College Fashion Post Link Up: Eleanor and Park

Its always a fantastic moment when you realize that you're just making life hard for yourself, and there's a far easier method of conducting things than what you had originally anticipated. Case in point: after agonizing for a week over having to find time in my schedule to read a new book for an upcoming College Fashion post, but woefully unable to come across a title suitably interesting, well-known or relevant, I was mindlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed and came across a message about Rainbow Rowell's recent movie deal, where her standalone romance Eleanor and Park was acquired by Dreamworks. And thus, Eureka! I no longer had to expend quite so much effort, having read this book before. (Go Team Me.) In the end, I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, being that I essentially wrote the whole thing in one day while also suffering from some emotional upheaval and also being tasked with creating a vital asset to our sorority's Recruitment in the same weekend. If anything, this sweet story of love, and what it takes to fight for it, probably injected some much-needed hope into my schedule. At the very least, it gave me some pretty kick-ass musical accompaniment inspiration. 

So, check out my College Fashion post dealing with looks inspired by one of YA's newest darlings - and the darling romance that she created - right now! (Or, you know, check out the looks inspired by her other YA standalone, Fangirl!) Just to entice you further, how about a sneak peek of my favorite outfit from the article, styled around the concept of making the '80s fresh again, and based off of the 1986 time stamp on the narrative of Eleanor and Park: 

Check out the rest of the E&P looks and the article here!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature created by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that gives bloggers the opportunity to highlight upcoming releases about which they are extremely excited. 

This week, I'm favoring a bit of fantasy and fairy tales in my life - mainly because I spent an hour or so just this morning finishing up the last installment of Kiera Cass' The Selection series, The One, but MORE ON THAT LATER - so when I saw that Holly Black had a new fantasy set to debut early in 2015, you could say that I got a little bit irrationally excited. Set for publication on January 13th, 2015, is Holly Black's The Darkest Part of the Forest. 

In a world where monsters run rampant and fairies live alongside humans in semi-harmony, Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the town of Fairfold. Primarily a tourist attraction full of harmless magic, Hazel knows how deadly the fairies could really be, and knows how to stop them... at least, she has before. 

Meanwhile, in the heart of the woods, a boy lies in a glass coffin, with horns on his head, and ears as pointed as knives. Ben and Hazel were both in love with him, at one point. 

Having slept through generations, one day, he awakens. 

And suddenly, nothing will ever be the same. All of those years Hazel has pretended to be a knight, are all she really has to defend herself now, but with the whirlwind of new love, old loyalties, and the pain of betrayal, those years seem to be lost in the shuffle. 

Why am I excited? 

Oh, come ON, what do you mean, I have to wait until the new year? Holly Black is a master at this kind of thing, and I cannot wait that long to get my hands on it. From co-writing The Spiderwick Chronicles with Tony DiTerlizzi, to the Modern Faerie Tales series, to even last year's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black knows how to please her audience with creepy, twisty humor, and this time, we're heading straight back into fairy tale territory. 

Besides, holy moly, is that cover five million kinds of gorgeous. I need it.... NEED it. Give it too me now! 

What are you waiting on this Wednesday? 

Stacking the Shelves: I'm Halfway Gone

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly Saturday book meme from Tynga's Reviews, all about sharing the books you've added to your shelves over the course of the week.

Quelle surprise, it's Week 5, I'm a little bit over a month out from summer, sunshine, and relative freedom, and I'm stressed out of my mind. Not only is it the ever-increasing workload and my ever-diminishing motivation to do any of it, but also the sunshine, the promise of better work that I can work out for myself, the buzz around our sorority of the approaching Recruitment season, and the excitement of The Cheerleader's senior year of high school and all it's accompanying excitement. 

So, naturally, instead of doing absolutely anything I was supposed to do on Thursday - I may or may not have taken the unnatural 85 degree Seattle weather to skip my classes and lay out on the lawn all day, oops! -  I decided to purchase a couple of books instead. (Don't worry, Dad, they were all about $1.99 each, so no major wallet burn here!) 

Xenophobia, Peter Cawdron

 The Shoemaker's Wife, Adriana Trigiani

           

The Perfume Collector: A Novel, Kathleen                                               Tessaro

                 The Orchardist, Amanda Caplin

                           Serena, Ron Rash

       All the Summer Girls: A Novel, Meg Donohue

                 Vintage: A Novel, Susan Gloss 

Coming Attractions: May

{April showers bring May flowers, in this adorable desktop wallpaper from Craftberry Bush!} 

Well, if March was a month of hard work, April was really a month of re-acclimation to not having quite so much hard work, but working hard nonetheless, you know? What I mean is, instead of having quite so many side projects requiring my attention, I had to shift the focus back to schoolwork, which is now quickly threatening to kick my butt, as well as everything else going on in this beautifully busy Spring. 

May is everything I've been waiting for. The school year is drawing to a close, some big projects that have been in the works for a while are entering their final stages, and Seattle's finally getting to see some sunshine around here! Not to mention my darling sister, The Cheerleader, is finally graduating high school in about a month, and not only is she celebrating that specific milestone of her life, but she's also starting to take the time thinking about her future... more specifically, her future here, with me, at UW! May is a time for looking forward, to summer, to fun, to not being tethered to my planner all the time with so much going on.

APRIL HIGHLIGHTS

{scheduling some much-needed coffee dates with my wonderful Little; the first backyard fire pit of the season, with many more roasted marshmallows to come; beautiful weather taking over the Emerald City, in the view from my window} 

• My most popular post this month: Top Ten Tuesday: Books for Fans of Once Upon a Time (even though it was only published yesterday!) 
• My College Fashion posts from this month: The 100 and Weetzie Bat. 
• My favorite post I wrote this month: The Origin Difference: What Formats Do You Favor? 
• Books I've read this month: Despite not having posted any reviews this month, I actually managed to read six books, three of which were for school, and two of which were for College Fashion: 
• Kass Morgan's The 100
• Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina
• Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat
• Carla Trujillo's What Night Brings
• Marissa Meyer's Scarlet
• Ford Maxford Ford's The Good Soldier

these are a few of my favorite links...

1. Author Alexandra Duncan tackles censorship and slut-shaming after her book Salvage was shelved onto a "Slut" shelf on Goodreads, by launching a giveaway to spread the word on some of her favorite "sluts" from books, an endeavor in which she has been joined by fellow YA women Beth Revis, Megan Shepard, Sharon Biggs Waller, Jessa Hollbrook and Trish Doller. Write on, ladies! 

2. When I saw all the hype leading up to the release of Dorothy Must Die, I thought I smelled a rat... and that rat turned out to be James Frey! Why everyone should be boycotting Full Fathom Five. 

3. Buzzfeed is a wondeful site for time wasters, but instead of spending a couple minutes on their random quizzes or ridiculous videos, why not tackle 36 Life Changing Poems Everyone Should Read, instead? 

4. However, I can't deny that the levity of Buzzfeed's lists don't appeal to me, too: here's a list of the 26 Types of English Majors you'll meet in your department. 

5. And, if you are, like me, recovering from a several bout of mental drought - ie, the unforgiving, merciless Writer's Block that came to Seattle alongside all this beautiful weather - try getting a little inspiration from this incredibly well-done video about Writer's Block, by British YouTuber KickthePj. 

quote of the month

Top Ten Tuesday: Books For Fans of ABC's Once Upon a Time

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly countdown meme, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish!

This week's Top Ten Tuesday subject matter got me what might be classified as "irrationally" excited, due to the inordinate amount of culture I consume outside of my regular book habit, and how excited I was to attach that singular hobby to absolutely everything else. How was I suppose to stick on one TV show, one song or band, one musical, one whatever, for a booklist? I actually ended up just brainstorming a list of potential sources of inspiration, and then baby book lists off of each of those. 

While I was conducting this time-consuming exercise - as a means of procrastinating writing an essay, due Wednesday in English, of course! - I remembered that I had missed this past week's episode of Once Upon a Time... and immediately put aside everything to watch. I swear, it took me an additional ten minutes of the episode to finally hit upon the fact that I was watching my real inspiration. 

FAIRY TALE FAN

Fantasies from worlds even more magical than the Enchanted Forest

1. Throne of Glass, S.J. Maas

OUaT has no shortage of kick ass heroines working against massively dangerous magical foes, and they would definitely find themselves in good company with YA's current fantasy assassin-in-residence Celaena. 

2. Poison, Bridget Zinn

Ditto to Kyra, a kick-butt potions master with a flair for flying darts and with a magical pig as an accomplice. Snow would LOVE her.

3. Stardust, Neil Gaiman

A far out fantasy with elements that reference fairy tale standbys with passing glances, and integrate every baddy in the book, Stardust crafts a world just as amazing as the Enchanted Forest.

4. The Princes Bride, William Goldman

Cuttingly ironic and hilariously sarcastic, the sense of humor permeating this modern classic's tale of a Farm-Boy-turned-Dread-Pirate and the Princess Bride he loves fits right in with the wise-talking residents of Storybrooke.

MAKE IT MODERN

Classic tales get a makeover for the modern world

5. Catherine and Jane, April Lindner

Updated, modern takes of the classic Bronte sister's opuses Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre (respectively), these YA novels effectively transport the drama of fiction into heady and rocker-filled modern eras. 

6. Sisters Grimm series, Michael Buckley

You're never going to believe this: a Middle Grade series about the daughters of fairy tale royalty (the Grimm Bros, in this case), living in an East Coast town, complete with magical border, populated by some of fantasy's favorites, including resident royalty, like the amoral Mayor Charming, assisted by people like a kindly granny and the Big Bad Wolf, and antagonized by a wisecracking boy who never grew up (in this case, it's Puck, from Shakespeare, not Peter Pan). Best part: it was a national bestseller before OUaT ever premiered.

7. Beastly, Towering, A Kiss in Time, by Alex Flinn

Flinn's YA works are well recognized for their transposition of classic fairy tale characters and tropes into the modern teen Universe. 

RIGHT OFF THE PAGE

Where fiction meets fantasy, as two worlds collide

8. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

A science fiction future-past (alternative history is just so much fun!) meets up with the page-hopping Edward Rochester and his darling Jane; meanwhile, our intrepid heroine Thursday Next battles love, mystery, and basically everything else endangering her small hometown. 

9. The Percy Jackson series, Rick Riordan

The rousing and well-reviewed Middle Grade juggernaut has spawned two movies, detailing the exploits of a boy who finds out he's descended from the Greek Gods. I'm sure Emma would find the situation a little similar... and can't you see Henry loving this series?

10. The Unwritten series, Mike Carey and Peter Gross

A dark and explicit series of graphic novels following the experiences of Tommy Taylor, a grown man who finds that the Harry Potter-likebook series his father published with him as the protagonist, may be grounded more in fact than fiction.

And, just as an extra, in honor of this current season's big baddie... 

11. Wicked, Gregory Maguire

Because everyone likes an alternative take on an old tale... and while OUaT's Wicked Witch is a Total Bitch, it's nice to reminded that we always have Elphaba to turn to when we need a bit of a different perspective.

What's in YOUR Top Ten?

The Origin Difference: What Formats Do You Favor?

Yesterday, I complained to a friend about how I hadn't gone book shopping in a couple of weeks.

Unfazed, she reminded me that I had just purchased six books on Kindle the previous day (because she's helpful like that). After several protests from me, explaining how different those two concepts are, she asked me why I found physical books so much more appealing than ebooks. Not wanting to get into yet another discussion about the relative merits of e-readers, I expostulated on the many merits of all forms of books, not just tethered to the physical and technological realms.

As I was detailing the stolid beauty of an old secondhand hardback, or the transient love affairs of library books, it began to dawn on me how much I enjoy one type of book over another. Not just in purchase, but in reviewing, as well. Why do I have these kind of prejudices for and against stories based on not how they're told, but how they're sold? Why do I favor certain formats, in both consuming and reviewing? So, I set about making a list. Unranked, unrestrained, here's my reasoning behind my own format favor: 

SAVANNAH'S DEFINITIVE LIST OF FORMAT FAVOR

LIBRARY

Cost: Blissfully, gloriously free. Usually teen reads I don't feel seriously enough about to actually purchase, their non-impact on my bank account and marshmallow-type subject matter make for less necessity on my part to actually enjoy it, which results in either the kind of comfort and absence of pressure that makes reading the book a brain vacation, which I rate reasonably high, or, if its just not what I'm looking for, I don't feel any sort of qualms about DNFing. Therefore, grading is a little less tethered to cost, than me actually liking it. Support your local libraries! 

KINDLE

Cost: Usually less than $5 unless I'm really, really dedicated to the series, or if it's a new release. These are my popcorn reads, the babies I fly through at Superman speeds while on long car rides or waiting for class to begin. However, over time, my ebook needs have been changing: what began simply as a means of hiding the worst of my gushy YA habits, has become my crutch, in a means of easily procuring whatever reading materials I'm craving at that very second. Most of my Kindle books result in lesser rankings, due to their cheapness and the relative ease with which they are procured... which is sad, because I feel like this is how I buy about half of my current reading material. 

SOFTCOVER

Cost: Fairly average for the amount I'm willing to spend on a book, around $15, I think. They're not new releases - otherwise they'd be in hardcover - so there's less pressure to be thought highly of, but due to the fact that they're also usually something I've been looking forward to reading, due to aforementioned hardcover issues, I've built up my own expectations and fully succumbed to hype. Due to that fact, they're usually not as good as I've imagined them to be, but since I paid good money for them, and was basically predetermined to enjoy them, the scores usually even out in their favor. 

HARDCOVER

Cost: Hella expensive, usually around $20 or more. The most expensive of all my book purchases, I really try not to make this one a habit, but being that my mother feels no such qualms about discerning between various book formats, she routinely kills me by purchasing these new releases, and then handing them off to me when she's finished. With a sturdiness that lends it a certain demand to be thought highly of, hardcovers usually are enjoyed less, but rated more highly, by me, due to their sheer dominating strength and imposing nature. 

ADVANCED READING COPIES

Cost: Free as the birds in the sky, but virtually priceless to the procurer. ARCs aren't just free, they're untested, unproved, books with no past and only a glimmering future that you can help decide. Especially in the book blogger community, ARCs are a status symbol, our nerd version of street cred, and something one can never have enough of. ARCs are the best, and since there's usually not any conflicting reviews out while you're reading, you really are free to make confident claims about how you actually think the book is. Usually with a better score, because holding them makes me feel good. #notashamed. 

SECONDHAND

Cost: Usually around or under $5. Aw, my darling secondhand babies. Inexpensive, but almost like a different kind of book-buying altogether, with alternative stories pressed in between the pages of the old ones... there's nothing like finding the goldmine of handwritten notes or the pearl of another's bookmark, pressed flower, or newspaper clipping. Besides, you just can't beat that smell. Usually best loved and best looked after, secondhand books make me feel like I'm adopting, giving a book a second chance at life. Rated highly for the benefit of history. 

So, how about you? Do you favor specific formats?

Stacking the Shelves: It's Only Week Four

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly Saturday book meme from Tynga's Reviews, all about sharing the books you've added to your shelves over the course of the week.

It should come as no such surprise that I have, yet again, fallen into the gaping pit of indecisions, fear, and anxiety that comes customary to the college experience... and it's only Week Four. Due to the impending tidal wave of projects waiting to ambush me at any moment in virtually all of my classes, and time dedicated to things like my sorority, Daffodil, and the fact that my sister, The Cheerleader, is not only in the Spring of her senior year, but that I'm attempting to desperately woo her to Sigma Kappa as much as possible, I'm swamped with various projects that all demand my attention. 

Needless to say, a particular brand of retail therapy was much in order. While I would rather spend my time and money purchasing paperback, there were a couple of deals on Kindle this week that were just too good to pass up, especially due to the fact that leaving the house would entail putting on what my roommates and I have nicknamed "real-people pants," and that just doesn't sound like a good deal for me right now. 

The Spectacular Now, Tim Tharp

A novel recently adapted for the major cinema crowd with Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller at the helm, The Spectacular Now is a contemporary with a warm and comedic teen romance that carries all the weight that naive youth and its first brushes with reality entails. 

If I Stay, Gayle Forman 

Yet another teen-romance-with-heft with ties to the silver screen - the movie adaptation is set to premiere August 22nd, starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Jamie Blackley - this book follows a young girl's decisions, fluttering between life and death, basically posing the question in the title of the novel itself. (Recommended by one of my best dude friends, so I feel like that bears witness.) 

Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta

Damn, I'm killing it on the teen dramas today, and I'm only just now starting to recognize it. I'm not even going to bother glossing over the plot, because not only is it emotionally complex and unable to be summarized in just a sentence, but its popularity as a novel ensures that others would be much better at explaining it than I. 

So, there's my haul. What're you stacking your shelves with this week?