Top Ten Tuesday: Best/Worst Book to Movie Adaptions

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a new top ten list is posted for us bloggers to share the books we love and discuss anything book related! To see more details about Top Ten Tuesday click HERE. 

This week's topic is top best and or worse book to movie adaptions. I will be doing my Top 5 Best and Worse! I know I am a little late, but better late than never :)

Top 5 Best:

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin - I actually saw this movie first and love the book and movie equally. They are on the top of my book/movie lists

2) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - This movie was so good, I cannot wait for Catching Fire! It looks like it will be so good :)

3) The Help by  Kathryn Stockett - I read the book and then watched the movie as soon as I was done. I thought they did a really good job with this movie and I love the cast!

4) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I watched this movie a few months after reading the book. I have a terrible memory so I do not remember exactly how similar the movie was to the book but I do remember sitting in awe at the end of the movie. I really loved both the movie and book. 

5) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I read this book about 6 years ago so I did not remember anything about the book other than it was really good. So I am not sure just how much alike they are but the movie was just so dang good!

Top 3 Worst:

1) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer - I really did enjoy the books, well the first two maybe 3. The movie ruined the books! They were really entertaining but not because of their great quality, actually quite the opposite. They were horrible, but their awfulness made them really funny!

2) Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia - I had to turn this one off before I finished it, it was terrible. 

3) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - I love the books and the movies, but I have to think of them as two separate things that are not related. 


I know, I know.. I only did 3 bad ones. I am sure I will come up with a ton more for this category once I read through everyone else's list, but as of right now this is all I can think of!

Whats on your list?

Review: Pandemonium

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Book: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (Delirium, #2)

Published: February 28th 2012 by HarperTeen

My rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: YA-Dystopian

*THIS REVIEW DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS TO DELIRIUM*

Goodreads Summary:

"I’m pushing aside 
the memory of my nightmare, 
pushing aside thoughts of Alex, 
pushing aside thoughts of Hana 
and my old school, 
push, 
push, 
push, 
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.

Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite"

My thoughts: This was a great continuation of the series. Some series get worse, and some get better. This one is definitely getting better. As I read this series I see so many different ways this story could go, and everything I think will happen doesn't. Which makes me love this!

Things I enjoyed about this book:

-Alternating time. This book alternates between Now and Then. I was hesitant at first because I really just wanted to know what happens in the Then story. Usually, when there are alternating POV I favor one and push through the other but with this book I was equally enjoying both! It gave us a good look into how Lena got to where she is and her journey into the Wilds, but you were also getting to see what was happening now after the Wilds! I felt like I was somehow cheating the system and getting to read two books at once. It was awesome :)

-Julian.  This one you will also see in the things I didn't like about the book. But on the positive side, I really like Julian and I really want everything to work out for them!! He is the one who pulls her out of her greif of losing Alex, he is so sweet and has really won my heart. 

-Intense. Once I start a series, I do not read the synopsis for the rest of the books, I just start the book and follow where it takes me. So I had no idea what to expect, no clue where this story would go. I was so surprised and really got addicted to this story! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. 

Things I didn't like about this book:

-Julian & Alex. I totally loved Alex in Delirium so when I finished the book, I was positive he would be back. No way would the author actually kill off one of the main characters. But he really is gone. And that made me so sad! Like seriously guys, I cried and then flipped through the book to see if he ever came back. (Yes, I am ashamed. But I am telling you because I really want you to understand how hard losing Alex was for me). Now that you know how much I loved Alex, I hope you can understand how difficult it was to get me to accept and root for Julian. Insanely difficult. You would think all of this was happening to me. 

Overall: So far I am really loving this series! I am FINALLY starting Requiem. (I actually finished this book about two weeks ago, but have been sooo busy I have not had time to write this review!) I have been so nervous to finish the series, I want to love it and I know some people have not loved it. But I finally found my metaphorical balls and am reading it!

Have you read Pandemonium? What did you think about it?

Feature & Follow Friday (#11)

Hey guys, I am getting a late start to FFF today, I didn't think about it last night until it was already too late! So without further ado, here is my Feature & Follow Friday!

Today is Friday which means Feature & Follow Friday! FFF is hosted by Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read.  It is an opportunity to gain followers and find new blogs in the book blogging community! You can find more information about it here. 

If you use bloglovin please follow me with that since GFC will not be available soon! Otherwise, I have made subscribing by email and RSS available also :) Just pick your favorite way of following!

Question:Today’s is the US’ Independence Day. Share your favorite book with a war in it, or an overthrow of the government. 

I am going to have to give three books, because I can NEVER pick one when asked to list a favorite haha. So my top 3 books that have to do with war are Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Divergent! Harry Potter is a given, I think most questions can be answered with Harry Potter. The Hunger Games and Divergent are more of dystopian and less of traditional war but there is definitely war and government overthrowing happening! What books did you pick??

Happy 4th everyone :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Intimidating Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a new top ten list is posted for us bloggers to share the books we love and discuss anything book related! To see more details about Top Ten Tuesday click HERE. 

Top Ten Most Intimidating Books (might be intimated by size, content, that everyone else loves it but you are sure you won't etc)

Some of these intimidate me because I am afraid I will not like them as much as I am hoping to such as The Night Circus and Lola, some I am afraid to finish because I don't want to be done with the series, Requiem, and others are just flat out scary...classics. All of these I really want to read but I have been putting off because i am a wimp.

 

1) The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern
2) The Host by Stephanie Meyer
3) A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
4) Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
5) Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
6) Requiem by Lauren Oliver
7) The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
8) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
9) Classics... all of them!

Review: Delirium

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Book: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Published: February 1st 2011 by HarperTeen 

My rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: YA - dystopian

Goodreads Summary:

"They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever. 

And I've always believed them.

Until now.

Now everything has changed.

Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love."

My thoughts:

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I can't believe it took me so long to read this book! It was so good! And Lauren Oliver's writing is brilliant. This book is so creative, I wish I could meet Lauren Oliver and pick apart her brain and ask her all kinds of questions about this book! At first, in the beginning of the book, I had a hard time accepting this world that the characters are living in, but Lauren does such a good job of explaining how everything works. 

Seriously though, I freaked out so many times while reading this book. All of my reading friends are far away and I don't think they have read this book before. I really needed someone to talk to so I ended up making boyfriend come sit with me so I could explain this story and how amazing it is. I loved it, I am not even talking about the story, just fangirl-ing all over the place...take a breath, Amber.

For those of you who have read it... the last paragraph! I always hate the last few pages of books, they always seem like meaningless words thrown together just because you can't end a book in the middle a story. You have to have a end, that was what we learned in the first grade. But this last paragraph was so good! I didn't feel like I was getting some crap that made me feel distanced from the story. This pulled me in even more and totally captivated me. UNTIL THE LAST WORD. Amazing. 

Things I enjoyed about this book:

-I had no idea what was coming. There would be certain parts of the book and I would be freaking out because I thought one thing was going to happen and then it turned out completely opposite. And there are just so many twists and turns that no one could really see coming. It is a great book and keeps you on your toes the whole time!

-Great world building, I really feel like I am there.  When I first started reading I had a really hard time accepting this world because love is such a common thing for me. It is something I feel and openly express several times a day and so many of my decisions are driven by love that I cannot fathom living in a society where love is seen as a disease. Every time something would happen, I would have to sit and really think about it trying to see it as a person living in this world. But the world building was so great that I was eased into it and got a little more understanding with the little bits of information at the beginning of each chapter. By the time I was done with the book, I was so immersed in this book that every time I think of the word love, I am taken back into this world. 

-Such a creative idea for a book, Lauren Oliver... you are a genius. I was reading through the interview questions in the back of the book and one of them asked how Lauren came up with this subject for a book. I don't remember all the details, but she had read an essay about love and its influence on books and was thinking about that at the gym later when she saw something about a flu epidemic. Somehow the two things combined and here we are now reading Delirium. And even now after hearing about that, I am still in awe. It was such an amazing story, and the writing in it is beautiful. You really just want to keep reading! 

Things I didn't like want to know more about:
*There is nothing I did not like about this book, but I do have so many questions and things I just want to throw out there, so I will list a few of them here:)

-Grace! I love her so much! I have loved her since she was first introduced, I am not quite sure why. Well, obviously she is introduced as a character we like because of her bond with Lena. But she automatically stood out to me as one of the characters I would love. and I was right :) I cannot wait to see what happens with her, if anything (hopefully yes!) in the rest of this story. I really love her and I hope that she returns in Pandemonium and Requiem. 

-I still want to know so much more about their world. One thing that I had to really sit and debate with myself was how many emotions they do have and to what extent to the people in this society feel these emotions. For example, when talking about the girl who was removed from school and cured early because she was found with a boy, they mention how family's house had been graffitied.  But when I read about how their emotions are removed or controlled by the procedure, I struggled to understand how these people who walked through everything in a hazy state, woke up and felt enough hatred. To me that is a form of passion for something, in this case for the government and their society's structure and removal of love. So if they can have such strong feelings for some things and walk through life like they are sleeping the rest of the time, how does that work? I am assuming that somehow in the cure, they manage to leave fear intact since that seems to be how the government keeps its control over their people. But still, I would love to know more about how all of this works!!

Overall:  If you cannot tell I loved this book. Like seriously guys. It is awesome. And I have heard that so many times before, and I believed it but I did not feel the need to pick it up right away. I should have. So now I tell you, if you have not read this book, do it. 

Have you read Delirium? What did you think about it?

PS- I'VE GOT A GIVEAWAY GOING RIGHT NOW HERE. GO CHECK IT OUT :)

Review: Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Book: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Published: Published December 2nd 2010 by Dutton

My rating: 5/5 Stars (WHY ONLY 5 STARS??!!)

Genre: YA

Goodreads Summary:

"Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend. 

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?"

My thoughts:

Just a warning before you guys start this review... I loved this book, like it is a new top favorite so there is a chance that my review will be one big fangirl rave :) There will also be many words or phrases in ALL CAPS. Please feel free to imagine them being said with an obnoxious, high pitched fangirly voice. Because that is how I am thinking them. Now that you have been warned, you may procede:

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO SOOOO MUCH!! All I have been thinking about since I read this book is 1) How awesome it was 2) How I really really need to read Lola and the Boy Next Door and finally 3) I need to go to Paris. NOW. Like for real guys, I finished this book in the early afternoon-ish, then spent my entire afternoon looking up flight and hotel info to Paris. Now my savings account is titled "TRIP TO PARIS <3" and I have decided to set a specific amount of money out of each paycheck to save up. Unfortunately,  I have small paychecks so it will take me a while to get there, but it will happen!! 

Anyway, y'all probably don't care about my money situation so I'll drop it. You want to hear about this wonderful, amazing book :) Honestly, I was really nervous to start it. I have heard so many great things about this book and nobody I have talked to did not love it. But lately I have been in a bit of a reading rut. I am still reading and I really want to be enjoying it, but I have not been really loving the books I have been reading. They were alright, just nothing that really made me feel passionate about reading. So I was really afraid that that would happen with this book. I had such high hopes for it! I mean who wouldn't? Teen love, Paris, boarding school (I don't know why but I love reading about girls who attend boarding schools)! Thankfully, this book met all the very, VERY high expectations I had for it.

Things I enjoyed about this book:

-Y'all. If you have not noticed by now I say y'all a lot. It is a regular word in my vocabulary and I don't even notice when it is used. So when Anna said y'all in the book and everyone laughed at her, I had to back track and reread to catch it. I love that she says this. I don't know why, but it was just one of those things that made me smile :)

-World building.  I don't usually comment on world building, just because I don't always notice it. It is important but it is not really my main priority. But this book really made me second think that and appreciate a good book with good world building. Since I have never been to Paris, and I really dont know anything about Paris other than Oui and the have the Eifel Tower (a lot like Anna in the beginning of the book!), I really did not have a good solid picture of Paris in my head. And I really enjoyed reading about everything that was around here and learning about some of the history there. 

-Character growth. This is another thing that I don't always notice. I mean if a character starts out whiny and bratty and ends the book the same way I notice, but usually as long as there is a small change I am pretty accepting of whatever I am told. But in this book you really got to see the characters grow and learn about themselves. It was really obvious to me in this book, and it made me love this book so much more. Anna is such a great character and I felt like she was possibly a real person and I would totally be her friend!

-Everything. It was funny, adventurous, made me really feel like I was there. I cant even form coherent thoughts anymore, I should probably take a break because I am getting extra fangirly! 

-Their friendship grows into love. Okay, break was good, I'm a normal person again :) So another thing I really liked (okay loved) about this book was how Anna and Etienne's (I prefer this name to St. Clare) relationship started out as a friendship. It went through all the awkward stages expected in real life, especially since he had a girlfriend. they were friends, then they were awkward and liked each other and it continues to grow until they are best friends and more. To me, this is ideally how relationships should work (minus the gf of course). This growth of their relationship also showed the character growth. 

Things I didn't like about this book:

-Yeah right. I loved this book, everything about it. 

-Lola?  This is not, at all, a complaint or something I didn't like. I just wanted something in this section. But, I kept waiting to meet Lola from the next book and I never did, at least I don't remember meeting her. So I am curious how she is related to the series. Naturally, I would read the book to find out, but I don't get paid until Friday so, yeahhh...

Overall: Not only is this a really fun book that takes place in PARIS, but it is also written really well. I am a terrible writer, all my thoughts are jumbled around (notice the random order of my bullet points above), and I have a very limited vocabulary, so it really does not take much to impress me. Just give me a cute story and I'll enjoy it, written well or not. But this book really makes me feel like I should have higher standards for my books because this has it all. Really, it does. I loved it and you will to! 5 big, bright and shiny stars! 

Have you read Anna and the French Kiss? What did you think about it?

PS- I have an awesome giveaway going through the end of the month! Check it out HERE. 

Feature & Follow Friday (#10)

Hey guys, I am getting a late start to FFF today, I didn't think about it last night until it was already too late! So without further ado, here is my Feature & Follow Friday!

Today is Friday which means Feature & Follow Friday! FFF is hosted by Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read.  It is an opportunity to gain followers and find new blogs in the book blogging community! You can find more information about it here. 

If you use bloglovin please follow me with that since GFC will not be available soon! Otherwise, I have made subscribing by email and RSS available also :) Just pick your favorite way of following!

Question: Share your favorite literary quote! 

I have so many! Here are my top 3 :)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
 ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

This one is the first one I thought of after reading this prompt. I am not even sure exactly why, but this quote always stood out to me. This is the first sentence in Pride and Prejudice. Whenever I am having a bad day or am in a really bad reading rut, I turn to Pride and Prejudice. I have only ever finished the book once, but no matter how far I get, be it the first sentence or almost the end, it always makes me feel better!

*This next quote is the last paragraph of Delirium. I don't consider this to have any spoilers, but it is the last paragraph, so if you plan on reading this book or are reading and have not completed it, read at your own risk!

"You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope,and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.” 
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium.

Everything about Lauren Oliver's writing is beautiful. I was compelled to read, not only because of the story, but because of her writing. It captivated me and I just could not stop reading! This paragraph is my favorite, I feel like I can relate to certain parts of it, and in other ways I aspire to be more like this character. I want to have the strength and determination to achieve my goals and love without fear. 

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” 

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

And of course, the obligatory Harry Potter quote! But for real guys, this quote is just so great, especially for us readers! When I read a book, my boyfriend is always making fun of me for laughing as hard as I do, for crying, and yelling at my book. To me, just because a book is not always telling a true story, there is always someone who can relate to it or who uses a great book as a way to escape reality. Just because it is happening inside of my head, does not always mean it is not real. 

What are your favorite literary quotes??

PS- I'VE GOT A GIVEAWAY GOING RIGHT NOW HERE. GO CHECK IT OUT :)