tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56700227423885807702024-03-13T08:10:35.748-07:00The Graffiti On The Wall'cause the words that boarded my train of thought left trails of paintAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-74684831870625588692017-02-21T06:51:00.000-08:002017-02-21T06:51:31.095-08:00REVIEW: Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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People ask me how I pick books to
read – do I look at the Bestsellers list? Do I look at Goodreads
recommendations? Do I look at what other book bloggers are spazzing over? I do
all of the above, but more often than not, I refer to a short list of writers
whose releases provide enough and more literary satisfaction for me and ensure
I’m well fed. Picoult leads this list.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Her books compulsorily have three
ingredients: a plot that mandates a tissue box by your side, a writing style that
gives you the benefit of walking in the shoes of different characters to look
around and judge for yourself but most importantly, characters that can’t be
classified as good or evil – in the end, no one is blameless. Everyone is
human.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Picoult gets in my head and confuses
with my ideologies. This is also why she’s one of the writers I hate the most. Her
books always tackle subjects that are to be debated over tea, (possibly) in
raised voices at book clubs, and keep you up at night wondering if the
characters made the wisest choices and had you been in their place, would you
have done it any differently. Needless to say, when I heard she had a book
coming out about racism in contemporary society, I confidently dropped big
bucks without even pausing to look at what everyone had to say about it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I hope the panda was a nice touch</td></tr>
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Confession #1: I was in a reading
slump. You can verify that by merely looking at the date of publication of my
previous post on this blog. Maybe I still am in a reading slump – I’m
unravelling a little at the edges. But I read this book from start to finish
and I consider that an achievement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Confession #2: I am not the best
person to judge this book, and I won’t pretend to be one either. I have never
stepped foot in the US, I am Indian and usually navigate in predominantly
Indian circles. But, in case this is news for you, racism is not exclusive to
multi-ethnic societies. You’d be surprised at how widespread, silent and invisible
racial discrimination actually is and I am no stranger to it. But, as usual, I digress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I loved her choice of PoVs: the
victim, the lawyer and the white supremacist – expected, but still commendable
– because warping reality into what might make logic for a douchebag requires genius
and intensive research. I dreaded reading <s>Turd’s</s> Turk’s PoV chapters
because it felt like sliding underneath the slimy skin of a monster. This isn’t
my first time: Amy in <i>Gone Girl</i>, and
Alfred in <i>Salt to the Sea</i> helped me
mentally steel myself against Turk’s viciousness and feel pity for the likes of
him. You can never justify their actions, but you can understand them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ruth or
Kennedy or Turk that intrigued me. It was Adisa. Adisa is such a solid
character – so very <i>real</i> – in her
blunt stubbornness, her own racist inclinations – a lot of spice with a dash of
sugar. I wish Picoult wrote Book #0.5 from Adisa’s eyes – I want to know if she
really sees the world in black and white or in Technicolor but pretends
otherwise. I was especially impressed by how she weaved the past and the
present in her narrative, not jarring against each other, but providing the
other a context for us to understand better.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This book really messed with my
head – I forged through the constant volley of questions thrown at me, taking
breaks in between (you can’t read this at a stretch, nope) to mull over the
answers and maybe pretend like I didn’t know them. And as I drew near the end,
I began to dread the signature Picoult twist (usually someone you least expect
and care about the most drops dead) and I wasn’t disappointed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Another thing I love about
Picoult is the copious amount of research she dedicates into her work. I
despise inaccuracies or misrepresentation, especially when you’re dealing with
sensitive matter, and this book wouldn’t have been easy for her to write. A
white woman trying to voice the discriminated? It would have been intimidating,
considering that she knows what she’s setting herself up against. But she did
it, anyways. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Most of all, I loved the title. <i>Small Great Things</i>, is a reference to a
Martin Luther King quote, like she explains in her Author’s Note. The plot is
essentially a quest for a greater victory, but the actual greatness of the
novel was in the small victories. When the father held his faceless newborn.
When Ruth touched the baby. When Kennedy understood what racism actually means.
Small great things like that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>VERDICT</b>: Just do yourself a favour and read it please.</div>
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<b>P.S.</b> Miss Picoult, if you're reading this, thank you for this book. Also a huge thank you for the epilogue which restored my faith in humanity. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-20807608630435596812016-06-17T21:27:00.000-07:002016-06-17T21:34:12.881-07:00"Not A Review" - Jacobinte Swargarajyam<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Since the day of this movie’s release, I had heard nothing but glorious praise from people I know and not know. My roommate seemed to have made up her mind to visit Dubai at least once before she died. Another friend confessed that the movie busted many stereotypes. Yet someone else wanted to wax poetic on the technicalities.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My uncle who had spent more than five years in the Middle-East despised the film.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater,” is what he scathingly told me when I announced one day that I wanted to see the movie. “What were they thinking by making a film out of a story everyone already knows?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This was coming from a man who enjoys every movie that barely makes a scratch at the box office. Since I’ve never really valued his opinions on films; given his choice of movies in the first place, I decided to ignore his condemnation and deigned not to give a reply. That’s when he casually remarked that my other uncle and aunt who had spent more than twenty years in the Gulf also hated the movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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More than a month later, when the movie was still running in a nearby theater, yet another NRI uncle of mine who was holidaying here in Kerala, decided to take his family to see <i>Jacobinte Swargarajyam</i> and asked me to tag along. And that’s how I finally got to see the movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I call Dubai home. I’ve always felt that if I hadn’t been born in Dubai, I might have been someone else. My family is a far cry from Jacob’s family – my dad doesn’t dress like a “global citizen” from the 90’s and doesn’t have twenty suits, my mom spends all the time she isn’t working by sleeping, and we don’t have a fancy apartment. Despite having lived in Dubai for two decades, we still haven’t gone camping in the desert. We know the stories of other people and consider ourselves lucky enough to be able to call Dubai home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I lied. Uncle #3 wasn’t holidaying. He had come here to drop off his wife and two kids – one high schooler M and a cute pre-schooler J who has no idea he won’t be able to see his daddy that often anymore. After the movie, we piled into the car and waited for the twenty or so cars in front of us to move. No one was saying anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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M then turned to me and asked how the movie was. I said some heartfelt shit about how goddamn good the direction was; that I was bloody thankful that I got to watch it on a 70mm screen and how I would have otherwise missed out on fully appreciating all that <b>gorgeous cinematography with those beautiful backlit scenes</b>. J happily snored through my rant on my aunt’s lap.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After another moment of silence, Uncle #3 who’s otherwise full of opinions, laughed a little and said offhandedly, “That’s my story.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This isn’t the first Malayalam movie to attempt to bust NRI stereotypes. <i>Arabikatha, Gaddama </i>and <i>Pathemari </i>were the frontrunners of this genre. Strangely enough, my aforementioned uncles who didn’t like JSR had loved them. Once I made this observation, I started thinking.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Vineeth Sreenivasan noted at the end of the movie that there are millions of Malayalees in the Gulf trying to make ends meet and how he knows the story of only one such individual. The movies mentioned earlier tackled such stories from a different perspective. They all had MCs who had come to the Gulf in the hopes of being able to provide for their family back in Kerala. These films had gripping plots with compelling backstories for the characters. The characters went through hardships that many NRIs hadn’t encountered in person and had only heard about. That’s where JSR makes a difference.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Jacobinte Swargarajyam</i> annoyed my uncles and aunts because it’s their story. It’s the story of a huge majority of Malayalees who had come to Dubai in pursuit of the mythological pot of gold. Aunt #3 later said that ten minutes into the movie, she’d already guessed the storyline. <b>They didn’t like being shown their personal struggles acted out by people under borrowed names, on a huge screen in front of clueless theatre-goers who enthusiastically clapped when the credits rolled out. </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Uncle #1 also didn’t get a happy ending like Jacob eventually did, which I suspect is one big reason why the movie irritated him so much.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Being the grudging film critic that I am, I too wouldn’t have liked the movie had it not been for the characters. Granted the direction, cinematography and editing made the movie a visual treat. <b>But the heart of the movie wasn’t the story, it was the characters. Rather, their evolution.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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That was what finally clinched the movie for me. The transformation of the suits-only, clean-shaven, fitness-freak, confident Jacob to the grey-haired, bearded, tanned Jacob who finds it difficult to look people in the eye. The evolution of the follower, model-son Jerry to the bat-wielding, whisky-hiding Jerry who no longer takes shit from anyone. Even Abin changed from the rowdy, typical dropout middle son to a man who swallows his anger for the sake of his father and is willing to shoulder responsibilities. The appearance of everyman heroes like Philip Uncle and Unniettan from time to time also restored my faith in humanity. But my personal favourite was Shirley. Her metamorphosis from the namesake silent business partner, who seemed to be happy enough to be running a family of six to a woman willing to fend off bloodthirsty debtors in lieu of her exiled husband; a woman who tells off the CEO of a big firm for smoking in front of her; a woman who finally loses it after trying the pleading strategy at an obstinate knucklehead and just plain shouts at him in a language he doesn’t know but somehow understands when she speaks it. A woman who eventually confesses to her eldest son that she had been neglecting her motherly duties with regards to her youngest. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Agreed, the movie didn't have much of a plot. And I liked it that way. No unnecessary plot twists and digressions. <b>It is a simple story that needed to be told.</b></div>
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The car we were in finally began moving. I then asked Uncle #3 if he would have watched this movie had he known the storyline. “Sure, why not?” was his chirpy reply. “I’m going to get a happy ending too.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-56114595037388723782016-03-08T04:52:00.000-08:002016-03-08T05:05:03.214-08:00Celebrating Women Everywhere | International Women's Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I’d wanted to do this post for a long time now. Each year, March 8 would come and go, escaping my notice. FYI, I don’t live my life knowing what day today is. I deign to burden myself with such trivial information only when I’ve got no way around it. Illustrious examples include exam schedules and birthdays of best friends who are capable of burying me alive.</div>
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But I digress. (I really should make that my tagline.)</div>
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Here is a prized list of books (off the top of my head, thank you college-life) that celebrates women and shows us exactly what they are capable of.</div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;">The Help – Kathryn Stockett</span></b></h3>
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Oh <i>hell</i> yes. I will not oblige you by giving you a description of this book. If you haven’t even heard of this book by now - ye who hath been living under a rock, rectify that mistake pronto. And for those of you who have heard of it but couldn’t be bothered to read it:</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd</span></h3>
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A girl whose mother died when she was little runs away with their Black maid (who’s the only mother figure she’s ever known in her life) to escape her father (and the pissed-off racists), right into the arms of a sisterhood. There she is introduced to the secret world of bees, the Black Madonna and her mother. I love this book to shreds, btw. This had so much potential to turn into yet another civil-rights drama, but it is just a backdrop to flaunt the strength of women.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd</span></h3>
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It really is about the inventions of wings in America before the abolition of slavery. It’s about two sisters as abolitionists and feminists and how they plunged ahead, despite the criticism they faced, even from fellow abolitionists. Bear in mind this is a loose account of the Grimke sisters, so no sceptics, these women aren’t fictional.<br />
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">Code Name Verity </span><i style="color: #b45f06;">and</i><span style="color: #b45f06;"> Rose Under Fire – Elizabeth Wein</span></h3>
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These books are a bust for traditional tropes of delicate, fragile women. This book celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood even under the direst of circumstances. How the love for your best friends and the love for your homeland can equip you with powers you didn’t know you could have. Fair warning – it’s a roller-coaster ride, and not for the faint-hearted.<br />
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini</span></h3>
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Two women. Two different generations. Married to the same man in a war-torn Afghanistan. The bonds between them morph between rivalry, mother-daughter, and sister-sister. The beautiful yet incredible thing about this book it shows just how much a woman is willing to sacrifice because of the love for her family. Again, I’m warning you to keep a huge box of tissues at the ready.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">Sold – Patricia McCormick</span></h3>
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A thirteen-year-old Nepali girl gets sold for 800 rupees by her stepfather into a prostitution ring in India. Lakshmi happily goes along with “Auntie” thinking about the tin roof she can buy her mother with the money she gets by working as a maid in “The City”. This novel traces her loss of innocence with a narration that doesn’t give a lot of morbid details but is still harrowing. McCormick’s accounts of the shady underworld of prostitution will leave you livid at the injustice of it, and in wonder of the women who do more than just survive through it. How they stay even when there’s a chance of escape because staying means their families get to eat.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You have to fool yourself into believing that the things described in this book don't really happen to finish reading it.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">The Color Purple – Alice Walker</span></h3>
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A book that has survived the wrath of many narrow-minded people; a book that celebrates femininity in all its glory. A book that doesn’t shy away from saying the things that have to be said.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">Out of the Easy – Ruta Sepetys</span></h3>
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Screw it. I just tried to write a three-line-pitch without making it sound synoptic. What do I love about this book? A whole brothel full of prostitutes showering love on a seventeen-year-old girl in search for some answers. I have never seen so many women of so many different shapes and personalities. But they all equal in their capacity to love.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">Saving Francesca – Melina Marchetta</span></h3>
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At first glance, this book may not seem like a prime candidate for a seating on this list. It’s about a gang of badass girls in a boys’ school and how gradually they run the place.</div>
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God, I love this book.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">The Seven Realms – Cinda Williams </span><span style="color: #b45f06;">Chima</span><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span></h3>
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A fantasy world run by a matriarchal government. Plotsy, shippity, and all things addictively nice. Need I say more?</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">one Girl – Gillian Flynn</span></h3>
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I am including this book in the list because the list lacked some good female psychopaths. Who ever said girls were sugar and spice and all things nice? Heads up, female psychopaths are just as bad as their male counterparts. You get on their bitch-side, heaven help you.</div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;">A Song of Ice and Fire – George R R Martin</span></h3>
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Daenerys. Arya. Cat. Sansa. Cersei. Don’t tell me your knees won’t give in front of these women who are capable of kicking your ass.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HAIL MOTHER OF DRAGONS</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-29340171955508189902016-03-03T21:13:00.002-08:002016-03-03T23:23:24.852-08:00Life Updates: The One Where Everything But Life Is Happening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Since my blog shows signs of life even more sporadically than I'd originally imagined, I thought I'll give a poke in the blogosphere and tell all you beautiful people what I'm up to these days. Believe it or not, I don't just spend time staring at the ceiling.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">OK well. Sometimes. When I really don't know what else to do after finishing a series.</span></td></tr>
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For starters, let me say, the last semester of college is SHIT. I had a bunch of responsibilities to tend to, and nowI have a parade of exams coming up. Now, when I say parade, I mean a DAMN PARADE. And if by a miracle, I do survive through them, I have to tackle the momentous question:<br />
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I have no clue.<br />
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I did land myself with a job that pays well (so yes, that should have shut me up and made me giddy with happiness and gratitude according to busybodies) but I DON'T LIKE IT so I'm not going to.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My conversations with my parents for the next decade or so.</td></tr>
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What else is happening you ask? Well, here you go.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTNPYw-8bwPWPfOenyrZ8wUEOh8vYVzk1iqjI3uO5ORdYMEJZ8PFCdcxPMKawvTaOIVXvNgN3Ljcnpy1hQoKYw8y6GlMjCV7aCq2MrZfHJjWzNSxYazhIrRJPvcrcFQSYKe-00Bai8ObA/s1600/kpopruinedmylife.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTNPYw-8bwPWPfOenyrZ8wUEOh8vYVzk1iqjI3uO5ORdYMEJZ8PFCdcxPMKawvTaOIVXvNgN3Ljcnpy1hQoKYw8y6GlMjCV7aCq2MrZfHJjWzNSxYazhIrRJPvcrcFQSYKe-00Bai8ObA/s1600/kpopruinedmylife.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The signboard of my life</td></tr>
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I am on the hit list my class drew up. Everytime I open my laptop, people clear a circle away from me - it's like just like clockwork. And any misfortunate soul who happens to be near me, gets to watch a couple of videos under duress.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To hell? With you? OF COURSE JUST CONSUME MY SOUL ALREADY.</td></tr>
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But the one productive thing that has happened is I've rediscovered my talent (or not) for sketching.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifC7QHtL63xa9-b-ruw2hL4uMD5QA8GotYhl-OquWgQt8sTERjBckSh_Uxvurxc2JPx6t7wGgIIZaGmPjKxVijED86SkpLVpcUghr5CnVKE54CvPWiNfCh8sh1FA1OtpbGW3om8LeGKgg/s1600/FotorCreated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifC7QHtL63xa9-b-ruw2hL4uMD5QA8GotYhl-OquWgQt8sTERjBckSh_Uxvurxc2JPx6t7wGgIIZaGmPjKxVijED86SkpLVpcUghr5CnVKE54CvPWiNfCh8sh1FA1OtpbGW3om8LeGKgg/s1600/FotorCreated.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I WAS A LITTLE RUSTY OKAY SO SUE ME</td></tr>
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And then my soul got consumed again. On purpose.<br />
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Now my energy is laser-focused on aggressively shipping Bellarke. Tumblr encourages me too.</div>
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That's it for now. Remember the parade of exams I mentioned earlier? Allow me to volunatrily go die.</div>
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Yours insanely,</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-26575602091128138532016-02-17T03:17:00.002-08:002016-02-17T03:26:56.566-08:00REVIEW (well, sort of): Salt to the Sea - Ruta Sepetys<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
*COURTESY OF NETGALLEY*<br />
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I will never get tired of reading historical fiction. Just when you think you've read enough on WWII from all angles, a book like this comes along and nudges you to look even closer to see things your so-called experienced eyes have missed.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2016/02/03/salt-to-the-sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2016/02/03/salt-to-the-sea.jpg" height="400" width="256" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/67515-cover-reveal-salt-to-the-sea-by-ruta-sepetys.html">Sepetys says that 'stories of strength through struggle' inspire her work, especially since she's the daughter of a refugee.</a> That's what birthed this book - a successor to her <i>Between Shades of Gray</i>; the book that introduced me to this phenomenon that is her. She wants the world to know and remember what layers of debris resulting from the more flamboyant historical fallout, have hidden underneath and I am very much smitten with her for it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkW4dE8V5wgJjmi6_2aAr9UEu02CPUkZ6Bq1UnM4-A6jJ689xuj8FcXC7Jv_0pV5vtjXIf0zomEhH_RHnrNYLM9VlTc_dmR0syeZebKR-urBkSwBUPmUDQoFxi7l5mQ-79vKuAN7aZt4/s1600/stts-6.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkW4dE8V5wgJjmi6_2aAr9UEu02CPUkZ6Bq1UnM4-A6jJ689xuj8FcXC7Jv_0pV5vtjXIf0zomEhH_RHnrNYLM9VlTc_dmR0syeZebKR-urBkSwBUPmUDQoFxi7l5mQ-79vKuAN7aZt4/s640/stts-6.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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I admit my shameful ignorance of the <i>Wilhelm Gustloff </i>and thank Sepetys for remedying it. But the truth is that that's not what shocked me the most in this book. What truly horrified me was not the sheer scale of the atrocity, but the less flashy, more relatable kinds of horrors, like - </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggPKTzd4Pq6-xR2JYEYIDvzmNAJb_jWT_JqhCnaL857cUGL8HNyyykeoR-RnI4XCR4kXHYO1e8yztBBbQJkGKIehMMh0N9mWxsdKEaZvy9S_Hli1FzgrESRWm3-5kQR9klJKeDqr_tiMg/s1600/stts-3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggPKTzd4Pq6-xR2JYEYIDvzmNAJb_jWT_JqhCnaL857cUGL8HNyyykeoR-RnI4XCR4kXHYO1e8yztBBbQJkGKIehMMh0N9mWxsdKEaZvy9S_Hli1FzgrESRWm3-5kQR9klJKeDqr_tiMg/s1600/stts-3.png" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJiVm0rslMQBs9SbGiJtVMVK9zUuF4JgwRA7VDRg4RZR66bDZX_JJX9pl6w_MwwwUfVbi7v1Q6vt4_tq9Hfcyc80MD1No1NAG8c36JTmJcGqIf6puRwH09wzHDjX2AyQP-pvf93b80Cw8/s1600/stts-2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJiVm0rslMQBs9SbGiJtVMVK9zUuF4JgwRA7VDRg4RZR66bDZX_JJX9pl6w_MwwwUfVbi7v1Q6vt4_tq9Hfcyc80MD1No1NAG8c36JTmJcGqIf6puRwH09wzHDjX2AyQP-pvf93b80Cw8/s1600/stts-2.png" /></a></div>
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But I'm jumping ahead of myself. This book follows the lives of a very interesting motley of refugees. And that of one psychopath-in-training,</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_w3QyvMPXrmfy08_i2vPxBN8QASghKMxDmnCQqBk4HEftC7cXQjoL5JhoT37xT4B2JcpbV2xWQBwgxWgg28o3io7EmHkKlDxcnNEpa8eDv7f9jpQ1BqcOXEKAAju-c4_vDwT-xteMlc8/s1600/stts-1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_w3QyvMPXrmfy08_i2vPxBN8QASghKMxDmnCQqBk4HEftC7cXQjoL5JhoT37xT4B2JcpbV2xWQBwgxWgg28o3io7EmHkKlDxcnNEpa8eDv7f9jpQ1BqcOXEKAAju-c4_vDwT-xteMlc8/s1600/stts-1.png" /></a></div>
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Initially, I was mightily creeped out by Alfred's POV accounts and dreaded his chapters. I kept questioning its purpose throughout the book and it was only towards the end that it struck me that even he needs a voice. It's not enough psychopaths like him and Hitler roared all they liked on radios and megaphones - we need to know what really went inside their heads where they were held captives so that we can give them our pity.</div>
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But back to Joana and Florian and Emilia and the Shoe Poet and the Orphan Boy and Eva and Ingrid. This is where the book triumphs in the story it is trying to tell. When humanity shines through even when all else is lost. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidM6H_xVrP8l9-GGEIKIcgg-0of9Gpp5RI2LOTa4CkxnI5GCh9wi5gNf4ZH3J7ExmWJ-x_cLuO18N3fWjqrrAtoH4uksvgU3QlsY8HMUdKrinuf3c7HYKrJV3MpCJFNq6QclpJxXynAJo/s1600/stts-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidM6H_xVrP8l9-GGEIKIcgg-0of9Gpp5RI2LOTa4CkxnI5GCh9wi5gNf4ZH3J7ExmWJ-x_cLuO18N3fWjqrrAtoH4uksvgU3QlsY8HMUdKrinuf3c7HYKrJV3MpCJFNq6QclpJxXynAJo/s1600/stts-5.png" /></a></div>
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So even after I've waxed eloquent about this book, I feel like I'd be lying if I won't admit that I didn't love this book to pieces like I prophesied to myself. I had the same problem with BSoG. The endings of both books left me mildly dissatisfied. This pretty much feels like blasphemy, but I'm missing out on the magic Sepetys did with <i>Out of the Easy</i>. Maybe she felt a pressured need to give justice to the characters in BSoG and SttS and not offend in any way, but I sense a restraint in her writing in this book, unlike in OotE. I don't want to sound pretentious - there's a 150% chance I'm wrong - I was just going out on a limb here.</div>
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The last paragraph is a personal opinion; you probably won't find it anywhere else. There's a 150% chance you'll love this book to pieces though.</div>
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<b>VERDICT: 4 stars</b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-86670012358467028302016-01-13T16:00:00.002-08:002016-01-13T16:18:32.473-08:00A Birthday Treat From Yours Truly - No There's No Cake or Giveaways Sorry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So it’s been almost FOUR years since I’ve started this blog although it remains to be seen how well I’ve made my presence felt in the bloggerverse. A quick perusal through my blogroll will advertise the embarrassing fact that I’ve not exactly tried very hard to be an actual blogger.</div>
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In these four years, not once did I celebrate any blog-related milestones (probably because there aren’t many to speak of) so I thought I’d celebrate my birthday with you guys. And I wasn't lying, there really is no cake. No there aren’t any giveaways either. You know I'm too poor for either of those.</div>
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But there <i>is </i>something.</div>
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I don’t know if you’ve ever been vapid enough to google whether there have been anyone you admire/adore/adulate – I mean ANYONE – who shares the same birthday as you. I have, and the results were dismal.</div>
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But then, inevitably, upon my baptism to the EXO fandom, I happily learn I share my birthday with this dork.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClLjgVuw3puAotzZCkSAL_ZFB86C564l7vd_Z-WhjuZouusS7joULM17cA8VYbDBUdrtZPmXn7Hqcgaxgd-aA6CLkO1xzyKnxLZI17s4tMCpRI7KoWseoBBGfUz7EoiZ1qDEkAQHt33M/s1600/kai32.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgClLjgVuw3puAotzZCkSAL_ZFB86C564l7vd_Z-WhjuZouusS7joULM17cA8VYbDBUdrtZPmXn7Hqcgaxgd-aA6CLkO1xzyKnxLZI17s4tMCpRI7KoWseoBBGfUz7EoiZ1qDEkAQHt33M/s320/kai32.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-l18b9Z2-zw4og0qDpvhLpjsGPVLZFyL7wokuzljO3bDEMGq1g0fnKsNyxEDBXJ8y3x4_stSoccaAso7E86UC_b2vsn-iwYP_JYKfIf1zqUC6wLd4Mw2kYXAkEeBQXBCyEQKAy5sMnvE/s1600/kai3.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-l18b9Z2-zw4og0qDpvhLpjsGPVLZFyL7wokuzljO3bDEMGq1g0fnKsNyxEDBXJ8y3x4_stSoccaAso7E86UC_b2vsn-iwYP_JYKfIf1zqUC6wLd4Mw2kYXAkEeBQXBCyEQKAy5sMnvE/s320/kai3.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is it just me or does he seem a little put off by that fact?</td></tr>
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJyVZgoqI92gMN4-bM0sq0XhX1UH5hPw6_gHc1kGLAcrvn9B5aMTixk5YiANgxEpNhTW-pZM9coWHQIUdbNzvdcQPcXr8ftUDGZ1GDX1cDNyss854tTmCnnnUSX3aFyLRtaKgTKgsLr0/s1600/kai25.gif" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJyVZgoqI92gMN4-bM0sq0XhX1UH5hPw6_gHc1kGLAcrvn9B5aMTixk5YiANgxEpNhTW-pZM9coWHQIUdbNzvdcQPcXr8ftUDGZ1GDX1cDNyss854tTmCnnnUSX3aFyLRtaKgTKgsLr0/s1600/kai25.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anyways, this was my reaction when I found out</td></tr>
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And I decided I’ll post a Kai GIF-rabilia post (I have to be the first to coin such a term) to celebrate my birthday. Pardon me for being way too excited to just let this momentous stroke of absolute luck pass by. Imagine if I hadn’t discovered EXO.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb8dFLSfCcAE7UmXOpxyWdSFpjCbah6KRDQe2E9gLRM50HQlDqBgs-jG19a70VHhVYwp7NVnkeleXGV_sZ5KhtmEACPsyOo_shbtUYwiOIjV_6OWbfVFH22zGzFctFetUeX0-qqPvD8HM/s1600/kai30.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb8dFLSfCcAE7UmXOpxyWdSFpjCbah6KRDQe2E9gLRM50HQlDqBgs-jG19a70VHhVYwp7NVnkeleXGV_sZ5KhtmEACPsyOo_shbtUYwiOIjV_6OWbfVFH22zGzFctFetUeX0-qqPvD8HM/s320/kai30.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OH THE HORROR</td></tr>
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Now everyone knows the dancing machine EXO Kai.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQIfTcFKK2ngW4BxP7p6qQcciQUHjMjXIDKSQQhyphenhyphensvUVG4XaK7klrVfGMR4FsOpJAr9KzFECj2RPl4QaWOejBCYO2vYSSrGhGZdjjAOV_Zd_HMKj3vKY3yDaQm1oiJHS2CB3oBiBOUk8/s1600/kai33.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMQIfTcFKK2ngW4BxP7p6qQcciQUHjMjXIDKSQQhyphenhyphensvUVG4XaK7klrVfGMR4FsOpJAr9KzFECj2RPl4QaWOejBCYO2vYSSrGhGZdjjAOV_Zd_HMKj3vKY3yDaQm1oiJHS2CB3oBiBOUk8/s400/kai33.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SOMEONE CALL THE DOCTOR INDEED</td></tr>
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So, I thought I’ll throw up some (meaning, a lot of) gifs celebrating the man (kid? honestly I’ve no idea) off the stage. There is a difference between the two, actually.</div>
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If this is Kai –</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOq94GTWw57hmXH3TYrV1115k6nnftLu_KBpFOC_VWi-TF6eziy1pK656sA5pjFJDxT4sNsUN1SUFfLis1cbMfC6rrAgvjeRLF7gyIoiX9M3to219VrH7pEXS49AWxGcjBCq2x3LzxhQ0/s1600/kai2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOq94GTWw57hmXH3TYrV1115k6nnftLu_KBpFOC_VWi-TF6eziy1pK656sA5pjFJDxT4sNsUN1SUFfLis1cbMfC6rrAgvjeRLF7gyIoiX9M3to219VrH7pEXS49AWxGcjBCq2x3LzxhQ0/s320/kai2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smoulder #1</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZlNLJwf3-qi6GPgSyahaTqPVEkAi42ItdhtSrjsHmuQnhXd021wiIyeqK_rvtcEWQrBjPHFOonzldAybuegkBsgCmqniJGJU0AEqUgJDRREP_3HS7zzcqhyJFH-D-Xuez8-lCakAZHg/s1600/kai18.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZlNLJwf3-qi6GPgSyahaTqPVEkAi42ItdhtSrjsHmuQnhXd021wiIyeqK_rvtcEWQrBjPHFOonzldAybuegkBsgCmqniJGJU0AEqUgJDRREP_3HS7zzcqhyJFH-D-Xuez8-lCakAZHg/s320/kai18.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smoulder #2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmQrNy55luG_d7H83vYu5Rxn39woXpKkOBKKCSxoW0sx3gX9nUwuS7vqAbjL-wuCm76SXavORReoWTkWZGKAh9AvPzBikgVaC3KykGF896zuZZ4P87ceBQnk68hSCwm0CpjgEj5DwTPM/s1600/kai23.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmQrNy55luG_d7H83vYu5Rxn39woXpKkOBKKCSxoW0sx3gX9nUwuS7vqAbjL-wuCm76SXavORReoWTkWZGKAh9AvPzBikgVaC3KykGF896zuZZ4P87ceBQnk68hSCwm0CpjgEj5DwTPM/s320/kai23.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Smirk (that will be the end of me)</td></tr>
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Then this is Jongin.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIi0U2ebdTrJWFA30uso4diIc3RctSJKBLU4J6foYwk25XX00noLzBJ8nb2Y7Du_KmqiKyClE9929fPoPJjz-IbCn9kqY1EH1IR0sbInGukV3-lGVNqv5j5ReKoYXErI90nLUL3RnSSg/s1600/kai11.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVIi0U2ebdTrJWFA30uso4diIc3RctSJKBLU4J6foYwk25XX00noLzBJ8nb2Y7Du_KmqiKyClE9929fPoPJjz-IbCn9kqY1EH1IR0sbInGukV3-lGVNqv5j5ReKoYXErI90nLUL3RnSSg/s320/kai11.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aegyo #1 <strike>fail FAIL </strike>DAMMIT On Point</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEV0rhJOsULNdpMqkBb1rojc7GfpuHaOdH3XetH7UzTVxsfaX7LGsgmqJ73PgheygLYI1zRCU3inBmQkEUH09Pa2juN0HwDdjKrm0T_Ft-1Fk18sGR9HKcglLv1xKGjkIzgFf1ahlpxLg/s1600/kai12.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEV0rhJOsULNdpMqkBb1rojc7GfpuHaOdH3XetH7UzTVxsfaX7LGsgmqJ73PgheygLYI1zRCU3inBmQkEUH09Pa2juN0HwDdjKrm0T_Ft-1Fk18sGR9HKcglLv1xKGjkIzgFf1ahlpxLg/s320/kai12.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aegyo #2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDH5zo7gvHkjh7NwqcVwghOE9DARuyo72sdnLKQpbXLDX-_PQmWE2iEq04bS9VBqp6dtF1xN9IEOqwDtZrwA39CYy7F2Pk0On9gXPh_SPTCySS6jec8Ij6vllOyfI8vBhi404aC1dFCg/s1600/kai13.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDH5zo7gvHkjh7NwqcVwghOE9DARuyo72sdnLKQpbXLDX-_PQmWE2iEq04bS9VBqp6dtF1xN9IEOqwDtZrwA39CYy7F2Pk0On9gXPh_SPTCySS6jec8Ij6vllOyfI8vBhi404aC1dFCg/s320/kai13.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Jongin Tutorial on How To <strike>Break</strike> Make Hearts</td></tr>
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I thought I'd also share some other interesting facts about him that I've gleaned over the past three months.</div>
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(Does it show? That I'm a newbie to the KPOP fandom?)</div>
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(Really. Who am I kidding?)</div>
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<h3>
1. EVERYONE loves Kai. </h3>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SRYJ0SD4EbxkbaW9BIQJCJjl_arnEBwEC4-FP8n0DXkax5AJId4B2Z9CGUDstQWEulwwIVdRadWlsJuFPyHPl0engnQz05cWjXr52qlMWq9Dq90u3iLdakx2r6HqfqUnkh_xLjfblFo/s1600/exo+11.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SRYJ0SD4EbxkbaW9BIQJCJjl_arnEBwEC4-FP8n0DXkax5AJId4B2Z9CGUDstQWEulwwIVdRadWlsJuFPyHPl0engnQz05cWjXr52qlMWq9Dq90u3iLdakx2r6HqfqUnkh_xLjfblFo/s320/exo+11.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BEHOLD Kai's fangirl army base</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
And then there's the biggest Kai fan of all time.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOS-w46rIUpBikhaqK0Snau1EoeTlKocfczMe4QHA-v3h9PQyarGkdP859sPI038iJs1cLGA8BY25EnHQcFA0I29mCEk4A_onEbAJ-jWnOibqUt9QWbZPNqV1fby7txhETHrq-2p9J0Y/s1600/kai29.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOS-w46rIUpBikhaqK0Snau1EoeTlKocfczMe4QHA-v3h9PQyarGkdP859sPI038iJs1cLGA8BY25EnHQcFA0I29mCEk4A_onEbAJ-jWnOibqUt9QWbZPNqV1fby7txhETHrq-2p9J0Y/s320/kai29.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Featuring Kai's Death Stare and a Blushing Chanyeol</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
2. He hits people when he laughs. </h3>
Mostly it's poor Sehunnie who gets the most of it, but really - no one sitting next to him is spared.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://31.media.tumblr.com/9317ce952e6276b4b54e734a8daf2dbe/tumblr_mvqkdf4Wqr1s0gve6o1_250.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://31.media.tumblr.com/9317ce952e6276b4b54e734a8daf2dbe/tumblr_mvqkdf4Wqr1s0gve6o1_250.gif" height="277" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chanyeol later gave as good as he got in the same "interview'</td></tr>
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3. Acting sexy comes naturally to him. </h3>
This can be seen by how frequently he combs his fingers through his hair or how he repeatedly sticks his tongue out. I already mentioned The Smirk, didn't I?</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfz1GEKrpeK37hztmtZxJm2hBFamFR8DRgTq_SxfHQlHm52MIYt58_BUHD1LKqE8yqJyMiqM6QNJYciL788hlJib2GJDUO-51s3vJbewwuJubYNcmMiHYDJONjm463mtN911UlKLeCPhg/s1600/kai_tongue..jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfz1GEKrpeK37hztmtZxJm2hBFamFR8DRgTq_SxfHQlHm52MIYt58_BUHD1LKqE8yqJyMiqM6QNJYciL788hlJib2GJDUO-51s3vJbewwuJubYNcmMiHYDJONjm463mtN911UlKLeCPhg/s320/kai_tongue..jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">His tongue doesn't sit in his mouth, for some reason</td></tr>
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4. Despite the I'm-A-Bad-Boy attitude you get from the music videos - </h3>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54yvPREg1w7G8h0hVKP532Th6n_Zb-EqHnL2KxwczGaTtIvLDkd-8HVWoF0Er3RlApib9UA8OPNIIZEXrV30PgW5qmmklZw4Vs4vmJNgnLOO2dJ7I8kv7sGgpyFvjVN5VNH1ZR1PtWmo/s1600/kai22.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi54yvPREg1w7G8h0hVKP532Th6n_Zb-EqHnL2KxwczGaTtIvLDkd-8HVWoF0Er3RlApib9UA8OPNIIZEXrV30PgW5qmmklZw4Vs4vmJNgnLOO2dJ7I8kv7sGgpyFvjVN5VNH1ZR1PtWmo/s1600/kai22.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">He gets easily embarrassed for no reason</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivC98ZNkJIU1ZnoyX2s_26XBwP4U6TAyxR8qHxMH7mZZhihWFMVAXYxcuXpfA3qCacewTkWEyVP_DwpQTwG7Ykq_Z2tosNJAUJ0mfY1hU5UConuftu6b7bbQrgagFLX1BgiiSc5e7HZhU/s1600/kai20.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivC98ZNkJIU1ZnoyX2s_26XBwP4U6TAyxR8qHxMH7mZZhihWFMVAXYxcuXpfA3qCacewTkWEyVP_DwpQTwG7Ykq_Z2tosNJAUJ0mfY1hU5UConuftu6b7bbQrgagFLX1BgiiSc5e7HZhU/s320/kai20.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">.... and easily hurt, the big baby</td></tr>
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5. Does it surprise you that he's great with kids?</h3>
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKchwGrxFf4YQCrTLNd-4tJl-qne-mFZulgYwug_f6MvtW1X2T8gZylvWvs6HEDz0fd5hWgOxUexHSQpVvdM8ZR3CFJXLbvajs9cwEmQFTueaauhUSUc2Rfqz_tfp-qKWCffnqhBe3xSE/s1600/kai28.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKchwGrxFf4YQCrTLNd-4tJl-qne-mFZulgYwug_f6MvtW1X2T8gZylvWvs6HEDz0fd5hWgOxUexHSQpVvdM8ZR3CFJXLbvajs9cwEmQFTueaauhUSUc2Rfqz_tfp-qKWCffnqhBe3xSE/s320/kai28.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at the proud papa</td></tr>
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6. He probably got all that daddy training by raising three poodles. </h3>
He loves dogs, you know.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTb34WsidC4ugpMmoCZuNjR-MEYe7Qg56nVmcA_p6rp3oPGsDixgkvd0Uqgnbyxd9m3Gz1ni_M_79HcWAxyFVplrtFTgVnWbsTMBGjft0e34Z7a0E4NqXWNjTUWInBPGDhRo_1YRjnFGA/s1600/IMG_4988.GIF" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTb34WsidC4ugpMmoCZuNjR-MEYe7Qg56nVmcA_p6rp3oPGsDixgkvd0Uqgnbyxd9m3Gz1ni_M_79HcWAxyFVplrtFTgVnWbsTMBGjft0e34Z7a0E4NqXWNjTUWInBPGDhRo_1YRjnFGA/s1600/IMG_4988.GIF" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kai's the one doing the Lion King thing at the back</td></tr>
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7. Let's talk about ships </h3>
Having a dozen members in the band guarantees a lot of permutations as ships. However the most famously shipped Kai-starring ship is - </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5IqKq-Gyj6uUohPP0Sj1QmEpgEs7nP-98LdDj6pqiopZcoALi4DBsPu-z3UTt-L9sO4Nhaci5_0nAaqseKiph_FN8K2HAMxxsKLJKq6fAC4FSyv49h0HtFTRW_V5v-dsZgtWKOoyP8w/s1600/kai15.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5IqKq-Gyj6uUohPP0Sj1QmEpgEs7nP-98LdDj6pqiopZcoALi4DBsPu-z3UTt-L9sO4Nhaci5_0nAaqseKiph_FN8K2HAMxxsKLJKq6fAC4FSyv49h0HtFTRW_V5v-dsZgtWKOoyP8w/s320/kai15.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KAISOOOOOOOOOO</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga31eWEgETUneJLWIOeio00YIFWdROGFei7g1_EsvwhjBF6gD0_hC1kBqgJBypFaGAbmko_JOgOEBpqFcD1dqSV9g6uV5VA2Hgy52gz43k0Tnb7Mkyu8IM6VuU5gunTmq8NDlQ9FC9meE/s1600/kai17.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga31eWEgETUneJLWIOeio00YIFWdROGFei7g1_EsvwhjBF6gD0_hC1kBqgJBypFaGAbmko_JOgOEBpqFcD1dqSV9g6uV5VA2Hgy52gz43k0Tnb7Mkyu8IM6VuU5gunTmq8NDlQ9FC9meE/s320/kai17.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A popular KaiSoo meme</td></tr>
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Kaisoo is real, people.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTp3SI8YYRhP7UycZCkonDtWCQpBKS3Bi-3X3E1iFL68vfybieDKK2S2o6dQ9mcmZA-DL_CVEHo_X_xJWB52HgVfenFPiahZQ0xB_6vqW7gbdO3pj2RUa6YHbMTfmdi5XjqH2btb3YPyo/s1600/tumblr_o0qkeppa5L1u9jo5qo5_400.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTp3SI8YYRhP7UycZCkonDtWCQpBKS3Bi-3X3E1iFL68vfybieDKK2S2o6dQ9mcmZA-DL_CVEHo_X_xJWB52HgVfenFPiahZQ0xB_6vqW7gbdO3pj2RUa6YHbMTfmdi5XjqH2btb3YPyo/s1600/tumblr_o0qkeppa5L1u9jo5qo5_400.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously. Thank you Tumblr for this gif.</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfymY6Greqyi14jFGUzci58J8sFaAyJiptnj0_DabIbK4-6Qtq4f0RamOFPfF9iHmZ6Nd48zieGyo4bbjkyiMVT-LvJR5R9MdH9BomO6Ko3ZQEBbsN3nm4owkDbueZkzvl3IAWpsiKQt0/s1600/kai14.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfymY6Greqyi14jFGUzci58J8sFaAyJiptnj0_DabIbK4-6Qtq4f0RamOFPfF9iHmZ6Nd48zieGyo4bbjkyiMVT-LvJR5R9MdH9BomO6Ko3ZQEBbsN3nm4owkDbueZkzvl3IAWpsiKQt0/s320/kai14.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poor D.O. Can't move a muscle. I'd probably puke though if Kai was standing that close.</td></tr>
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This post took a lot more time to put together than it should have because the wifi was having mood swings and because Photoshop ate my RAM. Also, my sincere apologies to all those with slow internet because BOY you're missing out on a lot of awesome gifs.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G_K4Ctn0Ldfo0Gn6mTxVQuI8GjZtpVG16_Hicdr8fvXsth8ytK9xXGKA47cghGB48GE8MENqn_wDIGkpw7_WWvtPung3oEwgEgrqR2qwZ2CcWPePalhUPh5Bg1aRW_0kOrNnJiXsMuA/s1600/kai19.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G_K4Ctn0Ldfo0Gn6mTxVQuI8GjZtpVG16_Hicdr8fvXsth8ytK9xXGKA47cghGB48GE8MENqn_wDIGkpw7_WWvtPung3oEwgEgrqR2qwZ2CcWPePalhUPh5Bg1aRW_0kOrNnJiXsMuA/s400/kai19.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ANNYEONG!!!</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-51657348060872526082016-01-05T02:55:00.001-08:002016-01-05T02:55:11.386-08:00REVIEW: Tell The Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6Yj0nH4WdCeXue0PhlyzwAOIFlrRJiNnczKaKyN3fIM1GRTPaqzRNBMwuBRbSZLvnIk2xcuD2saieQZ70G7zqHqxiHD-ihIqTuHXODhKRkuC4FAExCH-e4hmGei_xeZL24ycoWa4z0Y/s1600/IMG_20160105_132158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6Yj0nH4WdCeXue0PhlyzwAOIFlrRJiNnczKaKyN3fIM1GRTPaqzRNBMwuBRbSZLvnIk2xcuD2saieQZ70G7zqHqxiHD-ihIqTuHXODhKRkuC4FAExCH-e4hmGei_xeZL24ycoWa4z0Y/s400/IMG_20160105_132158.jpg" width="300" /></a>This is the second time I’m reading this book. The first time I read it (which I did at lightning speed – like I do for most books – because I don’t have the patience to endure the suspense of the ending), I thought all that the book had going for it was the plot and the characters – which is more than enough for me and which is everything that the blurb advertises.</div>
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My most grievous fault.</div>
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If you do a basic Google search about this book, you’ll come across numerous posts that have written odes to everything that’s beautiful about this book on the surface. The plot is set in the late 1980s, a time when America was in the grip of homophobia and AIDS was in the headlines all too often. It introduces to us a fourteen-year-old, who finds herself lost after her godfather, confidant, best friend, and uncle, Finn passes away. That’s also when she learns there’s a lot of Finn that she didn’t know about.</div>
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That’s not all. There’s Greta – the ace kid in the family – and once upon a time, together they used to be the Elbus girls. Then June learns that her mother – the boring accountant who, together with her accountant husband, orphans their kids during their tax season – has a past that June has trouble wrapping her head around.</div>
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And then there’s Toby. And <i>then </i>there’s Toby.</div>
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The book explores more issues than I thought it would. Apart from the obvious that you can glean from the blurb, it also delves into the realms of forbidden love and sibling estrangement. I actually had problems with June. I will not hide my initial disgust when I realized the nature of June’s feelings for her uncle. Nor my annoyance at how flippantly June mentions her newly acquired habit of smoking and occasional drinking. Nor my anger at her decision to accept the invitation to visit an apparent stranger and go places with him.</div>
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She does a lot of stupid things. Granted. But that’s also what I liked about the book. It isn’t trying to teach lessons about Stranger Danger or Smoking is Injurious to Health or Falling in Love with Relatives and this is not the book I would recommend as the solution to any of the above. Brunt neither condones nor condemns it – she merely talks about it. That is what struck me – you can’t detect the mature adult author acting as the conscience in the morally-compromised teenage narrator. Because there isn’t. It’s up to you to decide if that’s good or bad.</div>
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What I wasn’t prepared for was the imagery. Motifs like wolves, rain, butterflies, Mozart’s <i>Requiem</i>, trains, woods, a beautiful Russian teapot, and negative spaces in paintings show up now and then. I didn’t know that this book was a lot of work and is thus a prime candidate for book club discussions. I didn’t know that you had to read some lines twice and thrice to understand if there was a deeper meaning to what seems on the surface. There are some that you’ll miss if you blink like Finn’s chess set, or the painting <i>Nurse Feeding Sick Man</i> from the <i>Book of Days</i>.</div>
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Like I already mentioned, the characters are not whom they seem on the surface. There are layers upon layers on them. You would have peel them off slowly and carefully, to get a look at who they are underneath all of it. And underneath all of it, you'll find that they’re just people, not some characters in a book.</div>
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This book is work. But once you get to the end, you'll just remain curled up, hugging it to your chest. </div>
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<b>VERDICT: 5 stars</b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-17093105278518211162015-11-19T00:53:00.000-08:002015-11-19T00:58:00.990-08:00Hijacked by EXO AKA How I Have Officially Lost My Sanity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Something momentous happened over the last week. Our college Wi-Fi suddenly decided to let Youtube past its firewalls and the timing couldn’t have been more off, what with our exams happening. Let it be known that I resisted. Every time my eyes grew weary (which was every ten minutes) I would take a break and check what the social media was up to. When in boredom, tumble down Tumblr – isn’t what they say, anyways?</div>
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My finger would unconsciously stray over to the Youtube icon. It would take all of my strength, but I would wrench it back and plop myself in front of the books again. This routine played itself out three or four times before I thought, “Well now girl, you deserve yourself a little treat.” Little did I know that I was venturing into a territory, well past the point of no return.</div>
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Sometimes Youtube outdoes itself when recommending videos. Of course, it couldn’t have picked a better time than then to suggest this video that would make me watch another one. And then another one that would force me to watch the next one. It would take a TWO HOUR STUDY BREAK worth of videos during exams before I condemned myself to be damned.<br />
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So about a month back, I’d watched some EXO music videos (which were mind-blowingly awesome as always) but I’d never exactly considered myself a kpop fan. True, their beats were catchy; granted, their choreography was breath-taking – but STILL, you know? Some part of me thought they were too flashy for their own good.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mUPTyVvxxlAlC88yFMNuspn_W0AkxOY1X7A5FERa2pSytrNSYdyGgYH9HrU-V6zEIgjw_AgLJyNPU47oF0g20p8FP0NybV7ECsgWNTHMZCV6X3Kff6WUDbqwd6nBYVBeb6Z3z9EhzXU/s1600/exo-entry.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mUPTyVvxxlAlC88yFMNuspn_W0AkxOY1X7A5FERa2pSytrNSYdyGgYH9HrU-V6zEIgjw_AgLJyNPU47oF0g20p8FP0NybV7ECsgWNTHMZCV6X3Kff6WUDbqwd6nBYVBeb6Z3z9EhzXU/s1600/exo-entry.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WAIT WAIT WAIT - I'M NOT DONE</td></tr>
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This holier-than-thou attitude was brought to a sudden death by a video that Youtube recommended to me. Don’t ask me which life-altering video it was – I have no idea. All I know was that it was some video of EXO goofing about. What do you know – stars really are just like us!</div>
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It took me some ten videos before I realized I wanted to know more about them. Thus started my extensive research. That’s when I taught myself to recognize their faces and learn their names. And then I learnt that three of them had quit EXO.</div>
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Have you heard of delayed heartbreak? Well, now you know.</div>
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Reader, I was heartbroken. They’d quit a year back, and I was shedding tears now. I curled into a ball and moaned into a pillow like a madwoman.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sure, why not? Laugh at my misery.</td></tr>
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Then like any other possessed fangirl, (did I mention I’d become an honest-to-god EXO fan by then?) I rolled up my cuffs and proceeded to recruit members into the fandom from the neighbourhood. I shoved EXO music videos into their faces and watched in satisfaction as their expressions slowly morphed from sneering disdain into something close to wonder. I barely held back my grin as the first round of the converted brought other unbelievers into my room for their baptism into the fandom. I viciously lashed out at the sceptics who thought they wore too much makeup to still be called guys (“FYI a guy who embraces the metrosexual aesthetic isn’t feminine – it’s just a sign of how secure he is in his masculinity to not feel threatened by makeup”). All the while Youtube kept recommending more videos wherein I watched Chanyeol and D.O. have their moments (those two will make myself puncture a rib someday, I swear), Kai’s infectious laughter, Baekhyun’s penchant for mimicry, Lay’s broken Hangeul and his many (un)fortunate language mishaps, Tao’s shyness, Kris’ and Chanyeol’s rapping sessions and – GOD I could go on.</div>
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Then Tumblr thought it would be funny to mention some web drama of theirs and then Google corroborated to this and then I was truly lost.</div>
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This has gotten so much out of control that I found myself wishing that the firewall blocked Youtube again, simply because I yearned peace of mind. It truly is disastrous when you’re a newly minted fangirl and there happens to be simply no dearth of Youtube videos of your idols. And the time put into “research” about your idols falls right in between your exams.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-43556387849858673482015-10-05T05:11:00.000-07:002015-10-05T05:11:04.189-07:00REVIEW: Rose Under Fire - Elizabeth Wein<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Elizabeth Wein is a hero. If the act of merely reading her books is sufficient enough to make me feel like I’m choking on air, I can’t even imagine what’s it like for her to conceive her books in her head and bleed life into the pages with her fingers. <i>Code Name Verity </i>damn near killed me. The companion novel <i>Rose Under Fire </i>killed me. Even though CNV is not a reading prerequisite for RUF, it will help many a haplessly clueless reader ease into unfamiliar territory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I completed RUF some time back. At that time, I felt I was in an emotionally compromised state to write a coherent review. Deciding to put some time between the reading and the reviewing is one of my more brilliant ideas. If this book is on your TBR pile as well, you’ll know why eventually.</div>
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<i><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Anyway, being an Ignorant American Schoolgirl gives me an open ticket to ask brazen questions, and I’d already put my foot in my mouth, so I just went on.<o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><i>“What </i>is </b></span><i><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>a concentration camp, Fliss?”</b></span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Given an opportunity, I have never failed to manage to squeeze in a reminder that I love historical fiction. Consequently, I have greatly taken advantage of fiction under the backdrop of the World Wars and the Holocaust, whether in print or on screen. I thought I knew what concentration camps are. I thought I knew what went on in there. I thought I was better than Rosie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My mistake.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rose Justice is an ATA pilot – out of America and in England, chasing her love for planes. For her, the horrors happening in Germany and elsewhere was an abstract idea – she knew people were dying and they needed saving. For her, the real tragedy lay in Doodlebug Brides and couples getting married in haste and boys fiddling with unexploded bombs in the hopes they can defuse them. Then again, she’s just eighteen years old crazily in love with flying in the sky and writing poems.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>Everywhere I go I meet people who are hunting for husbands, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, lovers, and they are </i>all <i>gone.<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<i><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Your friend Rose has evaporated with them. I don’t know what else to tell you Maddie.<o:p></o:p></span></b></i></div>
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Then the horror accounts start. How they start by taking away your name and giving you a number. We hear about fleas who are in league with the SS. About 50,000 women locked inside a prison half a mile wide and a quarter of a mile across with no toilets. We learn of Rabbits. Our lives are changed forever.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>When you lost hope, you turned into a </i>schmootzich<i>, one of the mindless beggars who were the bottom-crawlers of that entire scummy camp, or you </i>died.</span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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If you think this book is one of those books that preach nothing but morbidity and mortal moroseness in the name of empathy, you are dead wrong. This is not one of those books. This is that book that inspires awe. Awe at how much life and hope and dreams can thrive even in places that seem beyond despair.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><i>It took me a long time to write </i>‘The Subtle Briar’<i>, but it was translated into three languages in a day. Every time it got passed on I got another bread ration. Oh God, we needed </i>something<i> to cling to. We were scared.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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The technical bits about bombs and planes, the poems and the characters are what sets the book apart from its peers. Many might feel the tech stuff is infodump but I lived for it. <i>The Subtle Briar</i> and <i>Playing Statues</i> are my favourites. Róza, Irina, Karolina, Lisette, Micheline, Elodie are my favourites. Even Anna. And Nick from the Nick stories. You will be rendered unable to label them fictional characters because of the sheer depth Wein has endowed them with, which is an accomplishment considering the number of characters this book is peppered with.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">When you’re flying, the changing balance of lift and weight pulls you up and down. But another pair of forces pulls you forward or backwards through air: thrust and drag.</span></b><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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From<i> Kite Flying: four principles of flight </i>(by Rose Justice)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think what made me love this book is the fact that there are no <i>unnecessary</i> deaths. (And by that, I am in no way claiming that the deaths that do happen were necessary.) I have noticed a disturbingly common authorial tendency to wantonly disregard fictional characters’ lives. Like they think killing off someone we love in our faces and the tears and heartbreak that inevitably follow is the price of loving a book. But <i>Rose Under Fire </i>does not resort to any such cheap tricks even though it could have and I love it all the more for it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>VERDICT: Freaking Five Stars<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-38932202000030490182015-09-25T02:13:00.000-07:002015-09-25T02:13:38.767-07:00The Difference Between A Trip And A Journey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Let it never be said that you weren’t forewarned. This post is an abrupt departure from my usual volley of posts (or the lack thereof) and for the longest time I hid from my laptop because I was itching to write this and writing this would mean my admission to it. Something I’ve been successfully avoiding for so long.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here I am, in the penultimate semester of college, with still no clue whatsoever about what I want to do with my life. Or rather, how I am going to do what I want with my life. Even as I changed my ambitions daily – from wanting to be a teacher to a nun to an archaeologist to a criminal psychologist to a physicist to an engineer – the only constant that remained was my love for books. And even though the decision was made unconsciously, the reason why I didn’t pursue a degree in literature, but rather in engineering, was phrased more eloquently than I could have ever done, in a Korean drama I just finished watching recently.</div>
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I’ll state it bluntly. I’m fucking scared. I am now standing at the figurative, much-clichéd, crossroads of my life – with no road maps of any sort. I have a destination. A five-year plan. A twenty-year plan. But ask me what the hell I’m planning on doing next year and I’ll just shrug desolately.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I thought the reason why I read so much was only because I loved it. I recently had an epiphany and realized that was just not it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was running away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In some remote corner of my mind, I knew what I was doing. Escaping reality. Postponing the moment I had to make a choice. Pretending as though I had already started on the trip that would take me to my destination. <o:p></o:p></div>
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People tend to think a journey is the line connecting two points: the start and the end. But in actuality, it’s a broken, jagged line consisting of several lines connecting several points in between. Whilst we’re on the journey, the end point changes several times. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“How long until the next rest stop?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Are we there at that bridge yet?”</div>
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“Tell me if you see the sign for a U-turn.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I know what I have to do. Fill the tank. Get the tyres checked. Get in the car. Start the ignition. Get the map I’ve drawn for myself out and start <i>driving</i>. As simple as that. And it terrifies me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I’m going to do it. I’ll start by drawing the map first.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Cheers,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-3000655181558084742015-09-13T09:32:00.001-07:002015-09-25T02:36:36.626-07:00AUTHOR BINGE: Melina Marchetta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Melina Marchetta </span>was born in Sydney Australia. Her first novel, Looking For Alibrandi was awarded the Children's Book Council of Australia award in 1993 and her second novel, Saving Francesca won the same award in 2004. Looking For Alibrandi was made into a major film in 2000 and won the Australian Film Institute Award for best Film and best adapted screen play, also written by the author. On the Jellicoe Road was released in 2006 and won the WAYRBA voted by teenagers in Western Australia in 2008. It also won the US Printz Medal in 2009 for excellence in YA literature. This was followed up by Finnikin of the Rock in 2008 which won the Aurealis Award for YA fantasy, The Piper's Son in 2010 which was shortlisted for the Qld Premier's Lit Award, NSW Premier's Lit Award, Prime Minister's Literary Awards, CBC awards and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her follow up to Finnikin, Froi of the Exiles will be released in Australia in October and the US in March 2012.</span></div>
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My introduction to the phenomenon that is Melina Marchetta was not a smooth one. It was not even a respectable introduction. Dammit, my first impression of <i>Jellicoe Road </i>was – what the <i>fuck </i>was happening? Who the fuck are all these people? I had thought this book was going to be another one of those high school coming-of-age cliché novels and I was wholly unprepared when the book flung me headlong into open fire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I slammed the book close and forgot all about it. I later spied upon it and decided to give it another try, especially since everyone on Goodreads was raving about it. I laboured up to a tenth of the book, at which point I promptly abandoned it again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I opened the book a third time, determined to understand what the <i>fuck </i>was happening. I read slowly, at a rate of a third of a page per minute. I laboured up to a tenth of the book, was sucked into it by a third of the book, fell in love midway and wept shamelessly at the end, cradling the book against me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Marchetta writes her characters with a zeal that leaves you breathless. Her books begin with an explosion of characters who don’t wait to give you an introduction – the moment you open the book, you’ve been inserted to a frame in their lives, and it’s up to you to make sense of the story they want to say. Her characters ooze life. Even though we’re seeing the other characters through the narrator’s eyes, somehow Marchetta is able to give us the power to judge the characters ourselves, by showing their many sides. Every time I reach the end, I get overwhelmed by the feeling of love that supersedes every other feeling. She always manages to integrate the unconditional love of blood with the love woven in bonds of friendship. Bonds usually forged in the unlikeliest of places.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My GR reviews of her books that I've read:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82436.Looking_for_Alibrandi" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Looking for Alibrandi" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389398782m/82436.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82436.Looking_for_Alibrandi">Looking for Alibrandi</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47104.Melina_Marchetta">Melina Marchetta</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1364985077">4 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
I should have known.<br />
<br />
I should have fucking known that this book would tread down the path to breaking my heart with its coming-of-age wisdom and reflections of a seventeen year old girl who tries to fit in but never could. I should have known that Jacob Coote will forever have himself imprinted on me and that John Barton will be that boy whose memory will always make me weep. I should have known that I could never bring myself to hate Michael Andretti and that I would end up feeling sorry for all the Nonna Katias and Marcus Sandfords in this world. And that I will forever worship Christina Alibrandi.<br />
<br />
And if I had known all that prior to my reading this book, I probably wouldn't have had to deal with the emotional mess I'm in right now or the splitting headache because of clogged sinuses.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/15585767-aneta-augustine">View all my reviews</a>
<br />
<br />
THERE'S A MOVIE. THERE'S A MOVIE ALREADY. AND I HAVEN'T SEEN IT.<br />
<br /></div>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82434.Saving_Francesca" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Saving Francesca" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327865374m/82434.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82434.Saving_Francesca">Saving Francesca</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47104.Melina_Marchetta">Melina Marchetta</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1364977448">4 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
<em>"What did you like best about this book?"<br /><br />"You mean apart from a plot that sucks you right in, and characters that come off as people with as much depth and as many faces real people do, and how every time I turn a page I have to mentally prepare myself for that feeling like there's something in my eye?"<br /><br />"Yeah, apart from all that."<br /><br />"No pretensions. No big words. No trying to wrap something that's raw and honest in beautiful lyrical lines or anything. No trying to come across like something more than it is."</em><br />
<br />
God, I love this book to bits.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/15585767-aneta-augustine">View all my reviews</a>
<br />
<br />
THERE'S A COMPANION NOVEL TO THIS ONE. THAT'S THE NEXT BOOK I'M GOING TO READ.<br />
<br />
And there's Jellicoe Road. I've read it twice already. For some reason, I find myself shelving off the inevitable review post on my blog citing lack of enough rereading. For now, I'll sign off this post by saying this book, THIS is my favourite Marchetta ever.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-20014488747599275582015-08-28T00:06:00.001-07:002015-08-28T00:06:27.865-07:00LISTING AWAY: From Page to Screen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I hope you find the punishment the
bloggerverse conspired to inflict upon me, suitable for my grievous crimes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #783f04;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that broke my heart because
they were the consummate apotheosis of their literary parent </span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Help</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Secret Life Of Bees</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Book Thief</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Boy in Striped Pajamas</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Perks of Being A Wallflower</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">To Kill A Mockingbird</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Outsiders</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Hunger Games </span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Lord of the Rings (I’m not so hot about
The Hobbit trilogy, though)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Kite Runner</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #783f04;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that surprisingly surpassed
their literary parent </span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Princess Diaries</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">P.S. I Love You (The book’s still a DNF)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">A Walk To Remember</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Time-Traveller’s Wife (I despised the
book)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Stardust</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #783f04;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that made me add the literary
parent to my TBR pile</span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Everything is Illuminated (Lord, I need to
read this real quick.)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Les Miserables (GOD, yes)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Memoirs of a Geisha (Why, why haven’t I
still read it?)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">A Series Of Unfortunate Events</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">True Grit</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Maze Runner</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">War Horse</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Bend it like Beckham</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that made their literary parent
proud</span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Warm Bodies</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Diary of a Wimpy Kid (only #1 and #2 -
Let’s face it, Dog Days sucked)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Harry Potter (#1 - #3)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">I Am Number Four</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Golden Compass</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Speak</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">If I Stay</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Gone Girl</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Ender’s Game</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">My Sister’s Keeper (There’s that thing with
alternative ending though)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Pride and Prejudice (UK version, 2005)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Sense and Sensibility (1995)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Divergent </span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (well, sort
of – I’m kinda partial to Magnus Bane)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Life Of Pi</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">One Day</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Da Vinci Code</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Angels and Demons</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that I am literally dying to
see but haven’t already </span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Looking For Alibrandi (please god please)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Pride and Prejudice (BBC version)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Insurgent</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (and the reason
why I haven’t seen it yet is probably because it’s R-rated and banned, but I’ve
heard rave reviews)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Never Let Me Go</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Scarlet Letter (1934)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Gone with the Wind (maybe I should read the
book first?)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Paper Towns</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Notes on a Scandal</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Namesake</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Jane Eyre</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><span lang="EN-GB">Adaptations that make me want to fling it
on the screen playwright’s/director’s face</span></span></span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Will whoever wrote the screenplay and
directed the Percy Jackson movies please stand up?</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Harry Potter (#4 through #8 – I have some
unresolved screenplay issues)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Host</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Eragon</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">The Fault in our Stars (sorry, not sorry –
but they slathered cheese all over it)</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB">Dear John (For some reason, I was mostly
insulted by how much I didn’t like the movie – even though with the
Tatum/Seyfried pair I should have, by all rights)</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">If you think I have missed a book or two,
or classified a book/movie under an undeserving list, please do let me know.
And do recommend! Most probably, I would be labouring under the delusion that
my favourite book still hasn’t been turned into a movie yet and if that’s the
case, I demand to know ASAP.</span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-22548421287445027372015-08-14T05:25:00.002-07:002015-08-14T05:25:29.151-07:00A Promise Made To Ghosts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrS8JFKcHQ1IpQvFIWrKinaief2udzfB-pbHHlwgX-oIJeI6lF55CHmln2_4gbciEXzlqi4FLVIiXXEVKdQ-lp5D7afIrnIFqa0mVbmJYhjR31UKUZnnZq3JJLJKYQqxpdMmBtEgzQ9lM/s1600/behindtheglass7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrS8JFKcHQ1IpQvFIWrKinaief2udzfB-pbHHlwgX-oIJeI6lF55CHmln2_4gbciEXzlqi4FLVIiXXEVKdQ-lp5D7afIrnIFqa0mVbmJYhjR31UKUZnnZq3JJLJKYQqxpdMmBtEgzQ9lM/s1600/behindtheglass7.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Fingers traced
the words of,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The blood song
etched on the walls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The grandfather
clock’s face was a thousand splinters,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yet it hushed
out a lullaby of “tick-tock”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A memory –</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Strong hands winding the gears.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A man whose back was,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Straighter than the pendulum,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Always bending, never breaking.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The night sand
laboriously,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Of broken bones,
broken hearts, broken dreams.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Weary eyes
leaked out stories,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Into
brine-stained pillows, always soaking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A memory –</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Shut your eyes, child.”</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A tender caress, softer than kisses.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Stories of the past, stories of the future,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Never of the present.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Four faces
smiled out at me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jailed behind a
broken glass.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Their ghosts
rose up, as if to mock me,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We’re full of
life, how can we die?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A memory – </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">One. Two. Three.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The bed rocked gently to the rhythm of the guns.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Pinkie curled around pinkie,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">As two little hearts beat as one.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Death left
behind souvenirs,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Token of a past
life littered,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A doll here, a
ball there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dust-caked and
abandoned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A memory – </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A little boy sat on his father’s lap,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Proud and unafraid.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The woman weaved jasmine into,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Her little girl’s thick hair.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The sky groaned
under the weight of,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Prayers it had
received,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The rain
scribbled consolation <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>on my window,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Too little, too
late?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">A promise – </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The guilt of the survivor,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Shall not wreck me, </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Only the hope lives,</span></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Of
dreams about to take flight.</span></i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-43931847031561608382015-07-09T18:55:00.001-07:002015-07-09T18:55:11.843-07:00Manga Classics Mini – Reviews: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Po Tse, Stacy King and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, SunNeko Lee, Crystal Silvermoon, Stacy King
<div class="blogaway-section"><p><p>Oh yes. Surprise, surprise – this blog is showing symptoms of life again. I really have no idea how this blog went on an unprecedented hiatus– one week there I was, happily making a list of future posts most likely to show up in this space and then two months later I find myself, sitting desolately in front of a blinking cursor thirsting for words. Since we have found ourselves in this situation more often than we would have liked, I think it is time to officially place this blog in a state of eternal excusal on the grounds of academic workload that borders on intellectual slavery. <br/>
<p>But I digress. Let us read that formidably long but enticing enough blog post title again and get right down to business.</p></div><br/><div style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yvTUfz2Rvfo/VZ8l9JSroyI/AAAAAAAAA58/tW7Z4CSVhcA/515pNmDDnzL._SY344_BO1%25252C204%25252C203%25252C200_-1.jpg"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yvTUfz2Rvfo/VZ8l9JSroyI/AAAAAAAAA58/tW7Z4CSVhcA/515pNmDDnzL._SY344_BO1%25252C204%25252C203%25252C200_-1.jpg cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Manga</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Classics</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>: </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Pride</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> and </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Prejudice</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>by</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Jane</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Austen</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>, </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Po</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Tse</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>, </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>Stacy</b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b> </b></font><font color ="#8a3719"><b>King</b></font><br/>
<p>*COURTESY OF NETGALLEY*<br/>
<p>I won’t be able to guarantee the exact number of Austenites who will like this book (and the hard-core ones probably won’t), but any estimation made would be done by taking those who love manga into consideration. And those who haven’t read the original classic either. And broadly speaking, those who give less importance to how faithful an illustrated character is to the biblio-characters and have an eye for beautiful graphics. <br/>
<p>The reason I wanted to read this book in spite of my being a professional Jane Austen fangirl, was my manga-tastic literary and artistic senses tingled when I saw the title. Ergo, not a minute was wasted after being approved for a copy in cracking open the book.<br/>
<p>This book succeeds in fulfilling its objective. It’s an enjoyably light read; one that you can quickly read through, especially if you, like me, know the novel well enough to quote lines by heart. Any time actually spent, is because you spent too much of it admiring the artistic details (watch out for a bare-chested Darcy in the highly charged climax – OOPS Spoiler Alert! Sorry, not sorry.) <br/>
<p>But the Austenite in me couldn’t help but bristle at the manga version of Lizzy. I didn’t care much for the others’ but Lizzy’s killed me. Manga-Lizzy is blessed with luscious locks, venerable beauty and heavy boobs whereas the Classic-Lizzy is “tolerable” with a “pair of fine eyes”. And poor Manga-Collins is relegated to the level of comic relief while Manga-Charlotte appears only when necessary. Of course when considering the depth of the novel to be adapted and the required product, the effort expended is commendable. <br/>
<p>I highly recommend picking up this book if you catch sight of it in an airport bookstore or packing it if you’re the kind of person (like me) who enjoys light reading material on road trips. <br/>
<p><b>VERDICT</b><b>: 3 </b><b>stars</b></p></div><br/><div style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OanXgCa5YqA/VZ8l-wkQ3FI/AAAAAAAAA6E/LT4nXoq8X4s/81C0pvVrxTL.jpg"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OanXgCa5YqA/VZ8l-wkQ3FI/AAAAAAAAA6E/LT4nXoq8X4s/81C0pvVrxTL.jpg cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p><font color ="#603310"><b>Manga</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Classics</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>: </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Les</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Miserables</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>by</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Victor</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Hugo</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>, </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>SunNeko</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Lee</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>, </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Crystal</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Silvermoon</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>, </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>Stacy</b></font><font color ="#603310"><b> </b></font><font color ="#603310"><b>King</b></font><br/>
<p>*COURTESY OF NETGALLEY*<br/>
<p>The title of this book awed me into stupefaction. I personally consider it an achievement to even <i>contemplate</i> adapting a thousand-plus paged tome into manga. That book has always intimidated me due to its sheer volume despite my love for the movie and the – ahem – abridged novel we had to read for English in school. Of course, then it was only a matter of time before I got the manga version in my hands – I would love Les Miserables in any attire, although the mammoth classic still remains buried in my TBR pile. (I am yet to gain access to the Broadway musical and the TV series though.)<br/>
<p>Let me take a moment to appreciate the panelling and the overall layout of the book. They enclosed a chunk of the factual portion of the actual novel in floating boxes, thus crunching down critical page space. As the story progresses we find a lot of flashback scenes and they’re almost never rendered in the same style, thus eliminating the annoying nag of repetition. And there were some scenes that you wanted to frame and hang on your wall – the emotion in the faces portrayed were too poignant. There were a limited number of extremely dramatic close-ups, instead the enormity of it all was brought to perspective by zooming out a character against an artistic backdrop. Then there were panels drawn that felt like snapshots from a thespian-grade movie. I loved the abrupt geometrical shapes of the panels used when a memorably jarring scene took place and the angle from which it was drawn. I could go on, actually.<br/>
<p>I resent the necessity to cut down on the plot because of the page limit. Like Silvermoon, the screenwriter, says in the bonus material (which you should totally read, just to get an idea of the work involved behind the pages) many backstories and character-intensive sub-plots were omitted. But I liked the general structure of the plot and how they were divided into time-based, character-focused parts. <br/>
<p>I actually read the book a while back so I don’t remember the exact places where I noticed some inconsistencies, but they were there. However, if you aren’t a reviewer, but a person with an insatiable appetite for art and words, please do yourself a favour and read this book.<br/>
<p><b>VERDICT</b><b>: 4 </b><b>stars</b><b> </b>  </p></div><br/><div class="blogaway-signature"><br/><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beanie.blog&referrer=utm_source%3Dutm_link_blog"><font size="2">Posted via Blogaway</font></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-35388948374612885982015-05-23T05:52:00.001-07:002015-05-23T05:52:43.643-07:00REVIEW: The Wrath and The Dawn - Renee Ahdieh<div style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wbJHxQU4AFs/VV9zarXqkjI/AAAAAAAAA3k/bTlmv_vvKJo/The-Wrath-and-the-Dawn.jpg"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wbJHxQU4AFs/VV9zarXqkjI/AAAAAAAAA3k/bTlmv_vvKJo/The-Wrath-and-the-Dawn.jpg cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p><i><i>My</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>cheeks</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>are</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>pink</i></i><i><i> and </i></i><i><i>raw</i></i><i><i>. </i></i><i><i>My</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>hand</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>stings</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>from</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>all</i></i><i><i> the </i></i><i><i>slapping</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>my</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>cheeks</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>endured</i></i><i><i>. I </i></i><i><i>catch</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>sight</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>of</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>my</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>roommates</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>as</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>they</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>exchange</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>worried</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>glances</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>at</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>my</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>increased</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>tendencies</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>to</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>inflict</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>harm</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>upon</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>self</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>while</i></i><i><i> </i></i><i><i>reading</i></i><i><i> this book.</i></i><br/>
<p>I have not learnt my lesson and never will. A book’s ranking in my TBR list is still highly influenced by the book’s performance evaluated using standards defined by the mass. Which is why I picked up this book when I found space to breathe in between my exams, since everyone can’t stop flailing about it. And once I started reading it, promptly started faulting with it.<br/>
I avoid hate-reading as much as I can. But if everyone is swooning around the book, and I’m not, I stick around till the very end to see if the book redeems itself and if magically I’ll love the book too.<br/>
<p>That didn’t happen here.<br/>
<p><i>WARNING</i><i>: </i><i>Proceed</i><i> </i><i>with</i><i> </i><i>caution</i><i>. I </i><i>won’t</i><i> </i><i>spoil</i><i> the </i><i>potential</i><i> </i><i>reader</i><i>; </i><i>but</i><i> </i><i>once</i><i> I </i><i>start</i><i>, </i><i>it</i><i> </i><i>is</i><i> </i><i>difficult</i><i> </i><i>to</i><i> </i><i>contain</i><i> </i><i>my</i><i> </i><i>vehemence</i><i> and </i><i>fury</i><i> </i><i>at</i><i> </i><i>being</i><i> </i><i>scammed</i><i>. </i><i>Also</i><i>, this </i><i>is</i><i> a 1000+ </i><i>words</i><i> </i><i>review</i><i>, </i><i>sorry</i><i>.</i><br/>
<p>I am a sucker for the writing style. Disappoint me and the poor book will have incurred my wrath. I started out by liking the way the story was writing itself. About a chapter in, I quickly revised my assessment. The writing is annoyingly repetitive. The reader is kept entertained with regular weather reports and the menu cards for every meal. I go weak in the knees for books that employ a cinematic approach to the story which was why I laboured under the delusion I will like this one as well, since it has a similar objective but tragically fails at fulfilling it. The book didn’t have a cinematic writing mood – it was over-the-top dramatic and too pretentious for my taste. I felt like I was watching a fucking Bollywood movie; one in which everything happens in slow-motion, moral dilemmas are stretched on for hours, doors (both physical and emotional) are slammed when the central character wants a theatrical exit and lovers quarrel. In addition, no one is allowed to question the soundness of the plot, you just go along with the ebb and tide of it.<br/>
</p></div><br/><div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f6rHxQE-o_k/VV9zb_PJnbI/AAAAAAAAA3s/L_TEJzapJe0/pind_1413552995.gif"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f6rHxQE-o_k/VV9zb_PJnbI/AAAAAAAAA3s/L_TEJzapJe0/pind_1413552995.gif cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p>I’m sorry, but I just can’t do that.<br/>
<p>Humour me and engage in a little method-acting. Imagine your inseparable friend of many years is the last victim after so many girls have been killed with no explanation by a guy you know nothing about. After wading through denial and recurring nightmares, the justifiable anger compels you to take revenge.<br/>
<p>You decide to destroy him. <br/>
<p>What do you do? Probably start with collecting as much information as possible about your mark. If your mark is the Caliph of a country, you will have to extend your research to the people he is around with. Draft plans A, B and C. Decide to get close to him and then hit him at his weakest. <br/>
<p>You want to hear Shahrzad’s<i> A </i><i>Thousand</i><i> and </i><i>One</i><i> </i><i>Nights</i> - inspired plan? Volunteer herself as the next bride to be killed, wait for the Caliph to come to her at night, charm him with her wit and storytelling prowess and then if he lets her live, then research him and when the opportunity presents itself, kill him.<br/>
<p>Notice any flaws?<br/>
<p>This book would not have happened if Khalid hadn’t come to meet her on the night of her wedding, because she didn’t have Plan B. And somehow the notion that cliff-hangers can postpone a scheduled execution is a bit ludicrous. But then, miracle of miracles, the Caliph decides she’s the one to break the cycle. (I distinctly remember muffling a scream with my pillow at that point.) Then she gets a tour of the palace, courtesy of a snarky handmaiden, and she gets shocked at the security and wonders at the strength of her “plan”. <br/>
<p>No seriously, Shazi, what did you expect to see? The King of kings living alone in a gilded palace, waiting to present his head to you on a platter?<br/>
<p>That’s not all she’s shocked by.<br/>
<p><i>“</i><i>He’s</i><i> the </i><i>second</i><i>-</i><i>best</i><i> </i><i>swordsman</i><i> </i><i>in</i><i> </i><i>all</i><i> </i><i>of</i><i> </i><i>Khorasan</i><i>? </i><i>Well</i><i>, </i><i>damn</i><i>, I </i><i>didn’t</i><i> </i><i>cover</i><i> that </i><i>in</i><i> </i><i>my</i><i> </i><i>background</i><i> check </i><i>of</i><i> </i><i>him</i><i>. </i><i>Oh</i><i> </i><i>wait</i><i>. I </i><i>didn’t</i><i> </i><i>do</i><i> </i><i>one</i><i>.”</i><br/>
<p>Shahrzad is infuriating. She pretends to want archery tuitions and then promptly shoots an arrow like a pro. The next second she starts cursing herself for her “stupidity” and I’m left agape. When a particularly life-threatening episode happened, she rants against the Caliph and throws quite a tantrum. I mean, she’s literally outstaying her welcome and her life was a gift and she acted like it was a breach of trust that warranted Khalid the Where-Were-You-When-I-Was Dying interrogation. He’s still your best friend’s killer, isn’t he?</p></div><br/><div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"><table class="tr-caption-container" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kUqOv_Ilad4/VV90U43Il6I/AAAAAAAAA4M/ddhreI4PWZQ/795.gif"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kUqOv_Ilad4/VV90U43Il6I/AAAAAAAAA4M/ddhreI4PWZQ/795.gif cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Guurl, you wanna know how to kill someone? Lemme show you how that's done.</b></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p>Which brings me to my next point. We are supposed to love Shiva, the best friend mentioned above – no questions asked. No interspersed flashbacks. No nightmares. Just a lot of “Shiva, I will kill this man for you” and “Shiva, what do I do” and “Shiva, give me strength to withstand this inexplicable attraction to your killer” and other timed Shiva-tagged self-reminders that she should hate Khalid. She keeps obsessing about her “plan” for revenge half the time, and the other half is spent asking herself not to end up kissing the murderer. No actual murder attempts take place.<br/>
<p>That’s just it. How do you fall in love with your best friend’s murderer? I’d expected answers to this question, not be left more flabbergasted than ever. This is where I admire Marie Lu with her Legend series. There, a similar quandary of a reverse nature was engineered. Boy and Girl fall in love. Boy later finds out that Girl (indirectly) was responsible for his mother’s death. He still loves her, but both realize they can’t be together. Now, that was a book.<br/>
<p>Well, obviously Shazi is battling with the Stockholm Syndrome – a condition worsened by the fact that the Beast is not a beast (physically or otherwise) and handsome as hell to boot. With a tragic past that is often hinted at. With so many secrets. Our Shazi, pleads him to open his door so that she may see what it is that makes him a monster. <i>“I </i><i>know</i><i> </i><i>nothing</i><i> because </i><i>you</i><i> </i><i>fight</i><i> </i><i>me</i><i> </i><i>every</i><i> </i><i>step</i><i> </i><i>of</i><i> the </i><i>way</i><i>”,</i> she says. Again, dead best friend issues are kept on hold. Not even that matters when you realize all killers aren’t the heartless monsters they are generally portrayed as – that have a story too.<br/>
</p></div><br/><div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"><table class="tr-caption-container" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0AL3ezqQfm0/VV9zdh7U2WI/AAAAAAAAA3w/st1jaTksAjc/maxresdefault.jpg"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0AL3ezqQfm0/VV9zdh7U2WI/AAAAAAAAA3w/st1jaTksAjc/maxresdefault.jpg cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>And then the "kiss that changes everything" happens.</b></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p>Khalid is no better off – being the poor, tortured soul that he is. The book has a third person narration and Khalid gets a solitary paragraph written from his perspective, just in time to venerate “the plague of a girl” that is destroying him. I also hate him for deciding to come see Shazi that night and never before for another bride. Had he done this earlier, who knows, he may have fallen in love with another girl and the murders could have stopped way back.<br/>
<p>The one thing that nagged at me was the frequency with which Shahrzad’s skills at seduction came into use. I personally despise characters that use sex as a weapon to wound and open up the enemy – I find that weak and underhanded. Not to mention how that strategy would fail would for us poor unglamorous mortals. Although she immediately regrets it afterwards, the fact that she did it was the last straw for me.</p></div><br/><div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l9LGgMPjowo/VV90XLeHDvI/AAAAAAAAA4U/P19B3URe3os/bollywood-dramatic-reaction-gif.gif"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l9LGgMPjowo/VV90XLeHDvI/AAAAAAAAA4U/P19B3URe3os/bollywood-dramatic-reaction-gif.gif cursor: pointer;" width="400px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 400px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p>The plot of this book is a love story. How Inexplicable Attraction To A Murderer With A Tragic Past can change everything. I don’t mind love being a <i>deux</i><i> </i><i>ex</i><i> </i><i>machina</i><i> </i><i>element</i> in the story – I do believe love has its own magic – but this was a bit too much.<br/>
Oh and wait, did I mention a tragic love triangle involved for the sake of? <br/>
<p>I would be doing an injustice if I didn’t commend the research that went into the world building, especially the Persian/Urdu words that cropped up like a pleasant surprise. Khorasan is a Persian land and I’ve always had a special fascination for that place ever since I became a fan of Arabian tales. I also do like the other characters – Despina’s sassiness, Jalal’s protectiveness, and another character who I started to really like and had so much scope for development and then gets killed. Three cheers to me.<br/>
<p>I am glad though that my resolution to keep calm and carry on reading till the end of the book paid off marginally. I feel like the main plot of the series is just beginning and I like that plot. Not this soppy, messy love story that I had to endure. Usually, in the kind of series that I binge-read, people run for their lives and they fall in love sometime in between. In this one though, they fall in love first and then run for their lives. <br/>
<p><b>VERDICT</b>: 2 stars.</p></div><br/><div class="blogaway-signature"><br/><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beanie.blog&referrer=utm_source%3Dutm_link_blog"><font size="2">Posted via Blogaway</font></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-45302411989933617902015-05-14T08:29:00.001-07:002015-05-14T13:03:13.689-07:00Of Unhealthy Fictional Relationships<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This post has taken its own sweet time in writing itself. The time around when I realized the urgency of writing this was also when I had an epiphany – there were plenty other things I shied away from remarking about. That’s when I decided I’ll label such and such posts differently under how no sitting on the fence is allowed anymore on this blog – whether the bloggees or the blogger.<br />
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I think it has been said time and again, under no uncertain terms, that I intentionally refrain from reading contemporary romance. Yes, as always and therefore unsurprisingly, I have broken that self-issued rule a number of times; and not all those times have I felt like pulling my hair out in frustration. The times I did though, served as a good reminder to why I stayed away from them in the first place. <br />
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To the clueless, it’s because of this – a lot of them become increasingly soppy as the page number increases. Many of them build a story out of the romance itself while other people run around in the background. And some others just plain freak me out while the rest of the world inexplicably keep shipping them. This post deals with the last category.<br />
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The necessity to write this post was borne from how a lot of girls around me kept shipping this ridiculous couple in the Korean drama <i>The Heirs</i>. (Of course, while watching it, my hormones were raging because of my inherent talent to need to ship anything, so it was a herculean effort to keep my head straight and view the couple with the facts straight.) Poor Girl meets Rich Boy in America who is already engaged to another heiress. Rich Boy becomes obsessed with Distressed Damsel In Foreign Land (“Obsessed” is quite the apt word here) and he keeps following her around like a lost but demanding puppy, despite how his family is dead set against her. Finally, she admits she loves him too and a lot of issues get resolved and they get a happily-ever-after ending.<br />
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When watching the series, though, none of this hits you at first. It was only somewhere around the middle when I guessed the direction towards which this ship was headed did I realize my idiocy in getting carried away. The Forbidden Love angle plays out beautifully over the backdrop of heart-wrenching music and insert admirable directing and camera skills and BAM – you have an award-winner that has swept a mass of feminine hearts and dunked them in a sea of feels.<br />
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This is just an example among a whole host of them, whether portrayed in books or on TV. The ships that creeped me out generally starts thus – Drop-Dead-Gorgeous-Boy develops inexplicable sudden attraction (read obsession) with Small-Town-Girl and Girl suddenly starts seeing him everywhere. Then a book-specific plot treads upon the much-trodden roads named Knight-In-Shining-Armour-Just-Fucking-Dropped-Out-Of-Nowhere-And-I-Loved-The-Fact-That-He-Was-Stalking-Me and If-He-So-Much-As-Looks-At-You-He’s-Dead and Be-With-Me-Even-If-The-Earth-Cracks-Into-Two and so on. <br />
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We’re not all that stupid, we do keep a clear distance from relationships with WE ARE UNHEALTHY DO NOT IMITATE US labels like -<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6kqk756WWRBAh6OyrYdjQeWtEYFYO7fK37gYsG9sWzMXvqCjxjy3J-EGx6Tib9vDSx-NVR1UZojsibAWx_dGN6FqL21T56-_NQ0OeNcoGG9lKKpnBAUlKnzM0iGSkCujAsmGzIOeaAA/s1600/gameofthrones1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6kqk756WWRBAh6OyrYdjQeWtEYFYO7fK37gYsG9sWzMXvqCjxjy3J-EGx6Tib9vDSx-NVR1UZojsibAWx_dGN6FqL21T56-_NQ0OeNcoGG9lKKpnBAUlKnzM0iGSkCujAsmGzIOeaAA/s320/gameofthrones1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ugh Cersei and Jaime and some twincest</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKn8G8x92-BoCI7bx3KjROb7xQVX4HlRWRHEeFPckvtGznGA1SYjVa2VVkRVSn4tqVOxMXLBCdIBppwkwc3DE0KlTCGUzjg_VgKahMLXFZUz5Vcd8wdPvppvZ9i4ffrMVbU4qMYeADRI/s1600/gonegirl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKn8G8x92-BoCI7bx3KjROb7xQVX4HlRWRHEeFPckvtGznGA1SYjVa2VVkRVSn4tqVOxMXLBCdIBppwkwc3DE0KlTCGUzjg_VgKahMLXFZUz5Vcd8wdPvppvZ9i4ffrMVbU4qMYeADRI/s320/gonegirl.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The husband's cheating on the wife. Wife happens to be a closet psychopath.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUT7oMkngsURPpvmBW_mOrBCc5EnyWxUDc_-B3ePSXCoLxltdfZ_r5FGtH0qRdfMlWnOhHYehAQkFMoZSLIxkjov5S14B3r6RVheRkLNFHzua1gGC1tKDqiUPUCwQBeOEbBVqJ4FT6qQ/s1600/notesonscandal1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUT7oMkngsURPpvmBW_mOrBCc5EnyWxUDc_-B3ePSXCoLxltdfZ_r5FGtH0qRdfMlWnOhHYehAQkFMoZSLIxkjov5S14B3r6RVheRkLNFHzua1gGC1tKDqiUPUCwQBeOEbBVqJ4FT6qQ/s320/notesonscandal1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She's his high school teacher who's married with kids. Yup.</td></tr>
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And that's not all that make these fictional relationships unhealthy. They share other characteristic traits found in the less obvious unshippity ships.<br />
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Some say the pop culture has romanticised unhealthy relationships and I am pretty sure they’re right. Those of us who ship Draco Malfoy and Hermione, Edward-Bella or Jacob-Bella ships, Grey-Steele ships, and other ships that I shall leave unnamed thanks to my sucky memory, have been hypnotised by the writer’s or director’s spellcasting prowess. But unhealthy relationships in literature go way back and they have achieved cult status. Remember Heathcliff and Catherine in <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, the couple that tormented each other, who had you moaning around heartbroken? Or how in <i>The Fountainhead</i> we shipped Howard Roark and Dominique even after he “raped” her? Or how about <i>Beauty and the Beast</i> and how they planted the seed of Stockholm Syndrome in literature?<br />
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This post also begs the question – how do we classify a ship healthy or not? For me, this simple test works.<br />
If you’re a straight girl reading this post, simply replace the heroine with yourself, subtract the hotness factor from the hero and replay the storyline, minus the feels, in your head. If you can still ship this new ship – <br />
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Else, you need to jump ship. Pronto.<br />
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<b>P.S</b>. – By the example given from The Heirs I do not mean to imply that it is not worth watching. PLEASE DO WATCH IT AND LIVE WITH ME IN LA-LA LAND WHERE CUTE BOYFRIENDS WHO LOVE YOU TOO MUCH ARE A-PLENTY. Plus, do watch out for parallel storylines and the tragic Second Male Lead Syndrome that will leave you afflicted with it like it did for yours truly.<br />
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<b>P.P.S</b> – <i>The owner of this blog cannot believe how almost every single thing she writes these days invariably turn to Korean dramas and yet lives in denial of the fact that she is currently obsessed with them.</i><br />
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<b>P.P.P.S</b> – THAT IS SO NOT TRUE AND YOU KNOW IT. I AM SO NOT OBSESSED.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-14376979809500477562015-05-06T02:21:00.000-07:002015-05-08T10:36:17.473-07:00Teach Me How To Breathe<div class="blogaway-section"><p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s19bxy9aAkU/VUzzQXjIG8I/AAAAAAAAAu8/EDObQkJzIcg/behindtheglass7.png cursor: pointer;"><br/>
<p>Shattered dreams lay strewn across,<br/>
<p>My feet leaving bloody kisses in farewell.<br/>
<p>The window is a splintered mosaic,<br/>
<p>Within and without, everything’s broken.<br/>
<p>One hesitant finger kills a glassy tile.<br/>
<p>Breaking glass breaks my ears.<br/>
<p>Moonlight embraces me within<br/>
<p>Her folds of cold, lifeless nights.<br/>
<p>I can’t see –<br/>
<p>Brine drowns my eyes.<br/>
<p>Who – who is that?<br/>
<p>You sound like Fear,<br/>
<p>Sniffing out his prey.<br/>
<p>Teach me how to breathe.<br/>
<p>I have tears in my lungs.<br/>
<p>Air eludes my desperate gasps.<br/>
<p>While they smother me with a pillow.<br/>
<p>Shush, they tell me –<br/>
<p>They place my fist in my mouth.<br/>
<p>I suffocate.<br/>
<p>But no one will hear you, they say.<br/>
<p>I choke.<br/>
<p>Don’t die, they tell me.<br/>
<p>The morrow won’t part us yet.<br/>
<p>Teach me how to breathe.<br/></p></div><br/>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-51908091231601320082015-04-30T02:17:00.000-07:002015-04-30T02:17:34.204-07:00The Perils Of Being A Fangirl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here. This post is the raison d’être of my
blog. This post is the one in which many of you will share a sense of
camaraderie with me. This post will show you that YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And that it’s okay to be obsessed. You
know, as long as it’s not drugs, or sex, or underground cults. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Note</b>:
Does anyone know the gender neutral term for FANGIRL? And please don’t tell me
it’s FAN – as far as I am concerned, that word is an umbrella term, not a
synonym. And I beg your pardon while I treat this post from the view point of
fangirls specifically – it’s a shame I don’t know more fanboys personally.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">1. Risk of Degradation of 20/20
Vision</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Due to –</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(a) All that
late-night reading under your blanket with a torch, because you don’t want your
parents to catch you up past your bedtime and risk unleashing their wrath in
the corporeal form of THAT’S IT NO MORE BOOKS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(b) TV show
marathons as a reward for academic excellence (which is code for surviving
through exams avoiding all your guilty pleasures)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(c) Excessive social
networking – especially when the other fangirl you’re with over the miracle
called the Internet, is in another time-zone, depriving you of sleep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">2. Catching Up On Deprived Sleep
During The Daytime Especially During Class HoursAnd Zombie-Walking Through The
Rest</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Due to the above
mentioned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">3. Lack of Non-Fictional
Romantic Life</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Reading too many
books starring heroes of the fantastically perfect variety, or watching too
many TV shows with the same category of protagonists can affect the average
reader to such a degree of romantic sterilization of the mundane sort by
raising par of male excellence. (Or if you swing the other way, then <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">female </i>excellence.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">4. Managing All Your Social
Network Accounts</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I swear. This is a talent that is gifted to a
fangirl, upon her baptism into this community. How else do you explain the
superhuman memory and multitasking capabilities involved in remembering all
your ten thousand usernames and passwords, who you last chatted or tweeted
with, and maintaining an unbroken comment thread to avoid any non-civil
interactions?</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">5. Empty<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5670022742388580770" name="_GoBack"></a>
Wallets</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For those of you out there, whose financial
aspects are still governed by a superior authority of the parental sort, then
you have limitations (like me) on how much merchandise you can own. You resort
to pinning wishlists and loaded virtual carts on your Pinterest boards and
bookmarks bar, and just staring at what could have been on your laptop screen. When
that happens, you turn to –</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">6. Your DIY Skills and Photoshop
Expertise</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">However deplorable they may be, we have that
shoddy wad of bookmarks made by hands smelling of Fevicol, t-shirts we spent
that last batch of fabric paint on, and folders (both digitally and otherwise)
filled with our own edits and sketches.</span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">7. The Need to Celebrate
Holidays Unknown to Mere Mortals/Mundanes/Muggles</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We have reminders on our mobile phones and of
course, in case they fail, we also have the ever-reliable power of the online
fangirl-hood to remind us when to eat only blue food or randomly scream DEATH
TO DEATHEATERS or whatever.</span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">8. Research and Intellectual
Debates</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We are never happy knowing what we already know.
We thirst to read up on all the different versions of backstories of the
various characters, the author’s perspective on how (s)he chose all the proper
nouns in the book, and then unwittingly become party to raging wars on whether
or not a particular character is a hero or a villain or other <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">civil</i> debates. If you’re talking about a
TV show, then it goes without saying that unless and until we’ve dug up
bloopers and the actors’ Wikipedia pages, we’re never going to attain closure.</span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">9. Shipping Through Choppy Seas</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is mostly self-explanatory. The FEELS
fuelling our primal fangirl instincts to keep calm and continue shipping canon
and headcanon ships in the face of tempests exacts a heavy toll on our head in
the form of acute headaches that only tear-stained pillows can cure. Speaking
of which – </span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">10. Tears Both Shed And Unshed</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I have always maintained that a significant
percentage of the average global tear-level has been contributed by the tear
ducts of fangirls. To cry, clutching the damned book in your arms or after
watching that tragic final episode of a Korean drama series, is an occupational
hazard.</span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;">
<strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">11. HANGOVERS, MAN. Hangovers.</span></strong></div>
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<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s not enough that we’ve been cursed to
harbouring eternal feels for a series (book or TV), but we’ve also been damned
with being left to our own devices to deal with that inexplicable limbo stage
of our life that follows after the final episode or chapter. We then face the
big question – WHAT DO WE DO NOW? </span></strong><strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We feel as if we’re trapped in a tunnel, the
vision of closure mocking at us in the far-off distance. Comfort Food, Comfort
Reading selected passages, and Comfort Replaying selected scenes becomes the
norm for some days.</span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And I will thank Ron Weasley to define what
being a fangirl truly means (courtesy of Tumblr) – </span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://michellekrys.com/wp-content/uploads/tumblr_lz97w0KxrD1qej644o2_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://michellekrys.com/wp-content/uploads/tumblr_lz97w0KxrD1qej644o2_500.gif" height="163" width="400" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-89279646081169068762015-04-13T07:22:00.002-07:002015-04-13T07:29:45.251-07:0020 Things You May Not Know About Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Once upon a
time, in a pretty large town called Buttlazyville, a babe was born. Before long
she was elected Mayor of Buttlazyville. The Mayor happens to be yours truly.
The End.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There happens to be a reason for the above anecdote. <a href="http://randomofalife.blogspot.com/">Skylar @ Life Of A Random</a> tagged me sometime in December LAST YEAR, and it took five months and an Easter
weekend to finally inspire me to make a move and bring forth this post unto you,
Bloggerverse. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #783f04;">1. How
tall are you?</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I
am a 157cm (approx. 5’2”) high pile of awesomeness. Yes, I know that translates
to “short” and if you read <a href="http://spraypaintedtunnels.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-elephant-in-room.html">this post</a>, you’ll know exactly how I’m dealing with
that irrefutable fact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">2. Do
you have a hidden talent? If so, what?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">There’s something you should know about me. Any and
all talents I possess are guaranteed to be known to all mankind (or I make sure
of that). And when I say ALL MANKIND I mean people in my Freemasons circle
(like I care about the opinion of anyone else). Ooh there’s Talent #1: Dramatic
Exaggeration In The Name Of Poetic License. You should read my Twitter (or
not).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">What else? I can waggle my ears and wiggle my brows.
I can say the Periodic Table up to 20 elements in my sleep. I can also tell
untrue stories pretty convincingly – the few times I’ve tried to con people,
BOY did they fall. (But I also happen to be pretty gullible, so I think it’s
safe to say the last one comes at a price.)</span><span style="color: red; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">3. What
is your biggest blog-related pet peeve?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
right to answer this question would demand the prerequisite that you visit
other blogs besides your own. I don’t. And that’s not because I have a bigger
head than my butt, but because my college ensures I don’t moonlight my way out
of the academic shit-pile they’ve dumped on us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">(But
if you still want to hear it, I’ll repeat Skylar’s answer – it truly annoys me
when people don’t reply to comments. Then again, I have as many followers as
there are roses in the Sahara, so I may not understand the logistics of
commenting on blogs with legions of followers.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">4. What's
your biggest non-blog-related pet peeve?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">People
judging others. People judging me. Me judging everyone else.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">5. What
is your favorite song?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I
do have a favourite song, but it’s kind of personal so I’ll just go with a
small list instead (since I can’t pick one) that’s on loop in my head these
days –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Antarctica
– Hands Like Houses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Love
Me Like You Do – Ellie Goulding (No, I haven’t seen the movie, I just like this
lady a lot)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Elastic
Heart – Sia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Runaway
– Aurora<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Beg
For It – Iggy Azalea<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">No
Good In Goodbye – The Script<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Dark
Side – Kelly Clarkson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Good
Life – One Republic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">….
And the entire OST album from the Korean series The Heirs</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
<b><span style="color: #783f04;">6. What is your favorite Etsy shop that isn't yours?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheg1qgtRYov-sePM76b50Ca53kBHUupsAbQFSLlYWOw2KB-4ZF0xKGugQBFZV6vahIO5JctI1gj3uySmp1y_ODKFySDBU6BG0y6GUVWfLmgoGVChSfmhLc8e5UkJWBG-OH9WxsTlVo1KE/s1600/Kristen-Wiig-Help-Me-Im-Poor-In-Bridesmaids-Gif.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheg1qgtRYov-sePM76b50Ca53kBHUupsAbQFSLlYWOw2KB-4ZF0xKGugQBFZV6vahIO5JctI1gj3uySmp1y_ODKFySDBU6BG0y6GUVWfLmgoGVChSfmhLc8e5UkJWBG-OH9WxsTlVo1KE/s1600/Kristen-Wiig-Help-Me-Im-Poor-In-Bridesmaids-Gif.gif" height="135" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">7. What
is your favorite way to spend free time when you're not alone?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Movie
nights, TV marathons, and Youtube. There, that’s time well spent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">8. What
is your favorite junk food?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Oily, MSG-containing potato chips, spicy tapioca
chips, jackfruit chips, <i>ghatia</i> – they
all work. Fortunately for my heath, the above gif holds good for this question
as well and I’m a bigger miser than an eater, which is why I’m still alive and
healthy and not at risk of entering the Guinness Book of Records for heaviest
person ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">9.
Do you have a pet or pets? If so, what kind, and what are their names?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZYLqjFVqojT3jn3_8CoFgmYlWmCKjzWFKemj53mM2OCH__R9lfHsHOLGgcdza40o6zscG-HnxZo6qC_3HPnJG0g-pybwlPB7A6qaGuE11bFIW4CiCk3Rzuzm_BFzBx-xKC-g2MP-y7o/s1600/Phototastic-2015-04-13-00-40-48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZYLqjFVqojT3jn3_8CoFgmYlWmCKjzWFKemj53mM2OCH__R9lfHsHOLGgcdza40o6zscG-HnxZo6qC_3HPnJG0g-pybwlPB7A6qaGuE11bFIW4CiCk3Rzuzm_BFzBx-xKC-g2MP-y7o/s1600/Phototastic-2015-04-13-00-40-48.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Oh. You meant non-fictional pets? I have a fish tank in which the population is declining rapidly despite mine and my dad's best efforts. And some potted plants. The End.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">10.
What are your number one favorite nonfiction and fiction books?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">SHUT.
UP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">11.
What is your favorite beauty product?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">My
Kajal-stick. That’s because the only cosmetically salvageable physical feature
is my eyes and also because I look like I have jaundice (or something) without
kohl underlining my eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">12.
When were you last embarrassed? What happened?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">You know, if I actually did keep a list of all the
embarrassing things I’ve done – that are known and unknown to me – it could
wrap around the earth’s middle THRICE. I’m sadly not even exaggerating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Fortunately for me, I’m pretty good at supressing
bad memories. And fortunately for all ye that seek companionship in misery, if
you’re willing to ignore the whole Most
Recent Embarrassment clause, I’ll regale you with an incident that I’ve made my
peace with. (Meaning, I no longer feel the irrational need to bury myself alive
ten feet underground). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I am undeniably, unequivocally clumsy. It’s like my
feet have a mind of their own. So, for most of the time my feet are in contact
with the ground, I have subconsciously reserved a portion of my busy brain to
JUST CONCENTRATE ON MY LEGWORK. But, obviously Mr. Murphy wasn’t too happy that
his law was being ineffective in my life. And, there I was in class one day,
bending over to pick up my bag from the bench. I successfully picked it up, and
threw it over my shoulders. I may have misjudged its weight and my shoulders
weren’t ready to deal with it and somehow my feet tripped on the legs of the
bench and suddenly I was falling backwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Now
this is the craziest part. A sane person would grab on anything and <i>try </i>to pull herself upright before she
actually landed on her ass. Not me. There was a bench right behind me so I
thought I’ll just fall onto it and try not to look like I’d tripped but that I
I’d purposefully sat on it. What I did not realize was that there was a guy
already sitting on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">And
then there was this deafening silence while I leaped up from the poor boy’s lap
and apologized profusely. He still hadn’t regained his power of speech when I
ran from the classroom that had erupted in laughter and catcalls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">13. If
you could only drink one beverage (besides water) what would it be?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Coffee,
please. I have zero shame in admitting I’m a caffeine-addict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">14. What's
your favorite movie?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9mSMnl47_I_FVnmd8-x_GuaKbR-p8FxaIU27j4f3VZxFX4JsxSN16C3XK06v0lzFOus827id7vojYeSL6XI1WKryJbZBii5tGKQO60nuGWTSJeSWjCO8maJ22RR6NvwpNwFxsDxbkXSQ/s1600/7331019.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9mSMnl47_I_FVnmd8-x_GuaKbR-p8FxaIU27j4f3VZxFX4JsxSN16C3XK06v0lzFOus827id7vojYeSL6XI1WKryJbZBii5tGKQO60nuGWTSJeSWjCO8maJ22RR6NvwpNwFxsDxbkXSQ/s1600/7331019.gif" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />
<b><span style="color: #783f04;">15. What were you in high school: prom queen, nerd, cheerleader, jock,
valedictorian, band geek, loner, artist, prep?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Not
applicable to me – I didn’t study in the sort of high school Hollywood
propagates. For the sake of, I’ll say nerd. But not a member of the nerd group
that wears thick rimmed glasses and lugs around tomes of extra reading
material, but the kind that sits around fangirling, pulling pranks on each
other and then inexplicably acing through exams. Teachers love us, cheergirls
hi-five us, and everyone acknowledges that we’re crazy and smart and aliens
undercover. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">16. If
you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Please.
PLEASE TAKE ME TO HOGWARTS. I’M BEGGING YOU.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYU4Q3k0jHjYvUt3stFkcjkM3MFOZfiXmiuC1SKqPxI_q9NJcj5v7D_Rpga9TkCA0K0M2mf9COiyajc_10BSJMZO2wVgzXgKx4JwwJZqQg58jhuw4FHUYH6hB59J4DGtWnYjGr-Ez5Ow/s1600/hogwartsismyhome.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYU4Q3k0jHjYvUt3stFkcjkM3MFOZfiXmiuC1SKqPxI_q9NJcj5v7D_Rpga9TkCA0K0M2mf9COiyajc_10BSJMZO2wVgzXgKx4JwwJZqQg58jhuw4FHUYH6hB59J4DGtWnYjGr-Ez5Ow/s1600/hogwartsismyhome.gif" height="131" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">17. PC
or Mac?</span></b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><br /></span>
Pfft. Utility over fashion statements. PCs over Macs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #783f04; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">18. Last romantic gesture from a crush, date,
boy/girlfriend, spouse?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I’m sorry, could you please hold while I refer my
secret diary? Hang on – oops, sorry – But Dear Diary informs me I’ve got
NON-EXISTENT ROMANTIC HISTORY so that’s that and let’s move on already,
alright?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">19. Favorite
celebrity?</span></b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I have a thing for actresses who kick wizard asses,
tribute asses and Erudite asses in reel life and regular asses in real life.
Read Emma Watson, Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley. And David Archuleta
(that’s another story for another time, folks).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">20. What
blogger friends do you secretly want to be best friends with?</span></b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Hey, this is unfair, alright? First off, there
aren’t all that many blogs that I keep track of and the ones I do, we’re
already virtual BFFs. And there are others with wonderfully weird, crazily
stupid, and bookishly obsessed bloggers that I do want to be besties with, but
alas. My academic life ensures I don’t have time for socializing over the internet.<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Phew. It's done. OMG THIS POST IS FINALLY DONE. Skylar, you awesome thing, thank you for tagging me and sorry for the delay. And all you amazing people out there - THERE IS NO SHAME IN TAGGING YOURSELF. Go on, do it, and open yourself up a little more.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>
I dare you.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-73635450403819525602015-04-03T20:32:00.001-07:002015-04-03T20:32:38.508-07:00ARC REVIEW: The Merit Birds - Kelley Powell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422215686l/22539234.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422215686l/22539234.jpg" height="320" width="200" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">*COURTESY OF PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span><i><span id="freeText13923259589240758783">Eighteen-year-old Cam
Scott is angry. He's angry about his absent dad, he's angry about being
angry, and he's angry that he has had to give up his Ottawa basketball
team to follow his mom to her new job in Vientiane, Laos. However, Cam's
anger begins to melt under the Southeast Asian sun as he finds
friendship with his neighbour, Somchai, and gradually falls in love with
Nok, who teaches him about building merit, or karma, by doing good
deeds, such as purchasing caged "merit birds." Tragedy strikes and Cam
finds himself falsely accused of a crime. His freedom depends on a
person he's never met. A person who knows that the only way to restore
his merit is to confess. "The Merit Birds" blends action and suspense
and humour in a far-off land where things seem so different, yet deep
down are so much the same.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This is my fourth attempt at an
introductory paragraph for this post. I am literally clueless about where to
start. Should I begin with how impressed I was with the writing? How Powell was
able to capture that which makes us all human and encase it with words, plop
them down in circumstances we possibly couldn’t understand, slap them with some
names and introduce them to us as her characters? How, towards the end, this
book became something larger, something much beyond what I expected?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">(I can hear the fridge humming as I sit and
stare at the blinking cursor that seems to mock at the sudden deficiency of my
virtual loquacity. No, seriously, what has happened to me? There is every
possibility that it’s because it’s been inexcusably long since I last wrote
anything resembling a book review. That said, I’ll still shamelessly throw in
my regular excuse: college life is screwing with me.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I have read books set in places, casting
people geographically, ethnically, and culturally contrasting to the author’s.
While most of them treaded upon that road which was less travelled by, they did
so with a sense of caution. They knew how they were susceptible to errata, and
how they could multiply in terms of consequence, however meticulous their data
collection might have been. And so the tragedy remained that the audience could
never fully get under the layers of the characters. Books starring POC
characters became the sort of thing that you had on GR shelves labelled POC and
as a bullet point in Diversity In Books campaigns. This book is that rare book
that goes the whole way FLAWLESSLY. I won’t pretend I know the mechanics of how
Laos and its people run (I don’t) – but I could immediately relate to the
characters, being Asian myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How Seng
was fascinated by America – land of the rich, home of Hollywood. Or the picture
of it in his mind. How the locals immediately resorted to head-shaking and
frowning when they see a boy and a girl together. How Lao guys don’t think too
much before throwing an arm around another guy’s neck. How two members of a
family don’t see shame in sharing a bed together. How an individual puts his
family before himself. How they can’t understand why the white-skinned people
would dry-wipe their asses after having a crap. All little things, especially
in the way these facts are thrown in the readers’ faces like a careless
inconsequential detail. But they went a long way in defining those tricky edges
of the characters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This book teems with life. There is that
boy who’s dealing with culture shock – starting with the fact that he has to
shit into a hole in the ground. Like he already doesn’t have enough to deal
with – anger management issues, mom issues, dad issues and homesickness. There
is that girl that survives alone through all the shit life throws at her and
becomes guarded to the point that she shies away from the possibility of love.
There is her older brother who feels the weight of the title as the head of the
family after being abandoned repeatedly – first by his parents, then his older <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5670022742388580770" name="_GoBack"></a>sister. A weight further amplified by the sense of his
failure in the same. Khamdeng with his loyalty. Somchai with his capacity to
love. Sai with his wisdom and patience. Julia with all her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sins</i>. All merit birds. The victory of this book is that it tries to
get under all the layers of most of the characters – including the ones
skulking on the periphery of the main plot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first, I didn’t get why only Cam got a
first-person. I mean, this story is as much as Seng’s and Nok’s as his, right?
But then Somchai rebukes Cam for thinking only about himself, contrary to the
Lao and I realized that might be it. That’s when I got my hint this story was
on its way to evolving into something more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yes, by that I’m implying that I judged
this book. It had every promise of turning into a love story spanning across
borders of all sorts – and then suddenly it was not just that. In fact,
somewhere around the middle I desperately wished it had stopped at a love story.
At first, the plot steadily climbed the plot hill at a measured pace and then
things crashed and burned. Spontaneously combusted. And I was the sole survivor
– left to collect the pieces and make sense of it. That was the thing I
disliked the most about this book – the incredulous rapidity with which a
series of unfortunate events unfolded. The middle was the lowest point of the
book – the peak of the plot hill felt staged.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Despite that and other minor failings, this
book is a must read for all those who scream blood for diversity in books. This
is a book that you should read at least twice – first to read the lines, second
to read between them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">VERDICT:
4 STARS</span></b></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-91955798727598483372015-03-07T09:59:00.000-08:002015-03-08T01:45:45.740-08:00Keep Calm and Don't Hate Snape<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="Publishwithline">
Last week, was in short, very enlightening. Besides getting
to know about the addictive merits of Google Plus (which happened when our
college Wi-Fi decided Twitter was also non-academic and blocked it as well) I
was deeply embroiled in a word-clash of sorts. Someone had randomly posted
something about how Snape was overrated and I (almost carelessly) made a
short-and-sweet list of the things Snape had done and then a little while later
someone challenged my comment. I decided to ignore it out of the requisite
social-network politeness when (s)he asked if I was ignoring it because I
couldn’t defend myself. Now I couldn’t let that pass by, could I? I decided to
do some research on Snape-hate and then swore colourfully when I realized that
I was naïve to think people would accept Snape as a hero.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.tumblr.com/9507f0fc83b4e98388a83b30d96de983/tumblr_inline_mrfdyb1zcb1qz4rgp.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.tumblr.com/9507f0fc83b4e98388a83b30d96de983/tumblr_inline_mrfdyb1zcb1qz4rgp.gif" height="136" width="320"></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then I randomly detained people in the hallways and demanded
to know if they thought Snape was a hero or not. The answers fell in both
categories with a few undecided. I felt like it was my moral obligation to
Snape’s memory to bring a balance in the opinion of The Half-Blood Prince, at
least on the Internet and hence this post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So Snape-haters are asking us to please, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">please</i> stop calling S a tragic hero
because that’s not what he is, since:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Snape
did not <i>love </i>Lily. Please recognize
the difference between Love and Obsession.</li>
<li><span style="text-align: left;">Which non-Slytherin was left un-tortured? Look at Neville,
the poor boy’s boggart in third year was S – even when he had parents turned
insane by Bella, a grandmother who regularly send him howlers, and a school to look down on him.</span></li>
<li>And
hello, the <a href="https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmBLqWffUSWI&ei=dzn7VO7SOMOv7AbT1oGYDA&usg=AFQjCNFEjR9tNXROWGRXnbbBBECDcSNGoA&sig2=3TZT5mMkeX2XILXT010mEw&bvm=bv.87611401,d.ZWU">Queen herself has said that Snape isn’t a hero</a>, so just deal with
it.</li>
</ol>
<o:p></o:p><br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
shall proceed to deal with these arguments serially.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
First,
that Snape didn’t love Lily - that it was the sort of relationship that should
repulse anyone level-headed to be not carried away by the lure of unrequited
love and all that shit. I must applaud you cynics, if you have truly come up
with a method to quantify love to decide that when there are no obvious symptoms (like stalking or complusive jealousy bordering on aggression); something even psychologists have failed to do.
There is a whole lot of Tumblr marching to the tune of Snape-hate – a notable
one being about how his patronus was a doe (Obsession scores!) while James’ was
a stag which was a complement of Lily’s. Now, I don’t know what canon has to
say about this but this is another way it could be interpreted. The books don’t
specify if Snape’s patronus had forever been a doe or if that happened only
when he lost her. We also know from Tonks’ story that when she thought that she
couldn’t have Remus, hers became that of a wolf. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSxrnfTvYVwspRqFGsXsWPEXn_x4ncPO3m8QrxoXLlMqYhbXskDUMbGqjITdb2pe8GXI9tJtcRhrTnQ6XwW1HTkM4ixuRRfnYIfRNY9ZSIKIE1-kXjLf2TpAo7P9C0ovv0tqRkHWnfQg/s1600/remusquote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSxrnfTvYVwspRqFGsXsWPEXn_x4ncPO3m8QrxoXLlMqYhbXskDUMbGqjITdb2pe8GXI9tJtcRhrTnQ6XwW1HTkM4ixuRRfnYIfRNY9ZSIKIE1-kXjLf2TpAo7P9C0ovv0tqRkHWnfQg/s1600/remusquote.jpg" height="158" width="640"></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Why
else do I think it was love and not some sick affliction? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Because love has the power to transcend spite and even death.</i> I
hope everyone will do me the honour of agreeing with me when I say that Snape
has protected Harry – from mortal harm, that is. Granted, he was absolutely
despicable when it came to having an entire conversation without wounding Harry
in some way. But let’s refer back to the Prince’s Tale, wherein we realized
that the Marauders weren’t all as glamorous as we’d thought them. Remus admits
that even when James had stopped picking on other kids, he didn’t stop with
Snape. So that makes it seven years’ worth of public degradation. Maybe the
most Christian of you out there wouldn’t do it, but most humans would find it
extremely hard to accept your nightmare’s child, especially when he looks so
damnably like him. And you definitely wouldn’t pledge to keep saving his ass.
Which is what Snape did, because he owes it to his love for Lily. Obsessed
Snape would have done something to hurt Lily when she started going out with
James, Snape in love suffers through it. (Because on some level, he knows she's too good for him?) Obsessed Snape would have killed
himself on hearing the news that the sole purpose of his existence was no more.
Snape in love weathers the storm inside. Obsessed Snape would have killed Harry
– after all he was the reason why Lily was dead. Snape in love decides to give
Harry shit – the spawn of the bully, instead of the alternative and vows
to look after Harry – the child of the woman he loved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please note:</i> I also came across the
sentiment that Lily should have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chosen</i>
Snape instead of James. The fact that Snape was in bad company and that their personalities
diverged as they grew up, is indisputable. Lily was a smart woman and she chose
to listen to sense. Plus, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oh boy, </i>James
did love her – I ship them wholeheartedly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Now
I will say this. <b>Severus Snape was a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">horrible</i>
person</b>. Without doubt. Books One through Six present us with numerous examples
to support this statement. He made everyone feel like shit. He made no attempts
to hide favouritism between students, openly shamed Hermione for being a good
student, made a target out of Neville, and went to extreme lengths to expose
Lupin. No doubt he was the boggart of many students. But can we please refer to
the Prince’s Tale again? Here, we learn that Snape could have had an abused
childhood, at the hands of his father. Then when he’d thought he had earned
salvation in the form of the Hogwarts acceptance letter; the one place where he
thought he would fit in, the Marauders ruined that plan for him. Extremely. And
many of us know at least second hand, how bullying in one’s life during his
formative years changes him. Then he went and got himself get caught up with
the Dark Arts, because he found acceptance in that circle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
So
what good does knowing all this do? I recently saw a Tumblr post that said <b>“Tragic
backstories explain bad deeds but do not excuse them.”</b> Couldn’t be truer. But, it
helps us empathize with the character. It shows that the so-called villain wasn’t
just the sum of his choices, but also the result of the human psyche being
pushed over the edge when the going gets tough. Instead of turning in on
himself, he lashed outwards, hurting innocent bystanders in the process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please note: </i>The above also happens to
be my reason as to why I consider Luke Castellan (from the Percy Jackson series) a hero as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
will not deny that that video of JKR saying that she doesn’t consider Snape a
hero did not astound me. It threw me off balance and made me wonder what’s actually going
on inside that woman’s awesome head. But then I mulled over it and I finally
decided that maybe, she doesn’t consider him a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">conventional hero</i>. You know the sort – the holier-than-thou kind
that beheads the tyrant and holds up the bloody sword and just when everyone’s
thinking that they have been saved, he gets stabbed from the behind. Or the
girl he loves is killed. <b>That’s not a tragic hero, that’s a hero who’s met a
tragic end. </b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Google
again kindly donned on the knight’s armour as it taught me that <i>there are
different kinds of heroes</i>. Since this post is already an epic in terms of blog
post units, I will not delve into a thesis about how Snape satisfies the Aristotelian
classification of a tragic hero and you can personally decide it for yourself by
sifting through the Internet yourself. But even in obscure terms, I will proclaim
Snape a hero – on the grounds that heroism isn’t the white against the black;
it’s shades of grey. All that bravery earns a lot of brownie points. I also feel that sometimes we can’t accept a person who, for
ten years, we’ve established as someone to be burned at the stake when we’re
suddenly confronted with his back story. And then we try to rationalize that hate. Heroism will always mean differently
to different people, and I guess whether Severus Snape was a hero or not will
always be a controversial ground.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/8fa0467490b616342bc70c2b723d3df0/tumblr_n2vbyqDrCI1suivyoo1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/8fa0467490b616342bc70c2b723d3df0/tumblr_n2vbyqDrCI1suivyoo1_500.gif" height="204" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whatever. I didn't even know I felt so strongly about you up until now.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-38844627676658119032015-02-25T07:26:00.001-08:002015-02-25T07:26:17.586-08:00Bookish Guilty Pleasures and Other Scandalous Secrets<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since the Lenten season has finally caught up with me
(REPENT ALL YE SINNERS) I decided I might as well walk that extra mile and
‘fess up all my naughty bookworm sins.<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtB_wwRJDPXDYtU4tMgy1QzphpCRI8Qw1EM0XzfE4jFu1gvAJFqseQ4nuyOw3mc3KaKg__GyRsk-YL8ZQ0dwSbNmfwyKgsjLQFn-0VAxnj1yB8wZBFR-Yygqwp6UNg9rgkthkZst5BN4/s1600/200.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtB_wwRJDPXDYtU4tMgy1QzphpCRI8Qw1EM0XzfE4jFu1gvAJFqseQ4nuyOw3mc3KaKg__GyRsk-YL8ZQ0dwSbNmfwyKgsjLQFn-0VAxnj1yB8wZBFR-Yygqwp6UNg9rgkthkZst5BN4/s1600/200.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*minor hyperventilation episode*</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alright, here goes: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Although most probably, by this time tomorrow I will be
regretting this post so bad I might bury myself alive and never type another
letter into the blogosphere.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AS I WAS SAYING.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: #783f04;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>I USED TO BE A TWIHARD</b></span> – up until the second
book happened. That is not to say that I’d read </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Twilight</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and then waited a year to get </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">New Moon</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and filled all my days in between fangirling excessively.
It means that while I was reading </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Twilight</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">,
I shipped Bella and Edward so very physically, with my head intermittently
spinning very ludicrous fantasies involving me kidnapping Edward for myself in
his Aston Martin (WHAT A RIOT I CAN’T EVEN DRIVE A BIKE) and then when the
second book happened (all the four books had already been published by then so
there was no time spent hanging on a cliff) I hurt my head a lot because I was
busy head-desk-ing. By the time I’d finished </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Breaking Dawn</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">, I’d decided I was anti-Twilight and would spent the
rest of my life spewing acid on the topic. </span>As it so happens, that is not the
confession – I was merely setting the scene. Remember when a partial draft of <i>Midnight Sun</i> leaked on the Internet and
we all read it? Well, guess how many times this so-called anti-Twihard read it.
No? OK, is SIX a decent number? Or how about how many times I wished the whole
book would be published soon? Did you know that INFINITY could be a number?</li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Following up on #1, <span style="color: #783f04;"><b>I HATED STEPHANIE MEYER</b></span>.
Please note that I was in the ninth grade when I was going through a phase
called BOYS ARE SHIT AND ALL THINGS NOT NICE (I dunno why – no guy had ever
done anything to me – I used to be a pretty extreme t(w)een). Then I saw the
cover of</span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;"> The Host</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> (ON SALE!!!!!!) and
read the blurb and bought it and read it and read it and read it and read it …
and kept the fact that I might no longer NOT HATE Meyer a secret till I
realized I was being a two-faced bitch.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">I used to pride myself in the knowledge that <span style="color: #783f04;"><b>I
DON’T READ CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE</b></span>. As people ticked off books they had read, I
would mentally scoff at them when I classified them as POOR READING CHOICES or NOT
LITERARY ENOUGH. (How much do you already hate me?) Then I discovered The
Mediator and Jinx and Airhead by Meg Cabot and attained enlightenment.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><b> </b></span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>I JUDGE BOOKS, THEIR AUTHORS AND THEIR FANBASE</b></span>.
(I wasn’t trumpeting that point; I’m stripping myself bare. Go on, judge me. I basically asked for it.)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Despite whatever I say and feel about how
erotica is basically literary porn – I enjoy a good <span style="color: #783f04;"><b>SPICY SCENE</b></span> from time to
time. (OH GOD.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNxR4sOUwmA_CFz8Q5eWQCAx1gRGuXualVxHPjRF2AKwctZFEq1iE2o3JRIy_V1N_WUH6uf36BOi6UFX4UvcHbM51RiVmVmmIFO6e_YK1_lBQeXpGs8IEL5_0hn7a5gOcosd1Q7oNqEl9/s1600/emma-stone-happy-thumbs-up.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNxR4sOUwmA_CFz8Q5eWQCAx1gRGuXualVxHPjRF2AKwctZFEq1iE2o3JRIy_V1N_WUH6uf36BOi6UFX4UvcHbM51RiVmVmmIFO6e_YK1_lBQeXpGs8IEL5_0hn7a5gOcosd1Q7oNqEl9/s1600/emma-stone-happy-thumbs-up.gif" height="181" width="400" /></a></div>
</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Hey, genuine doubt: Do you, at any point of
time, while in the process of shipping your ship in your head after a good book
or a Tumblr post or – y’know – randomly, (un)consciously </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt; text-transform: uppercase;"><b><span style="color: #783f04;">replace the hero(ine) with yourself</span></b></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">?
(please say yes, please say yes)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">… Maybe I should stop.</span></li>
</ol>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-58950815479558999032015-02-19T09:06:00.000-08:002015-02-19T09:28:14.028-08:00Not A Review: The Crossover - Kwame Alexander<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b5/ec/61/b5ec617574003914a63d93811c0d5c86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b5/ec/61/b5ec617574003914a63d93811c0d5c86.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There Are
Books</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
that –<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 26.0pt; line-height: 115%;">thump</span>
you,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>choke</i></b> you,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
crack you up. </div>
Books that<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
you want to<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
give <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to that kid <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in your building,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Hey, you like
basketball, don’t you?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One Day</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
he’ll come a-knocking,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you’ll open,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
his face like the last page –<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gratitude in his smile<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
something more in his eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
he’ll score that basket.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Tempo</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
will leave you,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
puzzled,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
shocked,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-bDllzGdVDwL5-0xBAsjj127Iz4lGSjCC3wh8_k_2KGq2Y2iRTEBxcwepBLVaKb0O_WKwe0wAAssI7G4Wwfll2q6rXRpY4mVqvY_z5CsbU6OLKeZDtpDO_f7SE00rLtEUKv06WuEAmzc/s1600/basketball+rule+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-bDllzGdVDwL5-0xBAsjj127Iz4lGSjCC3wh8_k_2KGq2Y2iRTEBxcwepBLVaKb0O_WKwe0wAAssI7G4Wwfll2q6rXRpY4mVqvY_z5CsbU6OLKeZDtpDO_f7SE00rLtEUKv06WuEAmzc/s1600/basketball+rule+3.png" /></a>betrayed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t worry, love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can’t <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
help<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
but feel <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the RhyThM<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in the <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">WORDS –</span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What alchemy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
can<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paint people,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Compose music,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Change lives?<o:p></o:p></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSMIhs6h2XVpc0VyLj6yWb6UwFP8lBZJxstgxHb818GIeNRjaVzaxBQmw_bM1DTTA4a0a-4pV9mT45rNBw4FGtmDcYEvMLoLsD4BmJdtGRg8ycy55w6CeyIRbtWCpChrEeUP512ErS_A/s1600/alchemy.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSMIhs6h2XVpc0VyLj6yWb6UwFP8lBZJxstgxHb818GIeNRjaVzaxBQmw_bM1DTTA4a0a-4pV9mT45rNBw4FGtmDcYEvMLoLsD4BmJdtGRg8ycy55w6CeyIRbtWCpChrEeUP512ErS_A/s1600/alchemy.png" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i>2. (literary)</i></div>
<i>A mysterious</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>power or<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>magic<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>that can<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>change things.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Y’know what’s<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
short and sweet?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This, GOD, THIS.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-28038114867423394642015-02-10T05:39:00.000-08:002015-05-08T19:23:14.401-07:00Like Velcro<div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WXLpM0HXE3s/VU1vkHp-yEI/AAAAAAAAAvg/GlEKmC6fkD4/behindtheglass7.png"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WXLpM0HXE3s/VU1vkHp-yEI/AAAAAAAAAvg/GlEKmC6fkD4/behindtheglass7.png cursor: pointer;" width="560px" style="border: 1px solid; border-radius: 2px;padding: 5px; max-width: 560px " /></a></div><div class="blogaway-section"><p><p><br/>
<p>There was a sound,<br/>
<p>Final, resolute, irreparable,<br/>
<p>Like a kiss broken in half.<br/>
<p>But velcro doesn’t make that sound, does it?<br/>
<p>How then did I hear it –<br/>
<p>In the promises unmade,<br/>
<p>In the hanging up of the phone,<br/>
<p>In the silences between words?<br/>
<p>Do strips of velcro feel pain,<br/>
<p>When they’re peeled apart?<br/>
<p>Why then do I hurt<br/>
<p>When I see – <br/>
<p>The empty REPLY box,<br/>
<p>The ghost of her old smile,<br/>
<p>The scrapbook that made us?<br/>
<p>Her velcro patch has collected<br/>
<p>Dust, dust, more dust.<br/>
<p>(She always was careless though.)<br/>
<p>Dust like –<br/>
<p>Secrets,<br/>
<p>Hurt,<br/>
<p>Tears,<br/>
<p>Ache.<br/>
<p>(She claims they were souvenirs,<br/>
<p>In her quest for happiness.)<br/>
<p>I pluck the stubborn,<br/>
<p>Remainders from her velcro patch.<br/>
<p>(Or try to –<br/>
<p>Velcro is as stubborn as the dust.)<br/>
<p>Maybe the wind won’t,<br/>
<p>Steal our laughter again.<br/>
<p>Maybe we won’t,<br/>
<p>Talk up a long bill.<br/>
<p>And maybe we won’t,<br/>
<p>Swap colourful bracelets.<br/>
<p>But we won’t grow,<br/>
<p>Out of our worn sandals yet.<br/></p></div><br/>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670022742388580770.post-38677927670619624212015-02-03T05:50:00.001-08:002015-02-03T05:56:32.639-08:00A Twitter Story: The Seven Realms - Cinda Williams Chima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
It was just after the semester break when I walked into Miss
J’s room to catch up on all the fandoms – old and new, when she suddenly jabbed
a finger in my face.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miss J: YOU.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: (shocked) Yeah?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miss J: (pointing to a daunting stack of books) YOU’RE
READING THIS.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: (snorts after picking up one and reading the blurb) Really?
It’s that good?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miss J: Oh. I’m sorry. It wasn’t a request.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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Reader, my life has changed forever since.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3lSoj7LpiR9OfgasgKboHx2Hk5wJnxevoWLjidvD5cMDg9UHnWIs6LQpBbJWlqPwH6OfrHBBKynGfziapAIh_8rJ-LChablEW14XeOXEWg0qj42Pb8WtB1xdRtj1Rw0qjeAGsd3px6uk/s1600/About_The_Seven_Realms_760.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3lSoj7LpiR9OfgasgKboHx2Hk5wJnxevoWLjidvD5cMDg9UHnWIs6LQpBbJWlqPwH6OfrHBBKynGfziapAIh_8rJ-LChablEW14XeOXEWg0qj42Pb8WtB1xdRtj1Rw0qjeAGsd3px6uk/s1600/About_The_Seven_Realms_760.jpg" height="317" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Where do I start? The fact that the last time I’d read a
series so plotsy, so addictive, and so <i>good</i>
was maybe when I read the Percy Jackson Series. Which was four years back. Or
the fact that I got a heroine to look up to – someone who managed to be
realistic and inspiring and just so very badass. Or the fact that every day
till I finished reading the series, I would hit the sack only when my eyes had stopped
distinguishing words from one another (which was two am-ish). Or the fact that
I was able to extend my<a href="http://spraypaintedtunnels.blogspot.com/2013/07/guys-who-made-it-to-list.html"> Book Boyfriends list</a> to include #10. (Just thinking
about Han has my heart beating faster – THIS IS MADDENING UGH) Or the fact that
the THE CHARACTERS are annoyingly real – HOW CAN FICTION DO THAT? Cat with
her ferocity. Fire Dancer with his understanding. Micah with his love. Amon
with all the tortured, repressed feelings (THAT POOR SOUL). Bird with her
trust. “Crow” with his Han-ishness. Then -</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b><marquee>RAISA HAN RAISA HAN RAISA HAN RAISA HAN RAISA HAN RAISA HAN RAISA HAN</marquee>
</b></span><br />
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<br />
GOD THOSE TWO. This series isn’t your average love story.
The hero and the heroine have like JUST TWO EPISODES together in the first book
and it isn’t till Book 3 that Han gets to know that Raisa isn’t just some
random blueblood but the FRIGGIN’ QUEEN. Did I mention that at that point he’s
a boy with the reputation of being a streetlord and a thief?<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, yeah, considering my Book Boyfriends list, this is the
second outlaw I’ve fallen in love with. I <i>am </i>hopelessly incorrigible.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This isn’t a review.</span> Reviews are for telling people (very
coherently and objectively) why they should or shouldn’t read a book. This is a
post in which I have overindulged in feeeeeeeeeeelings. Very ship-py feelings.
Very WHAT-THE-EFFING-HELL-HAPPENS-NEXT feelings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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For a more comprehensible idea of my symptoms, you should
check my tweets out. (For those of you who already follow me, I will not ask
you to continue reading this post, as such reading material is okay the first
time, torturous the second. You might have also noticed the small fact that I
changed my surname – not that it matters a lot).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
HOW COME I HAVEN'T HEARD OF THIS SERIES BEFORE TODAY <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/amreading?src=hash">#amreading</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SevenRealms?src=hash">#SevenRealms</a>
I sense a major marathon week ahead. I'm screwed.<br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/556864469662318592">January 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
<br />
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
I never thought I would be practically capable of reading my eyes off. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SevenRealms?src=hash">#SevenRealms</a>
Wait, it's only midnight? Maybe I'll start Book 3.<br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/557602230262452225">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<br />
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Crazy Fangirl Mode: Activated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SevenRealms?src=hash">#SevenRealms</a><br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/557604627643125761">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<br />
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
It's hard being in love with a guy who's not only a streetlord and a rum wizard but also happens to exist only in books. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SevenRealms?src=hash">#SevenRealms</a><br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/558879643193704449">January 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit">@jackedbylit</a> I'll ship them till Armageddon claims me though.<br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/558881312329584640">January 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/CindaChima">@CindaChima</a> Thank you for Raisa, a character I can finally relate to - short and dark, smart and fierce.
And for Han Alister, of course.<br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/558946875827445761">January 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
(SHE RETWEETED ME HOW AWESOME IS SHE)<br />
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Rejoice all ye faithful. I've *almost* attained closure. This should be the last of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SevenRealms?src=hash">#SevenRealms</a> crazed fangirl tweets.<br />
— Aneta Han Alister (@jackedbylit) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackedbylit/status/558947765468680192">January 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
<b>P.S.:</b> Apparently there is going to be a spin-off series (YES!) but Han and Raisa are like 42 (NOOOOO)<br />
<br />
<b>P.P.S:</b> There isn't going to be a rating for this one. This is purely a fangirl post, not a reviewer's because:<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589292377623058771noreply@blogger.com0