.  At least from what I’ve seen.

I think that wraps up this post, so have a great day everyone!

No Shortage Of Bizarre Writing

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I thought I’d share some of my more recent nano-isms.  Apparently, I’m still in “just write, and edit later” mode, which is fine, and works rather well for me.  Today’s nano-isms are from my fred and hermione fanfic.

  • “It’s time for dinnger,” sje said.  “Come on, you need to help.”  (Dinnger?  Sadly, it goes downhill from here)
  • “ron, shurt up,” ginny said.  (I had to giggle at this.  I have this image of Ron doing something funny with his shirt)
  • “Because she also doesn’tr trsut thw with harry or Hermione,” ginny said.  “She thinks you lot will good off.  But I’m much more likely to kill you so it isn’t that great of an aidea.”  (I don’t even know where to start with this.  Perhaps I need to go find that cliff I’ve mentioned a few times)
  • “You and fred and trwins, so if he can, it sohuldn’t be problem, George” mrs Wesle said.  (Where is that cliff?  Seriously, I need to go find it)
  • “Did you have a nice time exploring the area?” mrs. Weasley asked.  “I’m sorry, I forgot you were hgere draco.”  (I totally forgot about draco, and remembered he was there when he randomly appeared in the paragraph before this)
  • “Right, because there are so many pensieces laying around,” Hermione said. (Pensieces?  Are you kidding me?)

I remember when I would painstakingly edit everything I wrote.  Editing has so gone out the window at this point, and you can tell the difference in writing.  Most of it’s very nice- no typos or weird grammar, and then out of nowhere, there are red and green squiggly lines everywhere! 

I hope you enjoyed the randomness that is called my writing!  I’m sure there will be more to come.

Percy Jackson And The Olympians: Book Two

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Book: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Pages/Format: 279/Hardcover

My Thoughts: Like Book One in the series, I thought it was just okay.  I liked it slightly better than The Lightning Thief, and liked the character of Tyson, who was introduced in the beginning of the novel.

It turns out Tyson was a cyclops, which Percy didn’t pick up on until he met Annabeth, who helped him figure it out.  I don’t particularly care for the being at a different school every year element, but at the same time, being at a new school every year seems to set up what happens the rest of the book. 

I’m still not a fan of his writing style, and I honestly don’t know if it’s something that’ll get better over the next 3 books.  However, the storyline was interesting enough for me that I’m willing to overlook it.  At least, for now, but that might change if I decide to read the rest of the series. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.  It is slightly better than The Lightning Thief, but I think I’m going to hold judgement on the series until I’ve finished reading all of them.

Percy Jackson And The Olympians: Book One

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Book: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Pages/Format: 375/Hardcover

My Thoughts: I thought it was just okay.  The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking of Harry Potter, and how similar the two are.  I loved the mythology element of it. 

The main character, Percy, is the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman.  I wasn’t expecting him to be the son of Poseidon at all, and the ending was slightly surprising.  While someone you thought was Percy’s friend really wasn’t, it wasn’t the person I was expecting at all.

But overall, there really were too many similarities to Harry Potter for me to fully enjoy the book.  A group of three kids off to save the world, with a mentor, and a threat to destroy the world, with elements of magic and a special school (or camp) to get training.  Percy Jackson is pretty much Harry Potter with a mythology element thrown in, at least based on the first book in the series.

The writing is okay- I found it to be somewhat simplistic, but since it’s Riordan’s 1st YA novel, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and hope that the writing in the rest of the series gets better.  The 1st-person perspective worked, but I think 3rd-person might have worked a little better.   

Rating: 2 out of 5.  It was a quick read, but the mythology element was pretty much the only thing that saved the book for me.

Two Days In…So Far, So Good

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May is my least favorite month of the year…you’d think it would be a happy month, on account of my birthday being in May.  But May will always be associated with my grandpa’s death.  And since it was about 10 days before my birthday, I always associate the two, probably because I was still grieving. 

Last year, for pretty much the whole month, I randomly cried, felt really depressed, and didn’t want to get out of bed at all.  So far, nothing out of the ordinary, and hopefully it’ll stay that way.

I’ve been listening to this one podcast called Greetings From Nowhere, which I heard about on this other podcast, and it’s hysterical.  It’s these 2 women who live in Wenatchee, Washington, talking about their lives in Wenatchee and what it’s like living in a small town.  I’m slowly starting to catch up, but they make living there sound like so much fun!  The Viva La RLF, Schwanbeck Stories, and the CBS, you rat bastards episodes are my 3 favorites episodes so far.  I totally find myself responding to what they’re saying, and other times, I’m laughing hysterically at something they’ve said.

I still need to catch up on Inside The Podcasting Studio, which will happen after I catch up on Greetings From Nowhere.  There aren’t as many episodes, and they’re about half the length, so it won’t take as long.  From there, I’ll probably alternate between Accio Potter Wizard Radio and the Jane Austen Podcast until they’re both done. 

I have a nice stack of library books too!  Most of them are by Alison Weir, plus a David Starkey book.  And I checked out the first two books from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, to balance all of the long, non-fiction books I decided I needed to read.  Yay for being busy!

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

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Book: The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

Pages/Format: 298/Hardcover

My Thoughts: The Annotated Alice contains both Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. 

Alice In Wonderland was a great book, and I loved it.  The notes on the side were helpful, and described different traditions and references that Carroll makes.  At the same time, the notes were really distracting, and I sometimes found myself focusing more on the notes than on the actual book.  Overall, the side notes were really helpful.

There were also illustrations scattered throughout Alice In Wonderland and really detailed.  More illustrations would have been nice, but the ones that were in the book were really nice to look at. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie, but I definitely like the book a lot better.  I loved reading the different poems and songs, and the characters were memorable.  The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Harts, The Caterpillar, The Cheshire Cat, and Alice were interesting characters.  While I liked Alice, I found the other characters a lot more interesting, and I became attached to all of them. 

Through The Looking Glass, I didn’t like as much.  It was enjoyable, but I would have been perfectly fine if Carroll never wrote it.  I liked Alice, and I liked Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but didn’t really care for any of the other characters.  I liked the poems scattered throughout the book too.  As for the illustrations and annotations, I felt the same way about them in Through The Looking Glass as I did in Alice’s Adventure’s In Wonderland.

The Wasp In A Wig, which is a suppressed scene of Through The Looking Glass, was also included.  It was okay, but it felt like an afterthought, like it was tacked on to the book because it should be there. 

Overall, I really liked it, and loved the illustrations. 

Rating: 4 out 5, for a very enjoyable book.

So Now What?

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I’ve been reading The Lady In The Tower: The Fall Of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir, which is about the last 3 months of Anne Boleyn.  It’s pretty interesting, and so far, the information is relatively new to me.  I’m finding that the more I read, the more vague ideas I get.  I might need to read about the ideas I’m interested in, but for now, I’ll stick to a general overview because getting different perspectives would be really helpful.  Besides, I need to remind myself of the different things going on.

Writing’s going okay- I went a little over 175 for a couple of the things I worked on, and wrote almost double what I expected for the 3rd project.  I had to re-read my snape and tonks story and my draco and hermione story, since I had completely forgotten what they were about.  They’re pretty short, so it didn’t take too long.  I also had to re-read the NaNo from a couple years ago, but I decided to read the last few pages of it instead of reading the whole thing.  I think I’ll work on 4 novels this week, and write 125 words for each of them.  Plus, I’ll continue working on my characters.  I definitely want to be working on something pretty much everyday, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself or anything, so I’ll attempt to slowly increase the number of things I work on every week.  The number of words might change week to week, depending on my mood, and what I think I can handle.

I’m back to using sparkpeople.  I’ve used it off and on for the last few years, and have found it to be a great resource…when I don’t get bored with keeping a food/exercise journal.  For a free weight loss website, it’s actually really helpful, and has a lot of information on it.  I tend to get bored with the food and exercise journal aspects after a few months, hence why I’ve used it off and on.  Going to the gym yesterday was a struggle, and I was debating whether or not I should go, because I was still really tired.  I got more than enough sleep, but apparently not as much as I needed.  I ended up going, mostly because it’s on my way home from my writer’s group.  Unfortunately, it didn’t give me the energy boost I thought it would, but at least I can say I went.

Have a great day!