Review: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Title: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Publication: April 2nd 2015 by Walker Books

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Pages: 429

Format: Paperback

Source: Purchased

Buy: Amazon UK / The Book Depository

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Synopsis:

From the author of The Sky Is Every­where, a radiant novel that will leave you laughing and crying - all at once. For fans of John Green, Gayle Forman and Lauren Oliver. Jude and her twin Noah were incredibly close - until a tragedy drove them apart, and now they are barely speaking. Then Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy as well as a captivating new mentor, both of whom may just need her as much as she needs them. What the twins don't realize is that each of them has only half the story and if they can just find their way back to one another, they have a chance to remake their world.

Review:

I bought this book this summer as I had seen many Booktubers talking about how absolutely amazing it was and how it was there new favourite book. So of course I had to go and buy it for myself when I saw it on offer!

I think I shall just jump right in about how I feel about this book and judging from the reviews I have been reading on Goodreads I seem to be in the minority on this one..but I didn't find this book that good. If I was to describe this book in one word that word would be, MEH...(that's not even a word) I mean this book wasn't all bad but it wasn't what I was hoping for really.

I felt like I could relate to Noah and Jude the main characters in this book in some ways as Noah and Jude are twins and I myself have a twin brother (random fact about me). This book is not exactly split into chapters but there is sections where you follow Jude's point of view and sections in Noah's point of view, each time at different stages of their life as they both deal with their teen years and the loss of a family member in their own separate ways. I found that if I had to pick out of the two I would say I enjoyed Noah's point of view more as I found it less confusing to read, if you have read the book you probably know what I am talking about because in the book the character of Jude has a weird obsession with ghosts, superstitions and the ghost of her dead Grandma and you can even imagine at times this can be a very confusing combination to read. (I hope I explained that ok)

Sometimes I think I don't enjoy certain books because I just don't get all the in-depth metaphors and lines with deeper meanings and all that jazz....so if your like me this book didn't have a very gripping plot it just kind of sauntered along, yes I found Jude's and Noah's various relationships to be slightly intriguing but I think at that point I was clinging to anything remotely interesting to keep my attention on the book.

Like I said before and I think it is good to bring up as I did start this blog to promote real, honest reviews from a teens perspective and for a teen like me I felt the writing style in this book is very unique which isn't a bad thing but it can be hard for some people my age to wrap their head around, you know what I mean? And I felt the lack of a proper plot made it very boring at times.

I won't end this review on a bad note though, I think if you like reading unique writing styles and books that really make you think about the meaning of things and...if you really like art  I think you will really like this book. As I said I am in the minority for this one and a lot of people think it is amazing! So give it a go you may like it you might not! That's all I have for now if you read this book I would like to here your opinions on it in the comments below.

Rating:

#FF Feature & Follow Time #2

Feature Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read

Feature Follow Friday is a way to find new blogs and make new friends, basically you follow blogs and they follow you back! For full rules and info visit the hosts blog above.

This week's featured blogs: Billbrarian and Booklovercircumspect4

Question of the Week: What's your favourite non-bookish website hangout?
If I am online I am either on my blog or glued to Youtube I love Youtubers and watching youtube videos my favourite youtubers include the Shaytards, Pointlessblog, Joe Sugg, Caspar lee, Marcus Butler, Tyler Oakley,Connor Franta....I watch a lot of youtubers basically too many to name

I prefer Bloglovin' follows but twitter and email are fine also :) Comment below if you follow so I can follow you back!

Leaving for a while :(

I know this blog is only new but I have to take a break for a few weeks due to life beyond blogging.
There may be a few posts up here and there but they will be in no way on a regular schedule, I am so sorry for this, but this is not the end of my blog, I just won't have access to a computer for the next few weeks.
Don't worry I will be continuing to read books so will have plenty to blog about when I get back!

Mini Haul: Swapit Win!

This is just going to be a short post as I am very excited for what arrived at my door recently and the story behind how it came to land on my doorstep!

The other day I came home to find a package from a website called Swapit.co.uk
I had been eagerly anticipating this package to arrive for a few days and when it finally came I was so happy! This is what was inside:

The Harry Potter Colouring Book! I won this book from a bid on Swapit.co.uk...so I basically got it completely free! To be honest I was so happy when it arrived because I didn't know if Swapit was legit or not, but now that I know you CAN actually win things, I am going to share this site with you guys.

I found this website called Swapit in the summer as I was bored one day and went on a free stuff frenzy..I wanted to see could I earn money online, win stuff,etc. because let's be honest when your bored in Summer what teen doesn't look up these kind of things. Anyway I never really found anything worth my while that was available for residents of Ireland, but then I came across Swapit!

Basically you can Play Games, Watch Videos, Do Surveys, Swap your unwanted stuff and more in order to earn points called swapits which you can then trade in for awesome prizes as you can see from my brand new colouring book!

If I am to be honest with you I have never swapped anything I only do the weekly survey for 50 points and most of the swaps from other users are very bad but where you find all the good prizes is in the frenzies hosted by the swapit website themselves. In these frenzies you can use your collected points to bid on prizes and if you win the bid you get the prize...simple.

I spent 2000 swapits on this book, which may seem like a lot but I had 4000+ saved since the summer and I was not letting anyone else take it from me. I am very happy with this and would recommend you sign up to this website if you live in the UK or Ireland, if you live in the UK you have some advantages on earning more swapits!

In case you wanted to see here is a page I have started to complete in the colouring book:

That is all I have to say for now as I have to go get my colour on! See you guys soon - Sarah

Visit Swapit.co.uk here

#FF Feature & Follow Time – Get Your Hop On!

This is the first blog hop I have tried to participate in so hopefully I have followed all the rules and done it right!

this blog hop is hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read and you can find out more about how to join the blog hop on their blogs!

From Alison Can Read:

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

Question of the Week: What's your favourite Ice-Cream flavour?

My Favourite Ice-Cream flavour I have ever tried would be Kinder Bueno flavoured Italian ice-cream.....yummy!

I would like to be followed by email or Bloglovin' :)

Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Publication: April 12th 2012 by Orion

Genre: Young-adult fiction

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback

Source: Purchased

Buy: Amazon UK / The Book Depository

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis:

Two misfits. One extraordinary love. Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor. Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park. Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try

Review:

After loving 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell, I decided to pick up Eleanor and Park which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now just waiting to be read. Eleanor and Park did not disappoint!

 I loved this book, I think I liked the characters in this book the best. I loved the character of Eleanor, I love the way she comes across at the start of the book in the way she dresses and she just generally comes across like she doesn't care what anyone thinks of her. Later on in the book we see just like any teens nowadays that she still is quite self-conscious and has her own problems at home. I really like the contrast in character between Eleanor and Park, I think it shows a fine example of something I learned in science class...opposites attract!..well not exactly, but that's another reason I loved this book. This may be hard for me to explain but I have a love/hate relationship with those books were the main characters fall in love insistently and it was love at first sight and all that, as in I love them because we all dream of having relationships like that and it makes me feel good to read...but I hate them because they are so unrealistic, like seriously things like that just don't happen in the real world. In this book the relationship building was just perfect it had the all the awkwardness of young love and it happened slowly through out the book, from comics to cassettes....

My favourite additional characters were Eleanor's friends, DeNice and Beebi and Park's mom Mindy.

I found DeNice and Mindy's conversations with Eleanor after gym class left me laughing out loud sometimes while reading.I also thought Park's mom Mindy to be so funny, I don't think her character was supposed to be funny but I just found how brutally honest and to the point she is to be hilarious at times.

The relationship between Eleanor and Park in this book was the kind of relationship in a book where I could literally read a never ending book about it and never get bored, it just seemed so real and true, it wasn't always perfect and there was bumps in the road, but you could still see they were meant for each other.

But obviously to make a good story (even if we may not like it) there always has to be the bad guys to balance out the good. And lets just say that the plot twist at the end made it really clear who the bad guy in this story was, like holy crap Richie better go burn in the pits of hell. Obviously we know that he is the bad guy from the start as he seems to be abusive towards Eleanor's mom, but the ending of the book....I can't even, Richie is just the devil! That is all I have to say...

For anyone who has already read this book you are going to know what I am talking about, if not you might as well skip this part. The ending of this book left me so annoyed, I hate cliffhangers! What were the 3 words Eleanor sent to Park, I know the obvious answer would probably be "I love you" but I am the kind of person that needs a defiant answer to these kind of things After reading the authors note at the end of the book, where the author talks a bit about the last three words, I changed my mind a little bit as I like the way she explains that she felt it was a private moment between the two of them, and that it felt rude intruding on that special moment, that it should be kept to themselves, it didn't feel right to share what Eleanor wrote...It still kind of pissed me off though..

Although this story didn't necessarily have the happy ending I was expecting, I feel it suited the book the more I thought about it and the more I read the authors note in the back.They are only 17 years old! it may be the end of the book, but they have may more days ahead of them. Like Rainbow Rowell said "I don't believe that 17-year-olds get happy ending. They get beginnings".

Rating:

Comment below :) 

My Wreck This Journal

Today's post is a little different then usual, its not a review, meme or discussion, but today I decided I wanted to blog about my 'Wreck This Journal'. I assume a lot of you have already heard of 'Wreck this Journal' by Keri Smith, but if not here is a short description that I found on goodreads:

For anyone who's ever wished to, but had trouble starting, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook comes Wreck This Journal, an illustrated book that features a subversive collection of prompts, asking readers to muster up their best mistake- and mess-making abilities to fill the pages of the book (and destroy them). Acclaimed illustrator Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in "destructive" acts-poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting with coffee, and more-in order to experience the true creative process. Readers discover a new way of art and journal making-and new ways to escape the fear of the blank page and fully engage in the creative process.

I have had my Wreck this Journal for over a year I would say although I do not know for sure...and I LOVE it!! I find filling out the pages so stress-relieving at the end of a long week. 
As you can see I have decorated the front of mine with all things I love and the back is destroyed from when I had to bring it for a walk (No shame). I decided today to share with you some of my most recent pages and some of my favorites to date:

The above Page is my most recent page to complete.The page simply said smush something colourful onto this page. I used smudged and blended chalk pastels and then of course added the Deathly Hallows symbol...because Harry Potter is the best.

Another one of my most recent pages was this page here. This page had been left blank for a while as I didn't have any clue what to put there, the page tells you to "Make A Mess, Clean It Up". But I finally came up with the idea of the Rubik's Cube as around the time I did this page I also learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube (which I can now solve in under 2 minutes).

Oh what do you know..another Harry Potter themed page, I can not actually take credit for the idea of this page as I found the idea on Instagram although I can not recall the username right now. As you can probably tell some marker from the previous page bleed through when I was completing this page but that's ok! That's what I love about this book, if a mess is made or I make a mistake I don't feel bad about it because I am allowed wreck it.

And the last page I would like to show you is this page,my minion page.It was not completed as recently as the others but I really like this page because I have an obsession with minions...I don't even really like 'Despicable Me', I just love the minions. This page tells you to "Color Outside Of The Line" and on the page is the big blank circle in the middle.As you can see I followed the rules and coloured a minion around it.

Some people may say that I have been filling out this book wrong, that your supposed to wreck it, not do art in it or be creative. To be honest this is not my first 'Wreck This Journal' the first one I completely destroyed and yes I enjoyed it, but I am getting a totally different kind of enjoyment out of filling this one out slowly and being more creative in the way I destroy it...as Keri Smith says "To create is to destroy". 

And this is the part where you guys come in...yes I need your help to complete a page in my wreck this journal.

I need all of you to help me complete this page. The picture isn't the best but the page says "Hang the journal in a public place. Invite people to draw here", and I thought the best place to hang my journal would be on my blog of course! If you would like to be a part of this page comment down below your name ( Blog, Twitter) and a comment that you would like me to put in the journal (and if you want what colour you want it to be written in) ...when it is full I will post a picture to show everyone.

So that's all I have to say about my 'Wreck This Journal' (for now anyway), if you don't have a 'Wreck This Journal' I highly recommend you get one no matter how old you are, and remember there is no set way to wreck it be as destructive or as creative as you like.

Keri Smith also has many other books like this that encourage you to channel your creativity and imagination, yet they are all slightly different. In total I own 8 Keri Smith books (2 of which are Wreck This Journal), I have not done much in the other journals as I am enjoying this one the best right now. Comment below if you would like to see a blog post about Keri Smith's other books!

Buy your own 'Wreck This Journal' today and get wrecking: Amazon UK / The Book Depository

(Not Sponsored I just really love the book)