This is when I realize that senior year will be full of this.

Last night I submitted an application to this fabulous liberal arts academy. I entered a contest last year for a thirty thousand dollar scholarship for my writing. I was like 'eh, it's never going to happen, but it'll be fun to just try it out'.

I got an email mid-January telling me 'OH GOLLY YOU NEED TO START PANIC ATTACKING BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE STRESSFUL AND HAHAHA.' Actually it said that I was a finalist for the thing. It was good at first because it was all YAY HAPPINESS. But then they were all 'we recommend that you come and visit our campus which is a four and a half hour drive from where you live. We also want you to fill out an application to see if you're eligible and that costs a lot of money so HAHAHA. And you need to have it all done in a month.'

So I have been very freaky-outy this last month and there's been finals and a new semester. But I have amazing classes that are amazing (I think that's a given, right?) even though I have epic amounts of homework now.

And I have come to realized that in less than two years, I'll be doing this all over again. Times like, a gazillion. This most definitely gives me hope for my mental stability in the future.

But enough about angst, I need to do an interesting blog post.

I have recently forced my grandmother to read the Uglies trilogy by THE best author out there, Scott Westerfeld. She loves it and is currently on Extras. Next up for her? The Hunger Games. If I can find my copy. I do believe it was stolen by one of my friends and I can't remember to save my life who.

I will finish this post off with some of my favorite words that are known to me in the English language. That I can think of right now, at least.

• Synergy
• Advesperate
• Paradox
• Mystery
• Squish
• Fish
• Omniscient
• Octopus
• Shine
• Chrome
• Recycle
• Fabulous
• Terrific
• Vacuum
• Crotchety
• Word
• Widdershins
• Reality
• Magenta
• Bliss
• Cataclysm
• Neat
• Dandy
• Dictionary
• Barcoded
• Bewitch
• Ergo

And those are all the ones I can think of right now at this very moment. I'm sure there are more. I really love words that sound like their meaning. Y'know?

Across the Universe!

Okay, so I just finished the book Across the Universe by Beth Revis. I saw on some other blogs recommendations for it and I got it and I totally couldn't put it down. I should be packing right now (ROAD TRIP) but I haven't blogged in a while, so I decided so do this instead. Don't y'alls love me?

This book is dystopian, which implies sci-fi, but it seems more sci-fi than most dytopian books and it's also a mystery and slightly romancey. But not really.

I am going to try and give a summary (WITHOUT SPOILERS!) in three sentences. Wish me luck.

Main chick (Amy) gets cyrogenicly(sp?) frozen to go to Centauri-Earth (a new planet that Earth discovered) because it takes 300 years to get there and her parents (being fabulous (military and scientist people) were chosen to go along and she was brought along. She is unfrozen in an attempt at murder and meets love interest (Elder), a leader (Eldest) in training because people live on the ship, keeping people alive to wake up frozens (they create new technologies and make sure the ship's running smoothly too). Together, main chick and love interest uncover the secrets of the ship and discover that love interest has been living a lie and together, they try and figure out who's killing the frozen people and why.

That counts as three sentences, right? RIGHT?
It totally does.

This book has officially gone to the top (ish) of my favorite books. The current order of favorite books (trilogies too) are Uglies, Hunger Games and then ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

So I would like to say that it's a good part if you're good at not imagining things. If you are, prepare to be a little freaked out. The first chapter alone made me want to put the book down and never read it again because it described (in detail) the process of freezing people. And it's freaky.

There were a lot of things I definitely wasn't expecting thrown in. I'm not saying that they were thrown in randomly. They had crucial plotness to them and I totally wasn't expecting it.

CHARACTERS!

Main chick/Amy—She's kinda annoying, daddy's girl, but overall, a pretty strong protagonist. She's really angsty, but she has reason to... to a point.

Love interest/Elder—He's cool. He's the rebellious teenager in the line for ruling over the people. And he's a slight liar.

Kinda-semi-antagonist/Eldest—He's mean and stuff. But yet again, he has reason to. He's fifty-six and has been in charge for a gazillion years (since he was twenty, I think) and he knows the horrid (really horrid) deep dark secrets of the ship and he keeps them away from everyone and he comes across this way until the very end. When something mostly unexpected happens.

I don't really think there are any other MAIN characters other than Elder's best friend whose name I can't remember, though I finished the book just a few hours ago.

This is definitely one of those books that like, sticks in your head and you just want to make everyone read it.

Many stars, everyone read it. Now.

Quotey quote quote!

I know I promised a long post. Too bad. I'm addicted to everything. Neopets, facebook, etc. So instead of a normal post, you're going to get quotes from my favorite books, past and present.

David was uglier than she remembered. InTally's ugly-prince dreams, his imbalanced features had never been so disjointed, his unsurged teeth never so crooked or discolored. He looked no worse than Sussy or Dex, city kids who'd grown up with toothpaste pills and sunblock patches.
But this was David after all.
Even after her time with the villagers, many of them toothless and scarred, his face sent a shock through her. Not because he was hideous—he wasn't—but because he was simply ... unimpressive.
Not an ugly prince. Just ugly.
~Pretties by Scott Westerfeld.

But I'm not naked. I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself in the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings.
Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.
~Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

If you are interesting in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.
~The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket.

If Peeta and I were both to die, or they thought we were...
My fingers fumble with the pouch on my belt, freeing it. Peeta sees it and his hand clamps on my wrist. "No, I won't let you."
"Trust me," I whisper. He holds my gaze for a long moment then lets me go. I loosen the top of the pouch and pour a few spoonfuls of berries into his palm. Then I fill my own. "On the count of three?"
Peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. "The count of three," he says.
We stand, our backs pressed together, our empty hands locked tight.
"Hold them out. I want everyone to see," he says.
I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta's hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. "One." Maybe I'm wrong. "Two." Maybe they don't care if we both die. "Three!" It's 'too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth, taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare.
~The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of course, Tally thought, you'd have to feed your cat only salmon- flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right. The scudding clouds did look a bit fishy, rippled into scales by a high- altitude wind. As the light faded, deep blue gaps of night peered through like an upside- down ocean, bottomless and cold.
~Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

That's all I got for y'alls. Now toodles, because I need to sleep.

Stop! Book review time!

Okay, so I have decided that like, once a week or whenever I feel like it, I'm going to post a book review. :D But it'll be five times more epic than a normal book review.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

(I've had to shrink the photo for spacing purposes, but if you click on it, a bigger one will pop up and it'll be easier to read what it says.)


This is easily in my top five favorite series, that's how fabulous it is. I'm really into dystopian future stuff. You can tell because my number one favorite series is the Uglies trilogy-type thing.

I really wanted to review Catching Fire, but I know that it would totally give away how The Hunger Games ends.

This book takes place in the near-ish future. I'm pretty sure that it's three to four hundred years into the future, but I don't think they ever actually say 'THIS TAKES PLACE IN THE YEAR 2345!' because that would take away the mystery factor of it. And there's not really a mystery factor, I just like leading people into false dreams.
Back to the setting of the book. Future. In the FUTURE, there's this country-type thing called Panem. And it takes up the entirety of North America (Canada, U.S., Mexico). And within Panem, there are twelve 'districts', which give me the impression of states or provinces. Each District has its own specialty kinda thing. 12 is coal, 4 is fishing, 11 is food, etc.
This story takes place in District 12, from the point of view of a sixteen year old girl named Katniss Everdeen. In this futuristic country, there is a yearly 'celebration' thing called the Hunger Games.
For the past seventy-three (almost seventy-four) years, each district has to come up with two 'tributes', one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen. These twenty-four tributes are put in a giant outdoor arena to fight to the death. Last one alive wins.
That's where Katniss comes in. At the seventy-fourth Hunger Games reaping (where they choose who is a tribute) Katniss's beloved younger sister who deeply cares for all life is chosen as a tribute. Katniss does something amazing that most people would not do for a sibling in many districts; she volunteers as a tribute in place of her sister.
The male tribute for District 12, is named Peeta Mellark, the baker's son (Geddit, cuz its pronounced like pita, as in the bread??! HAHAHA SO PUNNY.). For some reason, the narrative goes off on this random story about how he burned bread and then got slapped and then threw the bread at her because she was so hungry. That's probably the only part of the book I don't like/get. Katniss feels like she owes him or something.
Anyway, they get whisked off to The Capitol (The capital of Panem) to be prepped for interviews and training.

That's all I'm really going to say, since the littlest thing I would say could ruin the entire thing.

If you've never read this amazing trilogy in the works, GO OUT AND GET IT FROM YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR LOCAL INDIE BOOKSTORE (we need to be supporting locally owned businesses), YOUR BEST FRIEND WHO IS IN LOVE WITH THIS SERIES AS WELL, YOUR GRANDMOTHER, YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY, OR ME. :D I'm sure all of those places and people would love to let you borrow it or sell it to you.

Since I know a lot of book reviews start/end this way, I'm going to do it too.

I GIVE THIS BOOK FIVE BILLION STARS!
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I don't really think that's five billion, but I don't wanna bore y'all with all these fabulous stars that this book totally deserves.

If you've already read this book and the second, Catching Fire, then check this out if you're eagerly awaiting the release of the third (and final? I kinda hope not. I love the world that she's set.) book, Mockingjay. CAUTION. Do not look at if you haven't read it. And by the way, if you're worried about the third book being 'ruined' by reading that (like my mother), don't fret, it's just a bunch of insane ideas put together by this person. And the crazy thing is, they actually almost make sense and I want what he's predicting to happen in the book. -cannot wait-.

I hope you enjoyed the first ever blogging book review by yours truly. I'm kinda hoping to do a review once a week or something. Or whenever I can't think of anything to blog about. :D


Photo is not mine. The images and stuff are Suzanne Collin's and her publisher's. And the cover mash-up with the quotes was all designed and put together by Lesslya.