Emotional Books

If you’ve ever read any of my reviews, you know it is no secret that I am an emotional reader. At one point, I believe I reference the pieces of my broken heart being thrown in a fire. So maybe I’m just as dramatic as I am emotional. Something I’ve realized, though, is that I don’t actually cry while reading a lot. I’ve teared up a lot, but only once or twice have I full on cried. The issue is, I get all these emotions pent up inside me, and I wish I could cry to get them out, but I just can’t.

These are the fifteen books that, up to this point, have most emotionally effected me the most. Note: These all contain at least mild spoilers in saying they’re sad. Proceed with caution. Further spoilers will be marked accordingly

15. Looking for Alaska by John Green

I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t a huge fan of this book, and I knew what happened. Still when the big “it” happened, I did get teary, just barely.

14. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

This is one that kind of crept up on me. The way it’s told, you don’t realize how much you’ve come to care for these characters until bad things happen to them. More than sad, though, I was absolutely horrified and emotionally traumatized from one scene (if you’ve read it, you know which one). That is one of my great fears in life, and it was just so terrifying and violent… I just don’t like thinking about it. Being alone in a parked car when I read it was not helpful in any way either. The end was pretty gut wrenching.

13. If I Stay by Gayle Foreman

The first time I picked up this book, I couldn’t even get 50 pages in. I made the dumb decision to make this the first book I read after I lost my grandparents to a car accident. Smart on my part. By the time I got around to finishing it, almost two years later, a friend had told me what happened, so it didn’t effect me quite as much, but it was still pretty tough.

12. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

I just finished this one yesterday, and I’m still reeling. There are so many unexpected things, and I honestly wish I could’ve cried. I felt like curling into a ball under a blanket and not coming out. Having never been in a relationship, I can only assume this is what a breakup is like. I might as well have been through the kind-of-sort-of breakup that happened in this book myself.

11. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When I was making this list, I was surprised when this ended up so far down, but here’s the thing: the whole reason I picked up this book was because I saw a video that said the end had the person in hysterics. Naturally, I went and bought it two days later. I was prepared, but it was still not okay in any way imaginable. Especially not book two. Another one where your love for the characters creeps up on you. Writing this has just torn open that wound….

10. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

The Grisha Trilogy is one that’s still up and coming, so GO READ IT. Please. I need someone to understand. This book (book three) certainly made me teary, but more than that, I had this profound moment where I realized, as attached as I get to books and as emotional as I get, I have never really looked at just how bad things get in these books. Maybe that’s what keeps me from full on sob fests. So while reading this book, I had to stop at one point and take a step back to look at everything that had happened. I came very, very, close to crying out of sheer horror. The sad teariness came later, but that’s a massive spoiler.

9. Allegiant by Veronica Roth

I know this one is usually pretty high up on everyone’s tear jerker list, but here’s the thing: I saw it coming. I mean *Spoiler Alert* authors don’t just randomly start switching point of view in the last book unless some bad stuff is going to happen. That didn’t stop the complete wish-I-could-cry emptiness that still haunts me to this day.

8. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

From the middle on, it was a downhill emotional roller coaster. I read it in one day. One day. It was quite an emotional day.

7. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

I think the worst part of this one was the anticipation. I mean, Cassie Clare had been saying on her tumblr that 4-6 named characters were going to die. Given her history of heartbreak, I was braced for 700 or so pages of death and destruction. Well, more or less, that was what we got, but it wasn’t quite as bad as what I was prepared for. The end really hurt though. So, so much…

6. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I absolutely adore this book. Details aren’t spared in the least, and it made me feel so many things: Horror, fear, sadness, hope, desolation, gratefulness, anger… It is a truly incredible book, and I think everyone should read it at some point in their lives. It’s definitely not one for the faint of heart, though.

5. Champion by Marie Lu

This whole series drove the emotional romantic in me insane. What did not help this book was the timing of it’s release. Two weeks after Allegiant… The wounds were not yet healed from that one, and then *Mild Spoiler Alert* Something kind of similar starts to happen, and I was literally screaming at the book “You can’t do this to me!” Again, it was a wish-I-could-cry book, but the end made things somewhat okay. Emphasis on the somewhat.

4. Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Look, if you’ve read this book, you know why this is so close to the top. I’m not even going to explain except to say I was in a cafeteria surrounded by my friends carrying on conversations and I was quietly muttering “No… no…” up to the last page. After slamming my paperback shut the best I could, I proceeded to rant angrily to my friends. Then came the agonizing wait of 4 days for Beautiful Redemption. Those were the longest four days of my life.

3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Read it in one day while I was home sick with the flu. Two major sources of snot, limited supply of tissues. Need I say more?

2. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I was holding it together until I was reading the part about Katniss yelling at Buttercup and my cat decided to paw at my arm and meow at me. Suffice it to say I lost it.

1. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

If you haven’t read this book, I beg you not to. It’s about dogs. What happens to every dog in every book or movie ever? You get the gist. I read this in fourth grade… I had read the part where the kid gets an axe in the stomach, and I started having sleeping problems after that. One of my friends told me the end, so I was prepared, but big-hearted fourth grade me… It was ugly. I was in the middle of class, and my teacher, who was not the kindest woman on earth, just walked by my desk, saw what I was reading, and put a box of tissues on my desk. I cried the whole day over that stupid book. Now it just makes me angry whenever I think about it.

Quotes and Crafts

The other day, I got a brilliant idea for an art project. I thought, I’m going to pick out my favorite quotes from my favorite books, paint them on pieces of wood, and make a collage-ish thing on my wall. In my thrilled and excited state, I stayed up all night searching through pages upon pages of quotes from Harry Potter, The Grisha Trilogy, The Mortal Instruments, and a whole bunch of others, and copying down my favorites. Around thirteen pages of quotes later, it became apparent to me that this is going to be a monumental task, and one that I would probably have to build on as time progressed. I then got the brilliant idea to order the quotes from favorite to least favorite, so I could do my favorites from each series first, then second favorites, and so on and so forth.

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

Did the task get done? Yes, but if trying to pick a favorite book is like trying to pick a favorite child then trying to pick a favorite quote is like… trying to pick a favorite friend or something. Possible, yes, but then you feel bad for putting down your other friends, and it’s just plain painful to do. Did I mention how time consuming it is? Just order the hundred or so quotes took at least two hours.

I find it kind of funny how from one series, my favorite quote is “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and then my favorite from another series is “You’re so full of crap, you could pass for a toilet.” I know a person’s favorite quotes are supposed to say a lot about them… I’m a little scared to know what these say about me. Then again, I didn’t order them on appeal only. Memorability played into it a lot. There may have been a really neat quote, but if I don’t remember reading it, was it really that important?

Once the project is completed, I’ll definitely share pictures, but it’s a long way off. It will have to be my new year’s mission.

Book Review and Discussion: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Summary:

In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass–and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.

Rating: 8/10

This books was one of those books that I had never heard of until one day it seemed to explode on the fandom circuit. After hearing rave reviews, I had high expectations for this book. I’m not saying this was a bad book by any means, I did enjoy it quite a bit, it just wasn’t quite what I expected.

Unfortunately for this book, I read it at a bad time. I’m still in mourning over one series and I reread another book, which just refreshed the mourning for that series. Because of this, I had a hard time caring about the characters. At times, I felt that the characters were obviously written to go against cliches, which caused them to become cliche. I did learn to love them characters by the end, though, and I feel like I would have loved them sooner if it hadn’t been for my severe case of book mourning.

The plot was highly intriguing, although predictable at times. It was the only thing that kept me reading through the beginning. The writing wasn’t my favorite, but because of the plot, I was able to overlook it.

There were a lot of new terms and to learn in this book, and they aren’t easy ones (I never quite caught what Samhuinn was). I like to be able to pronounce all the words I’m reading, but I don’t let that stop me from reading a book. If you’re going to read this book, be prepared for commitment. It’s going to be a six book series!

***Spoilers Below***

Celaena was the character I had the hardest time warming up to. Yes, she was awesome, badass, sassy, and generally everything I love in a character, but I had a hard time liking her. I guess I expected her to do a complete personality 180. She’s a trained assassin. I have a hard time trusting her. For all we know, she’s been acting the whole time. How do we know if her true colors have been revealed yet? Despite all that, I had a hard time not feeling bad for her as her backstory was revealed. How awful it must’ve been to wake up between your parents’ dead bodies. No wonder she has trust issues. And Arobynn Hamel is a pretty awful guy to have as a father figure. Celaena seemed to go back and forth between admiration and fear of him, which i guess is the case in most father-child relationships. What he did to her as far as making her repay him for everything was pretty underhanded, though. I probably would’ve hated him for that.

I’m interested in learning more about Sam. I feel like he’s not going to be dead. Based on the mild amount of predictability of the plot so far, I could very much see him not being dead. Either he’ll be alive or the one who got Celaena caught. My bet is on both, and that he’s probably Arobynn Hamel’s right-hand-man now or something.

My favorite parts in this book were the training and test scenes. That’s when I feel like Celaena’s true colors come out, or the closest thing to them. If that’s the case, then she probably is worthy of at least a little trust. She did save Nox after all. It was interesting to me to see how she thinks in intense situations. My favorite part by far was when she fought Verin. After what he said to her, he deserved what he got.

Nehemia was the one character I instantly fell in love with. I loved her relationship with Celaena, and I certainly hope neither of them is playing some underhanded tricks, because I don’t want their friendship to fall apart. Plus, if it weren’t for Nehemia, Celaena would never have lived, let alone won the contest. I’m excited to learn more about her.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about Dorian yet. I think he’s a good person, even though he’s depicted as a bit of a lady’s man, but I just really want to see him stand up to his father. Once he finds his voice, he’ll be a good leader.

Since I can’t discuss this book without discussing the love triangle, I have to say I prefer Chaol. I’m not sure why, since we don’t get to see much of his personality beneath his harshness. It’s so obvious that he cares about Celaena, and I really want to see more of his softer side. Hopefully that will happen in the next few books, and hopefully Sam doesn’t come back to mess things up.

The final fight scene was one of the most intense things I’ve ever read. I was literally biting my lip the whole time. I knew Celaena wasn’t going to die (I mean, the whole series is about her, after all), but I didn’t think she would win. I was kind of banking on her not winning against Cain to begin with, even before Kaltain poisoned her. I thought she would expose Cain’s use of magic, get him disqualified, and end up winning that way. It’s a good thing Nehemia was there to save her butt.

The end was a little confusing. Obviously the King is toying with magic, and it can’t be for good reasons. The question is, what is he going to do with it? And Celaena has to be related to Elena in some way, and that probably ties in to the mark on her forehead. If she’s related to Elena though, wouldn’t that make her a distant relative of Dorian’s? I’ve got to be missing something somewhere. Also, what in the world is Samhuinn?

I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series. Hopefully, since a lot of the world building has been established, things will smooth out as far as confusion.

Best of 2014

With 2014 coming to a close, I think it’s appropriate to take a moment to appreciate the best books and movies (in my opinion) of the year. Let’s kick it off with books!

Top 5 Reads of 2014

5. If I Stay by Gayle Foreman

I put off reading this book for a long time. I wish I could say I regretted it, but having the end spoiled kind of took away the element of suspense. Still, I enjoyed reading the book, even if it was a tear jerker!

Goodreads Review

4. Days of Blood and Starlight/Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Yet another series I put off finishing. I do regret taking so long to read these, though. They’re some of my favorite books now. My new aspiration is to be able to pull off the writing style of Laini Taylor. The world was built so well, and everything was just perfect with these books. I’m glad I finished the series, but I’m still sad it’s over!

Days of Blood and Starlight Review

3. The Darkest Minds, Never Fade, and In the Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken

I absolutely adore this series. I got into it after watching a video where someone said they sobbed like a baby at the end of the first book. Naturally, I had to go out and get it immediately. No, I didn’t actually cry, but I did come dangerously close. I love everything about this series. The worst part is that not enough other people have read them. I have no one to fangirl with!

Funny-ish story: I had my mom go get In the Afterlight the day it came out, and the lady at Barnes and Noble actually went and got it out of the boxes for her. They hadn’t even put it on the shelves yet!

The Darkest Minds Review, Never Fade Review, In the Afterlight Review

2. Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

It pains me to put this second. I adore these books. I’ve never read anything like them. I love the russian-esque setting, and the characters are all wonderful. I got Ruin and Rising the day it came out, and finished it in nine hours. There was a point in that book where I realized that I have a tendency to kind of shut myself off from the reality of books when things get too bad. I had to stop and take a figurative step back during one scene, and I almost cried when I really saw what all had happened. This series changed my whole perspective on reading. Again, the biggest problem: No one to fangirl with!

If you haven’t read this series yet and are skeptical, understand that for me to have a hard time putting it second to number one is a HUGE deal. I cannot even begin to tell you how hard of a decision it was not to put this first!

Ruin and Rising Review

1. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

How could I not put this as number one? I have been waiting for this book since I marathoned the first 5 books in a span of two weeks two years ago. This was everything I could’ve asked for in a series ending and more. The heaviness of the book (and entire series) is perfectly balanced with the humor, and some of my new favorite quotes come from this book. “I will not make you a pie because I am not your bitch.” What I find so funny about Cassandra Clare’s books are that everyone in the fan base prepares themselves for a complete onslaught of sadness and tears with each series end, but, while there is some of that, the endings are usually not too sad in themselves. That to me is the mark of a good writer.

Best Movies of 2014

5. Step Up: All In

I just realized this is the only movie I saw in theaters this year that wasn’t an adaptation of a book. As a dancer, I don’t go to these movies for the gripping plot. Even though the plot was a bit on the cheesy side, the dancing was phenomenal. Every time I see one of the Step Up movies, I want to learn how to do hip-hop. Then I remember I am the most stereotypical of all white girls in that I can’t do hip-hop, and I hate dancing hip-hop. It’s a kind of depressing cycle, but I do love these movies!

4. The Maze Runner

I wasn’t the biggest fan of these books, but I really liked the movie. I’m not sure how I liked the changes that were made towards the end. I think they we better suited to a movie than what actually happened in the book, but I found what happened in the book more interesting. I’m interested to see how the next books will be portrayed in movies.

3. Divergent

I really liked this movie. I think it was a wonderful interpretation of the book, even if it wasn’t spot on with the order of things. It made sense, almost all of the important stuff was there, and it was a good quality movie, too! I came pretty close to crying at certain points. My mom and aunt love to tell the story of how I came out of the theater laughing while talking about how I almost cried. I will neither confirm nor deny the truth of this event.

2. The Fault in Our Stars

I went into that movie with a full pack of tissues, prepared to cry my eyes out. I’m slightly ashamed to say that the closest I came to shedding a tear was when a piece of the tissue I was holding touched my eye. I might’ve cried, but at a certain, very sad point in the movie (I think you can all infer which one I’m talking about), the entire theater was so quiet that you could hear people sniffling. All of the sudden, some grown man starts making the loudest sobb-ish sound I’ve ever heard. I’m ashamed to say that I cracked up. Tears and sobbing aside, this was one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen. The acting was fantastic, and it stayed so true to the book. What’s there not to like?

1. Mockingjay

What is there to say? I absolutely loved this movie. Everything about it. I was nervous about how the split between parts 1 and 2 would be done, and I’m glad to say that I think it was done very well. All the important scenes were there, even the ones I had forgotten about, and I’m so glad they kept Effie in the movie. That’s one change I fully approve of!

It occurred to me while writing all of this that I don’t have many books I’m dying to get next year. There’s Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo and Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare, but other than that, nothing. This has been a year of finishing series for me, not starting new ones! There’s plenty to look forward to in the movie department: Insurgent, Mockingjay Part 2, maybe Scorch Trials? I’m not really sure, I just know there’s a lot. I’m excited to see what new adventures 2015 brings!