2015 Book Awards

I did these last year and I thought they were pretty fun.

Best Female--Vin from Mistborn: The Final Empire. I have very few complaints on her character development. She's such a strong female lead, and it was really interesting seeing her make her journey through the writing of Brandon Sanderson, who is a middle aged man. Sometimes, male authors create female characters that fall flat, but Sanderson is definitely an exception.

Best Male--Lucian, Kelsier, Rowan, Mark Watney, Baz: all wonderful candidates. I'm not sure If I could pick a favorite. Rowan from Queen of Shadows is my favorite, but that's predictable and redundant. As for new characters, probably Kelsier (Mistborn: The Final Empire) or Baz (Carry On) because they were so funny (and I'm a slut for fantasies), but Mark Watney (The Martian) is a close third.

Best Plot Twist/Twist Ending--Though Carry On by Rainbow Rowell gave me a lot of feels, I'm gonna have to award the best twist ending to it. Rowell did a really good job wrapping things up (sort of) with a really emotionally charged last few scenes. I don't wanna spoil too much, you know...

Best Book the Movie Adaptation--There are only a couple options for this category, but I chose The Martian by Andy Weir. So good. SO GOOD. I watched this with my brother just a few days after reading the book. SO GOOD.

Best Antagonist--The interloper aliens from Eve: The Awakening by Jenna Moreci take the cake. I've never felt so repulsed by a "villain". They are disgusting, and I love them.

Best Supporting Character(s)--I love the whole cast of The Lunar Chronicles so much, so Winter by Marissa Meyer definitely has the best supporting characters. An exception: Jacin Clay. I hated that little shit. But I liked loved Winter, Cress, Scarlet, Thorne, Torin, and Iko.

Best Friendship--I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok in school last spring. The "friendship" between Danny and Reuben just warms my heart, if you know what I mean.

Best Couple--Rowan and Aelin from Queen of Shadows! No one is surprised. They are my babies. My literal favorites. I've been rooting for them since their existence. I just. I love them. A lot.

Best Setting--A strange choice, but the Siberian tundra in Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys intrigued me. Lina's journey through the labor camps following her deportation broke my heart, but the world Sepetys builds around her is rich with characters, description, and emotion.

Best Ending--Winter by Marissa Meyer really wrapped things up well for the whole series. We all knew Cinder didn't want to be queen, too. But Queen of Shadows was also incredible. And I loved The Martian--it made me feel warm inside. I don't know, I'm stumped.

Book I Threw Across the Room the Hardest--Close tie between The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Fanart by Sarah Tregay. I had so many issues with both these books. I also hated The 100 by Kass Morgan (disappointing because I love the TV show) and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Agh. So many issues.

I look forward to my Book Awards next year! These are a nice way to reflect on the books from the year.

2015 Wrap

This was a great year of reading for me. I'm separating my list into a few different categories since I like a lot of stuff. Books, music, movies, YouTubers, all that jazz. Without further ado, my favorites from this year in no real order:

Books
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas--I think this book actually was my favorite. It was everything I wanted. My heart swells with joy when I remember all the anxiety it put me through. Where will this series go next year? I cannot wait to find out!

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell--This book was just really really cute. I think the only issue I have with it is that there won't be more. If I could get an entire book about Simon and Baz, I'd jump out the window from pure excitement. But year, except for that, everything is good.

Winter by Marissa Meyer--I made a whole review on things I liked about this book, and things I didn't like. I complained in the review a lot more than how I actually feel about it. It truly was a magnificent conclusion to the series.

Eve: The Awakening by Jenna Moreci--aye, I talk about her just a little bit later in this wrap up under the YouTubers section. She's great, her book is great, it's the best new-adult-science-fiction you'll ever read. Eagerly awaiting the sequel.

The Martian by Andy Weir--I was skeptical at first, since there was so much hype built around it. I wasn't disappointed though, it was the most humorous science fiction I've read. I grew to love the science-y aspects as well as Watney's charismatic personality. The movie was grand, too.

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins--I read this forever ago, it was one of the first books I read this year so I don't really remember it. But I really enjoyed it. This whole series in general just blew me away with cuteness. Wow, I'll probably regret that sentence.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok--This book was really important to me, I learned so much about people from it. I enjoyed the characters, the story, it made me feel a lot of different emotions, which I think is good.

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson--Holy crap is Sanderson good at world building. And I really tried to get into the second book, but I'm finding it hard without *spoilers* my favorite character. That ending just drained me.

Some honorable mentions! I liked these books a lot, but I didn't entirely think they were my favorites.
Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson
1984 by George Orwell (I also just reread Animal Farm, which was great)
A Court of Thrones and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

*I did alright in terms of my 2015 reading goals. I read 7.5 of the books on my list. It's not as great as I'd have liked, but I'm honestly proud of even doing that much. In my goals for next year, I'll address the issue of my growing TBR...

Music
Hamilton: The Musical (It's genius, really. I can't. It's show-tune rap about ALEXANDER HAMILTON.)
No Mythologies to Follow by MO (I've listened to it countless times. Best thing ever.
Oh Wonder's album is up there, it was another good summer jam
Blurryface (Twenty One Pilots--so good. Excited to see these two beans in concert)
Misterwive's Our Own House was spectacular and great to listen to in the summer
I listened to the HTTYD scores more than I should have probably.
The new Star War's "March of the Resistance" is definitely a jam, oops.
My love for Bleacher's Strange Desire exceeds all limits
BORNS is amazing. They were on the Old Navy playlist so much it hurts. I also love the acoustic versions.
Dotan, my man
Elvis Presley, my king
Halsey makes this list, of course. Her album Badlands is mind blowing.
Honorable mention songs: Howl's Moving Castle theme, Make Up Sex by G-Easy, and Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai


Movies

Saw, Mockingjay Part II, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Paper Towns, Kingdom of Heaven. I don't want to explain each one and why I liked it and why it made the list. Saw II was also good, but nothing beats the original. These aren't in any order. Don't overthink it. They're just books I liked.

*An honorable mention to the TV show The 100. I didn't watch a lot of TV shows this year, so I didn't want to make a whole section for shows (because it would be about 1 or 2 long, oops). The 100 was a fantastically enjoyable show with a great plot and cast of characters. I look forward to the new season next month.

YouTubers
Jenna Moreci is just a fantastic human being cyborg! Her vlogs on writing are hilarious and I read her debut book Eve: The Awakening which was absolutely gripping.

Doddleoddle was someone I discovered only a few days ago. Dodie has the sweetest voice, and I really enjoy the videos of her singing to her ukulele (especially her duets!). I will definitely be watching her videos well into the new year.

Savannah Brown has some really beautiful slam poetry and some nice views on stuff. Her channel feels nice and fresh. Throwing much love her way.

For Booktube this year, I really enjoyed watching Ariel Bissett's videos (once she finally came back from her study abroad!) and Peruse Project (I've grown to respect her opinions and recommendations as if she were someone I know, maybe that's weird).

Sorry if I'm forgetting anyone I really love!

To recap, I read 34 books, 13000 pages, with an average book length of 390 pages. Of course, my AP US history textbook really skewed these numbers, but that's APUSH for ya, messing everything up.

I'll have a 2016 Reading Goals post up in a few days. I'm not quite sure what it'll talk about, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I'm rambling. I'm tired.

2015 out *peace sign emoji*

Winter by Marissa Meyer

The only way I can review this mammoth book is to pick it apart and put it back together again. Here we go. 

In six days, I flew through the last installment of the Lunar Chronicles series. I started reading these books in 9th grade, and I'm now on 11th. Time has flown--I still love these books, but my issues with them are the same as before. 

Marissa Meyer's writing is just SO BLAND. I mean no offense to her, though obviously it sounds like I do, but it's true. Her writing bears little embellishment, her chapters are all structured similarly, she reiterates things a thousand times until they seem true, as if saying them more will make me believe them. She is a strong proponent of telling instead of showing, which isn't necessarily bad, it's just not what I prefer. 

Because of this, Meyer writes in incredible detail to compensate. 

About halfway through the book, I realized the same things kept happening over and over again. A portion of the crew would devise a plan, something would go wrong, and someone would get taken. Along the same time frame, a missing member would be rescued, brought back to the main focus of the Rampion's crew, and they'd devise another strategy to get said person back. It started to feel very repetitive after couples kept getting split up over and over again. 

The book could have been renamed how-many-combinations-of-the-main-cast-can-we-have-together-at-once, or how-many-of-the-four-couples-are-actually-together-at-this-point-in-the-plot.

The entire story was this huge build up to a showdown between Levana and Cinder. But I felt like parts of the buildup were much more exciting than the climax--which was still very exciting on its own accord. I just think Meyer could have done more between that last exchange. 

But it must have been good throughout because it kept me glued till the end (which exhibited a very nice wrap up, showing the plans of all the different characters). I enjoyed the world building, I liked the terror (which was super disturbing) of being controlled by the Lunars and used as a weapon against people you love and even yourself. 

All in all, it was an incredible finale. My main problems were problems I had with the entire series. At times, the plot seemed a little implausible, and I had a few yeah, right moments. 

But not many authors manage to create such an action packed last book to what I would call a gripping series. 

Movies I Grew Up On

There are certain films I watched more than others as a child. I distinctly remember viewing them over and over again on long car rides with my siblings and parents in the back seat, entertaining me for hours even though I'd seen them hundreds of times before. In my opinion, these films are a crucial piece of who I am today, as they're partially responsible for my psychological development. Some of these movies stand out more than others:

The Princess Bride is among my favorite movies today. From when my parents first showed it to me and my siblings, to watching it years later with friends at sleepovers, I feel that I can quote nearly the entire movie. One particular year, my family went through a phase where we all read the book (by William Golding, which was really well written). Last month as my friends got together to watch Saw, Cary Elwes's character was not named for his name (which I obviously can't remember) but he was called Westley, or the Dread Pirate Roberts, by all. 

Hairspray: The reboot with Zac Efron was about the only musical I watched for two years. Because of this, I have its music committed to memory permanently. I don't think I'll ever forget the words to "Without Love" or "You Can't Stop The Beat" for as long as I live. 

Christmas with the Kranks was on tonight, and I realized I had to add it to this list. I feel like it was tradition, watching this movie every year with my family in our basement. We don't even own it, but we'd always find a way to rent it. And tonight, with Kendra finally home and Brad not locked away on his gaming websites, it was nice to finally relive this old memory. 

Perhaps my favorite Disney movie of my childhood was Mulan. I feel that it holds some very important pearls of wisdom regarding life, as it deals with important and relevant topics. I'll never stop loving this movie, and I'll never stop singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You."

The Parent Trap with Lindsey Lohan is a strange guilty pleasure. Something about the time the twins spend at camp, plotting their parent's reunion never ceases to amuse me. I've watched it more times than I'd like to count, usually on sick days when I'm stuck on the couch with only the movies saved on our DVR. 

Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the most significant of the movies I grew up on. A short while ago, I learned some of my friends had never seen it, and I was appalled. I'd assumed my whole life that kids of my age were being exposed to the same wonders of the world, one of them being Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in pirate get-up. And the fact that not every little girl looked up to Kiera Knightly as I did just confused me. If only everyone had watched this movie as religiously as I did. But then, perhaps, it probably wouldn't have been as special to me. 

These movies are ones I never got sick of. I'd watch them again in a heartbeat. I'd marathon them with friends, I'd watch them alone, I'd watch them with family. I can't be the only one who finds these kinds of movies important? 

A Brief Update

I really love the idea of a blog. For different people, it can be different things. An outlet to talk about life, express opinions, a space devoted to a particular subject, a place to share creative works.

I want this blog to be all of that for me, and more.

While I want to the focus of Fetching Books to be on books and writing, I know that in order to populate this blog with posts, I need to write about things that inspire me.

School rarely inspires me, yet as a student, it's about all I get to think about. This post is a New Year's Resolution for me. Yes, those dreaded words are making their way into my post. Really, I just want to become better this year. Better at doing the things I like, better at writing, better at reading. How can one become better at reading? I don't know. But I hope to find out this year. I hope to be better at blogging. Better to my friends, better at making music, better at pursuing things that inspire me. Better at being myself.

I'm sure I'll get distracted, but I'm also sure I won't get worse. If anything, I'll be trying.