Alphabet Dating - V Date!

For special occasions - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays - we incorporate the alphabet dates so we aren't trying to find the money for 2 dates in one week. V Date falls in November around Kirsty's Birthday so it was Kirsty's choice for what we did. She decided to do another escape room for her Birthday. There were 2 escape rooms beginning with V - the one we preferred is called Vacancy and is themed around a hotel room. But that was fully booked. So we chose Virus which is about a Zombie outbreak. We failed. It was very hard. Possibly because we don't know much about zombies. We did really well in the first escape room we did because we were interested in the topic so maybe a Zombie themed room was a bad choice. We will not give up though! We will escape one day! After we did the room, we went in some shops and Kirsty bought a book which then set off the alarms in every other shop we went in. For dinner we had TGI Fridays with Kirsty's birthday money which was delicious as always. We sat on the upper level and it was decorated for Christmas and looked very pretty. We watched Arrival at the cinema which was really good, we knew there was a twist in but had no idea where or what it was so all the way through we were trying to work it out. When we got home we lit the Birthday cake and read together. Then while she was in bed I drew her a last birthday present - a flowery border around a cute love quote to give her the next day.

30 Day Book Photo Challenge - April 19

This was designed by Books & Cupcakes.

19. Young Author

Girl Online - Zoe Sugg

"I have this dream that, secretly, all teenage girls feel exactly like me. And maybe one day, when we realize that we all feel the same, we can all stop pretending we're something we're not... But until that day, I'm going to keep it real on this blog and keep it unreal in real life."

Penny has a secret.
Under the alias Girl Online, Penny blogs her hidden feelings about friendship, boys, high school drama, her crazy family, and the panic attacks that have begun to take over her life. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming American. Suddenly Penny is falling in love - and capturing every moment of it on her blog.
But Noah has a secret, too, one that threatens to ruin Penny's cover - and her closest friendship - forever.

I am a big fan of Zoe's youtube videos but only started watching them within the last 12 months. I wasn't really aware of this book coming out until it was already on the shelves but I really liked the idea of reading a book written by someone on youtube. It's like reading a book written by an online friend.
Aside from that fact, the plot really interested me. I like romance with a twist, and the added extra of them going to America to plan a wedding really made the decision for me. I was planning on buying it eventually but my fiancee bought it for me for Christmas, a surprise present. I read it the next week and found it hard to put it down. I really fell in love with the main character and the British-ness of the story, and am excited for the sequel.

I know a lot of people have shunned this book because they discovered that Zoe had a lot of help writing it. This doesn't bother me at all. Do you really think every book you read was solely written by the author? Without the help of editors, friends, family and publishers putting forward their ideas/likes/dislikes? The author is the person who came up with the plot, develops the characters, puts forward the twists, and listens to the experts. I would expect nothing more from a young author, who already has another job, coming out with her debut novel.

Book Review: All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

I read All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven as part of a teen book club. I had seen the book before but not been interested enough to read it. The cover doesn't attract my attention and the story seemed predictably "girl meets boy and falls in love". I don't usually read teen romances. I prefer dystopian/dramatic/crime books.


I started to read with an open-mind. However the predictable "girl meets boy" happened within 3 pages. There was no real build up of the individual characters before the meeting so you never really find out what they are like by themselves. The entire book then revolves around these two characters together; how they feel about each other, how long until they will see each other, talking to each other on facebook.

This book is massively lacking in descriptive narrative. I had no idea that Finch had black hair until about 100 pages in. Occasionally I get to read that he is wearing a beanie.
I have no idea what colour Violet's hair is or the type of clothes she wears. There is no description of her bedroom (minus a pinboard), her house, her mum's car etc.
I don't know what their voices sound like, their accents, the way they carry themselves, the way they look when they see each other etc.

It's as though the author was solely fixated on Finch's mental health and nothing else mattered. As for that aspect, it seemed as though every possible aspect of bipolar was thrown onto his character without much thought. It felt like she had tried to cram every possible symptom into the 350 pages. But just in case we forgot, let's follow the author's suit, and briefly mention Violet's grief and self-blame over the car crash too.

The character of Finch seems to know no boundaries where Violet is concerned. He will turn up to her house in the middle of the night and tell her to come with him, with little care for what she wants to do. She does what he wants her to do because she is worried about his feelings. I can't recall him worrying about hers. The story tries to paint them as a perfect romance but I disagree. It seemed pretty one-sided to me.

The title of the book refers to a part where they recite a Dr. Seuss poem. For me it was such an insignificant part of the story. I understand that it is supposed to symbolise their future and show that they have hope but it was such a small part of a big book and there weren't many bright places. "The blue hole" would make a lot more sense. As I was reading I actually thought to myself that, had the book been called "The Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect" I would have been a lot more likely to pick it up. However, this book came out around the same time as Meghan Trainor's song with the lyrics "all the right curves in all the right places" which is all I think of when I see the title.

I did really enjoy the parts where they would go wandering - there seemed to be more description for these parts so it was easier to feel like you are part of the story and it was interesting enough to hold my interest and keep me reading.

Some parts of the book are written well and it flows nicely. But every now and again there just seems to be a mash of romance, mental illness, loss, abuse and general school life as if the author is trying to appeal to all possible teen audiences. I prefer books that stick to one main theme but this might be good for those that prefer a bit of everything.

The story does get more interesting towards the end where the characters have chapters that don't solely revolve around each other.

The helplines at the back of the book is a nice touch and the author's note did make me sympathise a little more with the characters.

I wouldn't read it again but it wasn't the worst.
3/5