January Wrap Up & February TBR || 2015

Top 5 Historical Novels || Top 5 Wednesday

In no particular order...

Top 10 Tuesday | 9 December 2014|

Top 10 New-To-Me Authors | Read in 2014

Ranked in order of how much I loved them....

     10. Erin Eveland

       9. James Dashner

       8. William Ritter

       7. Pauline C. Harris  (Check out her BookTube channel. Just search her name!)

  

       6. Ned Vizzini

       5. Suzanne Young

       

       4. Agatha Christie

       3. Vicky Alvear Shecter (Who I was lucky enough to meet!)

       2. Libba Bray

       1. Rainbow Rowell 

                    –Oswin K. Holmes

Top 5 Wednesday

Top 5 Books I Didn't Expect to Like but Did

In no particular order...

–Oswin K. Holmes

The College Book Tag

Don't worry, it isn't about college textbooks! It is about Young Adult books!

–Oswin K. Holmes

Top 5 Wednesday || Top 5 Female Characters

     I wil leave no explanation. If you have no idea why these are my top 5, you seriously need to read the books they are in.

5. Tris Prior || Divergent

4. Cassiopea Sullivan || The 5th Wave

3. Isabelle Lightwood || The Mortal Instruments

2. Katniss Everdeen || The Hunger Games

1. Hermione Granger || Harry Potter

          –Oswin K. Holmes

Monday Missions #2

     Yes, I do realize that this is Tuesday and that it has been a month since my last Monday Missions, but every time I tried to film a video for it, I kept getting interrupted. So, here is a blog form of what I was hoping to have as a weekly video on my BookTube channel.

     So, what am I planning on doing this week?

     Reading Goals

     I plan on reading two books this week. 

     I have to read Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii by Vicky Alvear Shecter for my high school book club. I am meeting the author on the 16 of October, so it would be lovely if I finished the book this week so that I can meet her and actually have finished her book.

     Curses and Smoke: A Novel of Pompeii is about a teenage girl named Lucia with an arranged marriage to a man who is forty years older than her. This man is rich and, well, that's the only upside to the arrangement. She, of course, does not want to marry him, but she wants to explore the world and study natural mysteries, like the tremours that shake Pompeii. Tag is a slave who wants to be a gladiator, and is finally back from Rome and living with his owners again. He and Lucia, who is the daughter of his owner, but not cruel to him like her father, begin to spark a romance. They have to choose between the life that they know and the life that they want to live together.

     Do I even need to put a summary of this up? I'm sure you've all seen it, read it even. I'm just way behind on this book. The movie, as I'm sure you know, came out last week, and I refuse to see it without finishing the book first.

     Basically, this is the story of a boy named Thomas who wakes up with a horrible case of amnesia in a box which takes him up to a place full of boys his age and the place is surrounded by a huge maze. There is no way out, although the Maze Runners run through the maze everyday in search of some way to escape. 

     But what happens when a girl shows up in the maze? She is the first and only girl to ever come out of the box. And she is supposedly the last person who ever will.

     Writing Goals
     I, of course, will do my best to update my Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper fanfiction, The Woman Who Counted, this week. I will also do my best to update my PotterLock/Kid!Lock fanfiction The House Amulets and my Doctor Who PondLife fanfiction, Together Or Not At All.

–Oswin K. Holmes

Looking For Alaska || Book Review

 Looking for Alaska 

by John Green

Overall Goodreads Rating:4.20/5 stars

What I Rated It On Goodreads: 4/5 stars

Rating Based On Percentages: 85%

For Ages: 15+

Warnings: Underage drinking, smoking, porn watching, and oral sex occur. There is also a lot of cursing. If you are offended by any of these, I would strongly suggest that you don't read this book.

Blurb On The Back Of Book: "Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clover, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

     Overall, I did enjoy this book. I read it in two days with about five hours in total of reading it. It's short and it is a quick and easy read. However, this book would not be for everyone. I will just go ahead and warn you all that there is underage drinking, smoking, porn watching, oral sex, and almost sex. I'm not saying it was a full on erotica, because this is definitely a young adult book, but there should definitely be age limits on this. I honestly thing that being 15 and older would be alright, but really, this all depends on the person reading and (if they are a teenager) what their parents think. If you believe you are mature enough for this, then by all means, read it. It is a fun read. I enjoyed it a lot. 

     Basically, this isn't a book talk (I will have a Book Talk video up on my BookTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa_UDBJOmzsgoElQ_V4wphw/videos] soon). This is just me saying that I enjoyed it and me telling you if you would enjoy it by providing warnings and such. I don't want to spoil the book for you, so that is why I am keeping this to a minimum. More to come on my BookTube channel. 
–Oswin H.

Monday Missions #1

What are my reading and writing goals for this week? I discuss them in my first Monday Missions vlog on BookTube!

Watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3slZDXNSvRc&list=UUa_UDBJOmzsgoElQ_V4wphw

New Book Review Soon!

I've just finished The Mortal Instruments: City of Glass by Cassandra Clare, so a review will be up in a few days!
Just thought I should let you know since I haven't been that active recently. My apologies, for that. School has started for me, and I have a lot of homework and marching band and, ugh, why can't school just stop getting in the way of me reading?
–Oswin H.