MARCH READING WRAP UP 2016

I've been reading fairly slowly recently, which is frustrating me slightly, but in March I read 6 books, which isn't bad going really. I also finally gave up on 'The Bronze Horseman', which I had a lot of problems with but which I spoke about briefly in this post here. It's something of a relief not to have that book-burden on me anymore.

In March, I read two books by Jeffrey Eugenides, which now means that I've read all three of his novels. This is kind of weird in itself, as I wouldn't consider him one of my favourite authors, but he's one of the only people who I've read all of their books. I also unintentionally read them in publication order.

Books Read:

1. 'Anna Karenina'- Leo Tolstoy
This book had been on my radar for a while, but I was a little apprehensive as it's so huge and old and I don't think I've ever read a translated book before. I know this might be due to the translation, but I was surprised by how straight forward the language was, I rarely found myself confused (except with the complicated Russian names) and the writing wasn't as old as I expected it to be. This book also surprised me in other ways, namely the story lines and the fact that it was so slow and long and took me a good four weeks to read, but that didn't put me off at all, like it usually does. What surprised me about the story lines was that Anna Karenina wasn't actually the sole focus of the novel, she doesn't appear it in all that much compared to the other characters, and that I actually preferred Levin's storyline to hers. (If you've seen the film first, like I had, the film is all about Anna and not really about Levin, whereas he is actually the other main character. Great film, by the way, highly recommend). I expected to like the book, but I actually really loved it, it may be one of my all-time favourite books. It was absolutely fantastic and I'm hoping to read Tolstoy's War and Peace very soon. I love Anna Karenina.

2. 'Salt to the Sea'- Ruta Sepetys
Damn this book was sad. I'd been excited to read it since I first heard it was coming out and I got Titanic-like vibes from the premise, and it did not disappoint. This book was very quick and easy to read, none of the chapters were longer than 3 pages each (which I like), but in those short chapters you still got a proper feel for the characters. I love historical fiction and I like when you can tell that an author has really researched their work, which you definitely could with this book. I also liked the mystery aspects to it. I'm not the first person to say this, and I'm not going to be the last, but I'm amazed at how this was the biggest maritime disaster in history, even bigger than Titanic, and no one has ever heard of it. My dad knew about it but my mum didn't and I didn't have a clue until I read this book. It was a really fantastic and heartbreaking and terrifying read, as all good books should be. (I also like how there's a link between Ruta Sepetys' two books and I'm planning on reading the first one, though they aren't actually linked properly like a series, 'Between Shades of Grey', next month).

3. 'Modern Romance'- Aziz Ansari
What I liked and appreciated about this book is that it wasn't your typical, same-old celebrity autobiography book that everyones written. This was an actual, proper research book and I found it really, really interesting. I've never read a book that was like a proper research paper before and it was a really good way for me to get into more non-fiction writing. This book was non-fiction done properly and seriously, and it was a really interesting deviation from normal celebrity books.

4. 'Middlesex'- Jeffrey Eugenides
This book is nothing like I thought it was going to be, but it was interesting to read a book on hermaphrodites, as that's not a commonly found topic in books. I can't tell whether I liked this book or not, at the time I enjoyed it, but looking back on it I'm not sure if I did. It was a good story and a well written book, my dad's now reading it and he's really impressed with the writing, I'm just confused about my feelings on it.

5. 'The Marriage Plot'- Jeffrey Eugenides
I thought I'd enjoy this book, and then I found out what the story was actually about (the blurb gives no spoilers away), and then I wasn't sure if I would like it. I surprised myself by enjoying it literally straight away. The first half of this book was much stronger than the second half, but overall I really enjoyed it.

6. 'A Darker Shade of Magic'- V.E. Schwab
I didn't think I was going to get to finish this one by the end of this month, so that was a nice surprise. I marked this book as a 'did not finish' around April last year, as I was finding it quite slow to read and I wasn't really into the story, but I decided to give it another go after all the hype surrounding the second book (which has just come out) and because it was only 99p on Kindle. What the hell was wrong with me? I flew through this book in two days, I enjoyed every second and, frankly, I'm embarrassed about not finishing it before. I loved it. I'm now so excited to read the second book, which sounds incredible, and I'm glad it's out already so I don't have to wait ages for it. The only thing that pains me with these books are that the American covers are so stunning and the UK ones are only okay. What the hell was I thinking giving up on this last year?

Rosie
(The ADSOM obsessive and humble-pie eater)

TOP TEN TUESDAY - BOOKS ON MY TBR

If you remember back a couple of months ago, I made a post talking about a new idea I'd had called 'Top Ten Tuesday'. The premise is simple, on a Tuesday (but not every Tuesday) I will post a list of my 'top ten' of a certain thing. I do love a good list. So, to start us off with the first ever Top Ten Tuesday post, here's the top ten books on my TBR (To Be Read) list.

1. Anne of Windy Willows
Anne of Green Gables is my favourite book series of all time, but I've never gotten past the third book. This is the fourth book in the series and this is going to be the year that I finally read it.

2. The Handmaid's Tale
The sound of this book really appeals to me and I've wanted to read it for ages, so I probably should soon.

3. Great Expectations
I watched and loved the BBC TV mini series of Great Expectations when it was on a couple of years ago, but I feel like I was too young to properly read Dickens at the time. I've read A Christmas Carol twice since and I love it, so it's high time I have a go at another Dickens' novel.

4. Sense and Sensibility
Every year I read a Jane Austen book, and this year is going to be the year of Sense and Sensibility. (Again, I love the film of this).

5. The Grisha Trilogy
I've wanted to read this trilogy for a while now; I read and really enjoyed Leigh Bardugo's other book, 'Six of Crows', so I have high hopes for the trilogy it's based on.

6. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
As with many of these books, they're books I just haven't got round to reading yet. I've read the Hobbit a couple of times and watched the Lord of the Rings films multiple times, and I have no idea why I haven't read the books yet.

7. Bossy Pants
Last year I went on a bit of a mini rampage and read loads of books by female comedians, but I never got the chance to read Tina Fey's book and I want to rectify that because she is great.

8. Love Nina
My best friend recommended this to me years ago but I've never got round to reading it.

9. Illuminae
This book has been on my TBR list on Goodreads since I first heard about it in March 2015. I've heard countless amazing things about it and there is no excuse for why I haven't read it yet.

10. The Cuckoo's Calling
I want to read more murder mystery books and Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling, seems like a pretty good place to start. My mum loves these books, I've heard only great things and obviously I trust Galbraith's/Rowling's storytelling and writing abilities!

I refuse to believe that it's the end of March already.

Rosie

WHY EASTER IS THE BEST

I love Easter. Easter is great. As a non-religious person, it's (for me) a day dedicated to eating chocolate and those are the type of days I love best. Because Easter is appreciated, but not as much as Christmas is, I've made a list of 10 reasons why Easter is the best. (Spoiler alert: as with Christmas, I love Easter mostly because of the food).

1. Chocolate
Obviously I had to start with this one, it's secretly what we all think about when we think about Easter. There's something extra appealing about chocolate in the shape of an egg. I swear it tastes better that way.

2. The Smell of Warm Hot Cross Buns
Is there any better smell in the world that hot cross buns heating up in the toaster? No. Is there anything better than warm hot cross buns covered with melted butter? No.

3. Hot Cross Buns Themselves
I know they're basically the same as regular old tea cakes, but I get excited every year for the return of the hot cross bun. I could probably live off them (plus they count towards your five-a-day).

4. That Spring Feeling
You know what I'm talking about, that happy, fresh, warm feeling you get at Springtime when the weather's good but you can't put it into words.

5. Easter Books
Every year since we were little, my mum has got us a book for Easter as well as an Easter egg, and every year I'm more excited for the book that for the egg. My mum always buys me fantastic books and my Easter book is one of the best things about today. (This year's Easter books pictured above).

6. No Work
I should be at work today but it's shut so I have the day off and that is a wonderful thing.

7. Easter 2006
Because that was the year Easter was on my 9th birthday and it was the best day ever. FUN FACT. Easter 2017 is also going to be on my birthday (and I'm going to be 20 WHAT).

8. Chocolate (Again)- Specifically Mini Eggs
Mini Eggs are my favourite chocolate ever (alongside Chocolate Orange- see above picture).

9. Easter Holidays
Two weeks off college, woooo!

10. Better Weather (Hopefully)
We've recently had a couple of really nice, really warm, proper Spring days, followed by a week of cold and bad weather each time. The weather should hopefully pick up soon, but saying that it's a full-blown thunder storm as I write this.

Happy Easter!
Rosie

RECENTLY

I thought I'd do a more chatty post today about things I've been watching/reading/listening to recently and also a little bit about where I've been.

So, where have I been? I've been fairly absent from the blog for a while, though this year I'm not in the major blogging slump I was in last year. We'll start at the beginning. In December, I sent off my university application through UCAS and, since January, I've been having all my interviews. I don't think I've spoken about this before, but I'm going to be studying nursing next year. Nursing applications are not like usual applications; in any other course, you apply for your five unis and then you can sit back and wait as the offers come in over the next month or so. With nursing, you send off your application and then you wait for your interviews to come in, and then you wait some more, and then you wait some more. In the mean time, all your friends doing history, English, maths, etc. have their five offers and no one not doing nursing can understand why you're waiting so long. So then, finally, the offer for an interview comes through, you go to the interview, and then you have to wait a further few weeks for either an offer or a rejection based on your interview. Repeat the process five times.

In other words, I've been very busy and just a teensy tiny weeny bit stressed.

So now all my interviews are done, I've got my offers, and we'll talk about all that more in later months.

If you've seen my last post, you'd see it was a playlist post. Because of that, I'm not going to go into too much detail about what I've been listening to recently, but I wanted to talk a little bit about podcasts. Again, I'm not going to talk about them in too much detail because I have a post on them planned for later this month, but I'll talk about it briefly. Recently, I discovered the humble podcast, and I fell in love. I'm podcast obsessed. It started with discovering 'Welcome to Night Vale' in January, and I can't talk enough about how much I love it. It's genius, it's fantastic and you all need to listen to it right away. I started looking for more podcasts to listen to, and I've discovered a few gems that I want to recommend. Firstly, my second favourite podcast, 'My Dad Wrote a Porno'. Honestly one of the funniest things I've ever listened to, I had to stop listening to it in public places because it had me laughing out loud; the second series is coming out in May (I think) and I'm so excited. Other podcasts that I'm enjoying are 'Backlisted Podcast', 'So Many Damn Books', 'Guys We F****d', 'Alice Isn't Dead' (created by the team behind Night Vale), 'The Black Tapes' and 'Limetown'. Expect more detail soon.

So onto books. Obviously, with my reading wrap ups, you know what I've been reading each month so I don't need to go into too much detail there, but I wanted to talk about a few bookish things. Namely, not finishing books. In January, I started reading 'The Bronze Horseman' by Paullina Simons; it's such a highly rated book, so many people love it, it's been said to be a fantastic love story in a fascinating setting, I had high hopes. And, this week, I officially marked it as a 'did not finish' book on Goodreads. I got 33% of the way through on Kindle, which is roughly 277 pages out of 800, and decided that I couldn't take it anymore. The story was so slow, it was taking me ages to read and just nothing was happening; I've read a couple of negative reviews that say the same thing happens basically the entire way through. I was also really disappointed with the setting, the siege of Leningrad is such an awful but interesting part of history and I was really excited to read a book where the main character was living it but, again, reviews said that this topic was barely even touched upon. My main problem with this book, however, was the characters. They're all annoying and infuriating and a lot of the time they just made me really uncomfortable. Right from the beginning, Tatianna and Alexander's relationship felt wrong, I hated it from the moment he followed her home on the bus and every romantic encounter they had made me feel uncomfortable and I didn't want to read on to see how it developed. One thing I can never stand in books is main characters that are annoying and frustrate me through their actions. Tatianna is a classic case of an awful main character. She's so annoying and self-centred and she does the most stupid things. I honestly can't stand her and a main character like that will ruin a good book for me. I just really did not enjoy this book and I see no reason for pushing myself to finish it.

Other bookish thoughts at this moment in time; I marked 'A Darker Shade of Magic' as a 'did not finish' book last year, but all the hype around the second one is making me want to give it another go, which I'm going to do later this month. I'm currently reading 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides, but three chapters in (spoiler alert) two siblings have married each other and that's kind of putting me off it a bit. Right now at this very second in time I'm researching 'The School for Good and Evil' by Soman Chainani as I have the sudden urge to read it. And, finally, I've preordered 'The Raven King' by Maggie Stiefvater and I am beyond beyond excited, I need it so desperately it hurts. (But there's a theory that Adam is going to turn into a tree and dear God I do not want that happening, so, so badly, that cannot happen, please).

And finally, what I've been watching recently. I don't tend to watch that much TV anymore, but recently my family has got really into 'The Night Manager', it's so tense, so good, the cast is great and I'd highly recommend. I've also been watching the new second series of 'Raised by Wolves', written by Caitlin Moran and her sister, which is one of my favourite things out there. The show is based on the Morans' own childhood and is absolutely hilarious, as you would expect. And finally onto what I've been watching on Netflix. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I've been watching (and loving) 'Barbie- Life in the Dream House'; it's strangely addictive and entertaining, and I feel quite sad that I've finished all the episodes. And the last thing I have to talk about today is 'Reign'. I love historical fiction with princesses set in courts, and this is ticking all the boxes for me. I don't mind that it's not historically accurate, I love it, and it's got me really in the mood to read historical fiction of the same nature (recommendations would be welcome). 'Reign' also has Megan Follows in its favour who, as the actress of Anne of Green Gables in the most fantastic film ever, makes me quite emotional every time I see her.

Rosie

MARCH PLAYLIST 2016

I've been rediscovering some old favourites recently, both songs and bands, and also being introduced to some new stuff that I thought I'd share today.

As Lovers Go (Ron Fair Remix)- Dashboard Confessional
I've always said that Shrek 2 has one of the best movie soundtracks ever, I've loved it since childhood and I recently rediscovered it. As you've guessed, this is one of the songs from Shrek 2 and it is absolutely incredible. It's beyond incredible. Don't underestimate the fact that it comes from Shrek, it's a stunning song.

(Other songs from Shrek I'd recommend are 'Accidentally in Love' by Counting Crows, 'You're So True' by Joseph Arthur and the first Shrek film soundtrack, which is also pretty fab).

Lodi- Creedence Clearwater Revival
I'm pretty sure I've spoken about CCR in every recent playlist post but I just really love them. I'm so in love with this song, it's beautiful and perfect and it's one of my most favourite songs ever.

Therapy- All Time Low
My brother and I went to see All Time Low at the O2 in February and they were incredible; we've loved them for about five years and this was the second time we've seen them. Therapy has always been one of ATL's best songs but it is nothing compared to when it's played live. It was beyond stunning and it's incomparable. Therapy is one of the greatest live songs in the world from any band.

Old Scars/ Future Hearts- All Time Low
After seeing them live, I've rediscovered my love for All Time Low. This is the title song from their latest album and I was never that keen on it before, but damn was I wrong. It's fantastic.

Bail Me Out- All Time Low (ft. Joel Madden)
This sounds just like a classic, fun, up-beat, party-like All Time Low song and that's just why I love it.

Dancing With a Wolf- All Time Low
I've just been listening to a lot of All Time Low recently.

Stupid- Brendan Maclean
This song is one that I've discovered from listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, who have a 'weather' section in each episode where they play a song from an independent, relatively unheard of band. Most of the time I'm not all that big a fan of the 'weather' songs but I challenge anyone not to listen to and love this one. It's definitely my favourite of all Night Vale weather.

(Other Welcome to Night Vale weather songs that I'd like to take a moment to recommend are 'True Trans Soul Rebel' by Against Me!, 'Sharon' by Good San Juan and 'Thinking of Milk' by Tristan Haze. And also just Welcome to Night Vale in general).

Happy listening!

Rosie