Sunday, July 31, 2016

July Snapshots


1. 21st birthday selfie. // 2. I can't get over my reading view now. And if you missed it, last week I posted about my new book shelves. 


3. Trying to hunt for Charmanders at Auditorium Shores, but Pokemon Go wasn't loading on my phone so I took some pictures instead. 


4. From the midnight release of The Cursed Child! I was shaking and crying while taking this photo, and I stayed up last night to read it. Happy birthday Harry and Jo!

- Jessica

Friday, July 29, 2016

Bookshelves (Part II)


I briefly shared last week a photo of my new bookshelves, they've evolved a little since I first got them and today I'm going to share how they now look. A little over two weeks ago, my family went to Ikea to get some stuff for my little brother's dorm and while we were there I couldn't stop myself from getting new bookshelves. I got two more Billy bookcases, one skinny and one wide, to match the two that I got last year. If you're curious, here's what my shelves used to look like, and it was a good amount of space at first, but because of my book buying problem I needed a place to house the growing pile of books that were amassing all over my room. So I now have almost a full wall of books in my room and it makes me really happy to look up when I'm reading and see them. 



I generally arranged everything by genre, so all my contemporaries are on the far left shelf and then the rest is fantasy. 


So this is now one wall of my room, the doorway to my room is directly on the left and to the right of the shelves is my Harry Potter wall. Above my shelves are my Harry Potter lego sets, cause I'm basically still a child and still in love with Harry Potter (but I still need to put my Diagon Alley set up on the left side). I couldn't really take a full picture and include the bottom shelves because my bed is in the way, plus those shelves are really messy. 



I love decorating my shelves with Funkos, especially the Harry Potter line. And I now have so many that they don't all fit on my Harry Potter shelves. And I had to share photos of some of my latest additions, Newt and the Hogwarts Express Hermione. I'm extremely exciting for the Fantastic Beasts movie, and I couldn't help but get his Funko when I saw it. I love that Funko made the train sets, they are a little pricy but I had to get all three because they have the trio when they first meet, and I'm in love with Hermione and her books. 







Another thing that is decorating my new shelves are my Happy Hello Art bookmarks. They used to be scattered all over the shelves, but now they are nicely held in a mason jar. I may change how these are displayed though because it can be a little hard to find a specific bookmark if it's at the bottom of the jar. 
So those are my new bookshelves! I have a ton of space right now on them for more books but I'm resisting the urge to go out and buy more books. Hopefully these don't fill up as fast because now I really don't have space for more bookshelves in my room! - Jessica

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Day Trip: San Antonio


I went to San Antonio this past weekend, to visit my friend, who is currently spending the summer there for her internship. We had a lot of fun and I wish I had brought along my camera and gotten some better shots. But anyways here are the things that we did...

  • Our first stop was the River Walk. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe (because we are actually little kids). Our ulterior motive though for going to the River Walk was to find Pokemon and it paid off because there were so many Growlithes. 
  • After stopping at the River Walk we headed over to the Alamo, which is a couple of blocks away. I hadn't stopped by the Alamo in over five years so it was cool to walk around the gardens and seek shade. Fun fact: I almost took over the Pokegym (it was my first battle and I managed to get through two rounds!) 
  • After walking around the area, we stopped by the San Antonio Zoo. I was surprised at how big the zoo is there, it's definitely the best zoo that I have been to in TX.
  • We then stopped at Alamo Drafthouse for dinner and a movie. We ended up watching Lights Out, I'm not a big fan of scary movies but I thought it was really good. 
And that was a quick summary of my day spent in San Antonio, the last few times I've been to San Antonio have been just for concerts or soccer games so it was really nice to go and do toristy things. - Jessica

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Lately...


I didn't mean to but I took two week break from the blog because of how busy I've been lately and I thought I would share what I've been doing in that time. So lately I...
  • ... turned 21!
  • ... started my summer class. 
  • ... have been playing Pokemon Go non stop. I need to catch them all guys!
  • ... went to Ikea and got myself some new bookshelves (as pictured above). I plan to do a full post next week showing off my new shelves. 
  • ... haven't been reading as much as I like (mostly due to the whole Pokemon Go addiction I've developed), but I did catch up on reading the Falling Kingdom series that I started a couple months ago so I'll be posting my opinions on the last two books early next month. 
  • ... am trying to get caught up on Shadowhunters, I'm on episode 6 and it is a little cheesy and not as good as the books but I'm hoping that the show will get better. I also saw Swiss Army Man in theaters and even though it was a little crazy, it was a really entertaining movie. 
So that's the gist of what has happened the last two weeks. Another reason I wasn't posting is that for the past couple of months I've been in a blogging slump but hopefully that will turn around soon, but for now I have some homework to do *sigh*. - Jessica  

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Books I've Read In June


In the month of June, I had quite of bit of time on my hands and managed to read 12 books! After reading A LOT of fantasy novels this year, I switched gears and practically all I wanted to read was contemporaries. So here are the books that I read and some of my thoughts and opinions on them:

The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan - This is the sequel/spin off series to the Percy Jackson series, and this series follows the same lines but also includes Roman mythology. I loved this series so much, there's a lot of expansion on the world building from the Percy Jackson books and I loved reading about the inclusion of Roman mythology. I also loved the addition of the new characters and the character development to both the new and old characters. This is a really fun and action packed series, and I can't wait to continue on with the rest of Riordan's middle grade books.

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera - This book is set in a world where people can undergo procedures to forget parts of their memory and follows Aaron, who is trying to find happiness after his father commits suicide. I had heard a lot of great things about this book and I enjoyed reading it but I think I went in with too high of expectations. I really enjoyed the story and the character development but I did have trouble understanding Aaron's character. Overall this was a good read and I would recommend it, because it is a really cool concept and powerful story.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes - This book follows Louisa after she is hired to be a caretaker for Will, who was involved in an accident and became paralyzed from the neck down. I absolutely loved this book, but I also recognize that there are problems with how physical disabilities are portrayed. I loved reading about the characters and their story, I became completely submerged in their emotions and I cried a lot while reading this book. I actually started reading this around 1AM when I couldn't go to bed and ended up reading it in one sitting, finishing it around 5AM. I didn't mean to stay up reading it, but lost track of time and didn't want to stop reading.

I'll Meet You There by Heather Dimetrios - This book takes place in a tiny, California town and revolves around two characters, Skylar, who is getting read to leave and go to art school, and Josh, who came back after losing his leg in Afghanistan. I enjoyed this book a lot, I really enjoyed the characters and how their relationship developed. The writing was beautiful and I like how Dimetrios handled such a heavy topic of PTSD in this book. I just had one problem with this book that stopped me from completely loving it and that was with how drinking and driving was portrayed in this book and I hated that element of the story and I think it was completely unnecessary. I did really enjoy this book, I just wish that drinking and driving wasn't a major factor in the story.

Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Lelia Sales - This book centers around Arden after she discovers a connection to a writer's blog. Last year I read Sales book, This Song Will Save Your Life, and since then this book has been on my radar. I felt that this book was just okay, I had some trouble connecting with Arden's character and I found some of the story elements anticlimactic. I did enjoy some of the messages conveyed in this book, but overall it just wasn't my cup of tea.

The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Vivian Siobhan - This book centers around Keeley as her childhood town threatens to go underwater after some serious floods. I really liked this book, and I really enjoyed how the concept is real and scary to read about. I also really enjoyed the writing and the various relationships in this book (even though there was a bit of instalove in my opinion).

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann - This book is told in free verse poems from the perspective of Addie, as she learns that she is pregnant and has an abortion. I was really looking forward to the release of this book, but at the time that I first heard about this book I didn't know that it was told entirely through poems. I don't think the poetry style format fit this story, the writing was fine, I just felt that there was a lack of character growth within the story. This was a little disapoint read, I was expecting more from such an interesting concept.

You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan - This book centers around Mark and Kate, who had known of each other's existence from school but form a friendship after bumping into each other at a pride event. I love David Levithan's book, he is up there with some of my favorite writers, and this book did not disapoint. I really loved the characters and the journey that they go through in this story. The writing on both sides was really well done and I enjoyed the various relationships throughout this book.

And those are the books that I read in June. There's some new releases coming out this month that I'm looking forward too and I intend to continue reading some contemporary novels as well as continuing to read the Falling Kingdoms series. - Jessica