So I found out about a little thing called Junk Journaling and now I'm obsessed. I've journaled on and off the majority of my life. I usually get bored with it and end up throwing my beloved journal in the back of a closet. I've been looking at bullet journals on YouTube and have been going back and forth about whether I like the idea or not. Then a couple of months ago, YouTube suggested a channel called Johanna Clough and I immediately binged all of her videos. She creates the most intricate, eclectic journals and shows her viewers how she makes them. Johanna prefers vintage children's books with quirky illustrations and different types/weights of paper. The end result is always beautiful and completely unique.
After watching her videos I knew I had to make one. I went to a few thrift shops before finding a book that I liked and could bear tearing the pages out of. I did my research on the book before ripping it apart since I'm a strong believer in keeping vintage/antique items (of value) in tact. After that, my boyfriend, Josh, and I removed the pages and started measuring the spine. We worked out how many pages to put in each signature and how many signatures would fit in the book. Josh sewed in the signatures and made sure each one was evenly spaced. I decided not to alter the original cover since it's what drew me to the book. Once the signatures are sewn in, the bare bones of the junk journal is done.
Now comes the best part.... the decorating! As I mentioned in my last post, Josh and I are currently in North Carolina staying with his dad and step-mom until he finds a job. Lucky for me, his stepmom is really into crafts and frequents estate sales. She has anything you could want for any type of crafting, including lots of vintage sewing items. With her permission, I explored her craft room and was able to find a lot of what I needed for my junk journal. I used a lot of fabric and buttons for tabs. I found old adverts in a quilting book. I found envelopes and tickets. Anything that I liked the look of, I added to my journal.
The best part of creating your own junk journal is that it's completely unique. Everything you add is something that you picked because YOU liked it! The more you add to the journal the better. It's okay if patterns clash or if it's too cluttered... that's why it's called Junk Journaling.
We Are Okay
by Nina LaCour
You go through life thinking there’s so much you need…Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.
Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit, and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.
I can't deny that I bought this book because of the gorgeous cover. I also can't say that I read it immediately after purchasing it. Looking at reviews can be a great thing. It can help people like myself that are quick to judge a book by its cover. Reviews can also hinder someone from reading a book they were previously excited about because they can be negative.We Are Okay had a lot of mixed reviews and I chose to believe the negative ones, that is until recently. Here is why I decided to pick it up. My boyfriend just graduated law school and our lease was up on our apartment. Since we're both currently unemployed and kinda sorta homeless we're staying with his dad until he finds a job. I've been in this really funky mood because of this sudden but expected change. I needed to read something simple and poetic. Something that would allow me to wallow in my sadness.
"I have only just learned how to be here. Life is paper-thin and fragile. Any sudden change could rip it wide-open."
When I saw reviews for We Are Okay a lot of them said that it isn't a plot driven book. That it's very much about character development. I think that's a true statement but that doesn't mean this book doesn't have a point. In my opinion, you need to be in a certain mindset to read it and luckily/unluckily I was.
Our main character Marin is from San Fransisco but is in New York for college. The tone of the book and Marin's inner dialogue show that she left home earlier than expected without telling loved ones why. The timeline switches between past and present day. As of present day, Marian finally allows Mabel, her friend from home, to visit her in New York.The tone of this book was perfect. I could be projecting but I could feel how isolated and scared Marin is. The writing brought those quiet feelings to life. It was really beautiful. I loved Mabel and Marin's friendship and how we get to see it transform through flashbacks. This makes the present day even more uncomfortable and heartbreaking.
"But it turns out that even the fiercest denial can't stop time."
I can't say that I enjoyed this book but I can say that I loved it and that it's exactly what I needed during this weird time of my life. The writing is fantastic. I've tabbed and highlighted the hell out of the pages. It also gave me a chance to escape my sadness and explore someone else's.Reading Playlist:
Not To Disappear by Daughter
Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man, Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
Wow! Most of the reviews that I came across before reading Dark Matter said it was a "mind fuck." I couldn't agree more. While this book will be difficult to review without giving away the entire plot, I will give it a shot.
I loved reading Dark Matter. A lot of the time when I read a book it can be a chore because I'm ready to move on to a new one. I'll constantly look at the page numbers and countdown until I'm done. I actually enjoyed watching this story unfold. There was never a dull moment! I kept calling my boyfriend in the room to read him bits of it, and while he didn't get the full context, he agreed that it did sound like an interesting concept.
This story is written in first-person POV with Jason as our protagonist. He is a physics professor at a small college and is married to Daniela; they have a son Charlie. It's clear early on that though both Jason and Daniela are happy together, they always wonder what could have been. Jason is a physicist and was in the midst of groundbreaking research when Daniela, who he'd only been dating for two months, told him she's pregnant. Daniela is a talented artist that pushed her passion aside to become a stay-at-home mom to Charlie.
In the present day, they are cooking dinner for their annual family night, and Daniela is reading and article about one of her friends that had become a successful artist winning a prestigious award. Jason can relate since he found out that his former college roommate and friend Ryan just won the Priva Award which includes a million dollar grant. Jason tells Daniela that he was invited to the bar he regularly frequents to celebrate Ryan's achievement and she convinces him to go. When Ryan heads home from the bar, he is abducted and drugged. When he wakes, he is greeted by like a hero returning from war. He is apparently confused and starts to question if his life with his wife and son was even real. From this point on the story takes off.
“If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?”
Dark Matter is so well written and gripping. I couldn't put it down. Seriously. I started reading and a few hours later looked at the clock to see that it was 3 AM. It was totally worth staying up late (and feeling like shit the next day) to find out what exactly happened. If you're a fan of Sci-Fi/Thrillers, I can't recommend this enough. Your mind will be blown.
Playlist:
Illuminate by Lydia
Preppy: The Life and Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Two
By TM Frazier
Preppy finds himself back in a world he once loved, but no longer recognizes. His dim smile can’t hide his inner turmoil and the people he views as family all suddenly feel like polite strangers.
Except for one person. A girl with dark eyes and even darker hair.
A girl who isn’t even an option.
At least, not anymore.
Dre can’t decide who she’s going to listen to. Her heart, her head, or her body. Because two out of those three things have her heading right back to Logan’s Beach. Closure is what she tells herself she’s seeking, but when she unlocks doors that were never meant to be opened she soon discovers that when it comes to Samuel Clearwater, closure might NEVER be an option.
This is book six in the King Series and the second part of Preppy and Dre's story.
Except for one person. A girl with dark eyes and even darker hair.
A girl who isn’t even an option.
At least, not anymore.
Dre can’t decide who she’s going to listen to. Her heart, her head, or her body. Because two out of those three things have her heading right back to Logan’s Beach. Closure is what she tells herself she’s seeking, but when she unlocks doors that were never meant to be opened she soon discovers that when it comes to Samuel Clearwater, closure might NEVER be an option.
This is book six in the King Series and the second part of Preppy and Dre's story.
This review will contain spoilers if you haven't read the King series. I love the King series which is odd because I don't like these alpha type guys in real life. They are the complete opposite of my type, but I think that's what makes this series so much fun to read. It's gritty and vulgar and feels dangerous without actually being in any real danger. We get to live through the eyes of a drug addict, a motorcycle gang, murderers, and an amnesiac.
Luckily we pick up right where we left off in part one. Preppy has woken up from a coma and called Dre his wife. Clearly, Dre is confused, as was I, because they never got married. Next thing we know he has Dre by the throat and is choking the hell out her. It's obvious that Preppy has a severe case of PTSD and is extremely violent especially toward Bear since he looks so much like Chop. He feels like everyone has moved on without him and struggles with the fact that their lives weren't put on hold while he was gone. To be fair, they did think he was dead. Preppy's friendship with Ray (Doe) is one of my favorites to read about. They had a deep bond, and it hurts her to know that he is hurting. I kind of ship it. (Don't kill me, King.)
"Someone squeezed my arm. If it was the devil, he had tiny hands and used moisturizer."
Dre is back in Logan's Beach after years of being drug-free. She is hoping to sell Mirna's house to help her father since he is losing his business after taking out loans to get her into rehab and community college. She feels responsible for the debt he's drowning in and wants to help. I was so glad that Dre has gotten clean and is no longer the damsel in distress. The roles were reversed, and it's her turn to help Preppy with his demons.
This is a short read, and I would have liked to see more of Preppy and Dre together, but I also wanted to see them struggle more too. Everything seemed to fall into place so quickly. There was a lot crammed into 282 pages which made it feel a bit rushed. Preppy doesn't know Dre as a sober individual, and it would have been interesting to see how she struggled with her sobriety since he regularly partakes in drugs. This seems like a filler book that gives just enough information to get us to part three. Oh yeah, there is going to be a third book. Which I was a little annoyed about since I thought part 2 would tie up loose ends. Of course, it ended on a HUGE cliffhanger, so we'll have to wait patiently until the third book is released. By "wait patiently" I mean refreshing Goodreads every 2 seconds to see when the release date is posted.
Overall I liked this story. It kept me entertained for a few hours, and I enjoy reading about Preppy since he is (obviously) the best guy in the King series. TM Frazier, I'm gonna need a lot more bowties in the next book!
Reading Playlist:
We Are the Ants
By Shaun David Hutchinson
Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.Only he isn’t sure he wants to.
After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.
Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.
But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.
Wow! I can't even tell you how incredible We Are the Ants is. You truly need to experience it for yourself. I'm so annoyed that I've been putting off reading it as long as I have. If you're like me and prefer contemporary books and aren't really a fan of Sci-Fi, put that aside because this book is about so much more than aliens.
Henry has been randomly abducted by aliens since he was 13 and at 16 they told him the world is going to end on January 29, 2016, but he has the power to stop it if he presses a red button. His boyfriend committed suicide a year before, and Henry doesn't know if the world is worth saving. To make matters worse, he is tormented at school, and his home life is challenging. His mom is still grieving the loss of her husband after he ran out on their family, his brother Charlie got his girlfriend pregnant and dropped out of college, and his grandmother is slowly losing her memory.
After reading the first page, I was hooked. Henry is cynical and just plain pissed-off that his boyfriend Jesse committed suicide. He thinks that he is to blame and that the world shouldn't exist without Jesse in it. I could feel how hurt and heartbroken Henry is. He wants to know the reason behind Jesse's death and spends a lot of time obsessing over what he could have done to prevent it.
"Grief is an ocean, and guilt the undertow that pulls me beneath the waves and drowns me."
I loved seeing the family dynamic. I actually related to Henry's relationship with his grandmother. He knows that his grandmother is losing her memory but doesn't understand the extent of her loss since there are some memories he wouldn't mind losing. Those scenes were the most difficult for me to read since I recently lost my grandmother and she also suffered from memory loss. It's frustrating when the people we love can't remember something as seemingly simple as you calling that afternoon or what your name is.
"I'm losing my memories. It's like someone's broken into my piggy bank and is robbing me one penny at a time. It's happening so slowly, I can hardly tell what's missing."
Something that I really appreciate about this book is that Henry's sexuality isn't treated as a big deal. Yes, he is gay, but this isn't a coming out story. This book is about a kid that is dealing with hardship and has to figure out if those hardships are reason enough that the world should end. The author's writing is fantastic and witty and brilliant. I never wanted it to end because it was so beautiful. Please do yourself a favor and read We Are the Ants.
Reading Playlist:
Art & Soul
By Brittainy C. Cherry
I had always been the invisible art student in high school. Passed by. Glossed over. Unnoticed. Now I was Aria Watson… that girl.
After one bad decision, and being labeled a slut, I was no longer unseen. I was the whore. The ignoramus. The tramp.I would never be invisible again.
Particularly to Levi Myers. He was the odd boy with the beautiful soul who accepted and understood the broken girl inside me.Falling in love wasn’t the plan. But how could I resist his promises of hope? Of forgiveness? Of a future I had stopped dreaming of?We were shattered. We were scarred. We were something strange and beautiful.
We were two lost souls holding on to the only thing that could keep us together.
Each other.
I know when I open a Brittainy C. Cherry book that I'm going to have, what feels like, my heart chewed up and spit out. Why do I continue to do this to myself? Because her writing grabs hold of me and won't let go. I adore Brittainy's characters and that there is always a family aspect in her books, good or bad. Weirdly in most Young Adult books, there is a lack of family life.
Art & Soul is about two teenagers trying to navigate adult situations. Told in dual POV, we meet Levi who is moving to Wisconsin to reconnect with his absent father and escape his overbearing mother. Then we meet Aria who is keeping a major secret from her family. The two met when Aria takes a short cut through the woods to get home, she notices a guy talking to a deer and attempting to feed it berries. Deer boy. Aria is standoffish in the beginning but quickly grows to like Levi. Maybe a little more than she cares to admit given her current situation.
This book could have easily been a cliche, an invisible girl is noticed by drop dead gorgeous boy, kind of story but the author didn't do that. Instead, she took those cliches and put a new twist them. These teens deal with some hard real-life situations. The only thing that seemed a little unlikely was the relationship between Levi and Aria. I've never met a sixteen-year-old boy that would insert himself into the situation that Aria is in, but this is fiction. I did like that their relationship wasn't something that happened overnight. It's slow burning, and that's what kept me reading.
"Being around him felt like being around someone who saw your scars and called them beautiful when you only see your past mistakes."
Brittainy tackles some pretty difficult topics in Art & Soul, one those being mental illness. I appreciate that she was able to capture the reality of mental illness without being disrespectful or over-the-top. She also showed how mental illness affects the family as well. It's heartbreaking but gives you a little insight.
Art & Soul is a great book with fleshed out characters and packs a punch.
Reading Playlist:
It's 2017!
You know what that means? New fantastic books to look forward to! I've listed my top 10 most anticipated book releases of 2017. They are in order by the release date. Release dates are subject to change. A couple of the books do not have a cover yet.
Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson
Release Date- January 10th
I just recently read The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, and I loved it. This is a psychological thriller about a woman that lives in London and swaps apartments with her cousin that lives in Boston. She finds out one of her cousin's neighbors has recently been murdered and questions if her cousin had something to do with it.
History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
Release Date- January 17th
I haven't read anything by Adam Silvera, but I've heard that he's a fantastic author. This book is about Griffin whose first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident. The only person that can understand his heartbreak is Theo's current boyfriend, Jackson.
Add on Goodreads
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Preppy: The Life and Death of Samuel Clearwater Part 2 by TM Frazier
Release Date- January 24th
This book is number 6 in the King series. It is a dark, gritty series that involves drugs, motorcycle gangs, and romance. There maybe a few triggers for some readers.
The Gravity of Us by Brittainy C. CherryRelease Date- April 13th
This is the fourth book in the Element series. Number one is The Air He Breathes, number two is The Fire Between High & Lo, and number three is The Silent Waters. Brittainy writes alluring and heartbreaking romances. She is a must-read if you love New Adult.
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The Hate U Give by Angie ThomasRelease Date- February 28th
A powerful and gripping novel about sixteen-year-old, Starr. She is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. This book is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm really looking forward to reading this. It sounds like it will be insightful and gut-wrenching.
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Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny HanRelease Date- May 2nd
This is the third book in the To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy. It's a cute contemporary about a high school girl named Lara Jean. She writes love letters to every boy she's loved and puts them in a hat box. Her letters mysteriously get sent to the guys she wrote them to. I really enjoy Jenny Hans writing and the family element in her books.
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Until It Fades by KA TuckerRelease Date- May 2nd
This is about a small town woman who saves the life of a mysterious man and, once the police show up, she realizes the man is a famous hockey player. She is thrown into the spotlight, but there are things in her past she wants to keep secret. I've read several of KA Tucker's books, and she always writes the craziest plot twist. You think you know what's coming but, you have no clue.
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Bad Romance by Heather DemetriosRelease Date- June 13th
Grace meets Gavin, and he's charming, talented, controlling, and dangerous. She has no idea their relationship will become a prison she's unable to escape. Damn. Sounds scary but I can't wait to find out what happens. That book cover, though! It's gorgeous.
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidRelease Date- June 13th
An unknown magazine reporter named Monique is chosen to write a biography for the iconic Evelyn Hugo, who was a famous actress in the 50s. Evelyn's seventh husband just died, and she's ready, to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. I'll read anything that Taylor Jenkins Reid writes. She is definitely one of my favorite authors.
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The Shaw Confessions by Michelle HodkinsRelease Date- Summer
This is Noah Shaw's POV in The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer series. I was addicted to this series and read all three books in 4 days. It's that good!
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