First Thoughts- Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

Blogmas Day 16

 Yesterday marked a very important day for Harry Potter fans all over the world. Yesterday we got our first glimpse at Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, I for one could not be more excited. 
So, if you've been living under a rock and have yet to see the trailer, watch it here. Come back once you've seen it!
When I first heard about this film, I thought it was a rumour... After finding out it was real, it didn't quite sink in. Only now has it dawned on me that it is actually happening, we are actually getting more of the Wizarding World. 
And it was a teaser trailer to remember, I never expected that we would get a teaser so early, let alone one which is 1 minute and 53 seconds long. Is it a good or bad thing that it dropped so early? Next November seems a lifetime away, but it will be worth the wait. 
In the first 30 seconds of the trailer we get serious throwbacks to the Harry Potter films, I felt so nostalgic hearing 'Lumos Maxima' again, the whole atmosphere was so magical and special. We are then introduced to the case of creatures, the mystery that this trailer creates is making me die to see this film. All of these completely brand new characters and this brand new side of the world is something which I am so pumped for. I absolutely love Eddie Redmayne and am so ready to watch his portrayal of a wizard, it will be something completely new and different. The music in the trailer gives serious Harry Potter nostalgia, but along with the visuals and characters we have never come across in the Wizarding World before, so much excited tension is created. 
Trying to think of wizards in America is kind of mind boggling, its not something I've ever really thought about before hearing of this film. Sure, we've seen Bulgarian and French wizards, but as far as I can recall, we never went into that much detail on American wizardry. 
I find it so odd that we have no idea what will happen in this film. When going to see a new Harry Potter film, book fans would always go in knowing exactly what was going to happen in the film. Right now I feel a bit left out, but I know that this new experience of the films will be just as exciting. 
So now I am left with a million questions. What kind of character will Eddie Redmayne be? What will this brand new story be about? What other characters will we have? I'm completely filled with nervous excitement, all of this has left me desperate to re-read and re-watch all of the Harry Potter. I hope you all liked the trailer and are just as excited as I am for it, for now I am probably going to go and re-watch it a million times, I'll see you tomorrow for another day of Blogmas!
-Darcy 

Films of 2015

Blogmas Day 15

2015 was a great year for film in my opinion, this year I went to see quite a few different movies, so I wanted to share the list of all the films I watched and the rating I gave them. All of these films are the new releases that came out in 2015 or right at the end of 2014, this list would go on for a while if I mentioned every film I watched... So without further ado, I hope you find some recommendations...

(Also want to note that because Star Wars isn't out quite yet, its not on this list but it will be! Thursday, please come quicker.)
Warning: I gave a lot of films 5 stars!

Paddington
5 Stars

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
4.5 Stars


The Duff
5 Stars

The Theory Of Everything
4.5 Stars

Love, Rosie 
5 Stars

Divergent: Insurgent 
3.5 Stars

The Avengers: Age of Ultron
5 Stars 

Ant Man
5 Stars

Paper Towns
4 Stars

James Bond: Spectre
5 Stars

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
5 Stars 

-Darcy

My Top Authors

Blogmas Day 14

When I have loved a book by an author, I will always be quick to pick up more by them. This list showcases all of my auto-buy authors, if any of these released a book tomorrow then I would go straight out and get it. Hopefully I won't forget any, but I probably will because there's always one which slips my mind...

Jenny Han

 Every time I pick up a Jenny Han book I get through it at record speed, her books are addictive and amazingly written. Sadly, I have read all of her books and I'm eagerly awaiting another, The Summer I Turned Pretty is my personal favorite, but that decision was not made lightly. The Burn for Burn trilogy and To All The Boys I've Loved Before are both absolute perfection, everyone needs a little Jenny Han in their life.

Morgan Matson

Morgan Matson is new to my list this year. I absolutely love her books, they always hit me right in the heart, she has a new book coming out in 2016 and I am completely desperate for it! I love Since You've Been Gone because it connected with me on a crazy level, but her other books are just as amazing. She is definitely one of the contemporay Queens, I simply love her books.

Cassandra Clare

Oh, Cassandra Clare, how you never fail to blow me away. When you read a Cassie Clare book you are in a completely different world... And its wonderful. I will read any book that Clare puts out, just keep giving me more and more Shadowhunters, I would never complain. I think I slightly prefer The Infernal Devices, but that doesn't mean to drag down my absolute love of The Mortal Instruments, I adore them both.

Stephanie Perkins

Anna and the French Kiss is one of my all time favorite books ever, I've read it a scary amount of times, so it makes sense that Stephanie Perkins is on her list. Her books evoke some of the best memories for me, I am waiting in a state of despair for another book by her, her books are perfection. She made me one of my top authors with just a single book, she has magical powers, I'm sure of it.

Sarah J. Maas

You wonderful writer. A Court of Thorns and Roses was the best book I read this year, gorgeously written and so fast paced, I need to re-read this book ASAP. When I started Throne of Glass a few years back I didn't know what I was in for. Sarah J. Maas is an incredible author. Fun fact- I met her in May and she was such a lovely person, she's great all round. 

Marissa Meyer

Another new one for me. I didn't expect myself to put her into this list, but she really is one of my favorite authors. When she releases her new books I will be buying them straight away, her writing sucks me in and places me straight into these intricate worlds. Fairy tale re-tellings at their finest, these books are funny, addictive and will give you the most wonderful reading experience, put simply.

I have this horrible feeling that I've missed one of my favorite authors. I also wanted to mention Suzanne Collins and J.K. Rowling, who I guessed were quite obvious so I didn't put them in. I hope you enjoyed this post, of course I recommend that you check out every single one of these authors if you haven't already. A couple of authors who are on their way to making this list are Sarah Ockler, Sabaa Tahir and Renée Adhieh- all who have blown me away with their books (but I didn't feel I had read enough of their work to put them on the list!) I will be back tomorrow with a new post for another day of Blogmas,

-Darcy

Review- Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

Blogmas Day 13

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

'When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.'

My rating- 4.5 stars
Genre- New Adult, romance, contemporary
Review- Non spoiler until there is a spoiler warning

This is my second Colleen Hoover book, I read Slammed back in April and really enjoyed it, since then I've been meaning to pick up another Hoover book. Slammed, in my opinion, was more young adult than Ugly Love- which is predominately new adult.  I feel like I'm a little conflicted about this book, I finished it this morning after I started reading it a couple of days ago, I wasn't gripped straight away, but after a while I couldn't stop turning the pages. There is an element of mystery in this book and I was absolutely desperate to know the answers, as a result I couldn't put this book down.
I really liked Ugly Love, Tate and Miles were such well put together characters and I was hopelessly shipping them through the whole book. My only problem with this book was that sometimes I lost interest in some of the scenes, which I will go more into in the spoiler section of this review. 
Another reason why I'm a little conflicted is that I'm not a huge fan of 'instalove' which was quite evident from chapter two in this book. Maybe its just me being cynical but I'm not the hugest fan of this popular trope in books.
This book is told from two perspectives, Tate in 'present day' and then Miles 6 years before. At first I wasn't a fan of this setup, but after a while I grew to really enjoy it, it  meant that I felt closer to Miles and it developed his character drastically. I think I preferred Tate's chapters, her voice was really fun to read and I really liked her character, she was such a good perspective to read from! I also absolutely loved Miles, him and Tate were swoon-worthy.
I would definitely recommend this book, but not to the younger side of the YA audience, it is definitely for a more new adult audience. If you have enjoyed Colleen Hoover previously or have wanted to pick up one of her books, then I would definitely recommend it, she is a very good writer and I think she is perfect if you want to explore the new adult genre. 

Spoilers
I feel like a lot of people are going to judge this book by the upcoming movie. After watching the teaser trailer I was a bit alarmed that it seemed so different to the book. It felt like they were trying to rip off Fifty Shades of Grey, which is seriously not the style of Ugly Love. I hope they don't go in that direction, but I won't judge the whole film from one teaser obviously.
Ugly Love made my heart hurt a little bit. I wanted so much to just reach into the book and hug Miles when I found out about his past, it was so heart breaking. I just have to put it out there that I loved the end of the book, when it turned to present day Miles' perspective and we saw him propose to Tate, then we got a snippet of the wedding and then them having their baby. I think it was my favourite part of the book and made the novel for me. 
Sometimes I felt like there was a bit of repetition in this book and that sometimes the same things were re-used, that was a slight problem for me, but getting past that I'd say that there weren't too many problems with it. 
Cap was one of my favourite characters in this book and I loved the friendship that built between him and Tate. Another nice twist was how Miles had been confiding in Cap the whole time as well, it definitely made me smile. I loved Cap. 
I also really enjoyed Corbin's character, he fit the role of the protective big brother perfectly. The whole way through the book I was thinking that I would love to hear Corbin's love story. He reminded me alot of Belly's brother from The Summer I Turned Pretty for some reason, I really liked both of their characters though.
I liked how Tate wasn't too typical of a character, she was a little older than the characters in books I normally read, which was quite refreshing. She was actually pretty human, different to lots of charactes you can come across. 
I am definitely going to be reading more Colleen Hoover, I fly through her books. Her books deal with more serious topics which makes them feel extremely real and are so well written. And on that note that is the end of my review, if you've stuck through it then I hope you enjoyed this post, I will have one up tomorrow for another day of Blogmas, 
-Darcy 

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