Aren't you Heather Wells?

What do you call a chick lit with a hint of murder mystery? Make that a whole lot of murder mystery.Whatever it's called, the Heather Wells series written by Meg Cabot is definitely it. Funny and sassy with a bit of murder thrown in there what's not to love? Meg Cabot writes books that you can't help but love, and the Heather Wells mystery is another you can't not but read.

The first title: Size 12 is Not Fat. Speaks out to many women who, due to the increase in the portrayal of size 0 women in the media, feel fat and overweight due to their clothes size. The series begins with a humourous scene in a dressing room, trying on jeans. Now, for a woman, we are typically secluded to numbers that mean nothing to no one, this means that it is extremely to difficult to find well fitting jeans. (For me they are always too long - I'm short okay?). Heather - a previous teen pop sensation, now working New York College residence hall Fisher Hall - is outraged at the vanity sizing being used by the shop - which is revealed when Wells over hears a size two, who can't fit into size 0 because of the vanity sizing. The humourous way in which this is presented reflects the whole series, you feel as if Heather is almost a friend, an allie in this world obsessed with a woman's appearance. Not only does this book reinforce the idea that people are not determined by their weight, but also that yes there are always, probably, going to be people who put you down (Comically shown by the constant "You would look like Heather Wells if you were a bit skinnier") but, most importantly, this should not bother you, and you should be proud of how you look, even if you do want to diet but keep failing - it's okay.

Now back to the series and that hint of murder mystery I mentioned. To keep this book from just being a chick flick (is there a book word for that? There must be). The residence hall Wells is the assistant director of, has a nickname - Death Dorm. Why? Because of the murders that occur there. For example, in the first title, a girl is found at the bottom of the elevator shaft - dead. A protagonist wouldn't be a true protagonist without realizing something no one else did. In the first novel - it is obvious that girls don't elevator surf! (Which is named the cause of death) This means that Wells get's herself into a spot of bother in pretty much every book. Much to the delight of NYPD Detective Canavan, who constantly finds Heather is all spots of bother - no matter how many times he warns her!

Speaking over people warning Heather to keep away from murderers, I bring you to Cooper Cartwright. AKA the other half of my OTP (One True Pairing, if you didn't know what that meant what are you doing on the internet I mean come on). The brother of Jordan Cartwright, Heather's ex. Throughout the first two novels Heather's crush for Cooper is very apparent This also means that the audience develops a certain crush on him too.

Oh c'mon you can have a crush on a fictional character okay do not judge me.

Heather also comes along with a lot of personal 'baggage', did you catch the fact she has a crush on her ex's brother, but not only that she also lives with him? That's not all, Heather met Jordan in her teen pop star years (Hence the whole "aren't you Heather Wells? thing"), if you have been paying attention to this, you'll have realised Wells is no longer a pop sensation, why? Her Mother ran off with her manager - and all her cash. Her father also starts the series in jail for not paying taxes. Yeah.

Now if you're in for a book that's entertaining and makes you cry with laughter at some points then you get fine with this series.

Heather Wells Series by Meg Cabot can be found on amazon 

Titles in order

• Size 12 is Not Fat
• Size 14 is Not Fat Either 
• Big Boned
• Size Twelve and Ready to Rock
• The Bride Wore Size Twelve 

Did I also mention that each of the books are as good as the first?

This took way too long to write and I apologise.

Bye bye

“I love you. Remember. They cannot take it” - Lauren Oliver, Delirium

It took me a year but I finally did it. I finally finished reading the Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver. I'm going to be honest with you. I no longer know what to do with myself.

This will probably contain spoilers, so hold on to your hats.

Last year, around New Year, I downloaded the first book for my new kindle - Delirium written by Lauren Oliver. I'd been waiting for this moment for weeks, after I first saw Requiem, the last book in the trilogy, advertised in a magazine. I knew that this would be the first book I would download and read on my kindle. And there I was, New Years Eve 2012, probably, (hey the New Years Eve 2011 I was reading the Hunger Games trilogy don't judge me) reading my new favourite book. I think I read it in a matter of days. I quickly moved onto the short story Hana, then onto Pandemonium and finally the short story Annabel. I had quickly ran out of Delirium trilogy to read and it hadn't even been a week. I know. I'm a fast reader. I was itching for the final installment Requiem. Which finally just read, due to the fact it was exam season the date in came out and a lack of money and the fact I was told I may or may not get the books in physical book form for Christmas.

But why is this series so addictive? Firstly, the idea that love is a disease is extremely interesting. That original idea was the formation of wanting to read it. I have never read, or come across, any fiction which explores the idea that love is disease and it be eradicated with a cure. Secondly, the way it is written and the words used are just perfect and meaningful. So many quotations can be taken from the series that apply in that fictional world, and ours. This enables the book to stick with you, almost imprinting itself on your soul and in your mind. I have forever memorised the quotes “You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes" and “He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.” Another thing that makes the trilogy so amazing is each book is written differently. The first book is continuous, in time with Lena and her life, with a few flash backs and memories of course. The second book, still  from the viewpoint of Lena, but split between two different times of her life. I will admit, this is a little confusing at start, but it works so well - in my opinion the book would have dragged if told in time order like the first. The third, and final installment is presented via two narratives Hana's and Lena's, this gives the reader equal insight into what is happening in the Wilds and the society. This difference does risk disappointment with any of the books, but I feel the difference keeps the books fresh and original.

The protagonist Lena, well I couldn't help but connect with her good-two shoes nature in the first book, as someone who's terrified to hand in their homework late I obviously felt some serious connection. Although being afraid to fall in love in a society where falling in love is probably more serious than murder our circumstances are very very different. This connection allows the reader to fall in love with Alex, and mourn Alex with Lena in the second book. Reading Pandemonium for the second time, I actually began to love Julian also, instead of mentally screaming "No, not him, remember Alex, Lena, remember Alex!" like I did first time reading. Of course then Alex returns and feelings of confusion are felt and you don't know what's really happened until Requiem. 

The secondary characters within the trilogy are easy to love, or hate depending who they are (Fred, I'm looking at you). Raven, is probably the most profound character, in fact she may be my favourite. When did she become my favourite character though? When Blue died. Up until that point I think I just assumed Raven had been in The Wilds (outside of the delirium free society) all her life. And then I couldn't just feel like my heart had been ripped out near the end of Requiem (you're just going to have to read it).

Now here's time for  a fun fact: I've been writing this post for at least two weeks. Why? I love this series too much, anything that I write seems wrong. I think I may be a perfectionist. I can't even put into words how much I love this series and if you see this book anywhere pick it up, look and the blurb and the maybe, hopefully, you will read it. Or at least contemplate reading it. 

Until the next post

Goodbye

In my head burning Red...

I welcome all of you into the new year with a new book review - so don't say I don't give you anything. I actually wanted to review this before Christmas, but seeing as the paperback isn't out until tomorrow (that's January 2nd 2014) I thought I'd better wait. Of course, if you're living in the digital age then you can download it right now via amazon.

So, back to the book, which I haven't yet named, did you notice? Red by Alison Cherry, in case you were wondering, stood out to me for many reasons

• I am a huge Taylor Swift fan so the title Red sticks out to me anywhere
• My best friend is a red head 
• Not sure if she would have forgiven me for not taking the opportunity to read it. 
• "Blondes need not apply" I am blonde. Why should I not apply? Why am I being targeted? What can I not do? 
• The whole concept of book was very intriguing, I mean, a whole town full of red heads who hold all social status? The complete opposite of what happens in society today. Personally, I don't see why red heads are taunted for their hair colour. This novel turns that upside down - the brunettes and the blondes are victimised because of their genetics.  

"Felicity St. John has it all: loyal best friends, a hot guy, and artistic talent" Of course, as soon as you read that sentence you know she's going to have some deep, dark secret. Her secret? She isn't a natural red head at all, she's a blonde. Now for all of us living in the real world, where dying your hair is pretty common and accepted, we can't really see the dilemma. But in Scarletville (I know), the rare hair colour of red gives you all the power, and if your a 'fake' red head you are treated as if you killed a man. I may be exaggerating here but you get my point. The hair salon which dyes the hair of all those fakers out there? Yeah, top secret and hidden where no one would find it. Unless your Gabby Vaughn, of course. 

I had high hope for the character Gabby Vaughn. Flicking through the novel and spotting the name Gabby made me pretty excited, because the best friend who is a red head? Yeah her name is Gaby. Spelling may be different but it's still the same. As this is a novel dedicated to red heads, I automatically assumed Gabby Vaughn would be a red head. So, there I was turning the first few pages, anxiously waiting for my Gaby to fictionalized. Oh how my hopes were wrong. It turns out, Gabby Vaughn is a brunette, my dreams of throwing the book at Gaby and screaming 'you are in this book, a fictional red head of you is in here now read it!", were destroyed. So what? My brain said, it'll be okay, she's just brunette. Then I continued reading who will be a contestants for the Miss Scarlet Pageant, and it becomes obvious that Gabrielle Vaughn is not only a brunette, but is the antagonist of the story as she begins to black mail Felicity, who is terrified that her secret will be spilled, so obviously gives into all the demands made by Gabby Vaughn.

The initial idea of the book is fantastic, I had extremely high hopes for this novel. Maybe my hopes were a little too high as I found myself not as thrilled with the book as I thought I would be. I often found myself rolling my eyes at Felicity for believing her life would be over if anyone saw her roots, annoyed at her best friend Haylie for being so selfish and dramatic, and angered at Felicity's mother, Ginger St. John, for dying her daughters hair practically since birth - afraid that her own social status would be ruined if she didn't have a red haired child. I suppose that's how characters are supposed to be, when sheltered from the rest of society, believing hair colour is what you should be judged on, instead of personality and morals. 

Overall, Red is a good book. It's not the best book I've read in a while, but I did thoroughly enjoy reading each page. So, if you're up for a book which is light on the emotions and doesn't make you rethink your entire existence (unless you are one of these people that hates on red heads then you should start rethinking your life right now) then Red is a the book to go with.

Go buy Red, written by Alison Cherry!  

Until next time friends :) 

Thank you to Quercus for sending me Red! 

Speak to me here and here 

The Naturals.

Now I was going to take my own picture
instead of stealing Google's
 but I didn't because of reasons.
 (mainly darkness but whatever)

I bet you didn't expect this topic to crop up so soon. Especially since I only mentioned receiving it like yesterday.

But it has and now you must prepare to listen to me discuss how absolutely awesome The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is.

I am not joking.

First things first: What is the story about?
Natural at reading people or 'profiling' Cassie in contacted by the FBI. She's been chosen for a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to solve cold cases. Cassie is the last to join the programme and it's obvious no one in the Naturals programme is who they seem. When a new killer strikes, danger is closer to Cassie than ever before.

Now that is literally all you are getting out of me about the plot because spoilers.

This book is definitely a page turner. I know this because I literally could not put it down. I started it at about 3pm 27th October 2013 and I finished at around 10.30pm the very same day. Of course I didn't spend the whole seven and half hours reading. But I did spend at least four of them turning the pages. Now let me tell you, the second half of this book is tense, I couldn't sit still. I was moving around so much in my chair it caused my mother to ask "are you okay? Do you need an extra cushion or something?" No, but I may need to destroy this book. In a good 'i love this book so much it's making me feel things' way of course. I felt especially like this in the last few pages.

Now, the story features several snippets of something called You and this adds at least 10 points of creepiness to the book. It's probably the reason why the climax of the novel is so tense and gut wrenching. If I wasn't in my living room which included my family I may have yelled.
"No x can't be you! Not you!"
"Oh it's not x but is it y it can't be why because I thought it was a?"
"Oh wait it is x. No x cannot be you no no no"
"Wait okay K is here what if their You. But what about A"
"No Y is You who is You?"
This will make sense when you read the book.

One of the main features of the novel includes the aspect of "profiling'. Now what is profiling? Basically the ability to know a lot about someone from say their clothes, just think Sherlock. After reading the story, I almost wished I had the gift of looking at someone for a split second and knowing if they ate spaghetti for lunch. This isn't exactly how it works but you get the picture. I may or may not have tried to analyse a few people today, all I got was that one woman enjoyed the colour pink (she was dressed head to toe in pink, not the most difficult thing to guess really).

There is also some romance/love triangle in the story. I still have no idea who to ship. But do not let a dose of love triangle to put you off the book (are love triangles that bad? I don't think so), it isn't part of the main plot, well it is but it's not full frontal (wrong phrase but you know what I mean). It actually creates quite a funny scene within the story.

The novel actually exceeded all my expectations. Y'know when you read a blurb and you're all "Oh okay this sounds cool I suppose" You aren't that excited to read it but you know you'll give it a try. But it sits on your book shelf for a couple of months gathering dust because you've forgotten about it? Yeah I thought it would be one of those books.

It most certainly wasn't.

Now, I would like to thank Quercus for sending me this book because there is a 95% chance I probably never would have read it other wise. Oh, but I am so glad I read it. It may actually become one of my favourite books. It already has a spot on my 'favourite books bookshelf' Yes that is a thing I have.

I've also just realised that this book isn't out yet and I feel like I'm breaking some sort of law. So on the 5th  November y'all better go running to the bookshop to buy this, kay?

Now I only have one question: Can it be November 2014 already, because yes, this is going to be a series and I cannot wait for the next book.

Goodbye people of the internet. 

Cat Clarke

Check me out using pictures.

There becomes a time, in everyone's life, where they have to discuss Cat Clarke.

Or at least in my life there is.

And that time is now.

I've come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people in the world:

•  Those who know of Cat Clarke's existence and completely adore her YA books
• Those who have no idea who she is.

I've converted at least two people. It's not enough. I need to convert more people into becoming the first type instead of the second. 

Probably shouldn't have used the word convert but more people should read her books.

I feel like as an author she is very unappreciated. She's not even verified on twitter. Not that being verified on twitter is a necessary thing to happen of course. In my mind she is as good, if not better, than those who are verified, yes I'm looking at you Sarah Dessen and John Green (Not that I'm criticizing them of course - I adore their books too). Also after freaking out after Undone I figured she is just a generally nice (oh there goes my year nine English teacher complaining because I used the word nice) and pleasant person. 

How nice is that? I actually wasn't expecting a reply, nor a reply to my friend and I freaking out. (The other author who tweeted me, Ally Carter - but I can discuss that some other time)



Now to the reason I'm writing this instead of my history homework (yes I know I'll do after this shh)

Cat Clarke's books. 

Entangled 

Torn

Undone 

I have no recollection of why I chose to buy Entangled from the bookstore, but I did. Maybe I thought the cover looked pretty. I basically read Entangled within about two days and then proceeded to bug my best friend to read it. Which she did. 

Now why you should read it: It's a very very good book. But why? Because it makes you feel emotions. If a book doesn't make you feel emotions it isn't doing it's job right. But which emotions? All of them. Entangled also made me think. Who is this Ethan person? Why is he so creepy and weird? Why is she is a white room? Of course I'm not going to tell you here. Go get the book. When those answers are revealed, it's like an epiphany, and I'm not joking. They also made my stomach drop about fifty feet because of course that's why he's called Ethan. The fact the first line is 'I met Ethan the night I was planning to kill myself. Pretty inconvenient, when you think about it' is just brilliant. In fact I think that's why I bought the book - because of the opening line. How much personality is written in that line? A whole lot. It's also pretty humourous considering the subject. All her YA novels are written like that, full of personality and humour that when something terrible happens you just want to rip out your organs. That may be an exaggeration but read Undone - you'll get it. 

Speaking of Undone, that is far by the best novel I have ever read - and I'm not even kidding. I rarely stay up all night to read a book (mainly because I love sleep to much and I enjoy writing the endings in my mid) but I think I stayed up till about 3am reading Undone. Don't get me wrong-I did try to sleep but I spent too much time gritting my teeth into my pillow because that book is tense. I couldn't bare waiting the hours I would spend sleeping, I just had to read it. So there I was 3am, under the covers finishing the book. I have never felt so emotional after a book. By emotions I felt literally nothing. I was so shocked, my emotions had just stopped. It took me a while to get to sleep that night. Good job I had no school the next day. 

Now if you're one of these people who refuses to read a book because it's sad firstly, get a grip and secondly, being sad over a book is the best bit. If you get so emotional over a book your tears are real, the book is more likely to stay with you, mainly because you continue to think about it for the next few days so much you can't read another book. Which is exactly what happened after reading all three Cat Clarke novels.  

Now, if you've read this I command advise you to buy at least one of her books. I doubt you'll regret it. Especially if you're now wondering about the white room and Ethan you should buy it. Not go googling because spoilers are bad.

Bye!!

P.S I love spoilers but with TV shows, not books.

P.S.S I hope this blog post has led you on the path to becoming the first type of person the better type