Booktubeathon!!! READING!

Yes. Participating. Woot!! I made a video if you wanna check it out : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh9yp4mog8U

If you do not know what the booktubeathon is, it is a readathon started by a bunch of booktubers on youtube. It was started, and is being run by Arial Bissett along with a few other booktubers. It's a weeklong readathon and there are seven challenges.

1. Read a book with pictures. My pick: the graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

2. Start and finish a series. I'm just going to finish a series, and that is the Kane Chronicles so I have The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

3. Read a book with red on the cover. My pick: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

4. Read a book that someone else picks out for you. I'm going to try and finish a book that I was supposed to read for school, The Case for God by Karen Armstrong.

5. Read a book in a genre that you've read the least this year. That is going to be a comedic-memoir for me, Bright Lights, Big Ass: A self-indulgent, surly ex-sorority girl's guide to why it often sucks in the city, or who are these idiots and why do they all live next door to me by Jen Lancaster

6. Read and watch a book to movie adaptation. Going with this month's #summeroflotr read, The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien.

7. Read 7 books and/or 300 pages an average per day. We shall see about this one. I don't think I'll make this one though.

This started at midnight when it turned Monday, and ends Sunday night at midnight when it turns Monday again.

Good luck to anyone else participating!!!

Reading This Week

This week I have a bunch of reading planned!

Currently reading: The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

This is a re-read for me. I must have been watching the movie while reading reading it the first time. I honestly did not realize all of the differences between the movie and the book. Maybe I just didn't care because I liked the movie a lot better. I do really appreciate the book however, and am loving rediscovering it.

LOTR Image from

About to start reading:

I just went to the library and picked up two books that were waiting for me and I cannot wait to start them! The first one is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and the second book is the third and final book of the Kane Chronicles and that is The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan. I am sure I am going to love both of these books :)

Fangirl Image from



Serpent's Shadow Image from

Look What I Just Got!!!!!

Okay, so just so you are aware, this post will probably be full of ridiculousness. I gave you fair warning.

OH MY FRICKING GOD!

I GOT THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER!

SERIOUSLY.

So one day, I was perusing the local Wal-Mart and just happened to come upon...

ISN'T IT FRICKING GORGEOUS?!?!?!?!

The picture seriously doesn't even do it justice. It's a gorgeous grey with the etching and the awesome gold on there. The whole thing is like a velvety-suede kind of fabric, if that makes any sense. 

It's just so soft and I just want to hold it to my chest and stroke it.

Which I did.

In the store.

#DontCare

I just needed it in my life, but I told myself no. You already have it. Are you really going to read it again? It's $21 (practically a steal if you ask me, but hey, money is rough). 

So I waited.

And WAITED.

And then finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. After work I briskly-walked into that baby and picked up the most beautiful that I have come to own. Legit.

What is the most beautiful book that you own? Do you ever just find something and you're just like, I NEED you!?

And did I mention that today, well now it's yesterday, but I haven't gone to sleep, so today- is World Penguin Day?!

I Love Penguins 

Okay, I need to address the big dragon in the room...

Can we just take a second and look at "The Hobbit." An AMAZING book. So good. Needs more credit. Needs to be read by like, everyone. Ever. Serious.

Now, let us look at the two movies that they are calling "The Hobbit."

I do not want to hear anything about the stupid appendix parts that they are adding. I want to talk about everything they have SO WRONG it makes me cringe and want to cry.

The first movie, I was so mad that they got the dialogue wrong when Gandalf showed up at Bilbo's, because, come on. How can you get this wrong? It was written for you. And was a pretty witty moment that made me immediately fall for the book. How dare you? So yea, I'm pretty salty about it. Still. Then it went along and it was ok, and suddenly we get closer to the end and all of a freaking sudden there are a bunch of freaking orcs everywhere and I'm like, "What the hell are you bloody doing???" You can't just put a species in that part that wasn't there. You just can't. Still, the ending was pretty okay, I just knew I couldn't see the second part in theaters, (which is where I saw the first part and my friend had to keep telling me to shut up) but I was resigned to watching.

The second part comes out. I wait for it to get out on DVD and then I keep procrastinating watching it. Finally, I go to my mom's house and it's just there and I sigh and take it home to put it in.

OH MY FREAKING GOD.

It was WORSE than the first part! HOW could it be worse???? Seriously, the entire freaking movie I'm sitting there going, "That didn't happen. That didn't happen. Okay you got the spider part, yay you. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THE DWARVES AREN'T GOING TO THE MOUNTAIN?!?!"

I am SO disappointed in Peter Jackson right now. I feel betrayed. I feel like he slapped Tolkien in the face and said, "No bit**, I'm doing it my way." It makes me want to cry.

And the ending. Ughhh the ending. Noooooot a fan. Not a fan at all. Not even a cliff hanger. Not even really that awesome. Dragon is just like I'm gonna go kill everyone and flies off. Ugh.

Can I just point out how AMAZING this movie could have been? The dialogue is great, the action is awesome, the growth of the characters is moving (expect for the snafu with Thorin until someone practically slaps him in the face to wake up). The Hobbit is an amazing book, and done faithfully could be truly epic and be right on par with Lord of the Rings. It could be worthy of every oscar at the Academy Awards if it had been done faithfully to the book. I am just so sad that the fans aren't even being thought of.

I will still watch the third one, in hopeless hope that they will wake up and smell the book pages and come through with the last one, but in all honesty I am just prepared to hate it.

The Hobbit has burglared my heart

First of all, I want to give some of my background with JRR Tolkien. I'm definitely a fan, though not as religious of a fan as some others may be. I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in theaters and immediately was spellbound into the world of Middle Earth and thirsting for more. I got my hands on probably the biggest book in my collection save for an Encyclopedia of the world, which included all three parts of Lord of the Rings as well as the Appendixes. I do really like and appreciate the books and the whole world of Middle Earth, though I struggled with The Two Towers and sort of took a two year break in the middle of it. I'm sorry but I was getting pretty bored and sick to death of Aragorn and company boringly chasing after Merry and Pippin for so long. I also have all three movies on extended version DVDs (watch the special features! they are amazing!!!). I have also seen the very old 1977 TV animated movie of The Hobbit, which is actually kind of funny to be thinking about in the background of your mind as you read the book. With December 14th coming up fast, I knew I had to finally buckle down and read The Hobbit to hype myself up for the movie and prepare. Yes, I am also a big movie nerd as well as book nerd. And so, this brought me to read The Hobbit on my trip to Indiana.

The first thing that I noticed about The Hobbit? The writing style. I was absolutely surprised about how easy the reading style was in The Hobbit compared to Lord of the Rings. Now, it has been some years since I read Lord of the Rings, and perhaps I am more mature now and could read it better, but the writing style is much more laid back and in a teasing way in The Hobbit compared to Lord of the Rings. I almost feel like it is Gandalf that is the narrator in the way that they will mention that a certain character has other stories about them, but they are not important currently, or in the way that the narrator explains things that reader might not know, like how they describe hobbits at the beginning of the book. The writing style made me feel like I was interacting with the narrator and made getting into the book even easier.

The mood of the writing is also very interesting as you red. The book has a somewhat sarcastic tone to it. The specific line that sticks in my head that is repeated quite often is about how Bilbo keeps wishing that he was back in his hobbit hole, and it wouldn't be the last time that he wished that. You get a sense that things are also pretty bad and horrible in some parts of the world, and that things have gotten very bad in places that were once good. The heroes conquer still. In the end you are left with a sense of security when Bilbo goes back to his quiet, though very changed, peaceful life in Bag-End.

All in all it is the characters who really make the book. Especially Bilbo. Bilbo makes me think of the quote: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." -William Shakespeare. Bilbo is all these things. He is born great, but does not know it. He achieves greatness, quite reluctantly. And he most certainly has greatness thrust upon him. Bilbo does not even want anything to do with adventures when Gandalf first shows up at his door, but Gandalf sees more in him than he can even see in himself. Bilbo beyond proves himself  by the end of this tale. I really feel like all of the characters, though important themselves in other ways, are really all there in this story to shape Bilbo into the hobbit he was meant to be. He is very much the focus. Each of the other characters are certainly interesting and important, especially Gandalf, who is very much an architect of many things going on, and Thorin, the other twelve dwarves, Bard Gollum, and many others that they meet along the way.

The Hobbit is a beautifully intricate story about the adventures of the reluctant adventurer, or burglar as he is referred, Bilbo Baggins. There are dangers, both magical and not, other-wordly creatures, treasure, dragons, revenge, magical rings, sure-death situations, and even some war action. A quiet and boring hobbit transforms into a worldly and traveled hobbit on the fringe of his own kind, that surprises everyone and especially himself.

All in all, I think that everyone should read this book. It is such a classic story that I feel anyone would enjoy and I highly recommend it.

Five Star Approved.

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