The Beauty & The Beast Book Tag

Thank you Lara for tagging me to do this! I haven't yet seen the new Beauty and the Beast movie, but I can still talk about books. :)

BE OUR GUEST: 5 characters you'd invite to your dream dinner party

I keep trying to think of what my dream dinner party would even look like, but then I keep just thinking of what would be the most entertaining dinner party. So the characters that would make the most interesting dinner party... I feel like Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle would liven up any dinner party. Then add Taylor Markham and Jonah Griggs (from Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta), and Tara and Tom from The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta and... oh man. Hilarity. (Someone please write me the fic.)

BELLE: A character whose dreams of adventure inspire you

I'm not sure if she really dreams of adventure, but Aminata from The Book of Negroes has always inspired me with her determination and resilience throughout her journey.

THE BEAST/PRINCE: A character who went through an unexpected transformation

Hmm maybe Bianca and her friends at the end of The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. It was unexpected because I expected them to go the typical way of dumping-mean-girl-friends at the end but it unexpectedly did not happen that way, very much for the better. :) 

THE ENCHANTED ROSE: A book with a terrible curse at the heart of the story

I think it's called Impossible by Nancy Werlin, a book based on all the verses of Scarborough Fair (and the later verses are... weird to say the least). It's so, so weird but when I first read it, it was absolutely fascinating and the execution was great. It's actually the start of a series, but I still think the first book is the best.

TALE AS OLD AS TIME: A classic romance story that you love

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins is definitely a classic by now. Actually just any Stephanie Perkins. Also, I love Jenny Han's Lara Jean series so much, and the new book is out this week!! So excited!! 

THE DANCE: Your favourite romantic scene from any book

Melina Marchetta writes some pretty romantic scenes. But I think my favourite is probably That Scene in King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. If you've read King of Attolia and haven't reread That Scene a bajillion times, you're lying. I melt every time. (Also, poor Costis ;) ).

THE LAST PETAL: A book character who managed to break a terrible curse

I honestly can't remember the details, but maybe Seraphina in Shadowscale by Rachel Hartman? At least, she comes to an acceptance of her "curse", which amounts to breaking it, right? Wow I need to reread those books. Such good fantasy.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Your bookish OTP

One of the couples in the Queen's Thief I think (can't say who because if you haven't read them it's kind of a spoiler?) Their relationship seems really weird at first glance, but is actually really unique and amazingly supportive and very romantic.

Oh, now the part of the tag that I'm terrible at - tagging other people. Let's say Lisa, Madison, Morgan, Ashtyn, Stephen and anyone else who wants to do the tag of course!

What characters do you think would make the most hilarious dinner party if you put them all together? ;)

What's Up Wednesday (Actually On A Wednesday)

I'm going to actually officially participate in a What's Up Wednesday today! (Even if it's kind of late. Whatever.) I'll even do the official thing: What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk to help writers stay in touch.

What I'm Reading:

I'm currently reading stuff for my A to Z Book Review Challenge, mostly completely out of order because half of them weren't available from the library yet. I just finished Corked by Kathryn Borel, which was awesome (full review to come). Now I'm starting on Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi although I might end up reading a different one first depending on which books I have to return to the library first.

What I'm Writing:

I am failing at working on my book about a world of invisible people. I'm at least thinking about it again, which is more than I can say I was doing a few months ago. I've gotten to the middle of my outline, but after that I just... can't think of where I want the story to end up. It's a lot easier for me to write when I have an ending in mind, and right now I just can't think of one that doesn't make me sigh with frustration at how incompetent my storytelling abilities are.

I also started something new (which of course is what happens when you're struggling with an MS). It is a contemp road trip/travel story, drawing largely on my experiences from when I lived in the Philippines last year. I know it will be terrible because I'm terrible at writing contemp (despite it being one of my favourite genres to read), but it sure is fun.

What Inspires Me Right Now:

Music! Through the internet I've discovered a whole bunch of random indie music that I really like. I love the band Typhoon, especially the song The Sickness Unto Death, which not only sounds beautiful but has awesome lyrics. I am also weirdly into Andrew Huang's rap music (I am not really a rap person). My favourites are For Love and Ash. Such good lyrics. (Also, the music videos are beautiful. Watch them.)

For something lighter, I love this song called "Waterproof" which is a song by one of the high school students who went to the school I worked at last year. It is about the "waterproof" Filipino spirit during Typhoon Haiyan a few months ago. If you buy it (which you can do here), all the proceeds go to typhoon relief! It is such a cute, uplifting song. You should at least listen to it, even if you don't buy it.

What Else I've Been Up To:

Freaking out that school is going to be over in like, two months, and freaking out over what I'm going to do this summer.

I'm also planning further reading "challenges" for myself after I finish A to Z. I think I am going to dub May "Marchetta Month", and reread all Melina Marchetta's books while basking in their awesomeness. I also want to reread some books I read as a kid and see if they're still as good as I thought then, and I also want to do some sort of diverse reading challenge. I want to either read a truckload of books with non-white narrators, or read a truckload of books by non-Western authors. Or both. We shall see!

What about you?

A Short List of Endlessly Fascinating Characters

Everyone is always pushing for complexity in characters. ("Everyone" being writer/publishing people I see online). Complex characters are good characters. They are good characters because characters should be complex, just like humans.

Sometimes the complexity of certain characters takes a hold of my brain and just won't let go. I cannot stop thinking about the character and their intricacies. I have to analyze everything about them. They are so very real and human to me. They are endlessly fascinating.

These are some characters that I've found (and still find) endlessly fascinating:

1. Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

I find it absolutely fascinating about how Malfoy is not just this great big bully enemy with a capital E. I mean, Harry and co obviously see him that way (especially Harry) but it's easy to see past that. It's easy to see how he's in a very similar position to Harry, but how he's failing. The scene in Half Blood Prince where Draco is crying over the sink gets me every time. He's just a boy with goals and fears and everything just like Harry. See this gifset as well.

2. Massie from the Clique series by Lisi Harrison

Yes I read all the Clique books obsessively; they were/are my guilty pleasure books but CHARACTERS. One of the things I appreciated about the Clique books (and probably the reason I was into them for so long) was how Lisi Harrison really digs into the characters. Massie is the most popular girl and leader of her group of best friends. She's responsible for holding it all together and basically being perfect, or her face goes down the drain. The chapters from her POV were always fascinating - seeing how hard she works to keep up appearances and keep everything together, even when things are falling apart. She does anything to get her way, and sometimes she does give up hope and just wants a friend. Those are her best moments, but even still she insists on returning to keeping up appearances. From anyone on the outside, it's really, really hard to empathize with Massie. For anyone on the inside (the reader), it's almost impossible not to.

3. Dustfinger from Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Dustfinger sort of just gets caught up in all this stuff with Mo being able to read things into existence completely by accident. I love love how he is not really a bad guy, but not really a good guy either. He has his own interests at heart, and will do anything to do what's best for himself. But he still ends up feeling for other's causes anyway until... well, spoilers. Dustfinger is one of my favourite characters ever and he definitely deserves his own book.

4. Quintana from Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta

By Simini Blocker!

Quintana is one of the most fascinating characters of all, because she's absolutely horrible. She does not deserve love or acceptance from anyone, and deservedly doesn't get it. She's kind of crazy and you never really understand her. The fact that you never really understand her is part of the fascination of her character. She comes from places that are really hard to understand. By the end of Quintana of Charyn I only began to understand her character. There is so much to her, so much complexity and hurt and... gahh. She's absolutely brilliant.

Which characters fascinate YOU to no end? I'd love to know.

What's Up WORLD

I have been absent from the blog since... well, it's been a few months (oops). But a lot has happened since April so I thought I would update you. Actually I just saw a few "What's Up Wednesday" posts so I thought I'd do it in that sort of style, although it isn't Wednesday anymore.

WHAT'S UP WITH MY LIFE

100 Islands, Philippines. Yup, I went there. And...got sunburnt.

I'm home! If you didn't know, I spent this past year in the Philippines, doing a lot of cool stuff. But mostly doing stuff like working at an international school in the elementary library and being the main playground supervisor which means sweating BUCKETS everyday because the temperature rarely goes below 30 degrees Celsius. (Seriously, the one week of the year when it gets down to 26 C people start wearing toques!!) If you're interested I could talk a bit more about my experience there, but for now I'll stick with reading and writing unless you really really want to know. :) So, yeah I'm back in Canada and gearing up for starting university in the fall!

WHAT I'M READING

I just finished FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta and WHYYY did I not read it earlier?? I actually tried to read it a while ago because I absolutely ADORE Melina Marchetta, but I didn't feel like reading fantasy. Finally I sat down and buckled up to read it and I'm soo glad I did because Melina Marchetta did NOT disappoint. FINNIKIN is fantasy, but it has so much truth and beautiful story in it and AWESOME characters, which is my favourite thing about MM and the main reason I love her work. Give me a good character and I'm in love. PLEASE go read it because I want everyone to know how awesome Melina Marchetta is!!

WHAT I'M WRITING

Since I didn't have school work to worry about this year (a very weird thing for me...), I spent quite a bit of my free time writing. So only a couple of days ago I managed to finish my third draft of a book I've been working on for quite a while! Actually, pretty much exactly a year ago I said briefly that I'd finished my second draft. So... it takes me a year to write a draft. But anyway, I'm super pleased with this draft and I feel like I'm more on the right track now than I was with my disgusting first draft and messy second draft. I've now sent it out to a few readers but actually if you're interested I'm on the lookout for more critique partners. :) Here's a terrible one-sentence synopsis... 17-year-old Percy Collins used to be invisible, part of the world of invisible people called Unseens, until he was injected with the legendary antidote to invisibility and for the first time in history, it worked on him, thus making him a very valuable person in the Unseen world. (Trouble ensues). Yeah, I've got to work on that. But anyway, if  you want to read it email me at kazuntai101[at]gmail[dot]com. You can also contact me through twitter, @AlyssaSherlock!

MY GOALS

I feel slightly lost now that I've finished my draft, because my goal for so long has been to finish it! I think I'll take a break from any writing projects for a while, and then maybe try to work on writing a good summary. Which is kind of daunting, to say the least, but also necessary because right now when people ask me what my book is about I say "uh... people... who are... invisible..." (And I'm only trying to annoy them a little bit).

WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

Melina Marchetta! Reading Finnikin of the Rock inspired me to work on my book and finish it. It reminded me a lot of my book, just because my favourite part of the book I wrote is the relationships and the growth of my characters throughout. :)

I am also looking for some new music to listen to, so if you have any suggestions please let me know! I'm also wondering what your favourite YouTube artists/musicians are (because then I can just listen to all their songs on YouTube... haha).

Anyway, I've been away for a while. How are you? What are you up to? Have you posted lately on your blog? (I need to catch up on my blog reading...) Let me know!

The Struggles of Loving Books

OK, THIS is why I hate making a promise to blog every week. Because you get to these days where you know you don't have anything to say but nothing, and you have to post anyway.

I was going to write a book review, because those are faily straightforward but the only book I've read lately is Half the Sky - which is a good book, and I do recommend it, but non-fiction book reviews are something I'd rather stay away from (at least in public). Especially when the book is on a topic as complex as what Half the Sky was on (international development and women, in case you were wondering).

Then I thought I could talk about the latest thing I'm interested in (like I did when I talked about the Lizzie Bennet Diaries two weeks ago), but the only thing I could think of was that I watched Newsies on Saturday night with some friends and fell in love with it again. But really the most I can say about that is that it's awesome, and that every song and dance is absolutely amaziinggg.

Or I could talk about how today for some reason I was thinking of how I went to see The Hunger Games in theatres with my best friend a total of three times, which when you say out loud to people sounds really weird and then you kind of feel embarassed. Especially since you're working in a Christian school and a lot of people with a Christian background struggle with seeing past the violence in that book to see the big picture (lots of people have problems with this kind of not-seeing-the-big-picture thing, by the way, not just Christians).

But I love The Hunger Games anyway. However, because of all the different opinions and views and the popularity of THG, I find myself quite often wishing that I was the only one who knew about it and could love it in secrecy and peace, as opposed to having to feel like I have to defend my love for it all the time, or explain that I am not just reading them for the so-called love triangle that everyone else seems to be hooked on.

Books can go the other way, too. For example, I adore the book Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. So often I wish more people I knew had read this book and fallen in love with it. Unfortunately most people have different tastes, and there is almost nothing more heartbreaking than wanting someone to fall in love with a book so you can love it together, and have them come back just to have them shrug their shoulders at you.

Well. Obviously I have nothing to say today. ;)

So, what books have you fallen in love with that you want to share with the world? What popular books do you wish you could keep all to yourself?