GenreMatch: #DYSTOPIAN TV SHOWS

Title: The 100

State:  Currently Running - Season 1.

Plot: Ninety-seven years ago, nuclear Armageddon decimated planet Earth, destroying civilization. The only survivors were the 400 inhabitants of 12 international space stations that were in orbit at the time. Three generations have been born in space, the survivors now number 4,000, and resources are running out on their dying "Ark" - the 12 stations now linked together and repurposed to keep the survivors alive. Draconian measures including capital punishment and population control are the order of the day, as the leaders of the Ark take ruthless steps to ensure their future, including secretly exiling a group of 100 juvenile prisoners to the Earth's surface to test whether it's habitable. For the first time in nearly a century, humans have returned to planet Earth. Among the 100 exiles are Clarke, the bright teenage daughter of the Ark's chief medical officer; Wells, son of the Ark’s Chancellor; the daredevil Finn; and the brother/sister duo Bellamy and Octavia, whose illegal sibling status has always led them to flaunt the rules. Technologically blind to what’s happening on the planet below them, the Ark’s leaders - Clarke’s widowed mother, Abby; the Chancellor, Jaha; and his shadowy second in command, Kane - are faced with difficult decisions about life, death and the continued existence of the human race. For the 100 young people on Earth, however, the alien planet they’ve never known is a mysterious realm that can be magical one moment and lethal the next. With the survival of the human race entirely in their hands, THE 100 must find a way to transcend their differences, unite and forge a new path on a wildly changed Earth that’s primitive, intense and teeming with the unknown.

The series stars Eliza Taylor (newcomer) as Clarke, Paige Turco (“Person of Interest,” “Damages”) as Abby, Thomas McDonell (“Suburgatory”) as Finn, Eli Goree (“Emily Owens, M.D.”) as Wells, Marie Avgeropoulos (“50/50“) as Octavia, Bob Morley (newcomer) as Bellamy, Kelly Hu (“X2: X-Men United,” “Arrow”) as Cece, Christopher Larkin (“Squad 85”) as Monty, Devon Bostick (“Aim High”) as Jasper, with Isaiah Washington (upcoming “Blue Caprice,” “Grey’s Anatomy”) as Chancellor Jaha, and Henry Ian Cusick (“Lost,” “Scandal”) as Kane.

Based on the upcoming book series by Kass Morgan, THE 100 is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Alloy Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios with executive producers Matthew Miller (“Human Target,” “Chuck”), Jason Rothenberg (upcoming “Twilight Zone” feature), Bharat Nalluri (“Torchwood,” “Emily Owens, M.D.”), Leslie Morgenstein (“The Vampire Diaries”) and Gina Girolamo (“The Secret Circle”). The pilot was directed by Bharat Nalluri.

UPDATE: Current reads #4

Update time!

Recent reads
Because I had a two week break between this update and the last one, I managed to read a total of 13 books in that time. The books were The Great Gatsby, Enticed, Frostbite, Frostbite: The Graphic Novel, Emblaze, Endless, Empower, Shadow Kiss, Shadow Kiss: Graphic Novel, Searching for Sky, The Great Gabsy: Graphic Novel, The 5th Wave and Prince of Thorns.

Current reads
I'm currently reading 5 books, though I'm not really 'into' any of them yet.
The first book is New Girl by Paige Harbison. I'm only 20 pages into this so far, but I'm really excited to see where this one goes. It's a modern day retelling of Rebecca, which is one of my favourite books ever.
I'm also reading Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes. I've barely started this one, I'm about 15 pages in. That's the same for While We Run by Karen Healey and The Archived by Victoria Schwab, which I've also barely started.
Finally, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. After posting last week's update, I had this urge to start this. I'd already started it once before and got 100 pages in, but now I'm up to page 230. I really like it, but it requires a lot of time and attention.

Goals
Obviously, I'd like to make it through the first four books by next week and I'd also like to read at least another 100 pages of Game of Thrones. I'd also really like to read Just_a_girl (finally!), Dark Triumph, Prodigy and The Gatekeeper's Secret.

Top Ten Characters I Love

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and you can find more about this meme here.This week's list is the top ten characters who x, and I chose to talk about characters who I love (more than anything).

1. Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
This one shouldn't really surprise anyone. I have this (slightly worrying) obsession when it comes to the amazing Augustus Waters. I wish I could actually put into words how much I love him, but it's just not possible. Of course, I love Ansel Elgort slightly to much too!

2. Warner from Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
This one is another pretty obvious one for me.Warner is just beautiful and I adore him so much. It's half Tahereh's fault and half Chami's, but I have no regrets.

3. Sirius Black from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
This one isn't as obvious for those of you who don't know me personally, but I think Sirius Black is the second fictional character who ever stole my heart (the first one is a little further done the list). He's beautiful and I just can't resist him.

4. Phoenix from Violet Eden Chapters by Jessica Shirvington
I know some people who've read these books might disagree with this one, but I love Phoenix more than I should. I loved him from the moment he came into the first book, and I just couldn't stop loving him after that.

5. Rose Hathaway from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Rose is probably one of my all-time favourite protagonists and so I couldn't not put her on this list. She's so badass, but I also really enjoy reading from her perspective because she's funny and sarcastic. She is one of the main reasons I got into YA at all.

6. Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
This might be weird for some people, but Violet was the first character I ever loved. I started A Series of Unfortunate Events when I was quite young and Violet was always my favourite character. I always saw her as being really intelligent and she wasn't a 'boy crazy' character, and to be honest, I looked up to her because of that.

7. Liesel Meminger from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
This one was a bit of a tough one- I wasn't sure whether to pick Liesel or Rudy, but eventually I decided to go with Liesel. Obviously, I felt a connection with Liesel because of her love for books and words but I also really admire her strength and compassion.

8. Percy Jackson from PJ and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
This one might have something to with the fact that's he's played by Logan Lerman (and he's massively super hot), or it made have to do with the fact that I love his humour and sarcasm in the books. We may never know.

9. Chubs from The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
I'm not going to lie, I almost include Liam in this list but then Chubs came to mind and then Liam really had no chance. So Chubs is the only character on this list who isn't a main character or a love interest, does that tell you how amazing he is? I just adore him so much that sometimes I just say 'Chubs' to Chami and then go back to ugly sobbing. That's the level I've reached here. Please send help...

10. Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This is another OMG LOGAN LERMAN character. Well that, and I just can't describe the feels Charlie and his story gives me. I love him so very much, and I will cry absolutely every time I watch the movie and I won't even regret it.

SERIES REVIEW: The Violet Eden Chapters by Jessica Shirvington

Title: The Violet Eden Chapters/The Embrace series

Author: Jessica Shirvington

Publication Date: 2010 - 2013

Publisher: Hachette

Format: Paperback

Rating: 5/5

(of book one, Embrace)

It starts with a whisper: “It’s time for you to know who you are…”

Violet Eden dreads her seventeenth birthday. After all, it’s hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother’s death. As if that wasn’t enough, disturbing dreams haunt her sleep and leave her with very real injuries. There’s a dark tattoo weaving its way up her arms that wasn’t there before.

Violet is determined to get some answers, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The guy she thought she could fall in love with has been keeping his identity a secret: he’s only half-human—oh, and same goes for her.

A centuries-old battle between fallen angels and the protectors of humanity has chosen its new warrior. It’s a fight Violet doesn’t want, but she lives her life by two rules: don’t run and don’t quit. When angels seek vengeance and humans are the warriors, you could do a lot worse than betting on Violet Eden…

 

I’ve done mini-reviews of a few of the books in the series on Goodreads, but I want to do a big series review. I haven’t ever done this before but I read through this series so quickly that I thought it deserved it. I’m going to break this into parts, firstly a kind of overview of the series, then some stuff about the characters, the plot etc. So, I warn you now- this is going to be an incredibly long review so I suggest you get some tea or something. Anyway, here we go.

Firstly, I read this series in the space of about two weeks. I would have read it quicker, but there was a bit of a gap between the first two books for me. That being said, I read the last three books back to back within about 24 hours or so. So, it probably won’t surprise any of you when I say that I’m kind of obsessed. I have to say, Embrace (Book 1), Endless (Book 4) and Empower (Book 5) were my favourites, I love Enticed and Emblaze too but those three really stuck out for me and I’ll explain while later on.

As for the characters, I’m going to start with Violet, of course. I didn’t actually realise until I read these series how in the last couple of books I’ve read, it’s usually the love interest or a side character who becomes my absolute favourite character in that book. This was different for me because Violet is definitely my favourite character. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Lincoln, Phoenix, Steph etc. but Violet was my favourite in the series. In the first book, I wasn’t sure that I’d like her but I grew to love her very quickly. I loved how she developed over the series, and I especially loved how badass she was. I think she’s become one of my favourite YA protagonists.

Now onto some of the other characters. Starting with Phoenix, OH MY GOD. I love him so much and my favourite parts of the series were always the bits where he was included. I never wanted him and Violet to be together, I just wanted him all for myself. I should move on before I fangirl too much! Lincoln...oh Lincoln. There were moments where I seriously hated him because of the whole thing with Violet, but they are just too perfect together. I love them too much. As for the other characters, Steph, Spencer, Onyx and Gray were definitely my favourites. I love them all for different reasons, but I love equally as much.

Plot time. I haven’t read a lot of Angel books, before this I’d read the Halo trilogy and Unearthly, but I’m not the biggest fan. That being said, I loved Jessica’s interpretation. It was so awesome to read about these badass half-angel, half-human (plus others) and I found it really fun to read about. There wasn’t anything that was particularly hard to get through, and on a whole I just found the entire series to be really enjoyable. One of my favourite things, actually, was all the different locations. Rather than just having it all set in the one place, it moved around a little which was really great. I think what made it even better was that it was mostly places that aren’t overly popular in YA novels, sure New York and London are mentioned quite often but I loved reading about Santorini, Jordan and New Orleans. It was really interesting!

I don’t believe these are widely popular books , especially out of Australia, but I really urge all of you to give this series a chance. Like I said, it’s a lot of fun but it’s also a lot of ‘OMG FEELS’ and a bit of ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?’ and a bit of demanding support from people on Twitter and then a bit of joining a group on Goodreads to vent out your feels. My thoughts of the last book alone were a bit more like ‘I don't even know where to start. I read the whole series in two weeks and now I just feel empty. Like what do you mean that's the end? THERE HAS TO BE MORE’ and a bit of ‘PHOOOOOOOOOOOENIX. I LOVE YOU. LET ME LOVE YOU. I'LL NEVER HURT YOU OR LOVE ANYONE MORE THAN YOU, I PROMISE’ and some ‘AHHHHH. I JUST...IT WAS SO PERFECT AND THE ENDING AND HOW IT CONNECTED AND OH MY GOD. I'M GOING TO BE A MESS TOMORROW.’ Yeah, it’s one of those series that will just take over your life. So, remind me...why aren’t you reading it right now?

Special thanks goes to Renee who was half the reason I started this series and also for providing me with some screaming/crying/Phoenix-loving support after I was done.

Ely's Recommendations #2

Heeeello, and welcome back to my second recommendations post. Firstly, if you'd like to see my first post, just click here. So I've got another five books/series to recommend today. This list is more about series that are hugely popular, but in case you may not have read them, I've decided to mention them today!

1. Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
This one probably goes without saying. I started this series way back when I was thirteen and I have loved it ever since. The story is amazing, but one of the main reasons I love this series so much is because of Rose Hathaway. I'm a big fan of kick-ass girls, and I think Rose is the reason. She's incredibly bad-ass, but at the end of the day she's really a normal girl- she makes mistakes and bad decisions just like everyone else, but I will continue to love her until my dying day. Plus, I'm not ashamed to admit that I adore Dimitri, Adrian and Christian too!


2. Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi
Again, for anyone who's been following our blog for a while, you should not be surprised by this one. Both Chami and I absolutely adore this series to no end. Warner is definitely the main reason for this, but Tahereh's writing is so lovely and so unique which makes us love it even more. We honestly never shut up about this series, to the point that we just make references to the characters and quotes way more than is healthy. We have no regrets though.


3. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
This isn't one that is really talked about anymore, I suppose because it finished a few years ago back in 2006 but this is one of my ALL-TIME favourite series. This is probably one of the first series that I religiously read as a child and to be honest, I think I even read all of it way before I got into the Harry Potter books. I remember counting down the days until the next book would be released and then buying it the moment it came out, only to finish it within a few hours and go back to counting down again. I don't think any series ever could replace the spot in my heart that this series dominates.

4. The Body Finder series by Kimberly Derting
This one doesn't have quite the same scope as the others, but this one is still quite popular. I had my doubts about it before I begun but this series is truly awesome. The premise of the book is so unique and it's definitely pulled off well. I think my favourite thing though is the romance in these books, it's so sweet and realistic and I just love Violet and Jay so much! I haven't actually read the final book yet but I can't wait to get my hands on it!

5. Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray
This is the same sort of deal as The Body Finder in the sense that I have yet to read the final book (in my defense it's 800 pages long!) but I love the first two books so much that I had to include it. These are quite different to what I usually read, the series is about witches in Victorian England. They're incredibly amazing, although quite dark and heavy at times. The characters are all amazing, and I can't wait to finish the series!

UPDATE: Penguin Teen Australia Live

So on Monday the 14th, I dragged my lovely friend, Sarah, along to the city after our Uni classes were done for the day for the amazing Penguin Teen Australia Live Melbourne Event. *cue screaming*

So for the first half, I didn't take a lot of photos but I did quite a bit of screaming (especially at that photo...). Felicity talked about some of the books Penguin publishes- like The Fault in Our Stars, Vampire Academy and a bunch of others. She mentioned some of her favourite underrated books, and a few more popular ones while I pointed books to Sarah that I was going to force her to read. There was quite a bit of screaming (because of Richelle Mead, among other things) and some hysterical sobbing (thank you, TFiOS trailer).

Then we had our little break, which for the attendees of PTA Live meant one thing...NIC WHEELER TIME. So those are our pictures with the lovely Nic Wheeler, whom Sarah may be slightly obsessed with since last night...

After that excitement, it was time to return to our seats for a bit more screaming and some more sobbing. Felicity told us about some awesome upcoming books- at which point there was a lot of me entering my 'GIVE IT TO ME RIGHT NOW' stage. These were a couple of my favourites...

Of course, there was an obligatory selfie to be taken at the end of the night before our long trek home!

But of course, the most important thing- the posters/books. I managed to get one of the amazing TFiOS posters which I plan on treasuring for the rest of my life. I'm not going to lie, I've already rubbed it in my brother's face (though he didn't understand the significance of it, at all). Most surprisingly though, I managed to only buy one book (plus the free one). This has got to be a record for me!

 So I bought Prodigy, because I've been eyeing it off ever since I finished Legend back in January. The little present we got was Popular by Maya Van Wagenen, which is totally not my normal 'thing' but I'm going to give it a go as soon as I possibly can.

All in all, PTA Live was amazing. It was my first event like this and I really had a wonderful time. I can't wait until next years event as well as some of those other events Felicity mentioned. If you went on Monday, or to any of the others, what part did you scream/cry the most at?

And finally, a question I'd like to leave you all with that I asked several people at the little book table...How many copies of TFiOS can you own before it's gets weird? Seriously though, how many? *goes back to eyeing off movie cover*

VERONICA ROTH #ALLABOUTWRITING

Many have asked, and so I will answer. 

First of all: I suspect some of you really mean to ask me for advice to writers generally, because a young writer is not some strange species of writer that can't benefit from general writing advice, and fortunately I keep a blog full of my thoughts for writers generally, with a small database of posts about various topics. I will copy that database at the end of this post so you can poke around my blog if you feel like it.

And if you want advice about how to get published, you'll have to frequently ask that question separately, my dears. (That is sort of a joke. You only have to ask once.)

Young writers! Guess what? I am one of you. Despite no longer being an adolescent, I am still 24, which is on the way low end of the writer age spectrum. I am not a source of great wisdom, because great wisdom develops over time, and quite frankly, I haven't had a whole lot of that. But I'll do my best.

When I was a teenager, I was in gifted/extended/whatever you want to call it English classes, which meant two things: 1. I had gotten external affirmation of my writing skills, so I was kind of arrogant, and 2. I was very defensive and insecure, because pretty much everyone in my classes was smarter than I was. (No, seriously.)

Maybe you are not like that, my young writer friends, but I know that at least some of you are, because I just do. It's okay, don't worry, I feel the utmost sympathy for your position! And I still like you. And in fact, it's my intimate knowledge of your position (well, our mutual position) that leads me to give you the following advice:

Cultivate humility, patience, and courage.

Oh look, three words. Let us see if they can form a list!

1. Cultivate Humility

Humility is a word that people are not sure how to define, I think, because for some it reminds them of the word "humiliation." When I say the word "humility," I am not talking about beating yourself up or convincing yourself that you suck. For our purposes, I am defining humility as "seeing yourself the way you truly are." 

What I mean is: you are young. You have not had a lot of time to develop your skills. You may be advanced for your age, but that doesn't mean that your writing is well developed. I can say this because MY writing is not usually well developed! It's okay. It is okay to say that you are simultaneously talented and in need of help, because that's the truth of where you are, and it's the truth of where you always will be. You will never, ever get to a place where you don't need help or work or development as a writer, no matter how old you are.

So when your English teacher writes critiques all over your creative writing assignment or papers, don't spend your time after class bashing him or her and defending yourself against those critiques. Instead, hold these two ideas in tension in your mind: your work is not worthless. Your work could use improvement.

Become like a sponge that absorbs every piece of advice or teaching or criticism or praise that it can possibly hold. Realizing that you have a lot to learn is cultivating humility. The actual act of learning cultivates humility. When you hand your writing over to a friend or teacher to get their feedback, and you do it with the attitude of "here is my work. I love it, but I need your help to make it better," you are cultivating humility. And when you are proud of yourself for writing something you think is good, or happy when you get an A on an assignment, that is not NOT cultivating humility. It is embracing the truth of where you are, which is that you and your writing have succeeded in some way. 

2. Cultivate patience

Sometimes young people are in a big hurry to do everything. You think, "If I don't get a book published at 17, I'm a failure!" Even if you know that's irrational, you might still feel it, and my advice to you is to ignore that feeling of urgency as much as possible. Basically, apply the brakes and give yourself some time. 

I was always pretty good at patience, mostly because I was terrified of showing my writing to anyone. But I sometimes get messages from young writers saying "help! I can't finish a manuscript, what do I do?" or "how do you stay interested in a manuscript long enough to finish?"-- very perplexed people wondering what's wrong with them, that they can't stick it out until the end.

There is nothing wrong with you! I just went back and counted, and I have 48 unfinished manuscripts in my writing folder. 90% of them are from before I reached age 18. Some of them are two pages long and some are 150 pages long. Yes, that's right, it took me AT LEAST 48 tries to stick with an idea long enough to finish it, and I didn't worry about it, because I wasn't in a hurry. 

Cultivating patience doesn't just mean that you're patient while you wait for query responses or critique partner feedback or what have you. It means that you are patient with yourself, and with your plan for your life. There are so many paths to take, and so many definitions of success, and so many second, third, fourth chances to get it right. Don't pressure yourself or badger yourself or other people to make things happen now now NOW. Go at a pace that feels comfortable, and that makes you love the process of writing-- because if you hurry so much to get to the finish line, you may not enjoy getting there, and that's where the writing IS.

In writing and publishing, you cannot usually control how fast things happen, or if they happen. What you can do is fall in love with writing, and that way, if the success doesn't come when you want it to, you still have something truly valuable, which is the time spent doing something you love.

3. Cultivate courage

The thing is, if you spend all your time trying to be humble and patient, you may never take any risks. And there must always be risks. All these things I'm telling you are like juggling balls-- it's a constant fight to keep them all in the air without dropping one. So seriously, don't drop courage. Courage will urge you to send your writing to people you trust to get their feedback. It will motivate you to send your writing in to contests. It will tell you to apply for tough schools or programs. It will make it possible for you to accept people's critique and still keep writing. It will help you to brave the bad critiques, the disparaging remarks, the raised eyebrows, and the internal doubts that tell you that you are not good enough and it's not even worth trying.

It is always worth trying-- and it's always worth failing! Courage will arm you against failure in a way that nothing else can. It is the little stirring inside you that says, "that person who hated my writing or told me it would never happen for me, or that bad grade, or that little voice in my head that thinks I suck, can all kiss my butt, because today I am going to try again." You need courage to face what's ahead of you, young writer, because it won't be easy. But if you love to write, and you love books, you can do it. So be brave and take risks.

So that's my advice for young writers. I can guarantee that even if you agree with it and want to take it, you won't follow it all the time. What I'm saying isn't, "Do this perfectly!" it's, "hey, here are some things that are worth trying to do." I hope it helps! Young writers, I salute you.

GENRE MATCH: YA TV SHOWS YOU WILL LOVE

"Genre Match," is a new segment in which we reveal the best Young Adult Television Shows to watch while your reading a book of the same genre. If you're just introducing yourself into the genre or if you've been a long time runner, it's a great way to see what shows are out there that might suit your taste. If you're a big fan of Mystery, then simply view the "Genre Match" post for "Mystery," and it will provide you with the best TV Shows that would suit your taste in that genre.'

Just follow the tag #GenreMatch to catch up on the posts. 

Top Ten Bookish Things (That Aren't Books) That I'd Like To Own

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and you can find more about this meme here.This week's list is the top ten bookish things (that aren't books) that I'd like to own.


I wanted to start this list by mentioning that I love book related things so cutting this down to only 10 was difficult for me because I could seriously go on for hours...Anyway.

1. Penguin Classic Mugs
I really love Penguin Classics and I really, really love tea so these are perfect for me. I've seen these around a bit but never the ones I'd like- I'm hoping to get The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations or an Agatha Christie one, or you know, ALL OF THEM.

2. Slytherin Scarf
I'm definitely a Slytherin, and very proud of it, so I'd absolutely love my own Slytherin scarf. I've half knitted one of my own, so I hope one day that I can finish it so I can wear it everywhere in winter (and probably all through the rest of the year too!)

3. Bookish Pillows
Who doesn't love pillows? There are actually so many cute book-related pillows that I'd like to own, but I thought this one would suit me well. I love Dickens, so this pillow would become a much treasured belonging of mine.

4. The Fault in Our Stars Poster
I love all the different TFiOS posters that are floating around the internet, and so I really want one of my own. But I'll settle as having Ansel Elgort as my boyfriend, if I have to...

5. The Great Gatsby Jumper
I've been eyeing off this jumper for the longest time, you really don't understand how much I need this jumper. It's perfect and I love it, and I would never take it off.

6. Nancy Drew Kindle Cover
Nancy Drew was one of my favourite childhood series, and even though I don't techanically own a Kindle (I've got a Kobo), I totally want one of these covers.

7. Book Cover Bags
How amazing are these bags? This one is from Grimm's Fairy Tales but there are ones for Austen, To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick etc. They're just so pretty!

8. Floor To Ceiling Bookshelves
What kind of book collector doesn't want shelves like these? I'm not going to lie, I'd probably seriously hurt myself trying to constantly rearrange these books all the time but somehow I think it'd be worth it!

9. Penguin Journal
If there's one thing I love as much as books, it's pretty journals. And what can I say about this one? I have a weakness for Penguin things!

10. Christmas Confetti
As I mentioned, I love Dickens and these little snowflakes are cut out from vintage editions of his book A Christmas Carol. Therefore, they are perfect and I need them. I mean, I don't know what I'd do with them but I want them anyway.

So that's my list for this week! Make sure to link yours below :)