Thursday, October 18, 2012

Wonderful Words #1

Hey Guys, 
So I decided to start a new "series" on this blog, where I share quotes that really stayed with me after I heard it, read it, whatever, just quotes I really like. Feel free to do it as well and comment on this post linking your post so that I can see it. I hope you enjoy this! 


“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.”
  • Hazel (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green) 
“Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging – not enlightenment but enleadenment.”
“He said you couldn’t pretend the terrible things in life didn’t happen. You can’t clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It’s how you learn. And try to make improvements.”
“I was aware too how strange adults were, how theirs lives were vaster than they wanted anyone to realize, that they actually stretched on and on like deserts, dry and desolate, with an unpredictable, shifting sea of dunes.”
  • Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
  • The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

Friday, October 12, 2012

Friday Finds #2

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased). It is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

The Painted Drum
Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
While appraising the estate of a New Hampshire family descended from a North Dakota Indian agent, Faye Travers is startled to discover a rare moose skin and cedar drum fashioned long ago by an Ojibwe artisan. And so begins an illuminating journey both backward and forward in time, following the strange passage of a powerful yet delicate instrument, and revealing the extraordinary lives it has touched and defined.
Compelling and unforgettable, Louise Erdrich's "Painted Drum" explores the often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, the strength of family, and the intricate rhythms of grief with all the grace, wit, and startling beauty that characterizes this acclaimed author's finest work.





This is Not a Test
This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually wantto live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

House of Leaves


House Of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski
The story focuses on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.




I am super excited for these books, expecially House of Leaves, I've heard it's supposed to be a (excuse my language) complete mind-fuck, very disturbing, but also super awesome!

Until next time, Happy Reading,
Helene

Monday, October 8, 2012

GIVEAWAY: When The Siren Calls by Tom Barry

When the Siren Calls

When The Siren Calls by Tom Barry is being published in November of this year and Tom has been very nice to provide the book for this Giveaway. If you guys are interested in getting your hands on this book, why not join in and try to win it?

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:
"Restless and neglected, Isobel is suffocating in a stagnant marriage. Suave and charismatic Jay is fighting for survival. An invitation to visit Jay's resort in the hills of Tuscany sparks Isobel to imagine a life of freedom and excitement.
Dismissing her husband’s objections, Isobel pursues Jay to Tuscany on the pretext of searching for a holiday home. After fighting anguished guilt, she abandons herself in a passionate affair, with her controlling lover encouraging Isobel to push beyond her sexual boundaries.
But all is not as it seems in the idyllic Tuscan retreat, and Isobel finds herself trapped in a web of intrigue, deception, and betrayal. She is one player in a dangerous love triangle, unsure whether Jay is her saviour, or her nemesis. As her world falls apart, she must choose between the woman she thought she was, and the woman she has become."

Looks good, doesn't it? I think so, I am definitely reading this next.

This giveaway is open internationally, so all of you can join in!



If you want to know more about the author, Tom Barry, here you go;

Friday, October 5, 2012

Friday Finds #1

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased). It is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

What We Saw At Night
What We Saw At Night by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Like the yearning, doomed young clones in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, three teenagers with XP (a life-threatening allergy to sunlight) are a species unto themselves. As seen through the eyes of 16-year-old Allie Kim, they roam the silent streets, looking for adventure, while others sleep. When Allie's best friend introduces the trio to Parkour, the stunt-sport of running and climbing off forest cliffs and tall buildings (risky in daylight and potentially deadly by darkness), they feel truly alive, equal to the "daytimers." On a random summer night, while scaling a building like any other, the three happen to peer into an empty apartment and glimpse an older man with what looks like a dead girl. A game of cat-and-mouse ensues that escalates through the underground world of hospital confinement, off-the-grid sports, and forbidden love. Allie, who can never see the light of day, discovers she's the lone key to stopping a human monster.

The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle, #1)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of theShiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

Before I Die



Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallised in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time finally runs out.





All of these look super awesome, and I am so excited to read them all! 

Until next time - Happy Reading,
Helene


Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers


Some Girls Are

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder.  Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumours about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around.  Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge.  If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumours are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day.  She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully.  Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realises Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.


First off, I want to start by saying that this book was not what I expected, and that is not a bad thing, at all! I just didn't expect it to be so deep. Which it is. This book it truly amazing. It's heartbreaking. But it truly is an amazing piece of writing. The story is of a girl that falls from popularity and becomes the victim, and even though this girl has been a complete bitch to so many people, you start to feel for her, you start liking her, even though you should hate her. 

The fact that Courtney Summers has been able to write a likable bitch is amazing, the character is such a developed character, she has more to her than what you first think, and that is an amazing thing, when a book has great characters, like this one. All the characters are amazing, they are so different, so complex, but at the same time, you can relate to each of them in some way, well except the Fearsome Foursome, they are terrible people. But all I want to say is that this book is really worth the read, or a listen, in my case I listened to it, but I think I might buy this book too, because I loved it so much. 

So, what I want you to do now is go read this book, and be blown away by how great it is!

Rating; ♥