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:) 

•the Mortal Intruments TVshow cast•

Hey guys!
So as you probably already know, the Mortal Intruments series is Turing into a TV show! Which is really exciting. I believe the exact date when the first episode is going to came out hasn't been announced, but what we co know is the CAST! Whohooooo, so that is what this post is going to be about.

1. Clary Fray is going to be played by.... Katherine McNamara

2. Jace Wayland will be played by... Dominic Sherwood

3. Simon Lewis is going to be played by... Alberto Rosende

4. Isabel Lightwood will be played by... Emerque Toubia

5. Alec Lightwood is going to be played by... Matthew Daddario

6. Magnus Bane will be played by... Harry Shum Jr.

7. Jocelyn Fray is going to be played by... Maxim Roy

8. Luke Garroway will be played by... Isaiah Mustafa

9. Valentine Morgestern is going to be played by... Alan Van Sprang

10. Hodge will be played by... Jon Cor

This is part of the old cast and Cassandra Clare:

At the moment, I like the old cast better, but I don't want to say too much about which one is better because I haven't seen the new one in action, acting or anything like that. But I'm sure they are going to be great. I'm really excited about the TV show, I really can't wait until it comes out! 

Here's is one more picture of part of the old cast with the new one (the people on the left are from the old cast and the people one the right are from the new one) 

I hope this was helpful for some of you readers. And if you haven't read the books yet, you should defenitely pick up at least City of Bones (the first book of the series) 

Which cast do you like better? Coment it below. 

~Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard book summary~

Hey guys! 

As I promised on my last post, here is a review of one of the most amazing books that has ever been written, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. 

Characters:

Mare Barrow- main character

Kilorn- Mare's best friend

Gisa (Gee)- Mare's sister

Shade, Bree, and Tramy- Mare's older brothers

Cal- the king's son, general over the Silver army located at the castle

Elara-u wife/queen

Maven- Elara's son

Lucas- assigned as Mare's guard

Julian- one of Mare's trainers and the former queen's brother

Arven- one of Mare's trainers

Evangeline- Cal's betrothed

Summary:

     Reds and Silvers.  The Reds are treated as slaves since they do not have the abilities the Silvers have. Silvers all have some sort of superhuman power: there are telkies (use telekinesis), nymphs (control water), strongarms (superhuman strength), swifts (amazingly fast), greenys (can bend nature to their will), etc.

    Mare and her family are Reds and live in one of the villages called the Stilts.  A few Reds are able to become apprentices for jobs that the Silvers see fit for them.  Mare's sister Gisa has been apprenticed as a silk maker for example, and her friend Kilorn is apprenticed as a fisherman.  For those who are not suitable to the tasks, they are sent to the war in a process called conscription after they turn 18. It is the Silver's war between each other battling for lands, but very few Silvers fight and instead the Reds are sent to the frontlines to die.

     When Kilorn's master (this is what they call the teachers who are training the apprentices for their specific career) dies in an accident, Kilorn informs Mare that he will be sent for conscription, and although she is scheduled to go as well, she feels the need to protect Kilorn.

    Mare is a master thief and decides to visit her friend Will who runs the local black market to get him to try to help smuggle Kilorn out of the city and go into hiding.  There Will introduces her to Farley, the head of the Scarlet Guard (rebels that are trying to start a war against the Silvers to demand equality), and Farley says she will help smuggle Kilorn in exchange for a huge payment.           Mare knows the only way she can come up with that much money at once is to steal from the Silvers and asks for Gisa's help.  When Mare can't find an opening to steal, Gisa tries to do it for her but is caught and her hand is crushed, meaning she will not be able to apprentice sewing anymore.

     Distraught but refusing to give up, Mare goes to the local tavern to pickpocket people there and is caught by a boy named Cal when she tries to steal from him.  He begins talking to her asking her why she's stealing and something about him and the stressful day she has had makes her break down and tell him about everything that's happened.  He walks her home and gives her the money he has on him.

     The next day a guard knocks on the Barrow's door and says that Mare is to come with them.  She is taken to the king's castle and put to work as a servant there.  She finds out it was Cal's doing to help her escape conscription when she sees that he is actually the son of the king.

     Mare learns an event called Queenstrial is going on, which is the event the Silvers have where the young girls compete with their abilities to earn the right to marry the prince.  The queen has a son named Maven (Cal's half brother due to the fact that Cal's mother, the former queen, is dead), so there will actually be two marriages.

     Mare is serving at the Queenstrial when she falls off the balcony of the arena where the contestants are showing their skills and lands on the electrical shield which is blocking the Silver's in the stands from the abilities being used below.

    Mare expects to die, but instead absorbs the electricity into her body and falls unharmed.  The Silver girl currently in the arena (Evangeline, the girl who ends up being pledged to marry Cal) uses her magnetic ability to try to kill Mare but Mare throws her hands up and ends up shooting lightning from her fingertips.  She knows she is about to be killed so she runs but is captured.

     The Silvers are in a frenzy knowing that a Red has the same powers they do, so in order to mask it, the king tells Mare that she will wed Maven, and her backstory is that she always believed she was Red, having been raised by Reds, but it turns out that she is one of the fallen Silver general's daughters.

     His angle is that he thinks she will be able to bridge the gap between the Reds and the Silvers and make speeches to help stop the war the Scarlet Guard has started, by showing that Silvers are kind to Reds, knowing she has been raised as one.

     Mare begins training with the other Silvers to control her powers, including Maven and Cal, and ends up growing close to them both.  Cal shows her how to sneak out of the castle to see her family one last time since she never got to say goodbye before she was taken. She tells them the whole story and they are understanding, but Kilorn vows to join the Scarlet Guard and stop what Mare is being forced into.  Mare learns at this time that Shade has been killed in the war and she joins the Scarlet Guard herself along with Maven, who wants change also.

     They help Farley plan an attack on a few of the Silvers who have hands in the war during a ball that is planned.  The key targets are killed but a bomb also explodes killing many others.  Farley and Kilorn are captured and are tortured to try to get information out of them.  Maven and Mare must stand aside and act like they know nothing, but Mare enlists Julian's help since he can control minds and they use this against the guards to help the prisoners escape without anyone being the wiser.

    Before Julian runs, knowing Elara will find out he helped due to the abilities used, he tells Mare that she is neither Red nor Silver but stronger than both, and he has been researching her DNA and came up with many others just like her, Shade having been one of them.  Mare realizes this is why he had been killed in the war.

    Before Mare will help them escape she asks Farley about the bomb as it was only supposed to be a few targets, and after Farley swears she doesn't know about any bomb, Mare finds out it wasn't a bomb at all but a gas leak that ignited while Cal was using his fire powers to try to capture the prisoners.

    After the Scarlet Guard attack which now has the Silvers on edge, Farley manages to meet back up with Mare and Maven and they take the Undertrain (which I picture as a subway) to the irradiated part of the country.  It turns out it isn't plagued by radiation at all and this is where the Scarlet Guard along with any Reds seeking refuge have built a city.  They have tech that makes the place still seem like it has radiation to the Silver's radiation detection machines.

       At their meeting with Farley, Mare gives her the names Julian had written down and tells her they could build an army that could win the war, but Farley says they do not have enough time for that, since the Silver's are retaliating harshly after the attack by imposing curfews, killing any Reds who step out of line at all, and offering freedom from conscription for information leading to the arrest of the Scarlet Guard. She says there are a lot of Reds who will help, but even more who would turn them in to save their sons and daughters from conscription.

     Maven says that they could hit the Silver's at their heart by sneaking into the castle and forcing the king to surrender, since he is the heart of the war anyways.  If he falls, the war ends.  Farley and Mare state that there's no way they would get past all the guards, but Maven knows Cal is in love with Mare (as he is also), and says that if it were between Cal's crown or saving Mare (knowing that if the plan fails she'll be seen as a rebel and be executed), Cal would always choose Mare and convince his army to step away and not attack the Guard.

     They all sneak up through the tunnels under the city and blow up the bridge leading to the castle.  When the Silver guards run in, Cal included, Mare tells him that he should choose to make a new world, a better world, and choose her.

     She is acting like she loves him, and although a part of her despises him for the way he believes the war needs to continue in order to avoid the fall of both races (and he's sure the Silvers are in the right), there is a part that also remembers how kind he's been to her and the way he's shown her he loves her, and she realizes her words are not totally false.

     The plan goes awry when he does not listen to her though and instead puts two and two together, realizing she is with the Guard and is partly responsible for all the deaths at the ball and the other attacks on the Silvers.

     Maven, the Guard, and Mare run to escape but are captured and taken before the king.  Elara wants to save her son, so she uses her mind control powers to disable the king and Cal.  Mare has hope that they will be saved even though Elara has always treated her like trash.

     Elara forces Cal to kill the king, his father, as Mare and Maven watch.  When Mare looks over at Maven, she sees that he is smiling and realizes this was his and his mother's plan the whole time and he has used her and the Guard from the beginning.  Now he will be king since Cal will be seen as a king killer and executed, and Elara will still serve by his side, while Cal and Mare will be executed for treason.  We learn that Maven made Julian has already been killed since they knew too much.

   The arena for Silvers who have commited treason is called the Circle of Bones, and Maven tells Cal and Mare this is where they will meet their end.

     When they arrive, Lucas is there and is executed in front of them before they are sent into the arena to fight barehanded against some of the best recruits with Arven watching.  He is their former battle trainer who apparently is in cahoots with Elara.  He can diminish recruits abilities and he does this to Mare so that she can't use her electricity against the foes, including Evangeline with her magnetic abilities and her brother Ptolemus.  They evade the warriors as long as they can, with Cal telling Mare to stay behind him and he'll try to protect her.

     Mare tricks one of the fighters into throwing a spear at her while she's in front of Arven and she steps out of the way at the last second, causing Arven to be killed by the spear.  Her abilities return and she begins fighting with Cal.  In the meantime, Maven has had the arena spectators evacuated "for their safety", but really because he is still trying to cover up the fact that Mare is Red but has abilities.

   After defeating all the warriors (Evangeline ran when she saw they were losing), Maven sends in the guards to kill them, but a storm has been brewing and Mare uses her ability to control the lightning and destroy the arena to try to buy them time to escape.  Maven tells the guards to shoot them and Mare knows it's over, but when she hears gunfire she realizes it's coming from the chasm in the arena that held the water for the nymph warrior to fight them with and she sees the guards fall.  Hands grab her and Cal and pull them into the chasm and the water below.

    Mare wakes on an Undertrain headed for the Scarlet Guard's city to find that Shade is alive and on the train with them.  He reveals that he has a teleportation ability and that's why the Silvers have not been able to kill him even though they've tried.  He tells her that their parents and brothers are waiting for them at the Scarlet Guard city. Cal is tied up and although Mare tries to convince Farley to let him go, stating that he saved her life in the Circle of Bones, Farley says she won't ever trust another Silver.  Mare and Cal exchange looks and Mare realizes that although he could burn the chains on his wrists at any time and escape he chooses not to, and Mare knows it's because they BOTH have unfinished business with Maven and want to find the others like Mare to take him down.

They say a picture can say a 1000 words, so here you have some pictures, read...

 If you're going to pick up a book, pick this one up. Join the Red Guard, and rise as red as dawn!

by ABooktifulLife 

summary by TheSpoilerAlerts