All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven // Book Review

all the bright places focuses on two characters; theodore finch and violet markey. finch is obsessed with death and is constantly thinking of ways to kill himself. whereas violet is counting down until graduation when she can escape indiana and the grief of her sister's death. they both meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school and from there their relationship blossoms.

this book was published this year and has become incredibly popular with glowing reviews (4.21/5 rating on goodreads) - however i didn't like this book quite that much. i read this book during the booktubeathon in august, and just reading my initial review of that book my opinions have changed a little. i gave it a 4/5 star rating although i think i'm going to change that to 3/5 and i stated my feeling towards the book were mixed. although i can firmly say that i didn't really like it.

however i would still give it a 3/5 because the book does have some redeeming qualities:

1. as you may have been able to tell by the synopsis above, this book is about mental health and suicide. not many young adult books focus on this, so i enjoyed that this opened the discussion. therefore i would also say that book comes with a trigger warning for suicide and mental health issues. 
2. the book in general was very well written.
3. the ending of the book was rather emotional.

now for the things i didn't quite like about this book:

1. i did not like finch that much. i thought he was pretty pretentious and i unfortunately found him to be a little frustrating, although i did sympathise with him in some ways.
2. the fact that nobody actually helped finch frustrated me a lot. it is pretty damn obvious that his behaviour isn't normal and that he is suicidal, yet his friends and family do NOTHING to help. literal quotes from his family are "oh he's just like that" NO THAT ISN'T NORMAL.
3. to add to my last point, his counsellor could have done A LOT more as well.
4. the author kind of writes these characters as personified mental illnesses rather than actual people which isn't great. 
5. the ending was predictable as fuck, sorry not sorry.
6. this complaint is pretty minor, but at the beginning of the book i felt like too many characters were introduced at once and some had pretty uncommon names which made it quite confusing in my opinion.

those are just my thoughts though! but i don't necessarily agree with the hype surrounding this book though. the book is also being described as a cross between the fault in our stars and eleanor and park, which i do kind of agree with so if you like those books you will probably enjoy this. if you have had a personal experience with suicide or mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder or depression in general, then this book will perhaps be rather triggering for you so i don't recommend that you read it.

i also noticed at the end of my goodreads review that i said that i weirdly wanted to see this book adapted into a movie. i do still stand by that - i feel that this would be quite interesting to see as a film.

if you have read this book, let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Inspiration

remember how at the beginning of the year i said i was going to blog every week?

i discovered very quickly that i'm simply not inspired every week to write something. i mainly forgot to write something in all honesty or just didn't have any ideas. but i've just been on holiday to spain, and i began reading moranthology by caitlin moran. as the title might suggest, it is a collection of columns that she has written for the times (a national uk paper) over the years. the thing that inspired me the most about this book (so far, at least) was the introduction that she wrote.

she talked about how she started writing columns for a newspaper as she won a competition when she was younger and she said about how she struggled with what to write about - very relatable. but then caitlin said that she just eventually wrote about things going on in her life, things that happened to her or just issues that were on her mind. which then made me realise that i can do exactly that? in fact i automatically thought of at least five ideas for blog posts and then wrote them down in the notes of my phone.

a personal skill i want to get better at is writing. i also just rediscovered rookiemag.com - an online magazine for teen girls which is formed of content that is created by it's readers where they have a monthly theme. i currently have eight rookie magazine tabs open of content that i'm going to look at, and i hope i can become inspired by that too. although i highly doubt that the things that i create will ever be good enough to be featured on there!

i've realised too that whenever i go away for blogging for a while, i always want to redesign the look of my blog which is...interesting hahah!

all in all, this is one of those posts that is basically saying 'i will post more blogs soon' and i definitely want to this time. i want my writing skills to improve and i just want to create things really.

The SprinkleofGlitter Experience - Northampton, 02/11/14

at the beginning of last november one of my favourite youtubers louise pentland (aka sprinkleofglitter) did a small show in her hometown of northampton so she could get to meet some of her viewers in a relaxed environment and kind of have a bit more of a conversation with us.

here are just a couple of photos i took during the experience. i really need to edit a video together soon of all the clips i took (especially from when i was up on stage with her!) so i can share them with people. all in all it was a really nice relaxed experience, louise is very naturally funny and i'm glad i got to meet her as well as meet nicola (one of my internet friends) for the first time.

 

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Grace Helbig UK Book Signings

about a month ago i found out that grace helbig would be coming to the uk to do a couple of book signings, she is one of my favourite youtubers and my idol so it was safe to say i was ecstatic about it! i ended up going to two of the signings (out of four) because they were both close to me and i was available on both days so might as well go to both!! 

first signing was at waterstones liverpool one on thursday, which was ticketed because there was going to be a q&a with grace beforehand. i had a workshop at uni on the thursday morning and i got the train to liverpool at about half two to meet molly (although it turned out that we were actually on the same train hahah) and we headed straight to waterstones at about quarter past four. we both said hi to our friends amy, poppy and em and joined the queue. we got given raffle tickets for after the q&a and we could meet grace in smaller groups (very organised, i like). molly then went to meet lauren at the train station and she soon joined us in the queue.

at about half five the queue started to move and we went to sit in rows of seats ready for the q&a.

whilst we were waiting for grace, we kinda heard through the grapevine that chester see would be coming as well and if i wasn't shaking before, i definitely was now! everybody was so excited and at about ten past six grace arrived, everybody screamed and started to freak out. i filmed the whole q&a which you can watch below (sorry for the shaky camera work at the beginning!)

the q&a was so funny and it made us all really relaxed i think before meeting her. she answered my question as well (at around 6:40) which made me very happy. 

after the q&a myself, lauren and molly were in the second group to meet grace. i filmed us all meeting her.

she was so so lovely and she loved the jar of messages i gave for her and i can't believe she actually remembered me either considering i've met her once eight months ago!

 

we met up with poppy, amy and em afterwards to basically fangirl over what just happened. after we all chilled we went to get food and then took our individual journey's home.

next day was manchester! i got the train with poppy at about half one (although there were a couple of troubles with trains) and we met catty at the train station. we then headed off to waterstones in the arndale as poppy needed to buy another book. the queue for the signing didn't start until 4pm but we arrived at half two and there were about 10-20 people there. all three of us were pretty hungry so we headed to the food court for a subway where rachel and molly soon joined us.

at about half three we headed back to waterstones to meet sara and a couple of others, where at this point there were about 100 people waiting.

the queue was massive and it was a shambles to be honest getting as they literally told all the people waiting outside when it turned 4pm, 'okay you can go in now'. it was a massiv rush and push to get into the queue. fortunately i ended up quite near the front with molly and rach. in general meeting grace was pretty rushed and kind of stressful really. but i got to meet grace again and asked someone to take a polaroid of me with her which was cool. chester see was there again too so i kindly asked for a selfie with him which he gladly obliged to. 

we chilled afterwards for about an hour before i headed back to the train station with molly. after a couple of delayed trains i was on my way home.

all in all, i had the best two days ever. the saturday afterwards i was very excited for my friends who were meeting her at bluewater so i lived vicariously through them, but in general i was on such a come down. so many of my friends have been like 'I'VE PEAKED AT 16' and it honestly feels like it!

so yeah, thank you so much for everything grace (and chester)! i hope you had a great stay in the uk and you come back soon!!

 

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2014 Playlist

this is the second year in a row now i've created a playlist of some of my favourite songs from the previous year. they may not have all been released this year, but i definitely became obsessed with them. admittedly, i don't have the best music taste in the world. particularly this year i've listened to an awful lot of chart music. nonetheless i hope you enjoy! you can listen to it here or here (the spotify playlist doesn't feature the taylor swift songs and similarly 8tracks doesn't have a couple of songs on it)

timber - pitbull ft. kesha | fancy - iggy azalea ft. charli xcx | wiggle (ft. snoop dogg) - jason derulo | talk dirty ft. 2 chainz - jason derulo | bang bang - jessie j, ariana grande, nicki minaj | anaconda - nicki minaj | summer - calvin harris | shake it off - taylor swift | blank space - taylor swift | chandelier - sia | all about that bass - meghan trainor | steal my girl - one direction | boom clap - charli xcx | don't stop - 5 seconds of summer | break free - ariana grande ft. zedd | problem - ariana grande ft. iggy azalea | somebody loves you - betty who | happy little pill - troye sivan | thinking out loud - ed sheeran | photograph - chester see and andy lange | rather be (ft. jess glynne) - clean bandit | cha ching (till we grow older) - imagine dragons | uptown funk - bruno mars | let it go - idina menzel

 

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New Years Resolutions | 2015

i'm not going to do the whole 'long time, no blog' routine because i'm tired of doing that and most importantly i hope i don't have to do a post like that too much in the future. mainly because that's what one of my resolutions for this year is. i have a ton of photos that i want to post and just in general i want to blog and write a lot more.

but i guess i should start by actually catching you up seeing as the last time i blogged was in june. the summer in general was weird, it had good moments but i didn't feel the best a lot of the time. however, i got into university and i'm now studying photography at staffordshire university in stoke-on-trent. i live in a flat with ten other people and i'm really enjoying university life, including the independency of living by myself and my course. so i'll probably be blogging quite a bit about university life and everything like that.

as the title of this post suggests, i have created a set of new years resolutions i want to complete this year. one of them being to write a blog post every week, in fact!

1. read 20 books this year
2. watch 50 films
3. get a job
4. keep a diary
5. develop my french skills by using duolingo
6. attend vidcon or summer in the city 
7. eat more healthily/go on some form of detox
8. exercise more

in general though i want to just be more productive and motivated this year, because it makes me happy to be productive.

i'm not really sure how to end these posts yet but thanks for reading this post!

 

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Well...

Long time no see, blog. Life has been very hectic for the past four months (really, that long?!) and I know hardly anybody reads these but I remember in about March/April I was constantly thinking about doing a blog post. But I have really had too much on my plate to spend time writing blog posts.

Mainly, doing exams which I finished yesterday. This year is particularly crucial and also more stressful because I was really unmotivated to revise. So I could have probably revised more than I did do, but all I could do was my best. Plus, I'm mainly proud of myself for not having a panic/anxiety attack or mental breakdown as I was very close to having quite a few of those within the past month.

I've recently had an idea for a mini blog overhaul in September. But until then I'm going to be doing a lot of posts to catch up and in general just blogging any adventures that may happen.

That's all for now folks, thanks for reading!

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Life Update

I've been a little bit M.I.A from blogging recently, but last week I had mock exams that I had been revising a lot for so blogging wasn't exactly my first priority.

I had exams in Sociology and Dance theory overall they went good though, I did my best on them. Saying that Sociology went better than Dance (that was the exam I revised for the most though) but I don't like to get too complacent, because usually if I say I've done well I have previously ended up slightly disappointed. 

I've been so tired and busy that I haven't been keeping regularly with my resolution to consistently write in a journal nor to exercise more. However, I have been doing really well with my healthy eating and I've been saving a lot of money as well as realising that for my lunches I'm basically eating like a vegetarian. Although I had one 'slip-up' the other day because I had been craving pork pies for about a week and I just had to have one. Other than that things are going well, I go to New York again next week so it'll go down the drain then obviously but then it'll be half term and I can get back on track then!

I know that I also didn't do a favourite videos post last week, so here are two videos that I enjoyed last week.

Like I said, I will be going to New York from Tuesday 10th and arriving home Saturday 15th in the morning, so expect some posts about that experience. I'm going again with college and I'm really looking forward to it!

I hope you've all had fabulous weeks, bye for now!

 

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Instagram | January 2014

Time for another monthly instagram round-up! You can check out my previous months here.

Top Row L-R

my new glee-inspired phone case arrived - my women of youtube calendar also arrived, i love it so much

Bottom Row L-R

white chocolate rice cakes are my new favourite thing - aaand a selfie (edited on picfx)

 

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Videos I Liked (w/c 20/1/14)

Sorry for literally no blog posts this week (and my usual Friday post being a day late), but I have mock exams next week so I've been revising for those so I don't think there'll be many blog posts this week either. I will try my best though! Nonetheless, here are some videos that I liked this week

Top 8 Beauty Trends Men Hate - tadelesmith

REVIEWING SAG FASHIONS W/ KINGSLEY - Grace Helbig

#FREEJUSTINBIEBER - Meghan Tonjes

The Naughty Professor: Hank and John at the Beach - REUNION! - vlogbrothers

FANDOMS - Tyler Oakley

 

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Videos I Liked (w/c 13/01/14)

FROZEN MEDLEY (feat. Kirstie Maldonado) - SUPERFRUIT

TomSka's Day Out 7 (2013) - DarkSquidge

1 Second Everyday - Mitchell Davis

I want to give birth! - Tom Fletcher

Don't Be a Dick - PascaleDeBom

 

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Top 5 Books of 2013

New video!

 

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On Selfishness

source

I went to a university interview today and on the train journey back home I got thinking about selfishness.

Being selfish is usually seen as an inherently bad quality and that you should put others before yourself if you want to keep them (in particular with friends). When I was finding the quote above on Pinterest I saw so many quotes talking about how if you are selfish be miserable. But I think everyone is a little selfish - in a good way however. It's like in that episode of Friends when Joey is debating with Phoebe about how there's no such thing as a selfless good deed. I think it's good though to be a little selfish in these aspects. 

For example, if you perform a good deed for someone and they show gratitude for it you feel better about yourself - you feel happy. However, if you perform a good deed for someone as simple as holding a door open for them and they don't thank you, you don't feel as good. 

Similarly you give presents to people and you feel happy when they appreciate and enjoy your presents. 

Overall, it's ok to be selfish at some points in your life. But don't think more about yourself when it comes to friends and family as "if you're too selfish you'll eventually end up with no one".

 

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Videos I Liked (w/c 6/1/14)

The War of the Word | BECOMING YOUTUBE - ninebrassmonkeys

My Drunk Kitchen: Banana Bread (ft. Grace Helbig!) - MyHarto

ItsGrace Leave of Absinthe - Mamrie Hart

WHY WE BROKE UP - justkissmyfrog

The ONLY Life Advice You Need - Tyler Oakley

 

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Christmas Book Haul

I'll be doing a video on this fairly soon, but here are the books I got at Christmas! The first three are books that I received and the last two are books that I bought with money that I received. 

Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli

How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak

Everything is Connected by Keri Smith

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Videos I Liked (w/c 30/12/13)

The 2013 Song - Troye Sivan 

Adventures ヽ(^o^)ノ - HeyThere005

What Are You Doing New Years Eve? by Tim and Sanne - Graytune 

2014 - itswaypastmybedtime

What Guys Look For In Girls - A Slam Poem - Savannah Brown

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New Years Resolutions 2014

Happy new year everyone! It's come to that time of year again where I set some resolutions for myself. I know I did 'goals' last year and split them into yearly, monthly. weekly and daily, however I will simply be doing resolutions this year.

• Eat more healthily and exercise everyday - I'm not doing this with the soul intent of losing weight, I just think I'll feel happier if I eat healthier and actually exercise.
• Read 20 books - Doing the same as last year, in particular reading more classics.
• Watch a film every week
• Watch at least two Ted talks a month - Can't really think of the reason why I particularly want to do this, but there you go!
• Take better care of my skin/body - By this, I kind of want to have a proper skin care routine and just be kinder to myself
• Bake more - I say 'more', but my baking is currently non-existent. In general I suppose it's just something that I want to do.
• Complete NaNoWriMo
• Write consistently in a journal

I don't really want this to be a resolution but I want to take more photos and film more in general. I also did a video reviewing my resolutions from last year and talking about my resolutions for this year too, which you can watch here.

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Instagram | December 2013

Top Row, L-R

went to see catching fire again - got an iphone 5c - selfie from when i went to manchester

Middle Row, L-R

very happy with my christmas presents this year - our christmas tree! - got a canon eos 600d for christmas, so elated!

Bottom Row, L-R

my last christmas dance show - got these sweets for christmas and i'm in love - also got a new purse covered in owls!

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Playing Around with Bokeh

I got a Canon EOS 600D for Christmas, so I had a little play around with the manual focus and some Christmas lights to create some bokeh.

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