"You can always find me in the drift..."

Mako Mori doodle!

I recently saw Pacific Rim and, ever since doing so, I have been having some feelings. I didn't expect to like it. When it came out it looked very much Not My Thing. I made a flat out assumption that it would be something very clinical, unfeeling, plotless. I like action, I like monsters, but I also like characters and interaction and back story. I want to care about the characters. If they're gonna try to "cancel the apocalypse", I want to be able to root for them.

To be blunt, Pacific Rim kicked ass. When a deadly threat from under the Pacific ocean surfaces, humankind must fight monstrous creatures to save the world. Former pilot, Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam of Queer as Folk fame) is re-recruited to defend the Earth in giant machines, called Jaegers, that can only be operated by a pair of pilots. When operating these machines, the pilots must share a deep connection. Not everyone can pilot these machines and siblings, or other relations, are usually the most "drift compatible". However, after serving with his brother for many years, Raleigh finds himself compatible once again with a trainee, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi).

Pacific Rim fails the Bechdel Test spectacularly, but it should definitely not be dismissed because of this. It's rare to see an action film that doesn't focus on Americans as saviours of the Earth and, furthermore, actually includes a range of cultures, endeavouring to represent POC really well. I was especially excited to see lots of languages featured in the film with subtitles, adding a certain sense of authenticity. I hate when films, that are set in non-English speaking countries, completely disregard that country's native language and was really excited to see the opposite here.

MOST IMPORTANTLY HOWEVER! My main reason to love this film comes down to my favourite character in the film (and, possibly, EVER). Mako Mori is not a marketing afterthought. She's not there as the obligatory female prop to influence young girls to watch it. Nor is she a piece of eye candy. She is Raleigh Becket's peer, she beats the shit out of him at one point and, although she starts out feeling pretty self conscious about her abilities, she proves that she deserves to be a part of the team. She has an interesting back story and relationship with Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), Head of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and Mako's adoptive father. I especially liked that there was no explicit romance between Mako and Raleigh, but hints at what their relationship could become.

I just want to know more about this character and her general bad-assery has inspired a lot of terrible drawings from me.

And guess what? There's going to be a sequel.

The Best Thing I Never Had - Erin Lawless

Formerly published as 'Little White Lies'.

Downloaded on a whim, The Best Thing I Never Had turned out to be a pretty great read. Reminding me slightly of David Nicholls' romantic novel, One Day, the story follows a group of university students in their final year of studying.

 Lawless' insight into university life and beyond felt very on point for me. We meet the gang in February 2012, several years after finishing uni. Miles has just proposed to his long term girlfriend, Nicky, leading to a mass text to all of their friends to spread the good news. However, for Nicky, Sukie, Harriet and Leigha, who lived together at university, a lot has changed and the prospect of being reunited is jarring. Especially for Harriet whose relationship with the rest of her university pals has broken down almost entirely. Flashback to September 2006, the start of her last year of studying, and we discover why. 

As the novel progresses, Adam, Johnny and Miles (Nicky's boyfriend), a group of boys who live down the road, become more prominent. Tensions develop as Leigha develops feeling for Adam,  whilst his best mate, Johnny, falls madly in love with her. Quite the kerfuffle. To make matters worse, Adam's friendship with Harriet grows, leading to some serious rivalry between the girls, with disastrous consequences.

I think one of the main draws to this book was, as mentioned, just how brilliantly it captures university life. The characters must juggle their workloads and budding relationships whilst managing to get pissed on a week night. It truly is a hard life. What's more is that Lawless manages to craft some pretty fantastic characters. Personally, I loved Harriet the best. Becoming one of the more prominent characters of the ensemble, Harriet is quieter than her rowdy girlfriends. She's kind, fiercely loyal, bookish, hard-working, yet somehow effortlessly cool. Lawless has us really feeling for this character, whilst an excellent book boyfriend was made in the form of Adam. He, at first, seems rather superficial, lapping up the attention he gets from Leigha, yet emerges as a really lovely and swoon worthy guy.

Furthermore, I really liked Sukie's character, but felt that she wasn't explored enough at all. Only in the final section of the book, when the narrative returns to the present day as the group start to prepare for Nicky and Miles' big day, do we really begin to understand her character. Similarly with Nicky and Miles. We learn a lot about them in the latter part of the novel but their 2006 story sheds only a small amount of light on what makes them tick as a couple. Nicky's lost dream of living and studying in France seems like a massive afterthought. Considering the couple are so important to bringing the group back together, we don't learn as much about them as I'd personally like.

I must say that I felt an unexpected connection to this novel. I lived in a house full of girls at university for two years, after enduring some smelly (albeit secretly sweet) boys in my first year, and found myself picturing my friends and our house as I made my way through the story. Those girls were and are some of my best friends and so I felt an affinity with this group of female characters and their close friendship with each other. It really made me miss them and the thought of falling out with them (as Harriet does in the novel) is unbearable. I think the novel really taps into a sense of time and place that I feel a lot of readers will be able to recognise.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable read that I recommend to all young romantics out there.
4/5 stars.

'Back to School' Book Haul

So for the first September in about seventeen years, I haven't had to endure my mother singing this to me before I headed off to school/uni. That's because I'm finally out of education! I don't really feel old enough to be in the big bad world just yet so in order to get me through this strange change, I went on a mini book haul in the last week of August to collect some books for my 'Back to School' reading list - because if I pretend I'm not an adult, it won't happen.

Throughout August, I got through a staggering amount of books, thanks mostly to my unemployment and copious amounts of free time. Despite buying lots of books for my kindle, including the eagerly awaited Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (which I devoured), I did decide to treat myself to a few paperbacks. A couple of weekends ago, I headed to London for the day with one of my uni friends, who came to visit me. We had a lovely time wandering along the Southbank of London (one of my favourite areas!), eating frozen yoghurt and, to my absolute elation, we found the Southbank Book Market.

Paradise!

 Cue me, dragging my lovely friend along every single row of books.

There was such a brilliant range of genres on offer, I even found a particularly brilliant little book, solely about cats (see above). Which I almost bought. I've never felt such a deep connection to a book in my life. However, it was quite expensive considering a lot of the books were priced around the £2 mark and so couldn't justify spending too much on a book I probably wouldn't read...


It was touch and go for a while but I managed to leave with only one book. Love Story by Erich Segal caught my eye quite early on. I'd heard of the film, starring Ryan O'Neil and Ally McGraw as two lovestruck college students whose relationship is headed for tragedy. I think I'd even seen the end of the film on one of the Sky Movies channels and had heard the iconic song from its soundtrack.

When buying secondhand, I usually try to look for something specific. Maybe a classic book I've been wanting to read or something by an author I really love. But I really can't tell you what drew me to this one having never read anything by this author. It smells like old library books and it's cover is slightly bruised and battered so maybe that was the reason.

First page, including price!

The following week, I found myself , again, perusing the book section of a local shop. There was a pretty decent offer going on paperbacks and, before I knew it, these next two were mine.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North and Panic by Lauren Oliver

Let me talk about Lauren Oliver for one second...  I've passed her books around a lot of my friends and fangirled about her for so long now that she's fast become one of my favourite writers. I was absolutely gutted when I found out the TV adaptation for Delirium was being abandoned (although secretly glad when I saw the pilot that was released... it was seriously disappointing). However, I'm incredibly excited to read Panic, I'm not entirely sure I get what it's about yet!

As a writer, I just love Oliver's ability to build these worlds. Her stories are very situational as she plays with some really interesting scenarios. What if love was a disease? What if you could relive your final day? Over summer, I read Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and in it he speaks a lot about how ideas combining various situations would often yield some of the most interesting storylines for him, most notably his novel, Carrie. What would happen if a bullied teenager discovered she had supernatural powers?
As I've not started reading it yet, I don't want to look for any spoilers, so here's the link to the blurb as found on Goodreads.

I also got The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Again, I wasn't sure what drew me to the book but it was probably the front cover. I know what they say: "Don't judge a book by its cover!" but in a lot of cases, I do. If the design looks appealing, I'm more likely to get it. I've never read anything by Claire North before so I don't know what to expect but if this beautiful and mysterious cover is anything to go by, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Again, you can find the blurb on Goodreads if you're interested.

So those are the few books I found on my mini book haul to start my first year without school! What are your September reads?

xo

This Blogger's Bookshelf

After returning from university, my entire house has become a mess, filled with my belongings strewn across pretty much every room. In trying to reintroduce a vague sense of order into my life, I have been clearing out my childhood bedroom. I’ve been brutal, chucking a lot of stuff and discovering some absolute gems. Out of date nail polishes, an army of teddies and a vast collection of notebooks filled with stories that have only slightly been plagiarised from other books are just a few of the treasures I have found. But let me tell you, above all, there has been nothing more satisfying than organising my bookshelves. 

It’s been years since I’ve given it a good overhaul and, if I’m honest, I expected myself to be throwing out or donating a lot more books. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to get rid of a lot of them. Just looking at these books, especially the ones I read when I was a child or an early teenager, gives me such a strong sense of time and place. In deciding to keep a lot of the books, I have decided I will make an effort to read as many of them as possible in a bit of a nostalgia tour of my favourite books.

So, without further ado, here is my new and improved bookshelf!

 These are the top two shelves where I decided to put all of my childhood favourites. On the left, we've got a few children's collections along with my treasured set of The Chronicles of Narnia which, I believe, my late grandfather gave me when I was A LOT younger. In the top right, this theme continues along with a more modern set of books I read as a child... Of course I mean the Harry Potter series. Any bookshelf cannot be complete without a trip to Hogwarts...

In the bottom left photo, I decided to lump my collection of what I refer to as 'classics' together. In my head, that means anything before the 1950s. Here you'll find a set of Jane Austen books as well as a stack of novels by a range of authors: Fitzgerald, the Brontës, Orwell, Shelley and lots more. I also fitted in the (very few) plays I have: Top Girls, Romeo & Juliet, A Streetcar Named Desire and a collection of Chekhov.

In the bottom right, I went with a coffee table book/cult classic kind of theme. The three large books are some of my favourites to flick through. Art Now, which I think I nicked from someone, and The Polaroid Book make for excellent lazy day perusal but I especially love Well Read Women by Samantha Hahn which features gorgeous portraits of a selection of famous literary heroines. I will ensure to write an entire blog post about that one in the future because it is truly a beautiful book.

The rest of the shelf consists of the books you always felt like you should read. Lolita, On the Road, Trainspotting, Breakfast at Tiffany's, I feel that the selection of books in this section have made a massive mark on our culture today as modern classics. I've not read all of them on this shelf but I'm making my way... slowly.

The next level of shelves include some far more modern novels. In the top left photo, which shows probably the emptiest section of my bookshelf, I have lumped together a few books which fall under the thriller/mystery genre (as well as a Spanish phrase book...). Here you can see the Millenium series by Stieg Larsson, which I actually started reading YEARS ago. I loved it but stopped reading around half way through the second book (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and, for some reason, have never picked them up again. I definitely need to rectify that. Alongside, I've got a few books by P.D James, though I've never actually read any of them! However, being a big Austen fan, I couldn't exactly resist buying Death Comes to Pemberley. There's also a few others in this section including two (borrowed) novels by William Boyd. I'm currently halfway through Restless and Boyd's writing style is fantastic, I highly recommend him. I am dying to read Any Human Heart after seeing a couple of episodes of it on Channel 4.

In the next box, you will find some of my absolute favourite books. The bottom row are brilliant reads and I tried really hard to colour co-ordinate them but ugh, whatever, too hard. On this shelf there are also some autobiographies and two writing manuals I bought over summer: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which I am very excited to read, and On Writing by Stephen King. I took the latter to Croatia with me and, despite feeling quite unenthusiastic about it, I loved the way King blended his memoir with tips for writers. I honestly feel like I learned a lot from it and it got me wanting to write again, so much so that I bought a new notebook at a supermarket in Dubrovnik so I could start jotting down ideas!

Okay, on the next level, we reach The Teen Years. In the bottom left photo you will find a shrine shelf to Meg Cabot, Queen of my teenage heart and writer of The Princess Diaries. Dreaming that I too could secretly be a Princess, I still absolutely adore this book series along with its top notch adaptation starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. I don't believe in being "too old" to read any type of book which is why I have no intention to throw any of these (or any in the following shelves) out in the future. 

On the next shelf there are a few more YAs, mainly by Sarra Manning as it would seem, another
author I was especially enthusiastic about in my early teen years. She wrote Dylan, my first true book boyfriend (not counting Harry and Ron, obvs), in her Diary of a Crush series. The entire Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series by Ann Brashares also makes an appearance. Any book about friendship and magic trousers are fine by me!

Now we're onto the final shelf! What an exhilarating journey this has been! Anyway, I'm slightly ashamed to admit it, but I did place my Twilight collection on the bottom shelf so people wouldn't immediately see it when walking into my room... I, like many a thirteen year old girl, adored Twilight when it first came out. A lot of my friends were reading it and they highly recommended it to me. I bought the first one and was hooked. It was romantic, exciting and there were VAMPIRES. What more could a girl want? But, I think, growing up and realising a lot of problems with the books has developed my general distaste for the franchise (but let's leave that discussion for another day). Next to it, I put a couple of my mum's books by Jill Mansell. I used to really enjoy those books because of Mansell's humour but did find them to be quite repetitive after a while. I'd often find myself reading a new one and feeling as though I'd read it before.

In the final section (as seen in the bottom left photo), there are a few more teen books. I'm really keen to read these again, especially Louise Rennison's Angus Thongs series which always had me giggling! I also found E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List amongst my piles of books. I vaguely remember reading it a while ago though I can't remember it very well. But since Miss Lockhart wrote my FAVOURITE NOVEL OF 2014, We Were Liars,  I will definitely be giving it a reread in the near future!

Anyway, that's all from my bookshelf. I counted them all and on this bookshelf there are 258 books. Of those I have read 170. I don't think that's too bad! Although, with all the books I'm yet to read and with the ones I intend to reread, I think I've got enough books to last a few weeks... Mind you, I've also got more books dotted around the house and over 500(!) on my Kindle too so maybe I'll be kept busy for much longer than that...

xo

Countdown #2

I bury my nose in my duvet. She bought me these sheets. I can’t shake that from my mind. She bought them. Even though my old ones were perfectly fine, she hated them. Too masculine. I’ve never understood how bedding can have a gender. She went to Tesco and bought a cheap set of sheets, pale pink in colour, adorned by sequinned butterflies.

“Do you like them?” she grinned.

I smiled, because I didn’t really care.

I try to remember how long I’ve been here, cocooned in a cocktail of my own sadness and questionable body odour. I hear the faint sound of the ticking clock from that TV show coming through the walls. The scrape of a bowl, the shuffle of a chair. I can almost see Dan eating cereal in his pants at 3 o’ clock in the afternoon. He’ll be in here in a bit. Knocking timidly on the door to bring food and to check that I’m not dead.

“You alright mate?”

I reply wordlessly, hoping he’ll interpret my gratitude through my guttural groans. He sighs and goes, leaving a bowl on my night stand.

When he’s gone, I sniff the sheets. They don’t smell of her anymore. Just me.

She never showed me how to use the washing machine.

Countdown Chronicles #1

Sometimes simple words hurt the most. When someone dances around the point you can tell that they’re worried about what they’re about to say. They actually still care a little bit about you. But when they come right out with it, like it’s the easiest thing in the world… I don’t know. When she said it, I didn’t really hear her. It was like she was asking me what I wanted for tea. She just plopped her keys down on the side and turned to me. Hands on hips.

And I’ve said it more times than I can count. On the sofa one night when she said that Nicolas Cage was her favourite actor and in the kitchen when she told me she didn’t really like drinking coffee that much. But it was a joke. Always a joke. And she’d always laugh.

I ask her to repeat it and she looks at me, with those grey eyes that used to be green, I’m sure of it. She sighs before leaving the room in a huff. I wait in the living room, staring at the door, my eyes slightly wandering back to the TV where Countdown is playing. Someone just got seven points. 

She’s back. She’s got her suitcase in her hand.

“I don’t love you anymore.”

Reflections

There is a lake nearby, only a couple of miles down the road from town. Our parents used to take us, when we were really small, and watch from the sides as we splashed around in the shallows. We swam for the first time. Shrieking and gasping, our short baby fingernails caked in dirt from where we’d scratched at the waterbed in a wild heart-stopping panic.

“Now that wasn’t so bad was it,” our mothers would whisper later when we’d been pulled out of the dark water and wrapped in a pair of warm soft arms.

We shook our heads, “No…”

We got older, all of us, and soon our parents no longer sat at the side lines. We’d go every summer, every day. Someone tied a rope from one of the branches overlooking the water and we all had a go. Swinging through the air, the wind blowing our wet skin dry. We wanted to live forever.

You’re not supposed to go in the dark but we did. He took our hand, held our purse as we hopped the fence. It was always the same, for all of us. Sitting by the water, dangling our toes, head fuzzy from those funny drinks he’d made us have earlier.

“I love you, you know you’re the one.”

His hand, inching slowly up our thighs.

“No one has to know…” 

He got angry when we said no. Ripped our shorts off. Did it anyway. Forced our heads too hard against a rock. Rolled us into the water in a guilty panic. His fingernails caked with mud from the riverbed. No one found us ‘til morning. 

-

Inspired by 'Reflections, Weston-On-The-Green' by George Davison (1899)

 

Liebster Award

I only just learnt what a Liebster Award is and was nominated by the lovely Jamie, despite the fact that I haven't posted that much! Thank you very much! You are the only person who has ever commented on this blog so far and your support is so nice. You're also a top bloke who I never get round to meeting up with over the holidays...
Okay so a Liebster award is an award given to you by another blogger. It works in a tag/chain sort of way where the recipient has to repost a list of their own nominees with a list of questions for them to answer!
I don't follow many people on blogger! I tried to compile a list of my 11 favourite blogs but I only got to 9
! I also don't know many people personally so I am literally going to be tagging strangers... sorry. Anyway, in no particular order...

1. Being Little is probably one of the first blogs I ever read on here. I've never spoken to Lyzi but she seems lovely and is very very talented and creative!
2. whimsicella is one of my lovely uni friends. She is super gorgeous, super nice and I'm very happy that I've been able to get to know her a bit better this year!
3. theatrefilmandtv  is another lovely girl I met at university. She is my go to blog whenever I want to know what I should be watching/listening to.
4. ron99ification is another uni friend! Again, I can vouch for the fact that he is a genuinely nice person with great taste! I've only read a few of his blog posts but he has some great ones about films and music. I'm waiting on an FOB review!
5. emilydianaruth and jmeleemiller. I don't know them and they're maybe not bloggers but they are wonderful film makers and I'm running out of blogs I follow but the videos they make on their shared youtube channel called Daughterland are my main inspiration to become a filmmaker. I've not uploaded any of my own videos yet - too scared - but they are my main source of inspiration. The videos are touching, beautifully shot and a must-see.
6. YeahWrite! is again a very inspiring blog. I would love to start my own online magazine. Great for story prompts and reading other people's work.
7. cursewordsandpoetry is from another lovely uni friend! I mainly visit Michael's site for posts that are usually funny, thoughtprovoking, epic etc. He is one of the best people I know.
8. heatherbel1 is a good friend of mine. She's an artist and her tumblr is an amalgamation of "Stuff she likes". She also made a stuffed Totoro. I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW DON'T I? She is fantastic.
9. charcollins is my beautiful flatmate and her blog is very new, but she has had a tumblr for a while so it's okay! Check her out, she writes about films and TV and one day she will be getting Oscars and stuff for making films and TV, okay bye.



1/ How do you listen to your music?
Through headphones, loudly, walking. I sometimes play music at the gallery I work at when I'm feeling particularly sneaky...

2/ Do you use local independent shops to buy your books, records, etc.? Why?
5 months ago I would have said yes but I'm afraid I don't buy many books now, thanks to the Kindle. And I'm not sorry that I have one because it means I can read tons of books for less money and I DON'T HAVE A JOB. So there.

3/ Your three favourite second hand shops.
Whenever I go to these shops I always stay a bit too long...
- David's Book shop in Letchworth town: I've been going there all my life and everyone there is very nice and helpful.
- There's a book store in sheffield and called Rare and Racy and it is just cool. The guys who run it are pretty old but are in no way lacking in the ice cool factor. Whenever you go in there you end up staying for hours.
- Cow Vintage shop is my go to place when I want to find a unique piece of clothing. I particularly love rifling through the bargain room upstairs. Another good place to browse for a couple of well spent hours!

4/ Top four cheeses.
I hate cheese so much, what is the point?

5/ What is your favourite city?
This is a very not nice question because I love a lot of cities - especially cities I have never visited! I have always loved London and would like to someday live there. I don't know if I'll be able to handle all the hustle and bustle to be honest! I would also love to live in Chicago one day. I've never been there but somehow it's crept under my skin.

6/ Have you any first-, second- or third-hand words of wisdom to pass on to your readers & I?
"Just do it, even if it's not perfect. Just do it." - Amy Poehler

7/ Do you tend to view religion as a successful idea-turned-institution, or an intensely personal experience? Are the two mutually exclusive (does the first not negate the other? (feel free to answer in a line or two IF YOU'RE BORING(/interesting)))
I'll be honest with you. I don't like discussing religion. But if you put a gun to my head I'd say it's a personal experience. I don't care what other people believe - not to say that I'm not interested in religion, I do love learning about different religions, cultures and traditions - but I don't like to judge people based on things like that. I like the idea of religion being a bit like the 'Pray' parts in Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. So yeah, that's my very basic opinion.

8/ Which punctuation mark do you like the best?
"- I love dialogue, let's talk.

9/ Is there any way in which the internet smiley ':3' does NOT look like a botched circumcision?
Thank you very much for putting this image in my head.

10/ Is book burning necessarily unjustifiable?
Unless you're really cold and you're in a Day After Tomorrow kind of situation then just don't burn books, okay?

11/ Is this valid?
I love that. I'm glad I saw that. I think it's a good thing to try and remember. Lately I've been trying to live a bit like that... you know. Going for things... participating. I recommend it.

My questions for you guys!
1. Where is your favourite place? What does it look like?
2. If you could offer a newborn child one piece of advice... what would it be?
3. If you had to teach something what would it be?
4. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
5. What's your favourite musical? What's your favourite song in it?
6. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
7. What did you want to do when you were five years old?
8. If you had 30 seconds to give a speech to the whole world, what would you say?
9. Would you rather be trapped in a phonebox for the rest of your life (you can ring ANYONE IN THE WORLD but you never need to pee or eat) or wander about with a microwave attached to your back,. weighing you down (plus people keep microwaving stuff when you walk by them...)?
10. What is your favourite colour?
11. Do you think animals can understand humans?

How To Get Through Exams

The answer is simple: Listen to Debussy.

That old dude gets me through every essay and assignment and I always feel a little bit like a character from Downton Abbey whilst listening.
Want to de-stress before that final exam?
Lie down, stick one of these on and calm the hell down. You're welcome.

1. Rêverie 2. Nocturne 3. Clair de Lune

Tales of my Grandmother

"Here Victoria, look at this."
"What is it?"
"Lottery ticket."
"Right, yeah, why are you giving me this?"
"Well look at it, I've won you a fiver. Take that to a lottery place and you'll get a fiver... Don't you want a fiver?"
"You can keep it! It's yours!"
"You can do without a bit more money can you?"
"No, well..."
"Take that and get your five pounds and then what you wanna do is get five more tickets. I got 20 quid the other day. Then you get more tickets - they're only a pound each- and eventually you'll be a millionaire!"
"Right, okay, thank you..."

I'm pretty sure that my grandmother has been doing the Lottery ever since it started. It's gone slightly beyond an obssession now as she probably spends AT LEAST ten pounds a week on lottery tickets. When she was younger, a fortune teller told her she would one day win a lot of money. So I guess she'll keep on buying tickets until she's a winner...