This or That Tag

Thank you to the wonderful July for tagging me in this! :D
I'm sorry for not posting often. On top of gymnastics practice, I'm also on my school's track and field time, as well as homework and trying to keep up with April Camp NaNoWriMo.....

The rules; 

1. Answer the questions given to you

2. Give the people you nominate the same questions

3. Nominate three people 

4. Let the amazing three know that they've been tagged 

Alright, let's do this.

 Hair up or down?

It's kind of fun to go around with my hair down since my hair is really long, haha. But since it's so long it gets tangled rather easily, so when I'm too lazy to make sure it looks nice (which is most of the time oops) I just twist it up in a bun. So hair up, I guess, since I wear it like that the most. And braids are really fun to do ;)

 Dessert or fruit?

My gymnastics and track coaches would be proud because...fruit. I love how pretty desserts are, but I find that a lot of them are way too sweet for my taste, and afterwards I just feel really guilty and want to go burn it all off, which isn't fun.

 Dress or shirt and sweatpants?

That depends on the occasion. If I'm going out somewhere, then a dress because my mom would never let me out the door wearing sweatpants xD Although I actually wear skirts more often...

But at home or waiting on the sidelines at a meet or something, definitely sweatpants. They are so comfortable.

 One Direction or Jonas Brothers?

Ehh, I don't like either band very much (although to be fair, I haven't really listened to their music that much either) Probably One Direction since the Jonas Brothers is like a Disney band or something and my parents are too cheap to buy Disney channel so I've never really heard of them much haha.

Radio or iPod?

iPod. The only reason I can live through sports competitions and run 10Ks is my iPod. <3

Sleepover at your house or at a friend's house?

A friend's because then you don't have to worry about making sure the house is clean and everyone is having fun ;)

Cookies or apples?

Apples all the way!

Playing cards or painting?

PLAYING CARDS. Definitely. I love card games, oh my gosh. And it's a bit complicated, but in the story I'm currently writing, two people fall in love essentially over card games ahaha. ...and I can't paint at all

In a board game, would you rather be a green or a white piece?

Well this is an original question, kudos to whoever came up with it. I don't play board games very often, but green. White is the mourning color yknow :) 

(that's a book reference for those who haven't read The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. In which case drop everything and get your hands on a copy of City of Bones right now).

In accordance with the rules, I have to tag 3 people, but from my experience, people don't typically like being tagged in these kinds of things, so...just do this tag if you'd like, I guess! :)

It's my spring break now, so I'm going to go sleep for like 15 hours and then watch some Netflix...and hopefully get some blog posts written so I can still post when school starts up again.

Thanks for reading! 

--Audrey

On Crying Over Books

There are those people who never cry while reading.
There are those people who will cry at any book with strong emotions.
There are those people who...walk in on me sobbing over a book and tell me I'm an idiot.
(in case you're curious, my older brother. Who. Really. Should not have been. Walking into my room. Because. What if I was changing. Just saying).

I'm don't necessarily cry over all character deaths/misfortunes, and I rarely cry of happiness. I cried when I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I'm sure some of you know why) and I also cried while reading Clockwork Princess because GAAAH it was just so...so... well I can't really find the right word for it, but I was basically in hysterics and didn't talk to anyone for like a week after reading that book.

Then recently, I was rereading The Giver by Lois Lowry, and I'm going to have spoilers of that book down below so please only proceed if you have read the book, don't plan on reading it, or (not that I recommend this AT ALL because it'll ruin the meaning of the book for you) don't mind being spoiled. I'll put a note where the spoilers end.
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Okay so the first time I read The Giver, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention because I was ten and had to do a book report on it. It's not like I didn't enjoy the book, I just didn't really...think about it much.
And then I finally decided to reread the book, and...
W-o-w.
The Giver is a really intense book, and it's one of the earlier-published popular dystopian novels, as well as, in my current opinion, one of the best. The way everything works--pretty much no choices at all, no color, no hills, no birthdays, no biological familial ties at all, no grandparents, no SUNSHINE (I mean. Come on.), no snow, no........
So yeah, that alone already really intrigued me and had me on edge the entire time I was reading.

But near the end, when The Giver tells Jonas that he can't see colors anymore, and then it has the line "Jonas's heart broke" I'm not even sure. I just started crying. I was reading in my bed, and on the wall across from my bed there are several squares of different paint colors (paint samples) and then just seeing those colors, and seeing everything that was in my bedroom and thinking of how different lives could possibly be...
I am very bad at explaining thoughts, I apologize.



SPOILERS ARE OVER NOW
So my brother heard me crying, I'm assuming, and so politely just barged into my room and was like "....why are you crying...." *look of scorn*
Me (in tears): Well this book...it's like...um so...*another bout of tears* and they, well, I...
My brother: It's just a book.
Me: *tries not to strangle him*
My brother: What? It's not like it's real or anything.
Me: *physically restraining myself from killing him* But but but it's like...it...I...
And then my brother called me an idiot for crying over something that "isn't real or anything".

Moral of the Story: People who don't read don't seem to understand crying over books. And big brothers are mean.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having emotions over a story that might be made up. I can't exactly explain why because I'm bad with words... oops...
And besides, there's always a chance all the stories are true. ;)

In other news, I apologize for being gone so long. I was impeded by this annoying thing called Dealing With Reality and Homework.

Fictional Life Tag

I was over at the wonderful July's blog and saw the Fictional Life Tag, which she got from here. And it looks like great fun, so of course I rushed right over to my own blog to do it! :)
NOTE: I have a tendency to fall hopelessly in love with books, so excuse me if these questions have about 5 million answers each. Also. I'm ignoring character deaths.

1.What fictional world would you live in?
Oh dear lord. Lots of options. How bout my top 3 (I told you I'd have trouble choosing. Sigh.)
-the Shadow World (from The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. not as creepy as it sounds.)
-Hogwarts/Harry Potter Wizarding World (do I need to explain?)
-Narnia (seriously, do I need to explain?)

2. What fictional being would you be?
Shadowhunter (from TMI) Shadowhunters are just so. Awesome. I can't. Argh.
Being one of those forever young immortal Neverland fairies would be pretty nice too, wouldn't it.

3. What fictional animal/creature would you keep as a pet?
Unicorn. :) Not that I'm exactly the best with horses... 

4. What fictional couple would be your Mom and Dad?
Hmm. I want to say Will and Tessa from the Infernal Devices but they lived in Victorian times soooo
Yknow what, how about Percy and Annabeth from Rick Riordan's books. Then I could go to Camp Half-blood!

5. What fictional characters would be your brother and sister?
Hmmmm. Like which families would I want to be a part of?
-all the Weasleys from Harry Potter ;) I could be Ginny 2.0
-not that they exactly have family but I kind of like Raven from Delirium
-Alec and Isabelle Lightwood from TMI

6. Which fictional character would be your best friend?
Isabelle Lightwood from TMI (in my dreams, anyway). Who's my "sister" too...whoops...
Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars would also be an amazing best friend. 

7. Choose 3 fictional characters to be your close girl friends?
I guess excluding  Izzy because I already said she was my best friend? Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter (isn't she fabulous) Jess from MDBC (other people have answered this too but I mean come on Jess is just great), aaand... Hazel Grace Lancaster from The Fault in Our Stars

8. Choose 3 fictional characters to be your close guy friends?
Again, excluding Augustus because he's supposedly my best friend. Simon Lewis from TMI, Magnus Bane from TMI, and Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games

9. What fictional character would be your girlfriend/boyfriend?
Just one? Si-igh. Jace whatever-his-last-name-is from TMI (fellow Shadowhunters understand my problem with his name right LOL). I also love Augustus Waters. Who is uh, my best friend too and I even considered making him my sibling because you can't get enough Augustus Waters in your life.
While I'm here committing polygamy, Finnick Odair. Or Simon. AUTHORS HAVE CREATED TOO MANY AWESOME CHARACTERS THIS IS SO HARD

10. What author would pen your story?
Cassandra Clare, because she's amazing.

This was not as much fun as I thought it would be because I had the hardest time choosing and some people I just wanted to put in multiple categories and sigh. Answer these questions in the comments below, I'm curious! :)

--Audrey

A Kaylie Quickwrite

If you haven't read my first quickwrite introducing ten-year-old anorexic Kaylie at a science camp, you can find that here, but you don't have to read it if you don't want to...
I just felt like writing more (after more than a year. Oops.), but I hate the pressure of writing something and then editing it because when I've edited something I feel bad if there are mistakes because, you know, I edited it xD
For those of you who don't know, a quickwrite is just something I write and publish without ANY edits. Except random typos, of course.  Haha.
Anyhoo without further ado (what exactly is "ado" anyway) HERE I GO *inhales, exhale*

 Leaves crunching. Wind whistling. People chattering. Birds twittering. But Kaylie didn't hear a thing.

All she knew were stares. The hissed words of her peers were lost.

Hey, that's the girl they took away last night.

What’d she even do?

I dunno. But they kept her there all night.

            In little groups, the fifth graders shuffled into the dining hall, wide oak beams arching across the ceiling above their little heads. High school volunteers milled around, placing platters of breakfast foods on the tables.

            Kaylie slid into her cushioned seat, balancing her tailbone on the very edge of it, clenching her little fists under the white tablecloth.

            “That’s the girl who didn’t eat yesterday.” A brown-haired girl pointed at Kaylie, her lips pressed to a friend’s ear.

            Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t eat. Not hungry. Don’t need food. Strong. I am strong. I am better than this. I can do it.

            Words ran through Kaylie’s mind like a mantra as she stared unblinkingly at her lap, appreciating the various different hues of blue of her jeans. Anything, anything to keep away from that horrid silver spoon on the table.

            But Kaylie’s willpower broke and her large hazel eyes swept to the eating utensil. There it was again. Her reflection. Disfigured, blurry, upside down, fat. Kaylie slowly drew her right hand from under the table, running a finger over her high, prominent cheekbones and down along her cheek, tracing her bony jaw.

            Fat. All of it. Round. Soft and warm and. Fat.

            Her stomach twitched, threatening to rumble and give her away, but Kaylie flexed her muscles the way she’d practiced, and the noise was stopped before it came. She knew that if her stomach rumbled, someone would notice and make her eat. No eating. That was the rule above all the rest.

            Haters, all of them--the nurse, the counselors, the teachers. She had a goal. She was going to reach it. No one could stop her.

            “Kaylie! You’re not eating?” The same young man, the camp head, from yesterday towered over her, a false smile plastered on his face. Hater.

            Very deliberately, Kaylie stretched across the table and grabbed a large platter of scrambled eggs, dumping a spoonful onto her plate, splattering grease across the previously clean porcelain. “I am.” She took a tiny bite of it, chewed more times than necessary, and the whole time, pinched her leg with her left hand still hidden under the table.

            “I am,” when she swallowed. She stared the man straight in the eyes, a sort of quiet challenge in her eyes. “See.” Another tiny bite. More pinching. She tried not to wince.

            “Well. Yes, I see that now.” The man smiled again, awkwardly, and waved to the table, moving along to the next group of students.

            The second the man left, Kaylie wanted to drop the spoon like it was poisonous, but she knew people were watching. Waiting. Judging.

            Little bit little, the lump of oily yellowness slid down Kaylie’s throat. Her nails grew tired from the pinching and her tongue hated every second of the eating. But by the time it was over, no one was paying attention anymore. Free.

            Kaylie stood abruptly the moment breakfast was declared to be over, running back to her cabin to change for the morning hike. She was all alone for maybe thirty seconds, and that was all it took. Several pairs of ankle weights wrapped all around her calves, baggy yoga pants concealing them fully.

            She was ready.



Thanks so much for reading! Please comment any feedback/suggestions below! :) Have a lovely day.

--Audrey

/Speechless/

I... I... I...
NOTE: SPOILERS. ONLY READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE READ ALL HARRY POTTER BOOKS OR DO NOT PLAN ON READING THEM

 (the name is misspelled haha)

-random Dr. Seuss quote to take up space so people who haven't read HP won't see what's below-


Apparently JK Rowling regrets Ron and Hermione's relationship.
Click here to read the original but I'm going to copy-paste it for your convenience.


Rowling says that she should have put Hermione and Harry together in the Harry Potter series instead of Hermione and Ron.

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” she says. “That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she continued, “I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”

Okay, to be totally honest. I was never the biggest fan of "Hermiron" (aw but what a cute ship name haha) in the books, but I never expected JK Rowling to say so. I mean, Hermione and Ron all but hated each other in the first half of the first book, and Hermione seemed to constantly be getting mad at Ron (hehe see the hilarious quotes from Order of the Phoenix especially), which is why I thought it was sort of weird that they got together, but I eventually pretty much just accepted it. And the epilogue of Deathly Hallows was super cute awwh
There are worse couples than Hermione and Ron.

But I wonder what Rowling means when she says "wish fulfillment"? Does she mean her own wishes at that time, or the wishes of the readers?

What do y'all think of JK Rowling saying this? Are you a fan of Hermione and Ron? Sound off in the comments! :)

--Audrey

Book Review: Delirium

In order to honor my resolve to post more, here's a book review that has remained unfinished for far too long... Delirium by Lauren Oliver! :D

Synopsis (from Goodreads): Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

(just a note: I absolutely love the synopsis. I just. It's fabulous, isn't it?)

What I liked: Oooh, dystopians. I'm always attracted to dystopian novels, and this one was especially interesting to me--the title, the synopsis, just the whole idea in general. I absolutely love the writing style; there are plenty of descriptions but not so many that it's extremely boring (like another book that I'll be reviewing soon). I couldn't put it down. Every time I told myself I'll stop at the end of this chapter, I kept reading on and on until like 3 AM. Not kidding. I especially love the character named Alex, though I'm not sure if I should elaborate on why ;) sort of spoiler-y. Oliver does a fantastic job of explaining how this new USA works without making it seem like an info-dump. And I got mad plenty of times, but I'm pretty sure I was supposed to get mad, haha. Ending was beautifully heart-wrenching and I'll leave it at that. 

What I didn't like: The narrator, Lena, was kind of eh to me. Nothing to really dislike about her, but she didn't really stand out in any way. (note: this changes in the next book. Wow.) Relationships and trust seem to build weirdly fast, probably because quite a few weeks pass throughout the book, but it seemed a little rushed. Some swear words are used, the f-bomb two or three times, but that's not worth not reading this book. Romance was mostly just kissing, some suggestive moments but they were written smoothly. 

Overall Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommended Reading Age: I don't really know ummM 12+, maybe 13+

Sorry, I'm still working on my book-reviewing skills...right now they're still in the random-paragraphs-of-my-thoughts stage. Someday I'll get better.

--Audrey

The Fun Questions Tag

-ignores that I've deserted blog for 2 months again-
...
well okay I guess I can't exactly just ignore that. I'm sorry. I'm a terrible blogger. I visit blogs very often, but I just never know what to post on my own blog.
But when I saw the fun questions tag on the fabulous Seana's blog, I thought it would be easy enough since it's like, a ready-made topic for me.

1) When is your birthday? (You don't have to include the year if you don't want to.)
June 11! :)

2) What are 3 of your favorite colors?
Black, turquoise, and gold.

3) What are your 3 favorites quotes?
This is super hard for me to decide so here are 3 quotes I really like but they might not be my favorites:
"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once." --John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

"When your legs get tired, run with your hear." --Cassey Ho

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." --I have absolutely no clue. Oops.

4) Are you addicted to YouTube?
Psh... no.... *wipes liar's sweat off of palms*

5) What are 3 of your favorite shows on TV or YouTube or both?
Once Upon A Time, Make it or Break it, and America's Got Talent

6) What are 3 qualities you like in a best friend?
Kind, loyal, and likes to read (I'm sorry I just. Really have a hard time talking to people who don't read a lot because reading > life)

7) Do you like your name? 
I'd like it better if my last name was a Shadowhunter name, but sure. Why not.

8) If you have the choice to pick your own name, what will it be?
I'm still trying to figure out what my Shadowhunter name will be so I'll get back to you on that.
But as for first names, maybe Hazel (from TFiOS and Heroes of Olympus hehe) or Isabelle (Lightwood) or something book-related, of course.

9) What is your fantasy dream?
To be a Shadowhunter. :)

10) Do you wear makeup?
Not normally, but I do for performances/competitions.

11) If you could write a book, what would the title be and what would it be about?
I'm writing several books, but I want to keep the ideas vague so they'll be a surprise if I get them published! Everything from magic to anorexia to gymnastics.

12) What makes you cry?
Books, specifically character deaths or something that a character says. (cough CLOCKWORK PRINCESS cough)
the occasional movie, but that's rare.

13) What makes you angry?
Any sort of racism, sexism, bigotry, or in general unfair bias. Also authors killing off the characters I love. Like. Seriously?!

14) What makes you happy?
Books, gymnastics, Jace, books,  rain, my friends, books, books, books...

15) What is "Fangirling?"
fangirling: noun
defintion one: Audrey's favorite pastime
definition two: when one (usually female) obsesses over something (anything. Music, a book, a movie, an actor...) by crying over it, laughing too much, screaming, buying an abundance of related merchandise, etc.

16) What are your 3 favorites snacks?
Ummm. Blueberries, Greek yogurt, and of course, chocolate.

17) What are your 3 favorite foods?
Sushi, Greek yogurt, and who could forget chocolate.

18) What are your 3 favorite drinks?
tap water (preferably cold), Chinese green tea, and guava juice

19) Can you tell us a little about yourself?
*stern English teacher face* of course I CAN tell you about me ;)
Here goes: I'm Audrey Jones, 15 years old, and a competitive gymnast (not the super serious kind who try for the Olympics or anything, just to be clear). I am extremely obsessed with reading fiction of many different genres. I also secretly aspire to be a Shadowhunter and my one true love will always remain Jace from The Mortal Instruments series. Sorry, nonexistent boyfriends. *shrugs*

20) What are 10 random facts about you?
- I love butter cookies even though they're super unhealthy.
- I can't sing. At. All.
- I have weirdly green eyes.
- My hair is really, really, really long. But I usually keep it braided or in a bun or something.
- I have a secret dream to become a famous YouTuber (part of the BookTube community to be specific).
- I am useless with computers.
- I have participated in every single NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo since 2009.
- That is not to say I've won all of those.
- I love cats.
- I don't actually have any cats.

21) What are your 3 fun things to do?
-read fiction
-do Pilates (it's just really fun okay)
-procrastinate on YouTube

Thank you all for reading! :D 

--Audrey