2015 Book Challenge: 1-5

In the hopes to motivate myself to get through my annual 50 Book Challenge, I'm doing a book challenge by Pop Sugar. Feel free to follow along!

Here's the books I've read so far:

This was my "Book Turned into a Movie." I saw the movie with a friend when it came out and was intrigued enough to read the story. I enjoy Hillenbrand's style so I might be biased. She writes in an engaging manner that makes me care for things I would normally brush off. This guy has had about seven different lives. He was a punk kid turned All Star high school athlete turned Olympic runner turned World War II bombardier turned life raft survivor turned prisoner of war. If you want to read incredibly hard facts about the war and especially POWs, but also be inspired, you should read this.

This was my "Book Written by a Female Author."  I read the Princess Diaries series as a kid and her novels are pretty much the same standard. They're not meant to be anything thought provoking or serious. And this book certainly delivers. She falls for her neighbor's nephew. Only it's actually the nephew's FRIEND who he asks to PRETEND to be him so he could sleep with a supermodel. You can pretty much fill in the gaps. It's pretty funny because that's kind of Cabot's style. If you want to not think about anything and lose yourself in a predictable story that fills you with warm fuzzies, you should read this.

This was my "Book with a Number in the Title." It's the last installment of a trilogy. It's essentially a YA version of the bachelor, but like slightly more political because whoever wins gets to become a PRINCESS in the royal family. It's set in the future where America has divided its citizens into castes. I think you can tell what happens to the protagonist. As I was reading this, I kind of realized how poorly written it was. But I needed a quick read because I was getting behind!

This was my "Book that Scares You." I read it because my co-worker recommended it, but I told her it'd be too creepy. But then I saw the book challenge and figured I'd kill two birds. Just like Carrie probably would. Only instead of birds she'd kill people. This book was incredibly well-written and had multiple perspectives, which I appreciate. It's a book that I should never have read without the sun as a companion, but I'm glad I challenged myself. If you want to read a GOOD, but scary book, you should read this. 

This was my "Book Based on the Cover." I spotted on a blue book display at my library. Then I looked at the summary and it's about a graduate student who starts working at a halfway house and feels so out of place. 1. I love fish out of water plots. 2. I felt like this was kind of a parallel to my work at the youth house. If you want to know how it feels to overanalyze almost every decision you make to an almost painful extent for fear that you'll be irreparably damaging someone in the house, you should read this.
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I'm hoping to keep you guys up to date with the books I've been reading. Hopefully, writing these will help me hold myself accountable!

All About Steve

Let's jump right in, shall we?

First off, the opening credits suggest that our girl writes crossword puzzles? QUIRKY!
And now we see these red boots that I guess she just wears all of the time every day. Again, QUIRKY!
Oh, Sandra Bullock! Getting all scared by a dog in the park as she walks to work. QUIRKY!
HAHAHA, she almost runs into a guy and tries to go around him, but then they do that awkward shuffle. CLMUSY!
Oh, no. She works so hard on her crossword puzzles that her boss is asking her if she ever goes out. "Less work, more of everything else. Just enjoy being normal." Actual words her boss told her. That's a totally appropriate conversation to have with your boss.
Good thing she has a blind date that her parents set up for her!
Now she's at career day for the school and spilling everything out to the firefighter that's after her. QUIRKY.
Oh, geez. She's gonna bomb in front of this class of kids.
Haha, these kids are making fun of her for not having a boyfriend and living at home. QUIRKY!
She also suffers from vertigo. QUIRKY!
Her parents are forcing her to go on this date because "they want her to be happy." Everyone keeps telling her to be normal which apparently means being in a relationship!
EW! She changed for Bradley Cooper. And then she just mauls him in the car. But he has to go do breaking news in Boston because he's a cameraman. I'm so annoyed with her that she just made out with him.
And then she made a crossword puzzle "All About Steve" GROSS. And of course she's fired.
And Steve's a total IDIOT. He's a cameraman who zooms in on a women's breasts as part of his footage. I guess they're both really unprofessional so that's CUTE.
AND NOW Sandra Bullock is riding a bus across the country chasing after Steve. I hate this movie.
And the bus driver made her get off and drove away.
Of course she's getting a ride with some random stranger to Tuscon. And the way she does that is by running in front of his semi truck. HAHA. She wrote down his license in Sharpie on his arm in case he murders her. But I guess they had a good time because he was laughing as he dropped her off.

NOW SHE'S GONE TO OKLAHOMA because Steve's there. UGH. I hate this movie. How creepy is she! I don't like this at all.
I do love how freaked out he is. That's hilarious.
OOOOH. But she helped him find this Dad they're doing a story about because she knows so many facts.
AND NOW SHE HAS A FRIEND! She met someone at the protest they're doing news about. Or something. I'm kind of half invested in this movie.
Now the news anchor Steve works with is messing with Sandra and telling her fake advice to make sure she stays with Steve. THIS MOVIE IS AWFUL AND FULL OF EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION.
Now she has her friend and the friend's love interest giving her a ride into a huge storm where Steve's caemramanning.
But of course his car gets sucked up into a tornado. DANGIT.
OH, MY GOODNESS. Steve thinks Mary's (Sandra's character's name) trying to kill her. Which is hilarious in and of itself.
Mary got mixed up in the story Steve was cameramanning and fell into an abandoned mine and there's a deaf girl in there too. It's a long story how it all came about. But she's starting to become hopeless.
Everyone thinks she's dead because of the poisoning.
Guys, Mary got out using her brains and physics and stuff! QUIRKY!

Okay, I'm so glad they don't end up together. That makes this movie much better. She realizes she doesn't need to stalk a guy to make her life complete. YAY! That's probably why Sandra Bullock did the movie because the ending is about the girl and not the relationship she thinks will make her normal. I appreciate that!

Positive Image

My laptop battery's about to die and I haven't blogged in DAYS!

I saw Divergent spontaneously last night. I really was not impressed. I went with two friends. One of them had read the book and one of them hadn't. The friend that had read it and I agreed, if we hadn't read the book we'd be confused. You miss so much of Tris' thoughts and why she does what she does. And the whole Four storyline is just kind of forced and just... not very exciting I guess?

ALSO! Kate Winslet makes some random huffs and weird panting sounds at the end which made me think... was she even trying in this? I mean, I feel like the people that made Divergent were maybe like... what big name can we get to be involved in this?! KATE WINSLET SAID YESS!!! Give her as many lines as possible! Even if it was a bit of a hindrance to the plot. WHATEVER SHE DESERVES IT.

What else is new? I realized that maybe my reading taste is becoming more defined? Because I started reading this book a friend gave me and it's AWFUL. Hang on... Did I blog about this before? Let me check...

No, I just THOUGHT about blogging about it. OKAY. SO. A friend gave me a book to read. Just some light chick-lit and I have since started to read it and it's AWFUL. Like... I'm sorry, Stephanie. I just can't keep reading it. Everything is so over-the-top cliche and it's just not well-written. Which is a bummer because I've read some other stuff by the same author and I remember liking it a lot. But apparently there's well-written cheesy (a la Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Helen Fielding) and then there's BAD cheesy. Where the characters flip flop in motives, the plot points are laid out so plainly there's no way you can miss it, and the terrible similes abound. I'm not really sure what was going on there. A Billion Reasons Why? More like A Billion Reasons Why Not to Read This.

This post has been pretty negative so far. Let's lighten the mood, shall we? HAHAHA! I searched "positive image" and this was one of the first results:

"Positive image."

Trying to be Helpful

Haha, wow. I was clearly... distracted last night. But look at my dedication, still blogging away!

Tonight I realized that I think I'm the most unhelpful helpful person. I saw this guy on the sidewalk walking home and I offered to give him a ride (after much deliberation and multiple U-turns). But I was so so happy he was accepting the offer and that I could even BE helpful that I shoved open the door as he was getting in, basically pushing him back into the snowbank he just finished climbing over. CLASSIC. Then he had this bag of (presumably work clothes) and I chucked that into my backseat panicking that this wasn't going at all like I expected it to be. BUT IT'S WHATEVER. At least I got to drive him home.

He turned out to be a co-worker of my housechum, Hannah. So that was sweet. But I felt bad about pushing him into the snowbank. He seemed pretty grateful despite having to make sure all of his clothes were in the bag when I handed it to him. I was just REALLY excited!

ANYWAY, it's way too late and I should clearly go to bed so... GOODNIGHT!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's day!

I worked for about six hours before I realized that it was STP day and I could use that as a greeting. Good call, Abby!

I'm not really sure what to write about. We watched Laws of Attraction and by watched I mean, we paid no attention for the entire hour and a half. Good call guys!

And now everyone's singing Frozen. I think it's time for bed. Sorry, this is terrible.

Exhaustion

Exhausted.

Today, I just don't even know what to write about. I feel like this is the time in my life where I'm doing so many different things. And I just don't have time to relax. At all. I just don't even know.

Let's try this again, but less whiny??

Today I had church, got lunch at the Chatterbox with friends, met up with Brynn, and worked at the radio station. Solid day.

We also have another house guest with us! Another one of Jami's teammates. Woo! I tell ya, by the end of this month I might actually like a little piece and quiet. But for now I like having people in our house! It's so much fun being able to hang out with people I haven't seen in a while and building on those relationships.

Today Brynn and I talked about our future and I was like, "I don't even have to say I wonder what life will be like in ten years. I just wonder what we'll be doing a year from now." This is such a weird time for both of us because I don't think either of us is ready to be committed to anything for more than a year. Like, working at the bookstore for more than a year is boggling my mind. It could happen, but I don't feel ready for it right now.

Well, clearly I can't think straight right now so I'm saying goodnight.

what an exhausting life

So Abby, the beautiful child of God, just handed me her tablet so that I would blog for her since she is having a pretty exhausting day today! Seriously, this hard working girl had to get up at 6.50am and just got home ( it's noon now) to go to her other work in less than an hour ...to spend there the rest of her day. Kind of at least because she will have to close up ...so please, people be nice to her and should you read this before the day is ober , feel free to send her an encouraging message!! Thanks for your attention! Have a great, hopefully not as exhausting day as Abby!

Peace out!