Outlander by Diana Gabaldon review!!

Hey Everyone,

in Australia, we are currently in the holidays between term 3 and 4. So this is giving me a lot of great reading time, which means that i can finally read a long book that i have been dying to read for ages but have never gotten a chance to read because it took too much time and concentration. As you may have already figured out, the book im talking about is OUTLANDER!!!!!

Before you start reading, you must know that there are SPOILERS in this summary! If you don't want to read the biggest spoiler, do not read past the photo of the Scots :)

Enjoy! 

Summary: After separation by their work in World War II, British Army nurse Claire Randall and her husband Frank, a history professor, go on a second honeymoon to Inverness, Scotland, where Frank conducts research into his family history and Claire goes plant-gathering near standing stones on the hill of Craigh na Dun. She faints when investigating a buzzing noise near the stones; upon waking, she encounters Frank's ancestor, Captain Jack Randall. Before Captain Randall can take her into his custody, he is knocked unconscious by a Scotsman who takes Claire to his party. When the Scots try to repair the dislocated arm of their comrade Jamie, Claire uses her superior skill to relocate Jamie's arm; whereupon the men identify themselves as members of Clan MacKenzie, and Claire eventually concludes that she has traveled to the past, and represents herself as an English widow who is traveling to France to see her family. The Scots do not believe her and take her to Castle Leoch, where Claire searches for a way to return to her own time.

The Scots see Claire as a "Sassenach", an Outlander, ignorant of Scottish Highland culture. Her medical skills earn their respect; but the clan chieftain, Colum MacKenzie, suspects her of being an English spy. Colum sends her with his brother, Dougal, to collect rents and solicits donations for the Jacobites. This is overseen by Ned Gowan, a lawyer from Edinburgh made part of Clan MacKenzie. Captain Randall tells Dougal to bring Claire to him for questioning. To keep Claire from Randall, Dougal tells her to wed Jamie, which she does. Torn between her attachment to Jamie and the thought of Frank, Claire tries to return to Craigh na Dun. When prevented, Claire accepts the position of castle healer, in which she relies on her medical experience, and befriends Geillis Duncan, the wife of a local official, who shares her love of medicine. Eventually Claire and Geillis are charged with witchcraft while Jamie is away, but Jamie returns in time to save Claire. Just before their escape, Claire realizes that Geillis is, like herself, from the future, when she sees asmallpox vaccine scar on Geillis' arm. Geillis also sees Claire's scar.

Claire relates her predicament, and Jamie takes her to Craigh na Dun. When Jamie allows her to decide whether to stay with him or return to Frank, Claire prefers to stay, and Jamie takes her to his home of Lallybroch, where they share a happy peace with Jamie's sister Jenny and her husband, Ian. Though Jamie is still a fugitive from the British army, he reclaims his position as Laird of Lallybroch until one of his tenants betrays him and he is taken to Wentworth Prison, where Captain Randall is stationed. Claire and the clansmen attempt a jail-break, but fail and Claire is captured by Randall, who threatens to have her raped. Jamie offers himself in Claire's place, and Randall ejects Claire into the woods outside the castle. Claire tells Randall that she is a witch and predicts that, after his marriage, he shall father a child, but never see it. Thereafter Claire is befriended by Sir Marcus MacRannoch, a former suitor of Jamie's mother. While MacRannoch's men distract Wentworth's main guard, the clansmen drive a herd of agitated cattle through the underground halls of the castle, trampling a man. They rescue Jamie, who has been assaulted physically and sexually by Randall, and take him to MacRannoch's stronghold, where Claire tends the worst of Jamie's wounds. As soon as Jamie is capable, they and Jamie's godfather, Murtagh, escape to Saint Anne de Beaupre's monastery in France, where Jamie's uncle is Abbot. As she and Jamie emerge from a sacred hot spring under the Abbey, Claire reveals that she is pregnant.

Originally Published: June 1, 1991
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Original Language: English
Followed by: Dragonfly In Amber, Voyager, Drums Of Autumn, ABreath Of Snow and Ashes
Page count: 640
Main Characters: Jamie Fraser and Claire Randal 


So, as you can probably tell by the summary, this is an amazing book with an amazing storyline! the characters are great too, specially Jamie (and just letting you know, he is mine. jks). There is so much action and then again so much romance in it. the book just grabs you from the second you start reading it; this is probably because she travels through the stones in one of the very first chapters, but its still amazing. 


Im just gonna write down some reasons why you should read this book and some reasons why I loved it:
1. as I said before, the Plot of the Story is great. Very different to any other books Ive read before. 
2. Characters. It may sound lame, but in this book, you get to know the characters so well because it is such a long book and so many things happen to them. And I specially like one character... you can pobably work that out by yourselves. 
3. Time Traveling. I mean! who has never dreamed of travelling through time. Well Diana makes this dreams come true; the book makes you travel to the 17 hundreds, which is in fact a time where lots of things happened in Scotland... and that leads me into the next point.
4. Scotland, Scots, War. yes! all of this things are part of the book. 
- Scotland: i personally love it. Everything about it is amazing (maybe not the weather...), but anyway. the accent, the traditions, everything about it is amazing. And I specially like the book because it takes place in the Old Scotland (1700s) which sound like a stunning place. 
- Scots: can we just talk about their kilts! 
- War: in case you didnt know, there was a war between the scots and the english during the 17 hundreds and that is exactly when Claire lands. the is the middle of the war. And can I just say, the is an English woman walking around Scotland during a time of war. Suspicious... yeah, thats what the scots thought
5. For any age. There is something about this book that makes it suitable for any mature reader. I often read YA books, but i still loved this book, which is an adult book. I dont know why that is, but I just thought it was amazing even thought it wasnt supposed to be read by someone my age. I am sure that adults who enjoy reading would love reading this book and any young adults that like reading long book would like it too. 


For all of you people who do not enjoy reading that much, you can still find out what is Claire Randal story by WATCHING THE TV SHOW.
The TV show is so, so, so good. Its really similar to the book, i think one of the best if not the best book to TV show adaptations I know and I have watched. And the last reason why the TV show is so great, is because the actor are stunningly good! 


Jamie Fraser is played by Sam Heugham



 Claire Randall is played by Caitriona Balfe

 Frank and Jonathan Wolverntorn Randall are played by Tobias Menzies





Hopefully this Post has encouraged you to read or watch Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. 


Please leave any book recommendation in the comment box below :)

Where She Went book review

Hello Readers!

Because I haven´t done a book review in a while, I decided to do one now. This book review is going to be about one of the books that I have read recently, Where She Went by Gayle Forman. I read this book for the BookTubeAThon, which was extremely fun. I will write more about it soon in another post... So, I really loved this book. It was a really nice short read and like all of the books by Gayle Forman, it was beautifully written. 

Here´s a summary:

It’s been three years since the devastating accident … three years since Mia walked out of Adam’s life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard’s rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia’s home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future—and each other.

Told from Adam’s point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

And here are the 3 reasons why i think everyone should read this amazing book:

1. A continuation of book #1. The ending was so… wide open. It could have went anywhere, and I prefer when there is a definite resolution. I don’t wanna come up with the “ending” myself. I’m not a fan of “left up to interpretation” endings. What if my conclusion is wrong? I always have that “what if…” worry . *sigh*
2. A more mature story in regards to the characters (as this book occurs three years after the “incident”) – so now everyone involved is pretty much an adult.
3. More of Adam (I adored him in book #1) Adam. The ultra famous rock star. Need I say more? The whirlwind of his stardom, the chaos, the demands, and his ever-broken heart that instead of healing, just continues on it’s downward spiral.

· 2015 Booktube-A-Thon reading challenges·

Hello Booklovers! 

The Booktube-a-thon is so close!!! 

For all of you who don't know what that is; it's a 1 week read-a-thon when you have to try to read as much and as many books as possible. There are no rules, but there are challenges to make it more fun and challenging. Everyone is free to be part of it, it doesn't matter if you don't have a youtube channel or a blog or anything like that. It's hosted on Youtube on the account Abooktubeathon. This year's Booktube-A-Thon begings on the 3rd of August and ends on the 9th. If you want more information about it, I posted another post about it earlier this month so you might want to have a look at that.

So, not long ago (I think it was last week) we found out what the READING CHALLENGES are going to be. They all sound like they are going to be really fun and, of course, challenging. I personally don't think I'm going to be able to complete them all, but in this post i'm going to show you what the challeges are and what books I'm going to aim to read for every one of them. 

1. Read a book with BLUE on it's COVER

I think this is a fairly easy challege since nearly half of the books I own have blue on their front cover. So, for this challenge I will be reading Savage by Nancy Holden and Debbie Viguié. 

2. Read a book by an AUTHOR who shares the same FIRST LETTER OF YOUR SURNAME

For this challenge I will be reading If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I know! its really bad that I haven't read it until now, BUT i haven't watched the movie so it's all good. And even though this isn't a kind book that i would pick up, I've heard so many good comments about its so I'm really excited to be reading it!

3. Read SOMEONE ELSE'S favourite book

I'm really lucky to have friends that love to read as much as I do, so I was fortunate enough to ask them what their favourite books were. And most of the books they said were books that I've already read, but this one, I haven't read yet and it's been sitting on my bookshelf for about 5 months but i never got a chance to read it. The book I'm talkin about is Teardrop  by Lauren Kate.

4. Read the LAST book you ACQUIRED 

For this challenge I'll be reading Waterfall by Lauran Kate! because it's the last book I bought. And yes!, this is the second book in the Teardrop series which is really good because I'll be reading the first book too during this challenge.

5. Start and FINISH a book... WITHOUT LETTING OF IT!

this challenge is going tobe the hardest one, I think. I'm really excited about becuase I've never done anything like it which makes it even more exciting! so for this challenge I'm going to use the same book as for challenge number two and the book is If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I'm just using this because it'll make it easier to complete the 7 challenges ( 1 book, 2 challeges done) and also because it's the shortest book I'm planning on reading.

6. Read a book you REALLY WANT TO READ

I'm going to be reading Heart of Tango by Elia Barceló. I'm choosing this book because I met the author not long ago and i was really excited to read it the, but then forgot about it. But a few weeks ago, i was looking through my bookshelf and found it and now I'm really excited to read it. And btw, Elia is so nice and her books are all amazing!

7. Read 7 books during the week

So, I will be reading all of the books above, plus Where She Went by Gayle Forman. This book looks like nice, short read so that's mainly why I'm choosing it. 

And that's all! What do you think? What are you going to read?

·2015 BookTube-A-Thon·

Hey Booklovers!

there is a very important event for all readers coming up this month. This event is... the BookTube-A-Thon!

If you have no idea of what to do during the holidays, here's a great idea!!!

For all of you people who don't know what this is what it is. It'll be easier if we start with Read-a-thons. As the word itself  says, read-a-thons are like marathons, but instead of running, you read. The whole point of read-a-thon is to read as many books or pages as possible. BookTube-A-Thons are similar, but the point of them isn't to read as much as you possibly can (it kind of is), but there are challenges! You can´t just read random books, they have to follow the rules and challeges. AND, everyone is welcome to be part of them, no exceptions. 

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Most of you are probably now thinking: "why would she blog about a booktube-a-thon if she is a blogger? Booktube-a-thons happen on youtube!". Well, yes, I know. But the thing is, this years booktube-a-thon is going to be huge and superfun. Plus, I'm going to be part of it. This year there are all kind of new, really exciting challenges. Some of them are hard and most people won't be able to complete them, but it's going to be really fun giving them a shot. 

The dates for this BookTube-A-Thon this year are: 

It start off on August the 3rd at midnight. Wherever you are. when the clock hits 12:00am, it starts.

Until August 9th!!

So you get an idea of the challeges there are going to be, last  year's reading challenges were....

· to read a book with pictures in it.

It could be a fanfiction book, a kid book, a graphic novel. It doesn't matter how long it is, it doesn't matter how big the writting is, the only rule if that it had to have pictures in it.

· to start an finish a book seires. 

I reckon this was one of the hardest ones. But the thing is, it didn't matter how many books there were in the series, it can be 2, 3, 4, 20! it didn't matter, so it was great! 

· to read a book with red on the cover.

I was actually really excited about this one because I had sooo many book with red on the front cover on my TBR (to be read) list. For this challege, the whole front cover didn't have to be red, it could be just a dot on it, like the book "Shiver", but if ther whole front cover is red, then great!

· to read a book that somebody else reads for you.

This one was kind of hard for me becuase the person I chose to pick a book, chose the longest book on my TBR list! But anyway, there weren't really any rules for this challege, the only important thing is that you were not allowed to pick the book. Someone else had to do it for you, it could be your sister, brother, friend, mum, dad, granny, grandpa, worker from the bookshop, you teacher even! It didn't matter as long as it wasn't you.

· to read a book in the genre you´ve read least this year.

This challenge I think was also hard; mainly because the genres I read least are the genres that I don't like. And if I don't like the genre, I probably won't like the book ither, which makes it extremely hard to enjoy or even read the book. But yea!!!

· to read and watch a book to movie adaptation.

There weren't a whole lot of good book to movie adaptations out there at then. At least not many great one that I heard of. But anyway, this one was really fun since after reading the book, you got to see it come to life!!

· to read 7 books or 300 pages a day

So, this challenge is kind of different to the rest. All you have to do is ither read 7 books during the week or read 300 pages a day, which is pretty much 1 book a day... unless you are reading a really long book!

So! i hope you guys are as excited as I am for this! I will post more details about this event very soon, but for the time being, start choosing books from your TBR list. 

Stay Tunned for 2015 BookTube-A-Thon!

Byeeee

Sarah J. Maas comes to Melbourne

Hey guys! This post is specially for Australians, mainly readers from Melbourne! 

So, I have some very exciting news.... Sarah J. Maas is coming to Melbourne this year!  

For all of you guys that don't know who she is, here is a short description of her and what she does and the books she has written (they are amazing!).

 Sarah J. Maas is now a very well know author. She was born in March 5, 1986 ( she is currently 29 years old). She was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, US.  She wrote one of the most popular YA book series, which is called Throne of Glass series, and I can assure you, it is an amazing series... Defenitely a great holiday read! She has had a lot of nominations which include GoodReads Choice Awards Best Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction! 

At this event, you will be able to meet, listen and get your book signed by this amazing author! So, if you are interested in attending, here are the details and the link to do the booking! 

1. 

   
   

Date: Monday 23 of November 2015

Time: 6:00pm

Venue: Dymocks Melbourne, lower ground floor, 234 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

Cost: FREE!!!

If you want more info, Click here

If you want to book, Click here

Hope to see you there! 

A Booktiful Life

•Wattpad•

Hey guys! 

This is just a quick post. I wanted to tell you all book lovers about wattpad and that I made an account in which I will post some of my stories. 

So, wattpad is a kind of social media where people share their stories. In fact, a lot of good authors started off just having a wattpad account and then their stories became famous and then were published as books. 

I think wattpad gives all kind of writers, young or not, a great opportunity to share their stories, poems, whatever, with the public. 

I specially use wattpad to read to things. Werewolf books, because I'm finding it hard to find good werewolf stories at the moments at bookshops; and FanFiction! Which is a huge thing on wattpad. There all sort of FanFiction and pretty much about every book. All of the fanfiction I've read has been amazing. 

So, if you are going to get wattpad or already have it, don't forget to add me: abooktifullife. I haven't posted anything yet. But I'm currently writting two stories which will be up soon. Unfortunately, they are NOT fanfic because I just can't write it; even though I've tried a thousand times; one story is about werewolves, of course, because I'm obsessed with them and the other one is about a girl who's dreams change her real life. 

If you have written a story and you want to share it, don't hesitate to get wattpad and post them, or send them to me by email and I'll post them on my account, of course, you get the credit:) 

Enjoy reading:)