Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Announcement Trailer [HD]

I get chills from this...

Amazing!

I'm sure most of you have seen this, but one more time wont hurt, right? November 2016 cannot come fast enough. I can't wait to see some new wizardy on the big screen! I'm so excited I may have to re-read this book a few more times to keep me busy until then.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

Publish Date: March 8th, 2011
Publisher: Delacorte Press Books
ISBN: 978-0-3857-3935-1
Pages: 320
Series: None
Source: Bought

Goodreads Synopsis:

It's hard finding beauty in the badlands of Washokey, Wyoming, but 14-year-old Grace Carpenter knows it's not her mother's pageant obsessions, or the cowboy dances adored by her small-town classmates. True beauty is wild-girl Mandarin Ramey: 17, shameless and utterly carefree. Grace would give anything to be like Mandarin. When they're united for a project, they form an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town's animal-head trophies, and searching for someplace magic. Grace plays along when Mandarin suggests they run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds plaguing their Badlands town. Because all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin's unique beauty hides a girl who's troubled, broken, and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, no friendship can withstand betrayal.

My Review:

I really like Kirsten Hubbard! I've never met her personally, but we've swapped words over email and social media, I've followed her blog and such and she's sent me goodies in the mail before. What a lovely lady!
I've owned this book and Wanderlove for quite some time now, but just recently got around to reading Like Mandarin. It wasn't what I expected to be honest! I did enjoy reading it; it was light, easy and flowed nicely but I was expecting travels and adventure. What I got instead was a 14 year old who appeared older than she is and a secondary character that stole the spotlight, along with descriptive paragraphs like you couldn't imagine. I think based on Kirsten's own travel experiences and the mention of travel on the back of the book, I thought I would be whisked away to places I've never been. But once I realized that wouldn't happen, I was alright with it, and read the book anyways. 
Grace is the main character who is forced into partnership with Mandarin at school. She can't believe it at first. Grace has always been fascinated by Mandarin and her ways, almost to the point of obsession. She wants to be like Mandarin and act like her, though Grace is shy, quiet and sticks to herself. I did find Grace to be a bit plain. Nothing about her stood out to me, she was just a regular girl growing up in Wyoming, but I feel like that was slightly on purpose so that we focused on Mandarin and what made her the gossip of the town. Once we meet Mandarin I was drawn into her dark and mysterious ways. I wanted to figure her out. With the way everyone in town talked about her and how Grace idolized her, I couldn't wait to learn her secrets. 
What I really enjoyed about Like Mandarin was the descriptive narrative I mentioned earlier. At times it felt like I was there in the badlands hearing the wind whistle. Hubbard has such a magical voice in her writing and I cannot wait to see that come to life in Wanderlove.

Book Review: Fat Dad, Fat Kid by Shay Butler and Gavin Butler

Publish Date: Dec 29th, 2015
Publisher: Keywords Press
ISBN: 978-1-4767-9231-6
Pages: 208
Series: None
Source: ARC from publisher for honest review

Goodreads Synopsis:

In today’s world where fast-food restaurants, soda, and processed foods reign supreme, does “fat dad” have to mean “fat kid”? Digital entrepreneur and beloved vlogger Shay Butler and his preteen son, Gavin, decided to find out the answer for themselves.
Before Shay became famous for vlogging about life with his boisterous brood of five, known on YouTube as the Shaytards, he was like many other American dads: He worked 9 to 5 to pay the bills, ate double bacon cheeseburgers during his lunch breaks, sipped soda throughout the day, and watched Netflix with handfuls of candy.
These small behaviors added up, and before he turned thirty, Shay was nearly 300 pounds. Motivated by the fear that he could have a heart attack before thirty-five, Shay decided to make incremental changes to his eating habits and exercise regimen. Adopting the attitude that every action, no matter how small, was better than what he was doing before, Shay lost more than 100 pounds and ran four marathons, becoming a source of inspiration for everyone who followed his journey on his ShayLoss channel on YouTube.
Now, at the age of thirty-five, Shay has discovered that “maintaining” is the hard part. He has also seen how some of his hard-to-break habits are affecting his children, particularly his eldest son, Gavin, who grew up during the years when his dad had “a little extra Shay on him.” Determined to get back into shape and inspire his son along the way, Shay asked Gavin to embark on a thirty-day challenge with him to eat clean and do thirty minutes of exercise a day. Full of Shay’s signature blend of humor, honesty, and unbridled enthusiasm, Fat Dad, Fat Kid chronicles the ups and downs of Shay and Gavin’s thirty days together, reflects on Shay’s lifelong struggle with health and fitness, and proves that it’s never too late for parents or children to embrace a healthier lifestyle—even when it doesn’t come easy. 


My Review:

It wasn't until recently that I was introduced to Shay Butler and the Shaytards. I'm not a huge YouTube watcher. I'll watch (and by watch I mean listen to) music videos. They will be playing in the background while I'm busy on the computer. My daughter loves watching YouTube, and she's always watching Vlogs and internetainers. Rhett and Link have become my favourites and I do find myself watching them. I'm familiar with iBallisticSquid and StampyLongNose and their Minecraft counterparts. I've been around when Bratayley is being watched. It was from here that a few Shaytard videos popped up. My sister also enjoys watching The Shaytards and she's mentioned some things she's seen in their vlogs. So when I was asked if I wanted to read and review this book, I thought Hey, I know these guys! I'll do it! 
I don't want to sound like I'm being super negative in the review but unfortunately when I started reading the book, I was thoroughly disappointed. I found that it was a mess. It was all over the place, and not properly formed as a book should be. For me, Fat Dad, Fat Kid did not read smoothly. We would be reading about one thing and then in the next sentence it was something completely different and unrelated. Not only that, but a lot of the same thing was mentioned over and over, sometimes even in the same chapter. Almost like it was forgotten the first time around.
I wish that the chapters were thought out more strategically. What I mean by this is that each chapter was written as a day in his 30 day challenge with his son Gavin, Chapter 1 = Day 1. Shay and Gavin would talk a bit about that day for them, though not a lot of time was spent on how they were feeling, and coping with each day. Shay would talk about a lot of other things in these chapters. Things like his Coca-Cola addiction, and his love for watermelon. His family and cheating on diets. I feel like he had enough material on his love of Coke to fill a whole chapter, and fill a chapter on how he loves watermelon, and so on and so forth instead of reminding us every few paragraphs.
Don't get me wrong here, Shay has a wonderful family by the looks of things we see on YouTube. A beautiful family with 5 happy kids and 1 happy wife. But did we really need to be told a million times how "hot" Colette is? I mean, this is a book that was not just written by Shay but his son as well. It just wasn't completely necessary.
I know that this is a pretty negative review so far, and I'm trying hard not to sound mean or be too critical, I'm just stating my opinion. So let me tell you what I did like about Fat Dad, Fat Kid. Chapter/Day 23 - No Excuses. It was the best chapter because it was so true and hit it straight on. Reading through the examples that Shay provided about people who do much more than a lot of us when it comes to hard work made me think, if they can do it, what's stopping me?
Overall, I didn't find this book to be motivating, or that interesting to read. I'm glad that Shay and his son have taken on the task of becoming more fit, healthy and aware of what they are putting into their bodies, but I feel like we could have done without the book, maybe just a vlog posted on YouTube about this would have been enough for me.

If anyone isn't familiar with Shay Butler, you can find out more at his ShayLoss channel where you can see the difference he's made, or check him out on his Shaytards videos and have a good laugh!

A Matter of...Life and Death?

Happy Anniversary Twilight. 10 Years! I'll be honest here, I really liked Twilight. I read the books and loved them so much. My boyfriend/hubby and I would spend hours at our local Chapters and Starbucks just wondering around. I didn't read a whole lot back then, but loved the atmosphere of the bookstore and was always on the lookout for new books. This was when I (and I still do sometimes!) judged books solely by their covers. I vividly remember walking by Twilight (piled on a bottom shelf at the end of an aisle) and I thought to myself "that looks like a good book". Simple, yet inciting. And I'm almost 100% sure it was that same night that my boyfriend/hubby picked up Twilight and showed it to me and said that he thought I'd read something like that. So I figured it was obvious that it would be my next read. I devoured it, and told everyone I knew about this love story between a Vampire and girl that wasn't a scary vampire story. I told them that there were twists and turns, and these dreamy characters that anyone could fall for. I loved every minute of my journey through Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. Come 3 years from the beginning, and I'm waiting for Breaking Dawn to be released. This is where things started to bother me a bit. I admit, I hated what Twilight had become. It was this franchise where readers became obsessed and sometimes that gave us a bad name. Like so many other things out there that gain popularity like this did, Twilight was criticized - for being so poorly written, and lame, with terrible character development. And Bella was a needy, dependent, whiny character and blah blah blah. It became a cliche..."Oh you like Twilight? *rolls eyes and let the judging begin*. What happened to the books that I read, and loved for the whole story? The emotion, and the old charm from Edward? Or the playful friend, Jacob? But I did go to the midnight release of Breaking Dawn, and I had a blue, ice cold drink to represent Edwards cold, heartless self. I donned the tattoos, and ogled at the people who dressed up. I waited in line to buy the book, and stayed up all night/morning to read it.

Ten years after all of this, after reading Twilight and re-reading it (and re-reading it again) We are back at the beginning again. This time with Life and Death. When I saw that there was a new "re-imagined" Twilight I did get a little excited! I pictured something in my head and was excited to read a new version of Twilight. But when I actually looked at the book, and saw what it was, I was disappointed! A gender swap of the characters? That's it? So instead of Bella and Edward, we get Beaufort and Edythe? Bring on the cheese. Seriously! So I've done a little reading and researching, and have seen nothing good said about Life and Death. I'm disappointed that we didn't get Midnight Sun and now to find out that Life and Death is almost the same book written word for word minus the characters names. How come we couldn't celebrate 10 years with something epic? Something that the 10 year wait would have been worth waiting for!

Has anyone actually read it? What are your thoughts?

Book Review: The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publish Date: September 22nd, 2004
ISBN: 9781481442718
Pages: 384
Series: Prisoners of Peace, #1
Source: From publisher for honest review

Goodreads Synopsis:

A world battered by climate shift and war turns to an ancient method of keeping peace: the exchange of hostages. The Children of Peace - sons and daughters of kings and presidents and generals - are raised together in small, isolated schools called Preceptures. There, they learn history and political theory, and are taught to gracefully accept what may well be their fate: to die if their countries declare war.
Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess of the Pan-Polar Confederation, is the pride of the North American Precepture. Learned and disciplined, Greta is proud of her role in keeping the global peace, even though, with her country controlling two-thirds of the world’s most war-worthy resource — water — she has little chance of reaching adulthood alive.
Enter Elián Palnik, the Precepture’s newest hostage and biggest problem. Greta’s world begins to tilt the moment she sees Elián dragged into the school in chains. The Precepture’s insidious surveillance, its small punishments and rewards, can make no dent in Elián, who is not interested in dignity and tradition, and doesn’t even accept the right of the UN to keep hostages.
What will happen to Elián and Greta as their two nations inch closer to war? 

My Review:

I really wanted to love this novel. The premise sounds so intriguing and different and exciting. I've also had the pleasure of meeting Erin Bow at our local "The Word on the Street" festival where she read an excerpt of Plain Kate aloud. She's such a lovely lady, and on top of that, the other day she stopped by where I work although I wasn't able to talk to her, knowing that she was there shopping and knowing that her book was on my bedside table to read made me feel like I needed to devour this book and love every minute of it. Unfortunately, if I'm being honest, which I am when I write these reviews, there was something off in The Scorpion Rules, and I didn't love it as much as I was hoping.
The Scorpion Rules started off promising with an introduction of the scenery, plot and characters - both the humans and the AI's - but it didn't expand or go any deeper for me. The characters lacked depth and emotion. I think that is the main concern with this for me was the lack of character depth, and connection with other characters and with me.
The story is there though. The idea of it is really neat as I said but I don't feel like it reached the level I was looking for. According to Goodreads, the average rating of The Scorpion Rules is 3.54 / 5 stars, so that is good to know, because it honestly kills me that I can't personally give this book by a fantastic local author a raving review.

Who's watching this tonight?

I'll be honest, I haven't even watched The Maze Runner. I've wanted to watch it forever but was waiting to watch it with my daughter. Who has now informed me that she no longer wants to watch it...

Regardless, the books written by James Dashner are a must read, and The Scorch Trials looks absolutely fantastic and was released into theaters today. 

I can't wait for this one...

I just finished reading Zeros by Scott Westerfeld the other day, and let me tell you that it was pretty freaking fantastic! I really enjoyed it and cannot wait to post a review of it!

If you like superheros, action and League of Extraordinary Gentleman, then Zeros may be what you're looking for for your next read.

Stay tuned...