Royally Lost Review

Ok guise, it's time for me to review another book. It's been a while due to personal stuff, but I'll try to make up this month. I recently borrowed this book in my local library. It was on my to read list for a while but I decided to give it a go since it was practically in front of me.

Yay! I'm so excited to read this!

                                    The book I borrowed is Royally Lost by Angie Stanton.

Behold the cover!

     The book is about an American girl named Becca who is dragged on a family trip to Europe. Becca would rather spend her college-bound summer at home than at boring tours of European structures. Her father is emotionally distant, her stepmother is overeager and all her brother cares about is hooking up with European hotties. Becca is miserable until she meets Nikolai, a mysterious but caring guy. Enter Nikolai, heir to the throne and crown prince of a country. He is everything a girl wants but does not have freedom to be himself. When Becca and Nikolai meet, it's love at first sight.Unfortunately for both of them, the adventure ends as Becca's vacation ends soon. Will Becca and Nikolai say goodbye as his destiny catches up to him or will they change history together?

     I'm a complete sucker for any books about an average girl falling in love with a prince-like figure. Also, since it was short, I knew that this would be an easy read. I thought this would be a cute easy read in regards to the situations regarding the plot. But boy was I wrong.

Such a bitter disappointment.

    Okay.... this book is utter rubbish. Like seriously. Becca cannot do anything but whine and complain about how boring Europe is. She could not find at least one ounce of Europe to like but instead misses McDonalds and American food. She literally cannot stop whining about that instead of sucking it up. She literally whines about how her life sucks constantly and seems very uncultured for a typical American. I question how smart she is because she ends up in Northwestern University. Then suddenly at the end, she ends up being cultured by being in Costa Rica.

    Enter Nikolai. The crown prince of Mondovia. After his parents decision  to send him to military school, he decides to run away from responsibility. (Actually, I would honestly run away this instead of staying.) It seem like his parents seem like to only care about their country by holding lavish state dinners instead of caring about the welfare of the country. (Though in reality, most countries think of abolishing monarchies due to them being symbolic leaders.)

    Regarding Nikolai himself, his relationship with Becca is unrealistic. Literally, he crushes on her at first sight and somehow follows her to every city she passes in Europe. How about creepy stalker alert! It's really creepy! In reality if this ever happened, local authorities or Interpol should have been called.

Creepy much? Nah, it's love at first sight.

      Overall, the book was all cliche and lacked in character development. Let's see, we have a stepmother/mother like figure who wants to keep everything. The father who seems cold and only having an extremely perfect life, a girl with the typical perfect personality and a brother who is a play boy. Also, a prince who wants to get out of his life and a sister who wants to rebel like her brother. I love that this book is very original. Not. I've watched better films that portray this situation a lot better than what this book did. That is why I rated this book two stars on Goodreads. I had difficulty keeping up with the book due to character development but also the situations that happened in the book were completely generic based on previous forms of media I've seen.

     I hope you guise enjoyed the review. Ttfn,

Dee

How to Get Dressed - Review

     Hi guise, this is really late. I should have posted this review weeks ago, but I kinda became neglectful of this blog as usual. 

Yeah, lack of inspiration.

     Due to finals and overload of work, my current content is reviewing how-to books due to the ease of their content. I hope by soon that I can get back to reading normal fiction. But I won't be posting anything in July due to school. 

      On wards to today's review.  Today's book is How To Get Dressed: A Costume Designer's Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit, and Feel Amazing by Alison Freer. This book was sent to me by Blogging for Books.

Really nice display.

     I chose this book because I am an avid shopper trying to improve the way I dress. So, I decided to give this book a go. The book follows sections of advice from Freer's experiences as a costume designer. The book provides advice on how to wear something according to your body type or how to wear something properly. Though most of the content of this book is quite helpful, it can often be redundant at times. The book emphasizes the importance of tailoring a lot. Despite this, I think it is a good read for those who want some advice from time to time for how to get clothes properly fitted rather than personal style.

Just Add Watercolor Review

Hi guise,
Today's review is a book I received from Blogging for Books. I will be reviewing Just Add Watercolor by Helen Peck. In light of my previous review of Daily Painting, this is also a painting book. Unlike Daily Painting, this book focuses on painting with watercolors.

Such a pretty cover!

     Just like the previous book, I ordered this in hopes of possibly having inspiration and perhaps learning some techniques with watercolor painting. The cover itself makes a pretty first impression of what to expect with the book. But I was a little surprised with the book.

Really surprised with the content

    Okay, I honestly cannot say bad things about this book but I have to give some criticisms. First of all, the book is tinier than what I thought it was. Not that there is a problem with tiny books. It was a little unsettling for a how to book teach some watercolor techniques. But it's quite convenient with this size when you are on the go. But overall, the size of the novel does not bother me. I'm just pointing out that it's somewhat surprising compared to other painting how-to books.

   Secondly, are the main points. While the book shows different styles of techniques and paintings, I feel that the book fails to truly draw in a person with instructions on how to paint. When opening the pages of Just Add Watercolor, you notice the pages are filled of stunningly beautiful paintings on the right pages with a brief paragraph on the left side of the pages. Though there are little hints and explanations on how to paint these paintings, I feel that this book is more of a book to provide an inspiration rather than to instruct someone on how to paint. (Additionally in the back of the book, there's a materials list.)

    Though the book's purpose is to inspire, Just Add Watercolor is not an instructional how-to book. I initially expected to learn techniques, but you would have to look deep within the surface to find instruction. Personally, I would not recommend this for beginning painters or those wishing to learn how to paint.This book would be suited for artists who are more familiar with painting with watercolors to find a style or for non-painters to have a stunning art-style coffee table book. But this book is not a blunder as it showcases 50-ish stunning works of painters of different calibers and styles. Still, despite the blunder, I still will take a look at it for inspiration.

Thanks for reading,

Neko

This Is So Late-Daily Painting Review

     Two months ago, I ordered a book called Daily Painting by Carol Marine. I was going to review it last month, but I got very busy with life. I ordered it at the time because I'm currently taking Intro to Painting in college. My skills currently as a painter are decent, but overall it is an enjoyable class. Though I am reviewing this book, to truly experience this book is to challenge yourself with daily painting. At this moment, I cannot do daily painting due to my responsibilities as a student. But I will try to do it on a break though.

                                             An interesting perspective on improving artwork.

     To define the ideas of this novel is all about inspiration. The novel despite being an instructional, also tells about the daily experiences of a daily painter. When the author first started daily painting, she was in a rough time period. From past experiences, the author was discouraged by her art upbringings, causing her to be lost and experimenting with different fields.  She also lost her motivation and  inspiration to go paint a piece. As her son was young, she discovered the movement of daily painting from another artist 's blog. The artist sold $100 from small daily paintings he made. This made a spark within the author to try doing it. The art of daily painting takes a more simpler approach according to one 's taste. By painting one small painting per day, the author managed to strengthen her skill and confidence to paint once again. She eventually started selling the paintings and blogging them.

     The book really explains the common art techniques to be focused on when daily painting and also provides additional support with saturation of colors and show cases other artists. Though I could not experience daily painting myself as a whole, I will indeed try in the future.

Marissa Meyer's Fairest Article Review

     Hi guise, this is a review of Marissa Meyer's Fairest, which is the prequel for The Lunar Chronicles series.

Let us squee over excitement for the cover.

    I am a huge fan of the series that for every time I read the books, I feel a joyous happy feeling. Unfortunately, I did not feel that way for Fairest. Maybe, it was because the novel was not supposed to be happy. But overall, I wasn't really fond of the book. I would have written a review for this blog around early February when I read this but I had to work on a review for my college's paper. It was agonizing and I could not be as personal or in depth to detail compared to my looser reviewing. Since this was for a paper, I had to write it for someone who has never read the book and remove personal possessives such as I and we. Underneath this paragraph will be the article I wrote. Hope you guise enjoy!
XOXO,
Dee

    Over the recent years, a series has taken a hold for readers and fans alike. The Lunar Chronicles is a New York Times Bestselling Series written by Marissa Meyer. Currently it is #2 on the bestselling series list. The series takes place in a dystopian futuristic world in which the citizens are affected by massacres and deadly plagues. Refreshingly compared to other dystopian series such as The Maze Runner, The Hunger Games and the Divergent series, The Lunar Chronicles does not have the theme of being in a sorted society. It is based more on the struggles of the four protagonists as they work together to fight for honor, freedom and independence.

   

     Each novel within the series is based on a fairy tale character with four different central protagonists. Though there are some parallels to the manga Sailor Moon in Cinder. Despite the shift between protagonists, Meyer seems to magically center each novel, linking the current main protagonist, the past protagonists and minor characters from separate plots that eventually become a universal story web. Starting in the series is Cinder which is based on the fairytale Cinderella, revolves around Cinder, a 16-year-old mechanic who deals with struggles with her family and being a cyborg. Moving onto Scarlet, based on Little Red Riding Hood, 18-year old-Scarlet is searching for her missing grandmother when the authorities refuse to help. Cress, which is based on Rapunzel, follows 16-year-old hacker Cress and her journey to freedom. Closing off the series will be Winter, based off of Snow White. Winter, will face her stepmother, Levana in her tirade of overpowering her.

   Fairest is the latest addition to the series. The novel follows the beginnings of the main antagonist of the series Levana and how she became a menacing queen. As with the other characters, Levana parallels the evil queen in Snow White. Though for fans of The Lunar Chronicles, the release of Fairest fills in the long gap in between Cress in February 2014 to the upcoming release of Winter in November 2015. It serves as the book that answers the questions left unattended in previous novels and the origins of the characters Cinder and Winter, protagonists of their respective novels.

   

      When encountering Levana first in Fairest, she appears to be a naïve, spoiled version of the person she currently is. Recently, her parents were killed by assassins and the throne will be handed to her beautiful, cruel older sister Channary.  Levana is jealous and resentful of her sister becoming the queen since she fools around with romantic escapades and neglects her duties. She struggles to find her own happiness since her sister denounces and tortures her and deals with heavy body issues with mutilations on her face from an accident. Insecurely, Levana hides her face with the illusion of the Lunar gift with the scars. Additionally besides the inhumane treatment, the relationships between Levana and the people around her is deflected by a psychological barrier that isolates her into lunacy. The barrier eventually leads to her current motives and personality in the current novels.

    
     This was not the best piece of work written for this series. Comparing Fairest to the first three novels of The Lunar Chronicles is like tasting a dry slice opposed to a whole frosted cake.  The lengthy, well-detailed chapters of the regular novels were reduced to sections that were back-to-back within each other. It is understandable that the context of Fairest would not contain the quirky, happy moments in Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress that balanced serious moments. But considering the novel was not meant to be a completely happy one, it would have been preferable to see Levana with happier moments to completely empathize with her. There were also moments that weresickening in Levana’s character such as manipulation and sexual situations. Additionally, some of the questions answered from previous novels could have been answered in the novels themselves.

   Though Fairest is a prequel to Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter, it does not contain the same whimsy and adventure the usual novels did. The prose of the novella is a total blow to the buildup of the first three novels. But there is hope with Winter to make up the blow with the style similar to the first three novels. But the novel is a good placement to answer questions not answered within the first three novels and the final novels. It is recommended for a person who has never read the first three novels to consume this between Cress and Winter in order to gain a full understanding of past references. The novel itself is not worth a buy or reread since the basic ideas of plot can be absorbed in one sitting. To be fair, the novel was a miss for the excitement of the series. But, do not hold the opinions of this novel to be on the same structure of the main novels. Overall, the main series is an exciting one that should not be missed.

Blog Updates

Sorry for being lazy once again guise. I have a thing called laziness and life that prevents me from being completely productive with this blog. My life actually is mundane so....

Complaint after every complaint!

Surprisingly in the month of February, I've read four books. O.o? 

Yeah, this is true.

I've decided to take books from my unread pile and actually read them while my college semester is light. I've finally tackled Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and Eleanor and Park. I also read Fairest by Marissa Meyer. I will be putting up a review that, but it will be written differently from my usual style and not in depth since I put that in my college's paper. The fourth book was a book I requested from Blogging for Books called Daily Painting. I hope I can be more active in spring compared to other thing but I cannot take my words seriously.

XOXO,

Dee

The Book of Strange New Things

     Hi guise, it appears that this will be the first review of this month. I haven't been active as much in reading due to school and dealing with life's issues. But as I mentioned in the Future Reviews post, this was going to be posted as a review. I would like to thank Blogging for Books for sending me this book and I pretty much enjoyed it. I hope to try another one and have a review by next month. :)


     The book I will be reviewing today is The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Initially I chose this book due to the cover being pretty and I thought the plot of the book seemed interesting. (Though, I received a book with an alternate cover and I did not remember the plot as it arrived.)

 Pretty cover though!

    As I settled with the book in chapters, I realized the plot of the book.
Peter Leigh is an English pastor who is sent galaxies away on a mission for God, while leaving his wife Beatrice at home. Though he struggles to fit in with the surroundings in Oasis, he gradually adapts to the warm climate and the substituted diet. He then encounters the Oasans and build a church to share the faith that has saved him. Throughout the novel, Peter and Beatrice send letters to each other. Over time as Peter expands his mission with the faithful Jesus Followers, his wife Beatrice starts losing faith as the distance between them has caused a rift. Peter realizes that, though the mission can be fulfilling, the loneliness in his heart from being apart from Beatrice can't be emphasized.

    Ok, honestly I did like the book. I liked how the Oasans were intrigued by the book of strange new things and Jesus and how they live was extraordinary. I liked seeing of how Peter was coping with the lifestyles and surrounding of the Oasans but, there were a number of things I questioned.

First of all, what exactly is the mission of USIC?

     I understand that USIC is the company that runs the program to Oasis and all that, but most of the people sent there are engineers. I understand that since the book is centered around Peter, we would see little glimpses of the other people. But, I do not understand what was the whole purpose of the mission in Oasis. If the USIC crew barely makes contact with the natives (except for preachers, translators) except to distribute meds. Otherwise, I assume that they are creating technologies. (Maybe I need to read this a second time.)

Second, I understand that terrible things that happen to Beatrice, but what does the worldly disasters have to do with it?

     Okay, I can partially explain this answer. When Peter left, Bea was somewhat optimistic at first hearing the stories of Peter. But, as she has to handle matters within the parish and friends, she starts becoming overwhelmed. I understand that throughout the book, England somehow manages to go through some economic crisis. But why? But that is not the question. I would assume the worldly disasters were created to portray empathy, but they really do not connect to the picture of Bea suffering at all. A question I would like to ask is how and why is England going through and economic crisis?

Third, what is the purpose of sending pastors if the USIC employees are not into faith? Were they sent for the Oasans? Also, what happened to Kurtzburg?

      I assume originally in the book's universe, pastors were originally for USIC employees until they decided to expand on the Oasans. The Oasans appear to be faithful and adapt quickly to the teachings of the scripture compared to the zombie-like personas of the USIC employees. Which I would assume changed the role of a pastor for USIC. Before Peter, there was a pastor named Kurtzburg. He disappeared before they recruited Peter from USIC. Though Tartaglione, the translator was found alive. It was never explained what happened to Kurtzburg. Did he get eaten by non-believing Oasans? Or did he just vanish into thin air? What was explained is that he got tired of the Oasans and their lifestyle, but it is never explained what happened to him.

     Overall, I did like the book. It had a surrealist escapism and irony. As the Oasis settlement develops more, Earth seems to downgrade and lose humanity. It also tests that if God exists, then why does he let horrible things happen to good people? Also, there is more that what meets the eye when understanding the Oasans and the USIC mission. For enjoyment and experience, I give the book 4 stars. General explanations on the plot mixed with prose, 3.5 stars.

Upcoming Reviews

Hi guise,
I have some good news. I will be reviewing a couple of books by the end of this month.  I borrowed some last month and probably will borrow more by the end of the week.

Yay! Book Reviews!

    Unlike last year, I won't accomplish reading 11 books. I'm right now taking a class. It's 50/50 that I will do well. But at least my reading slump is breaking for now. The books I will be review this month are:

45 Pounds (More or Less) by K.A. Barson.

 A book I can somewhat connect with.

     16-year old Ann Galardi has struggled with weight all her life. In 10 weeks, her aunt Jackie is getting married and she wants Ann to be her bridesmaid. Ann makes the decision to lose 45 pounds within that time. Can Ann reach her goal within those 10 weeks or gain more than she's lost?

Wither by Lauren De Stefano

Really pretty cover!

     Due to the advancements of science and modern medicine, children are born perfect except for a flaw. Females live until 20 and males live until 25. 16-year old Rhine Ellery is taken from her normal life in Manhattan and transported in Florida to serve as a sister wife and wife to Linden Ashby. Despite the luxuries and Linden's love for Rhine, all she wants to do is go back to Manhattan and find her twin brother Rowan. But Rhine has to deal with the mysteriousness of Linden's father Vaughn and the secrets that go within the household. Will Rhine lose herself to the surreal, trapped yet seeming perfect world of being a wife or will she escape to find her brother?

The Peculiar by Stephan Bachmann

I think this is a Steampunk book?

     Disappearances and murders disperse around England due to the occurrences of fae and other fantastical creatures. After a technological revolution, faery creatures are forced to live in slums and hide themselves. A strange woman enters the slums and young Bartholomew is curious about her presence, Unfortunately, he reveals himself breaking the rules. This leads into a conquest where Bartholomew meets mysterious people and befriends someone. 

Broken Piano for President by Patrick Wensink

 It has a very unorthodox plot.

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

      Deshler Dean is known for creating amazing things while he's drunk. He's managed to create an addicting burger, achieved a six-figure deal for his crappy band, and started dating someone who he does not recognize. But he's managed to end up in a mess worse than the Allies taking on Germany. When rival burger chains fight for control for Dean's burger, it takes Dean and his band to save America from the corporate greed and win their hearts and stomachs.

First book sent to me to review! :D

      Peter, a man of faith is taken on a mission many miles away from his wife Bea.  Peter becomes enthralled by the mysteries of the environment, run by the company USIC.  His work brings him to the native population where they a battling dangerous illnesses but intrigued with the Bible or "the Book of Strange New Things". But his wife Bea falter with their faith as disasters come into play. While Peter is serving the need of his congregation under his strange employer, Bea is struggling to survive,

    These are the books I have read or will attempt to read this month. This list is tentative, so some will be reviewed while others will not be reviewed. It all depends on what I touch on first. I hope you guise enjoy the content I will try to provide this month.

XOXO,

Neko