My Winter and Christmas Essentials

Blogmas Day 12 

Its that time of year when everything is warm and cosy, there are so many things I love about the season of winter. These things are my absolute must haves for Christmas and the cold weather.

Candles
Ahh, how I love candles. It is essential for me to have candles burning through the seasons of Autumn and Winter, preferably ones that smell of berries and spices, I'm also not opposed to the classic vanilla. In this picture I also have some Christmas tunes playing, shown here is The Darkness with Christmas Time, one of my top Christmas songs. 


Books

Okay yes, this is probably the most obvious item on this list. Winter is definitely the season when I read most of my fantasy books, its so easy to escape to different worlds at this time, I'm not quite sure why. But along with the heavy fantasies I adore a contemporary at this time.  Also featured in this photo is Harry Potter and a mince pie, which I will get to...


Harry Potter
If ever there was a time of year to watch Harry Potter then this is that time. Obviously its not just the films which are so perfect for this time of year but ofcourse the books, I love re-reading them and delving back into that world. Growing up, winter time was always when they would put Harry Potter re-runs on television, so I would be curled up by the fire watching it. 


Festive Food
This time of year rekindles my love of food, all of the deliciously unhealthy food hits the shelves and I say goodbye to any kind of healthy eating I might be undergoing. Mince Pies are a personal favourite, as well as Twiglets, hot chocolate and tea (I fit most British stereotypes). I like to bake alot at this time also, so cakes and biscuits are consumed in large quantities in my house.

Body Shop Glazed Apple
I took a photo of this but it didn't turn out very well so I'm just using the picture from The Body Shop website. I absolutely love the scent of the Glazed Apple range at Body Shop, after I was given this hand cream last year for Christmas, I have been waiting for Christmas to bring back this scent into my life. I love it so much, this year I bought the body lotion, it literally makes your skin sparkle and it smells divine. I feel like The Body Shop in general is a must have for this time of year. You can find this range here. 


I hope you enjoyed this post and it made you feel a little more festive, I will be back tomorrow for another day of Blogmas!
-Darcy

Current Reads 11/12/15

Blogmas Day 11
Its been a long week, so I plan to fill all of my free time this weekend with reading (inbetween the work, baby sitting and essays) I feel like I haven't read enough recently and I need to redeem that! So here is what I am currently reading or am about to read...

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

I have had this book for a couple of weeks and the whole time I have been stretching my fingers towards it in desperation wanting to get to it. I feel like this is a book I want to read when I have some time to do it, as a result I didn't want to start it whilst at school. So I'm waiting for Friday when it will finally be the Christmas holidays (yesss). I love Sarah Ockler so much and this is one of the three of her novels which I haven't yet read. I have absolutely no idea of what this book is about so I'm pretty excited about it. Maybe its not the perfect time to read it, as you may have noticed the word 'summer' is in the title- not great considering we are in the depths of winter. But I can just pretend I live in Australia where it is currently summer. I hope I love Twenty Boy Summer as much as the other Sarah Ockler books I have read.


Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

This is the book I currently have on the go, so far I'm about 10% in and I'm enjoying it, but I'm not yet addicted like I was with Colleen's other book 'Slammed'. I have been waiting to read this book for what feels like forever, I've heard amazing things about it. I also think (if I'm not mistaken) that this is being turned into a film, so thats also something to look forward to if I love this book, which I'm hoping I will.  It seems like I'm in a big contemporary mood at the moment judging by these two books, both are novels I've been dying to read though, so I think its mainly a coincidence.

Rumors by Anna Godbersen

This one is not a contemporary so welldone to me for mixing it up a bit. Rumors is the second book in The Luxe series, which is a historical fiction which is described as a historic version of Gossip Girl, which I can kind of agree with. I really enjoyed Luxe, the first book, so I hope Rumors is just as good. Because I read Luxe about a year and a half ago I really want to read this before I completely forget everything which happened in the first book. If you are looking for Gossip Girl set in another century, then maybe look into the Luxe series, its really enjoyable but don't expect to much historical accuracy!

So those are all the books I'm going to be reading, hopefully due to the Christmas holidays I will have a little more time to read and as a result pick up more books. Thankyou for reading this post, I will have a post up tomorrow for another day of Blogmas, see you then, 
-Darcy

Review- Winter by Marissa Meyer

Blogmas Day 10

Winter by Marissa Meyer

There will be a spoiler warning 

So I can't really describe this book without spoilers as it is the fourth book in the series. So I'm going to leave a synopsis of Cinder, the first book, instead. 

'Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future'

My Rating- 5 stars
Genre- Young adult, romance, fantasy, science fiction 
Review- Non spoiler until there is a spoiler warning

Winter is the final book in the much loved series of the Lunar Chronicles, so naturally my heart is slightly broken. Cinder is the first book, followed by Scarlet, Cress and now Winter. These books are absolutely amazing, I have loved following these characters and have completely fallen in love with the world. The Lunar Chronicles are all sci-fi retellings of a different fairy tale, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White. I cannot believe that the series has come to an end, I would like for Marissa Meyer to just constantly be writing more and more about these characters, but all good things must come to an end. 
My favourite of this series was definitely Cress, but Winter closely follows. This book was absolutely jam-packed with action, something was always happening. Winter, the character not the book, was such an incredibly built character who I just wanted desperately to get her happily ever after! When this book came in the post I was completely astonished at how big it was, at more than 800 pages it took me a little bit of time to get through, but in the end it was completely worth it. 
I found that at times this book could be a tiny bit dragged out, at some points I felt that it could have been flushed out a little bit. But, hey, no book is completely perfect! It was still fantastic though, obviously. 
If you haven't read these books yet, or maybe haven't read the rest of the series, then I seriously highly recommend that you do. I honestly think that a huge spectrum of people would enjoy these novels, there is something for everyone. Whether its the amazingly built world or the characters, the action, the romance... I honestly think that this is a general crowd pleaser.
But now I am going to get into some spoilers because I need to get some feelings out! If you don't want to get spoiled then go and read the book, then come back! If so, I hope you enjoyed this non-spoiler section.

Winter discussion
I honestly did not think I would cry at this book, maybe I misjudged myself. It was the moment I finished this book and I read the last page that I just broke. 'And they all lived happily to the end of their days.' For some reason that made me sad, tears followed. thank you Marissa Meyer. So I'm going to talk about each character and their story and discuss them all separately!
Cinder
Oh Cinder, the one who began it all. I am a big fan of Cinder and her book was what made me fall in love with this series and world. I was so happy that everything turned out perfectly for her, her ending with Kai was perfection, I found myself giggling and sighing. It seemed like the whole world was against Kai and Cinder being together, everything was just always going wrong for them. It was such sweet relief when they finally got their happily ever after. When Kai asked Cinder if she would consider being Empress, I completely swooned... Cinder through this book reminded me a lot of Katniss in a weird way, maybe it was the whole 'rebellion' thing, but I kept being reminded of The Hunger Games through this book. Maybe its because the last book I read was a re-read of Catching Fire. I love how strong Cinder is and kind of wished I was her at some points. When Levanna stabbed her I was SO tense, I generally thought she was dead for a good minute. 
Scarlet
Perhaps my least favourite of the 4 girls, nothing against her, but Scarlet (the book) doesn't stand out to me as much as the others. But of course I still love her character and felt so bad for her when she was imprisoned on Luna. For some reason I was completely convinced that Wolf was going to die in this book, I honestly don't know why but I just felt like he was doomed. Luckily, this was not the case and their story ended beautifully. Poor Wolf! When he woke up all biologically engineered, my heart hurt for him- I'm so glad that everything ended well for him and Scarlet, they were wonderful.
Cress
Oh, Cress and Thorne, you are my ultimate OTP ever, I will never forget you guys. When Cress was split up from the team very early on in the book I was absolutely gutted, I adore Thorne and Cress together- them being apart hurts me! I can't see how anyone could ever hate Cress, she is the sweetest character that I think I have ever come across, she has such a wonderfully big heart but is also kind of a badass. I wish I had mad hacker skills like her, I loved how she helped Jacin to fake-kill Winter, it was such a good part! Cress and Thorne's scene before the coronation was probably my favourite of the whole book, the wait for them to get together hurt, but the outcome was glorious. When Cress was stabbed, I had to honestly stop reading for a couple of minutes, I thought she was dead and I was a complete mess. Meyer could honestly write a book about Cress and Thorne going grocery shopping and it would still be gold.
Winter
I feel attached to Winter, she is such a lovable character who you just want to hug. Jacin's protectiveness of her was so endearing and  the whole way through the book I was constantly rooting for them. Winter's mental illness was actually quite scary at some points, when the wall were bleeding it sent shivers down my spine, I wanted her to get better so badly. Even though we got an 800 page book with her name on it, I feel like we didn't get enough Winter- I would love to read more about her! I definitely found myself looking forward to her chapters because they were always interesting. Ryu's death absolutely broke my heart, I couldn't stop thinking about it whilst I continued reading. But I honestly could not stop reading at that point, the whole fake death sequence with Winter and Jacin was so well done and I just loved it (as well as being very sad)
And because I have obviously missed the star of the show, I must commemorate Iko. Iko is definitely one of the best characters to grace this series, her whit and boy crazy, fashion loving attitude have cracked me up since book 1. I love her. I don't think we are finished with Iko for some reason, I think that there is going to be something with her and Kinney, there were a couple of hints through the book. Maybe I'm just desperate for another book but if this happens, I would love it!

So that is my review of Winter, I hope you enjoyed this if you've managed to read the whole post. I rambled quite a bit, which normally happens when I have liked a book (so, really its a good thing). On that note, I will see you tomorrow for another day of Blogmas and hope for lots more Marissa Meyer reviews in the future.
-Darcy

Mini Movie Reviews!

Blogmas Day 9

So I've seen quite a few films recently and I thought it would be nice to do some mini reviews, instead of boring people with full on lengthy reviews. I went to see these two films on the same day so I thought it was appropriate to put them together. I hope you enjoy!

Film- Spectre
Franchise- James Bond
Director- Sam Mendes
My rating- 5 stars

Worth the watch? If you are a James Bond fan or enjoy these films, then it is definitely worth going to see.
After seeing quite a few mixed reviews on this film, I was hesitant going into the cinema to see it, but also extremely excited because I love Bond. This film was an absolute thrill ride! Maybe structurally it could have been improved, but entertainment wise I was extremely impressed. The plot line was highly enjoyable, along with some classic Bond humour and nostalgia. Is this my favourite of Daniel Craig's Bond films? Maybe. Its up there with Casino Royale for me. 

Film- Paper Towns
Director- Jake Schreier
My rating- 4 stars

Worth the watch? I would say yes, definitely if you enjoyed the book.
I read Paper Towns about two years ago after I fell in love with The Fault in Our Stars. I have to say that I did not really enjoy the book that much, maybe it just wasn't my thing. The whole way through reading the book, all I could think was 'this would translate so well into a film'. Its true, I think I enjoyed the film experience to the book experience, which is something that never normally happens. This film was funny and relateable, overall it was a great watch. But compared to other films I've seen recently, it just didn't quite hit the 5 star mark for me. But its definitely a good film, I laughed out loud on a couple of occasions.


So those are my mini film reviews. I absolutely love film and therefore find talking about it really fun, so I will definitely be doing some more mini reviews in future! I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you tomorrow for another day of Blogmas,
-Darcy 

Review- Mockingjay Part 2

Blogmas Day 8

Film- Mockingjay Part 2
Franchise- The Hunger Games
Directed by- Francis Lawrence
Rating- 5 stars
Spoilers ahead!

Warning- incoherent babbling ahead.
I have definitely been putting this post off because I don't think I've accepted that this franchise is over (I watched it nearly three weeks ago now). For me, and I know for quite a lot of people, this film is the end of an era. Every year my friends and I would go to see the next film on the day it came out, and even though we had already read the books, still be in on edges of our seats. So finally watching this film was very emotional, sat right at the back of the cinema, as always, we said goodbye the our favourite characters. 

So, its safe to say that this film was a massive sob-fest, I cried, then I cried again, then I cried a little more. But thats to be expected quite honestly. I loved this film, for me it is at the same level of Catching Fire, which had been my number one of the series. I have said this before and I will say it again, Jennifer Lawrence is incredible. The way she portrayed Katniss was phenomenal and I honestly could not think of anyone at all who could do what she did. (spoilers start here) I feel like I could go on about Jennifer's acting skills and how she portrays Katniss for days, I can honestly say that she brings the same emotions to me as I got from the books. The scene with Buttercup at the end completely broke me, I had the exact same reaction as I did from the book, it was possibly my favourite scene of the whole films (maybe...)

The action was constant and there was not one dull moment for me. Something was always happening, even the more 'quiet' parts of the film were 100% engrossing, I could not have stopped watching if I tried. I think its also important to note the settings, they were done so well, the attention to detail was amazing and just so impressive. 

Josh, Liam, Sam, Elizabeth, Woody, I could go on, all of them played their parts perfectly and I couldn't ask for a better cast of characters for this film. The scene with the mutts in the sewers was completely terrifying, I was waiting for jump scares, it was so intense! Finnick's death seemed so quick but broke my heart at the same time. In the book Katniss says she sees Finnick's life flash before her eyes, I kind of wish they had added that to the film- maybe it would have made it more significant. Other than that, I cannot believe just how true to the book they stayed, there were parts which were line to line and were exactly how the book presented them. I cannot believe just how true the writers stayed to these books.

The end completely ripped out my heart. Seeing the epilogue come to life was almost surreal to me, I couldn't believe that I was finally seeing the scene that I had waited so long for. Peeta and Katniss' story was ended so perfectly, I wanted to hug the screen. I know that quite a few people did not like the epilogue, but for me it was exactly what I wanted. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, sorry about the rambling, I just loved it a lot. I'll see you tomorrow with another day of Blogmas!
-Darcy

Christmas Films!

Blogmas Day 7

So basically I was trying to resist making this post, but I seriously just couldn't. I know its not book related, but I have an obsession with Christmas films and some festive cheer is needed on my blog right now (especially due to the fact that its Blogmas!) This is a list of my absolute favorites, I hope you enjoy!

A Muppets Christmas Carol

I don't know about you, but for me it just isn't Christmas without watching this film. I have so much nostalgia whenever I put this on, the songs are so uplifting and I love The Muppets! What more could you possibly want?

Elf

Buddy the Elf and his adventures in New York. I watched this just the other day and I was still laughing my head off. Its such a light and uplifting film which is absolutely perfect to snuggle up and watch. Also, it always makes me crave spaghetti, maybe thats just me.

Nativity

I LOVE THIS FILM. Martin Freeman plays the role of a school teacher who is in charge of the annual nativity play and its pure gold. It is honestly the funniest Christmas film and never fails to crack me up, I'm so excited to re-visit it this year. No matter how many times I watch this I am always laughing.

The Holiday

I watch this film every year on Christmas Eve and it always gives me warm, fuzzy feelings. I'm not really sure what it is about this film which makes it so charming, but I will continue watching it every Christmas Eve.

Love Actually

This is one of my all time favorite films, not just under the Christmas category. Its absolute perfection, I can't really say much more about it. The sound track, the characters, the plot, the emotions, everything is just completely on point. I am legitimately dying to watch this film right now, but I'm going to wait until its a little closer to Christmas.

Home Alone

Its a classic, and (I hope) everyone has watched it. There is something about this film that just screams Christmas, but I will watch it all year round because its just that good (and I get excited for Christmas way too early) I also love Home Alone 2, both are just perfect Christmas films. Kevin you're such a disease! Merry Christmas ya filthy animal!

The Grinch

Oh, how I love this film. Growing up, I just wanted Cindy Lou's hair, as crazy as that sounds. The Grinch is such a great film, Jim Carrey plays the role amazingly and just talking about it makes me want to put it on right now. Plus Max the dog is the most adorable thing ever.

So these are the films that popped into my head, I've probably missed some of the best ones (sorry). I think its definitely time to marathon some Christmas films. Obviously I recommend all of these films if you haven't seen them yet, they are sure to make your Christmas merry and bright! I hope you enjoyed this and I will see you tomorrow with another day of Blogmas!

-Darcy

Most Anticipated 2016 Book Releases

Blogmas Day 6

2016 is going to be a crazy year for book releases. I am honestly so excited for the amount of amazing books that will be hitting the shelves next year; so I thought I would compile a list of all the books I just need. Now. I have probably accidentally missed out a couple, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind. Also, quite a few books do not have names or information about them yet, these include number 5 in the Throne of Glass series and, according to Goodreads, a new Stephanie Perkins book! So, here they are.

The Rose and the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

The sequel to The Wrath and the Dawn, which I can safely say was one of the best books I have read this year, I hope this book is just as amazing. So beautifully written and well put together!

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

I.Just.Cannot.Wait. This is the sequel in Sarah J. Maas' new series, the first being A Court of Thornes and Roses. It was the best book I read this year, that about sums it up.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I literally didn't know this existed until today, when I found it I squealed a little bit. This is her spin on the Queen of Hearts, Marissa Meyer can keep re-telling fairy tales forever and they will never get boring. I am so ready for this!

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Another incredible book which blew me away this year was An Ember in the Ashes, beautifully written and completely addictive. This sequel is now one of my most anticipated books!

Summer Days and Summer Nights, edited by Stephanie Perkins

Another twelve love stories from tonnes of amazing authors. My True Love Gave To Me came out last year and was 12 Christmas Stories, this is 12 summer stories! Super intrigued. 

Stars Above by Marissa Meyer

More Lunar Chronicles stories! If I am correct, this is a novella bind up with lots of stories all through the Lunar Chronicles. Yes please! Thankyou Marissa Meyer for all the books.

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Finally, we are going to get this new Shadowhunter book. It feels like we've been waiting forever for this novel, after it was pushed back *sad face* In a way, though, the wait has just made me more excited...

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

It is a fact universally acknowledged that everyone needs more Morgan Matson in their life. Due to the fact that this list is lacking contemporary books, here's one. I need this in my life!

So, there it is. All the things that I have to wait way too long for. I just want every single one of these books in my hands right away, sighs. I hope you enjoyed this post and maybe found out about some new books that will be coming out next year and I will see you tomorrow with another day of Blogmas!

-Darcy