Bookish Academy Awards 2016

I have been slacking on publishing content on this blog. I have had a lot of personal stuff to deal with lately and just wasn't feeling like posting. That is one thing that I will never do. I will never force myself to publish content because I won't be happy with it. Anyway, I am getting myself back on track and I plan to be publishing a lot more now.  I will be scheduling my book reviews for Mondays at noon and I want to start posting other posts here and there throughout the week, so keep your eyes open. 

I got this idea from one of my favorite book tubers, Reagan or PeruseProject. Basically, you take each of the categories from the Oscars and change them into bookish categories.

Best Male Protagonist: Jacob Portman from the Miss Perengrine's Home  for Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs. He starts out as this confused and scared boy but he turns into this brave man who is willing to risk everything to save his friends and honor his grandfather.  

Best Female Protagonist: Mare Barrow from the Red Queen series by debut author, Victoria Aveyard. The story may be generic to YA fantasy readers, which isn't my most read genre (possibly why I love it so much), but Mare is such a bad ass. She isn't afraid to stand up for what she believes in but she also has all of the demons inside of her that Aveyard allows her to feel with vivid rhetoric. 

Best Plot Twist:  Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han. It's the third book in the Burn for Burn series and I would never have been able to predict this ending. I had so many theories and none of them were even miles from close to this!! It was incredible and confusing! 

Best Book Cover: It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. The cover just describes mental illness in a profound way. It's an image of a drawn map inside of a man's brain. That's exactly what the story tries to portray. Mental illness is just as complicated as the inner workings of a city. 

Best Side Character: Elliot in the Girl Online series is such an incredible best friend. He reminds of my best friend, Ash. He's always there for Penny, even when she isn't for him. He understands her more than she understands herself. He is also the epitome of the best gay best friend, just like Ash. 

Best Movie Adaptation: I haven't seen any movie adaptions, other than Paper Towns and that movie butchered the book!!! So I am most looking forward to the adaption of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I am so excited that Tim Burton is directing it. He is the only director that I would trust with this series because I know that his tendency for weirdness is just perfect for this series because of how weird the books are!! I am sooooo excited!!!!! If you haven't watched the trailer yet... DO IT!!!!!! 

Book You Would Love To See Animated: I haven't read many books that I feel would be good animated but Joe Sugg's graphic novel Username Evie would be a really good animated short film. 

Best Writer That You Read For The First Time: Rainbow Rowell. I read Fangirl over the summer and I really resonated with that book. 

Best Short Story/Novella: The two novellas in the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi. 1.5 is Fracture Me and 2.5 is Destroy Me. They were the only novellas that I have read. Recently I have been reading a collection of short stories for my English class but I don't feel like anyone would enjoy them, that reads this blog, if it weren't part of a class discussion; whereas, the Shatter Me novellas were incredible. I especially liked the first one because it wasn't the perspective that the rest of the series was in. I liked having Warner's perspective on the same events that we learned of through Juliette. 

Best Action in a Book: American Sniper is Chris Kyle's memoir written by himself with the help of Jim DeFelice. It was quite eye opening, and for me, it hit close to home since a lot of my family has spent time in the military and many over in the places that Kyle mentions. The action was very spot on. I could feel the dust in my lungs and covering my eyes, I felt like I couldn't see what he was describing when he couldn't see, I felt my heart race every time he was trying to protect his fellow brothers and sisters in combat, I felt restless when he wasn't out there. It was all very real. 

Best Historical Fiction/Nonfiction/Memoir: I haven't read much on the basis of Historical Fiction or Nonfiction this year, but I have read many memoirs. The one that I found most compelling though, was El Deafo by Cece Bell. It's her graphic novel memoir about her childhood as the only deaf kid in her elementary school. I just found the entire story to be really eye opening and beautiful.

Fangirl ~ Rainbow Rowell

A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life - and she's really good at it. she and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them trough their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. 

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of he comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a Fiction-Writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone. 

For Cath, the question is: Can she doe this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Book Review:

When I was at Target the other day Fangirl the collector's edition was on sale. It is such a pretty cover. Mine is not like the one above, it is pink with green writing and the inside covers, front and back, are covered with amazing fanart related to the story. Now this has been on my TBR list for a couple of months now so when I saw that it was 20% off I had to get it. And I am so happy that I did. It is a long book but it is so beautiful and an easy read. 

I really resonate with Cath's character. She is in her freshman year of college and I'm entering my senior year of high school, but I can't even think about this year because I'm too excited for the next. She is a dedicated fan of Simon Snow, and though Simon Snow isn't a real series, it super close to my biggest obsession Harry Potter. (If you want the similarities explained go to this link: http://lies.tumblr.com/post/61896796990/the-world-in-fangirl) She also struggles with anxiety and is an introvert. (Literally me!)

Besides the fact that I just really resonate with Cath and this world, the story is just beautifully written. We can feel the pain, confusion, fear, love, and everything in between. I also love her roommate Reagan. At first I was skeptical of her and wasn't really sure about the type of person she is, but as she pulled Cath out of her shell and showed that she had her back no matter what I really began to like her as a character. I also love Levi, who Cath assumes is Reagan's boyfriend. I'll talk moe about him in the discussion though because I don't want to give anything away to those who haven't read this amazing bit of YA contemporary fiction. I hated Wren up until the end when she finally came to her senses and was once again there for her sister. 

I also really loved that Rowell included so many mental illnesses/addictions in this book. Cath has anxiety, her father has depression or bipolar disorder (it was never really clarified), and Wren struggles with alcohol abuse. Those diseases were perfectly explained. I have anxiety myself and I know people with the other diseases mentioned and I have been hurt by them as well, so I know what it means to be watching those you love spiral. 

Pages: 433                                                                                                               Rate:5/5

Book Discussion: SPOILERS: 

When Cath is introduced I knew that she was like me. I knew that everything she would feel, I have felt too. Now I have never been in a relationship so I can't say that I have been in love like she is with Levi, once they finally end up together. But I have crushed on someone really hard and been really let down when I realized that they only thought of me as a work partner, like she does with that jerk Nick. 

Another thing that I loved about this book was that before each chapter we would get either a snippet of the Simon Snow series (which made me want to read a series that doesn't exist) or a bit of Cath's Simon Snow fanfiction. Now I have written fanfiction (nowhere near as long as Cath's Carry On, Simon) and I might be uploading some at some point to hear as well. Mine are much shorter than hers, which is described as being longer than any of the books in Gemma T Leslie's series. 

Now let's talk about Levi. So at first it seems like he is dating Reagan, Cath's roommate. They are always hanging out but we later learn that they aren't together, only after Cath and he kissed and fell asleep together. Now Reagan was really the only friend that Cath had, they weren't super close, like Cath didn't really tell Reagan about the guy who broke up with her over the phone after they'd only been at college for a little while for another girl. But Reagan was the one who helped Cath get out of her shell, like eating in the dining hall or just leaving her room for something that wasn't class related. So obviously before Cath knew that she and Levi weren't together she felt guilty for kissing him. And Cath suffers from anxiety so her guilt just multiplied 1000x. 

So when Reagan finally convinces her that it is okay and that she should go with her to Levi's party, you think everything is going to be fine. And it is, until they walk into the kitchen where Levi is kissing another girl. This really hurts Cath and Reagan vows to keep him away from her. This works for awhile until Cath's dad enters the hospital because of his depression. She has no one else to call to give her a ride back to Omaha. They fight and everything before she finally gets to see her dad. But when she does go back to school and he finally gets her to listen to him, they are able to start the most amazingly adorable real relationship ever. I just love it so damn much. 

I also learned how much you can hate a literary character who has only a handful of lines; Cath and Wren's mother. She is mentioned more than that but she only has one actual scene and I hate her! I thought that I hated Umbridge from the Harry Potter series the most but Laura comes as a close second. 

Now the mental illnesses were portrayed really well in this series without explicitly saying, "Oh he is having a manic episode" or "Oh she is having an anxiety attack." As a reader you just knew what was happening as the change of tone would change. Now maybe I was really sensitive to what was happening because I suffer from anxiety myself but I don't believe that that was the case. I really do think that Rowell just described it wonderfully. 

Addiction was also a theme that I could see pretty much the second it began, before Cath even knew what was happening to her sister. And once again that is just Rowell's magic as a writer. Wren's alcoholism affects everyone differently but I really loved how  it affected their father. Ever since the girls were nine years old, after their mother left, it has always been them, but it is explained that he never kept too tight of a leash on them. So with his own mental disease and everything I didn't really expect him to become so intense, but at the same time it made perfect sense. 

Overall I just really love this damn book. 

 Favorite Quote:

"Because I'm the kind of girl that fantasizes about being trapped in a library overnight."