Tag Archives: Inspiration

Fairy Tale

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Book: Fairy Tale By Cyn Balog

Pages/Format: 248/Hardcover

My Thoughts: This book is Morgan and her best friend/boyfriend Cam.  About a week before their 16th birthday, Cam’s cousin Pip comes to stay, and tells Morgan that Cam is a fairy, and needs to take his place as Fairy King.  Morgan, however, decides to fool the fairies, because they are meant for each other.

It was just okay for me.  In the end, Cam goes off to the Otherworld to be the Fairy King, and Pip takes his place.  No one remembers Cam except for Morgan, who’s immune to fairy magic. 

I was kinda bored reading it, and I kept wondering why she was in love with Cam.  She was so dependant on him, and the whole time, I wanted them to break up.  It felt too forced, and we don’t see too much of Cam. 

I wanted to like it, because the premise was so intriguing, but it was hard to actually like the book.  Plus, we don’t really learn anything about the fairies, which is unfortunate, because that would have made the book so much more interesting. 

It is her first novel, so I’m hoping that’s why it wasn’t completely amazing.  I’m interested in what Balog’s future works, and hopefully they’ll be a little more developed than this one.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.  It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either.  It was a quick read and it did have a happy ending.

The Lady In The Tower: The Fall Of Anne Boleyn

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Book: The Lady In The Tower: The Fall Of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 354/Hardcover

My Thoughts: It was really interesting.  The book focuses solely on Anne Boleyn’s last frew months, and goes into depth the reasons for her downfall, as well as events leading up to her arrest, and the aftermath of her death.

It was extremely readable, and had a lot of detail.  Weir also takes a look at people who supported Anne as well as those who hated her, as well as the other men who were also put on trial for having affairs with Anne.  It’s definitely not as one-sided as I thought it would be.  It moved pretty fast, which is due to the fact that it is solely devoted to her last months.   

I also liked how she talked about how historians interpreted the different events in the book, and how they changed over time.  Also interesting was the chapter about different legends and ghost stories surrounding Anne Boleyn.  It was unexpected, but shows how important a figure she really is. 

It’s really aimed for those who are at least somewhat familiar with the time period because there’s not a lot of background information on Anne Boleyn’s childhood, or her life leading up to her final few months.

Rating: 4 out of 5.  There are a lot of good things about the book, and it’s certainly more readable than some of her other books, but it’s certainly not aimed at the average person who might not have a background on the subject.

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!

The Children Of Henry VIII

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Book: The Children Of Henry VIII

Pages/Format: 366/Paperback

My Thoughts: I thought this book deserved a re-read, especially since historical fiction is one of my new projects.

I really liked it, and found the relationships between his 3 children (plus Lady Jane Grey) really interesting.  There’s definitely a lot of material I can use.

Since I took notes, there were a lot of things that I noticed- one being how important religion was.  There was a lot of back and forth between the Catholics and the Protestants, which wasn’t a surprise, but still…a lot seemed to go back to religion.

One of the criticisms I have is that anytime medical issues were mentioned, different possibilities about what they were followed.  While I appreciate Weir’s attempt to be thorough, and mention the possibilities of what the different monarchs had, we can’t make assumptions because what we know may not be accurate.  What was recorded most likely isn’t the whole story, and how the doctors described something might not be how doctors today would describe something.  After all, we still have no idea what the sweating sickness was. 

A great example would be the times that Mary thought she was pregnant, and even showed signs she was pregnant, but actually wasn’t pregnant.  Weir goes through the different possibilities about what may have caused Mary’s false pregnancy, talking about how a phantom pregnancy was the most likely cause.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it, because I did.  It was interesting to read about the different theories about various illnesses they all had, but at the same time, it was frustrating because we can’t know for sure what they had.  I will give Weir the benefit of the doubt, and assume the different theories were in the sources Weir used when doing research for the book.

Another major issue I had was when she talked about Lady Jane Grey.  I was reading the part about Jane’s execution, and couldn’t figure out why it was so familiar.  And then I realized that the same passage was used in Innocent Traitor, nearly word for word!  She clearly used her own books as research for Innocent Traitor, which I don’t have a problem with, especially since Weir is known for writing about British monarchs.  But to use the exact same passage in a completely different book?  And not only that, but the wording in Innocent Traitor was almost exactly the same, if not entirely the same. 

Despite the couple criticisms I have, it was still a great book, and very informative.  I have several pages of notes, front and back, plus lots of highlighting and underlining, and even notes in the margins.  And I have quite a few questions and things I want to know more about.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.  I’d recommend it to anyone, especially those who like history or want to learn more about the relationships between Prince Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth.

Harry and the Potters

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With my Harry Potter obsession, and my growing obsession with wizard rock, it’s rather surprising that I’ve never devoted a whole post to any specific wizard rock bands. 

Harry and the Potters were my introduction to wizard rock (henceforth known as wrock), and they are one of my favorite bands.  They were the only band I had ever heard of, as far as wizard rock goes, and they’re definitely a great place to start. 

One of the things I love about wrock (besides the band names) are the song titles.  Based on the song titles alone, I’d say some of my favorite songs are Hermione Screws Up The Polyjuice Potion, Never Going To The Bathroom Again, Smoochy Smoochy Pukey Pukey, We Save Ron’s Life, Part 8, the Hogwarts Tonsil Hockey Team and the Human Hosepipe. 

Other favorite songs include Bertie Botts, I Am A Wizard, Phoenix Tears, and Harry Potter.  As for my favorite album, I honestly can’t pick because they’re all good, but The Enchanted Ceiling is probably the one I’d start out with. 

They’re pretty creative, because all of the songs are from the perspective of Harry Potter, and they’re all about Harry Potter.  Anything that can inspire a whole genre is pretty awesome in my book.  If all of the different bands can do music in character, there’s no reason why I can’t write a harry potter fanfic. 

Hopefully they’ll come out with something new soon, since I’m always looking for new wrock.  I may have to start taking a look at the multitude of compilation albums.

Innocent Traitor

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Book: Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 399/hardcover

My Thoughts: Having read several of her books, I thought I’d give this book a try.  It’s about the life of Lady Jane Grey, who is also known as the 9 Days’ Queen.

The format I found to be somewhat annoying, as she shifted between the different characters.  Just as I got used to one character, she would sometimes switch to someone else.  While it was interesting to see the different perspectives, it would have been nice to focus on one character throughout the novel.  Plus, I felt like the shifting characters fell flat- the characters had very similar voices, and if it weren’t for the “headers” and different events/relationships, it would be very hard to distinguish between everyone.  Personally, I thought the most distinct character was the executioner of Lady Jane Grey.   

Something I thought was interesting was that I found myself wanting to take notes.  I think that’s the direct result of having read several of her non-fiction books, and taking notes what I’m reading. 

I could envision everything happening- she really brought the people to life, and dug deeper than just the facts, which also brought the events and the people to life.  I honestly felt like I was one of the characters in the book.  Or if not one of the characters, then I felt like I was eavesdropping or peering into their life in some way. 

My Rating: It gets a 3 out of 5, as it is Weir’s 1st attempt at fiction.  It was very enjoyable overall, despite the fact that the characters sounded very similar.

I, Lorelei

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Book: I, Lorelei by Yeardley Smith

Pages/Format: 339/Hardcover

My Thoughts: This book was okay.  It’s about 11-year-old Lorelei, who writes a journal to her cat who died.  She chronicles her life as a 6th grader so that he knows what’s going on in her life.

I thought it looked interesting when I was at the library.  I liked how Smith used journal entries to tell the story, and the fact that the journal was written to her cat made it more interesting and original.  And the fact that she was writing to her cat made it feel a lot more personal.  Lorelei included a horoscope or a word-of-the-day too, which was different and slightly unexpected. 

A few parts made me smile, and a few times I even felt sad for Lorelei.  I found my attention wandering a few times, getting bored with the story. 

I found it hard to relate to at times, but that’s probably because it’s targeted to kids, and I’m not the target audience, but it was still enjoyable, and held my interest long enough to get through it.  I’d definitely recommend it for kids.

Rating: 3 out of 5.  I liked the format, and found myself wanting to know what was going on in Lorelei’s life.  Writing an entire novel in letters or as journal entries is something I definitely want to doing sometime, but nothing I’ve really come up with would work well with that.

Spilling Open

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Title: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Author: Sabrina Ward Harrison

Pages/Format: 176/Paperback

My Thoughts: I’ve had this on my bookshelf, and the last time I looked at it was when I first bought it.  It’s a mix of being a personal journal, photography, art, and collages.  I loved it when I first got it, but now, it’s okay.  There are still several things she says that ring true, and resonates with me, but overall, I had mixed feelings this time around.  I found the text hard to read, and some of the pages had too much going on for me to fully enjoy it.

It was fairly repetitive and angsty at times, which didn’t really bother me, since my journals are somewhat similar in that regard.  And since it’s the diary of a young girl discovering who she is, it was somewhat expected.  There’s a fair amount of rambling, iand sn’t really coherent.  That was disappointing, but again, for a personal journal-type book, it wasn’t that surprising either.

I loved some of the quotes she had scattered throughout the book, but found she relied too much on them at times.  It would have been nice to see more of her own thoughts, even if the actual text was disjointed, and didn’t always make sense.  That was another thing I didn’t like- the text was all over the place, and it was hard to connect some of the thoughts together. 

I loved a lot of the artwork and photography, which quickly became one of my favorite parts of the book.  However, it did overwhelm some of the pages, since there was too much to focus on and look at.

Rating: I give it a 4 out of 5.  The artwork was great, and she captures what it’s like to be a young woman really well, which is why it gets a higher rating than it really should have received.  Also boosting the rating is the fact that I feel inspired to be more creative with my own journal.

I Really Love Fanfiction

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Fanfiction is one of my favorite things.  I go through it in waves- I read a lot of it in high school and my 1st year or two of college.  I read it sporadically for several years, but I’ve been reading a lot of it lately. 

I love reading it because it’s interesting to see what everyone does with the characters.  Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of bad fanfiction to find the good, but the good stories make the search worth it.   

I like writing fanfiction too- the possibilities are endless.  Fanfiction plays into the whole “what-if” thing.  It gives me a chance to focus on just writing, and also writing in a specific world with specific characters.  Writing fanfiction is a way for me to get out the what-if’s going through my head, as well as a way for me to develop characters without…coming up with my own.  After all, what better way to get better at writing than to use already established characters and an already established world?

Don’t get me wrong, I love creating my own characters and everything, but some of my earliest fiction writing is fanfiction.  It’s really interesting to see the change from my 1st fanfic to now, so about 8 years or so, when I made the jump from personal journals to fanfiction, and eventually to original fiction.  Writing it gave me the confidence I needed to keep writing and to eventually start coming up with my own ideas. 

I honestly know nothing about fanfiction and copyright laws, other than some authors are in favor of fanfiction, while other authors aren’t, so that’s something to take into consideration when writing fanfiction.  I know J.K. Rowling doesn’t mind fanfiction, so I know I’m safe with Harry Potter fanfiction.  I should probably look into that, since it’ll probably be a good thing to know about, so it’ll have to go on my list of things to do. 

Fanfiction really is interesting though, because there are so many different ideas out there. and it’s always interesting to see what other people come up with.  For me, if writing fanfiction works for you (and you’re not doing anything illegal or breaking any copyright laws or anything), I say go for it.

Lunch With Authors

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Prompt: Name an author that you’d like to have lunch with.

My 1st response was to this prompt was “living or dead?”  I thought I’d do both.

J.K. Rowling would be my choice for an author that’s still living.  I loved the Harry Potter series so much, and I’d love to be able to talk with her.  I’d probably be too much in awe to say anything, but eventually I’d probably say something.  I’d probably end up asking her about the series, but hopefully I’d remember to get in a few other questions.  The books are just so magical, and to be able to talk with J.K.R. would be so amazing.

Jane Austen would be my choice for an author who’s no longer alive.  I’m a big fan of her books, and just love her characters!  I haven’t read Mansfield Park, but I have read her other 5 books, and I must say that I really do love Jane Austen.  I can’t put a finger on why I love her books, but it’s a combination of her writing and the characters.  I will admit to not liking Pride and Prejudice the 1st time I read it, but I think it was because I had trouble get used to her writing style.  When I read it the 2nd time, I could appreciate it, and fell in love with it.  Emma and Sense and Sensibility are 2nd and 3rd, with Persuasion and Northanger Abbey being my 4th and 5th, if I ranked them in order of how much I liked them.

And while my answers really isn’t a surprise, given that Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice are my top 2 favorite books, I think those are my 2 choices.