One Page At A Time

"“She had just turned a page in her life - no, more accurately, she had started a new book entirely.” ― Kallypso Masters, Nobody's Dream Currently Reading: The Gunslinger by Stephen King Currently Listening To: The Stand by Stephen King Goodreads.com/anescapewithinthepages

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Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken

4 Stars

Genre: Young Adult, Time Travel

Other Books in Series: Passenger (book 1)

This book had big shoes to fill since Passenger was in my top read books overall last year, the characters and story line were fast paced and with the plot twist in the last few pages I was really excited to pick up where that story left off. Sadly, Wayfarer did not meet my expatiation overall. With that said I still mostly enjoyed this book, and it still holds a four star review.

My main complaint about this book was the pace of the story, this book took me a month to read and I heavily blame that on the slow almost dragging pace of this novel. Its predecessor was so quick witted and full of adventure, and that is what I expected from this novel. Instead it was a lot of back and forth with more character development for the new characters introduced then the previous we have already met. The story felt like it was stuck in the mud with more focus on the environment than the plot.

 I know that Bracken really wanted to make sure the time travel in this book was accurate and felt plausible for the reader but I felt so weighed down by the back and forth that I wasn’t able to read this book in large sittings. I would say the first ½ of this book is what kept me from finishing it in a timely manner. Once I got over the hump I finished the rest in one sitting. The story picked up pace, the characters excelled in their travels and I was ready to see where the next page, and the page after that, took me.

Alexandra Bracken is a very talented writer, she is also a writer that makes an effort to create diversity in her novels without it being obviously forced. She succeeded in her goal with this duology. The main characters were a melting pot with their own trials and tribulations. Her use of history and its behaviors just aided in the understanding of how mistreated most of humanity is by its brothers. She also writes with beauty in her pen, this book was poetic and her use of music and its power was wonderfully spun into her story. She is always a pleasure to read and leaves you feeling fulfilled when you finally reach the last page.

The duology overall was fantastic and I enjoyed it greatly, in fact it has prompted me to pick up more books by Bracken and see what else she can do with her words and her imagination. If you are looking for a story that is a breath of fresh air and leaves you with wonderment about the past and our future this is the series for you.

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Another classic for the shelf 📚💚💙

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6pm Ramblings

I have never belonged anywhere. In a crowded room I feel suffocated and harassed by unease and the inability to click. My entire adolescent was me trying too hard to fit in, allowing friends to break my heart more then the boy they chose to do so with. You don’t care about my past, which means you don’t care about how I became me. About who I am. My past made me this crippling cynic who is just waiting on the ball to drop so I know who has hurt me once more. I lived an isolated life, full of meaningless before you, where I let myself be thrown around like an object that was eventually going to be in the trash. It’s what I thought, I think of myself. I have spent my whole life being told what a failure I was or would be and I guess I’ve lived up to that because to you I’m currently just a liability.

You don’t want to know why I am the way I am you just want me to change, to not be that. And I can try but I doubt I will ever not be the crippling panic attack that I am. The person who sees too deep into blank eyes and hears whispers when the crowd is silent. I will always feel out of place, because I am. And all I have ever wanted in my life is for someone to see me as something, anything else. Someone who wanted to understand my crazy and help me work through it. Someone who reassures me that I’m not just a bundle of nerves will never stand on her own two feet. That I am just a dependent on a bored soul who decides that they can ‘handle’ me. Few times has anyone stood up for me in my life. Few times has anyone wanted to or seen the need. I have always been the odd one out, in my family, my friends and eventually the person who sleeps beside me see that to, gets up one morning and never comes back.

Empty promises are a lullaby I use to sing myself to sleep. I feel broken and crumpled and my ways of asking for help are odd and illogical. So here I am just word vomiting to get them out of my throat in an attempt to avoid crying over spilled milk.

I am emotional. I over think. I don’t think. I mess up. I pretend to have pride. I pretend to be strong. But I’m not, I’m just one emotional wave away from capsizing.

Maybe one day i’ll learn to put on a life vest or learn to grow thicker skin. But right now I am just me, and all I have is me. If you want to stand by my side, please do, because I don’t know how to ask and I’m not sure my shadow and regrets count as good company. Ill be here, watching the sun go down and the people on the street and pretend for a little bit that everything is perfectly wonderfully okay.

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My first @bookofthemonth purchase and I'm so excited for this gem 🍬🍭🍡

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This is what depression looks like, it looks tired even though you have slept 18 hours today. It's ordering food to not be able to eat it, it's numbing and sensitive all at the same time. It's feeling your world slip from focus. Depression seeps into your bones and makes your breathe brittle. It whispers your insecurities in a lullaby and screams insults in silence. It is treading water in a hurricane. It's mental health and it's important. Because this feeling is something you fight. You sleep, you eat, you force yourself to get to work tomorrow and you count your blessings because you know this is temporary and you know you can beat it, even if you don't actually know. #mentalhealthawareness #depressionquotes

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Traffick By Ellen Hopkins

4 Stars 

Genre: Contemporary, Prose, Young Adult, Mature Content 

Other Books In Series: Tricks (1)

As a continuation of Tricks by Ellen Hopkins Traffick picks up where its predecessor left off, giving us more insight on how the five keep surviving.

Eden after wandering into a catholic church at her lowest point in life is placed in a halfway house for underage sex workers and has to come to terms with what she did to survive and how it will effect her relationship with Andrew.

Cody wakes up in the hospital to find out the severity of his injuries only to realize how badly he needs redemption.

Seth fineds a place he feels he belongs and starts to discover self-worth.

Whitney comes home to a family that is broken in more ways then one, with her struggle to get and stay clean she learns the depth of the saying ‘blood is thicker than water.’

Ginger learns the fate her family and comes to the conclusion that she needs to go home, it takes more than bravery for her to come to terms with the loss of love and loss of innocence.

This novel is all about redemption, proof that dirt can be washed away. That our actions define us, even those we make to fix our wrongs. That sin is a natural part of life that can be forgiven even when it’s unforgivable. Eden’s story is the one that touched me to my core. Feeling damaged is something I am all too familiar with and although the decisions I have made are not as extreme as those that Eden has to make,the redemption that she receives touched me in ways a book has not in a long while. The love between Eden and Andrew is something that so few get in this world and although they are fictional it was a bright light in the darkness.

The entirety of this book is simply a reminder that there is sun after the storm, that everything we do defines us but does not have to stay with us till our dying breathe. We make our choices day after day, we live and we learn and we create ourselves. Nothing we do is permanent, we will always have the opportunity to rewrite ourselves. Love is something that we deserve whether we believe so or not. We are worthy.

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Oh, Alexandra Bracken this is too perfect! #yaaaas #ithoughtthedustflapwaspretty #wayfarer #alexandrabracken

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It's just so pretty 💕📚😍⚓️

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Tricks By Ellen Hopkins

5 Stars

Genre: YA Adult, Prose, Mature Content/Themes, 

Other Books in Series: Traffick (2)

Ellen Hopkins can capture a character in a few short sentences of prose in a way that some authors cannot achieve in a whole book. The first time I picked up a book by Ellen Hopkins I was 14 years old and she opened my eyes to the raw power of writing books on topics that are deemed to mature for young adults. Tricks is one of her most bold novels to date (and I am sure Traffick will hold up to or surpass).

Tricks follows five teens who through a string of events find themselves in the sex industry of Los Vegas.

Eden is sent to a questionable religious retreat after her ultra conservative parents find out she has fallen in love with a boy. In her search for freedom Eden becomes who her parents assumed she was, all the way praying for forgiveness.

Whitney is a fourteen year old girl who feels shadowed by her older sister and finds herself in a whirlwind of bad decisions that cost her sobriety and so much more.

Seth regrets never coming out to his dying mother about his sexuality, and while jumping the line of who he is and who his father wants him to be he ends up losing his independence and faith.

As the stacks of bills add up after Cody’s stepfathers death Cody with good intentions gambles online and with friends to make money to pay them off, and while Lady Luck doesn’t quiet see his side Cody learns what the price of a body can be.

Ginger’s mother decided that she had the right to sell her daughter’s body, ready to flee Ginger and her girlfriend take the first bus to Las Vegas where they make ends meet in ways Ginger promised herself she would never.

All of these characters are under 18 years of age, all of them are in circumstances that happen every single day. Hopkins wrote this book with the simple intention of opening eyes. In the back of the book in her Authors Note she states the statistic that the average age for a female sex worker in the united states was 12 years old.

For the parents whom would like to see this and everyone other book Hopkin’s writes burned. Shame on you, shame on you for wanting to hide the ugly reality of our world. Whitney’s character, in my opinion, can save lives. Her story is the one most girl can relate to, she is 14 and feels inadequate to her sister so when an older guy tells her she is pretty and worth love, she falls for him. She lets him push her boundaries little by little, she lets him photograph her nude because he says she beautiful, she lets him give her narcotics because if she doesn't her love is tested. By the time reality sinks in she is into deep and has no way out. 

This is what happens to girls sadly, this is the process that men take to control a young girl. By showing this with strong solid words Hopkins warns her readers. 

This book is haunting, it gets under your skin and makes you want to bath in bleach. That is the point of this book, the point is to open your eyes to things you never wanted to see. These things happen, these characters may be fiction but their stories are all too true.

Hopkins raises the bar with every book she writes and she has yet to not reach and succeed. 

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My July @owlcrate!! The lord of the rings bag is my favorite trinket and I feel blessed to get a copy of A Gentlemans Guide to Vice and Virtue, it was already on my TBR :) #owlcrate #agentlemansguidetoviceandvirtue

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The Massacre of Mankind: Sequel to The War of The Worlds by Stephen Baxter

4 Stars  ★★★★

Genre: SciFi

This book as an ARC I won from a Goodreads Giveaway.

Stephen Baxter allows us to indulge in the continued story of H.G Wells’ War of the Worlds. With authorization from the H.G Wells estate this book will be published August of 2017 and overall was an impressive read. 

I had hesitations about this book when I first began to read it, how was someone who was decades from being born when first published going to carrying on the legacy that build the foundation for the SciFi genre? Before even opening a page of this novel I made sure to read this books predecessor. War of the Worlds is a slow but powerful read. I will forever be without air nor words with the accuracy of Wells’ predictions for our current world. Although aliens have yet to show themselves to humanity we seem to have taken a page from their book with chemical warfare and weapons that are beyond our control. 

Baxter did his research, he kept true to the style and format of War of the Worlds, I was very please to see that he even carried over characters from the first novel and expanded on them. War of the Worlds only gives us the perspective of the narrator whom we find out is Walter Jenkins, Walter gives an offhand account of a few other people whom he encountered during the first invasion back in 1907. Albert Cook was the military man who believe the only way we would survive would be by living in the sewers underground. Walter’s brother Frank met two woman during the original novel, one of whom he married and divorced by the year this book takes place (1920), she is our narrator. 

The entire premise of this book is that we always knew the martians would come back, yet we lacked to be prepared. Baxter holds true to Wells’ take on humanity and reminds us that we are all merely ants. This book is well written and gives the reader far more to digest than War of the Worlds. This book also holds truer to that title as we get to see the Martians attack America, Asia, and other parts of Europe. Baxter also chooses to remind his readers there are more planets than Mars and Earth.  

Overall this book was a genuinely good read, due to its more classical writing style the book took me a tad more time to read than most books due, simple because Baxter didn't write the novel to give us a shiny new model, Wells didn't need an upgrade and Baxter understands that, his goal (as far as I can tell) is to continue a story that has shocked and awe audiences since day one. Baxter gave us the story we never knew we wanted (or needed) and I would gladly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed its inspiration or anyone who enjoys a well thought out SciFi Read.

Happy Reading Friends. 

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When a book takes 3 weeks to read and you feel like a sloth. #bookwormproblems #themassacreofmankind

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My first week as librarian was such a blessing and I cannot wait to spend the next 2 weeks with the kids and keep up our barn theme. These were a few cows we made for our book Click Clack Moo Cows That Type 📚🐮💕

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Last Weeks Book Haul: - Lord of the Flies by William Golding -A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - Tricks by Ellen Hopkins - The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman - Room by Emma Donoghue - Proxima by Stephen Baxter (BookCase Club) - The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K Rowling) - The Fold by Peter Clines (Bookcase Club) - After Alice by Gregory Maguire - The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman (Goodreads Giveaway win) #bccunboxing #bookhaul #goodreadsgiveaway #bookstagram #bookworm

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Got lucky today while browsing at Dollar General, found this book (which is originally $27) for a whopping $2! #thanksdollargeneral #bookstagram #happybookworm

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Today's current dilemma, I'm reading and not petting.

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War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

4 Stars  ★★★★

Genre: Classic, SciFi, Horror

Many of us know the synopsis of this novel, we know the story that involved Tom Cruise being a stand up father and we know that Orson Wells caused mass hysteria with his radio rendition in 1938 . Yet these adaptions will always be inferior to the original.  Part of the reason this book withstands time is because the story is so easily adapted to present day and is easy for the masses to connect with; for what does humanity know better than fear?

In H.G Wells’ novel we follow an unnamed narrator who is giving his account of when the Martians attacked England. We read first hand accounts of when green fire fell from the sky, when the Martian's leave their spaceship, and when they start to destroy and demolish. 

There were a few aspects of this novel that I struggled with, I struggled with the difference in time. This book was written in a world where it takes 3-4 days for news to travel from one town to another. The first half of this novel is simply the information being carried by word of mouth. This half dragged on for me because I have no reference for that type of living. I am so use to logging on Facebook and getting global news updates as they happen, that the idea that it could take days for a town to learn of an others disruption doesn't quite line up with my generation. Logistically I understand why the story progressed in that manner. I also struggled with the lack of concern citizens showed in the first half of the novel. Humanity was very underwhelmed.  Again; I understand Wells; intentions. He wanted to show how cocky humanity is, how we feel that we are the alpha in our universe, to us all ‘others’ are as inferior as ants, which consequently is how the Martians see us. 

I am always astounded by how concrete Wells’ novels are and their relevance even after 120 years. The key elements of this book are simple, we are a no where near as invincible as we think we are, humanity’s best known emotion is fear, and that we enjoy to spilled blood as long as it doesn't come from our own veins. 

Its also astounding how accurate the scientific assumptions were and how they hold up in present day. The aliens are sent to earth in ships that are shot out of a large gun shaped object, which subsequently is the basis for our own space travel. He talks about total war, an idea that was seen as preposterous in the late 1800′s yet is all too familiar now. and he created the black smoke that kills many in the novel, this was used as a real life weapon less than twenty years later.   

I may not have enjoyed this novel as much as I thought I would, but that is simply my fault for expecting something that this novel will never be. It will never be a high paced SciFi horror with blood and guts. Its not Tom Cruise, this novel takes its time and sets up a scary prediction for the future, it reminds us that life is fragile and inconsistent and that supremacy is in the eye of the beholder.