Cirque du Freak

Cirque du Freak is a book series by a guy named Darren Shan and its probably one of the best book series I've ever read. I first came across it when I saw the movie in theaters and though it looked like a low budget movie. I wasn't disappointed. Instead I actually liked the movie so much that I decided to read the books. The books are essentially about a boy named Darren Shan (also the author's name) who goes to a circus (the Cirque du Freak) with his best friend Steve and encounters a vampire named Larten Crepsley. In the show, Crepsley performs with a tarantula named Madam Octa. You learn that Darren has a strange fascination with spiders and is immediately entranced by Octa's beauty and later steals her from Crepsley. On the other hand, Darren's best friend Steve has a fascination with vampires and later begs Crepsley to turn him into a vampire. Crepsley declines and Steve, in anger, says he will one day get back at him for turning him down. Darren ends up witnessing the whole thing while stealing Octa. Several days later, Steve finds out Darren stole the spider from Crepsley and acts if he could hold her. Darren hesitates at first, but then agrees to it. But Octa doesn't like Steve and bites him. Frightened for his friends life, Darren goes to Crepsley, hoping he will give him an antidote that will save Steve. Crepsley says he'll save his friend only if Darren agrees to become Crepsley's assistant. Darren agrees and Crepsley saves Steve. Darren later fakes his death so his family thinks he is dead, so he can live a life as Crepsley's assistant.
 (Darren and Larten Crepsley)
Before you jump to any conclusions about Crepsley he is actually my favorite character from the series. At first he may seem like a mean and awful guy but as the series goes on you get to know him more and end up really appreciating his character. There are twelve books in the series but the are all quick reads. The books are dark, especially the second book but are very addicting to read. Out of the twelve, my favorite is the third one titled 'Tunnels of Blood'.

Deathly Hallows

So I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at midnight and I would have to say it was probably my favorite Harry Potter movie so far. It was very entertaining, full of action, and followed the book really well. And like the book, it was also very dark. Though I do like dark movies like Tim Burton, I walked out of the theater feeling rather depressed. I think my favorite part in the movie was when Xenophilius Lovegood explained what the Deathly Hallows were and the story of the three brothers, and when Snape talks to Voldemort about where Harry Potter is. I saw the movie again on Sunday and the second time is just as good as seeing it the first time. I hate how part 2 of Deathly Hallows doesn't come out for another eight months because I can't wait that long! But the bright side to it is that it comes out around my birthday. The one part I'm looking forward to in part 2 is The Prince's Tale which is about Severus Snape's past and I'm absolutely in love with Snape's character! I'm also looking forward to seeing the battle of Hogwarts and how they'll be able to transition that from the book into live action. I'm almost done with the book, and reading Deathly Hallows has also made me realize how sad Albus Dumbledore's life was, especially with what happened to his sister Ariana. I hope they add more of his life story in part 2 as well. Reading Deathly Hallows has also made me want to work on my book series some more. I don't want to tell a lot of people about it but just between us the series is called Humanoids and the first is called The Soul Project.

Yu Gi Oh

For the past several weeks I've been obsessing over this series called Yu Gi Oh the abridged series. Its basically a fan video made from the old anime and is made from a guy named LittleKuriboh. He voices over the English dub and uses his own voice which sounds just like the English voice actors. The series is hilarious beyond belief! I think I've wasted countless hours on youtube watching Yu Gi Oh the abridged series when I should be doing homework. I also love the true Yu Gi Oh anime as well which makes me think back to my childhood when I was once obsessed with Yu Gi Oh to the point where I would videotape it every Saturday morning. I think the reason the abridged series its so funny is because of the references they make in the series such as: The Legend of Zelda, Watchmen, and other anime series.
Some of my favorite quotes from Yu Gi Oh abridged are:
1. Screw the rules I have money!
2. Don't you wish your cards games were fun like mine.
3.If there is a problem yo I'll solve it. Take out my deck so the card games resolve it.
I got introduced to this series by my best friend and fellow fangirl Cagney Ryan. She is the person I go to whenever I find a new book or anime I want to talk about. She gotten me into some interesting books too like Cirque du Freak which is one of the best book series I've ever read! Plus we're going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at midnight on Thursday. Hopefully I won't be too much of a zombie the next day!
The pictures below are fanarts from Yu Gi Oh the abridged series!
 
Don't be jealous of my weirdness! haha

Hero by: Perry Moore

I'm starting to like Hero more and more as I read it. I can sort of relate to the main character, in the sense that we both have insecurities and both want to make our parents proud of us. I think it's rather sad that Thom resorted to running away from home because he couldn't tell his dad the truth about himself. I think if Thom confronted his dad and told him the truth, I think he would be accepting of Thom instead of rejecting him. Though I am curious as to why Thom's mom decided to up and leave both Thom and his dad. I have a feeling that it had something to do with the fact Thom's dad use to be a superhero and she hated not knowing whether or not she would ever see her husband alive again. Especially after an 'accident' that left his disfigured. I can understand her leaving then, but why leave your only child too? Then again the message in the photo album saying: (To my son. Know yourself.), may be a clue that his mom still cares and thinks about him. Over all as a debut novel, this isn't too bad. Perry Moore describes his characters in an interesting and unique way. The story also flows nicely from one chapter to the next. It will be interesting to what else Moore will write in the future. Plus I like how Moore pulls inspiration from his own life since he is also gay like Thom in Hero.

Nanowrimo

Last week I while was walking to my stressful Comp. 111, I noticed a flyer on one of the bulletin boards in the hallway about an organization called Nanowrimo. I had never heard of them before, but I after I read what it was about I became very interested. Nanowrimo is a sort of writing club online and has contests once in a while. The contest they are currently having is a novel writing project for November and the contest consists of writing a 50,000 word novel about anything you want from November lst to November 30th. I absolutely love writing. In the future, not only do I want to get a job as a journalist, but I want to wrote novels on the side as well. I already started writing a novel that I started about two years ago and just finished this summer. So this contest is sort of a test for me to see if I could finish something so big in a small amount of time. Nevertheless, I'm taking the chance! After I decided to do it, I thought hard about what my novel was going to be about and finally came up with an idea. The novel would be about a young girl named Maxie whose parents are killed when she is ten years old and is taken in and raised by a mysterious man named Gideon who is secretly a vampire. A first, I thought this was a stupid idea because every book I see nowadays is about cheesy vampires, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone so I stuck with it. Plus I got extremely inspired when I found some random drawings on deviantart.com that looked exactly how I envisioned my characters:
Gideon Maxie
Even though I like the idea, I don't know if others will. Hopefully people will. 'Crosses fingers'.

Heroes galore!

The book I chose for my free choice is Hero by Perry Moore and to tell you the truth so far it’s not what I expected, but I still like it. So far the book is about a teenage boy named Thom whose dad use to be a superhero, but isn't anymore because of an accident that they have yet to explain. Towards the end of one of the chapters Thom's dad, Hal, finds out Thom is secretly gay and is very disappointed about it and a boy from another school makes fun of him because of it. The reason why I chose this is book is because I find gay guys absolutely adorable and because I wanted to find out what happens when a kid admits he is gay to the world. Though all I hear about in the news today is gay teens getting severely bullied and turning to suicide to solve their pain. I think it’s horrible that kids ridicule kids who are different from them and push them past the point of no return. I have some friends who are gay and I treat them the same way I would treat any other person, with kindness and respect. What I also like about this book so far was the scene of Thom's dad stopping four burglars from hurting his son. As I read this scene, it made me think of a lot of superhero movies I grew up watching like: Watchmen, Spider-Man, Batman, V for Vendetta, The Incredibles, and Iron Man. I'm really enjoying this book, and I hope there is more crime fighting scenes yet to come in the book!

Obsessed

To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea what to talk about so I've decided to talk about something random. For the past several months I have been obsessing over the Harry Potter series. I've seen all the movies and grew up watching them, but I've never had the patience to read the books. Though several months ago I finally started reading them and have been hooked ever since. I am so excited for the new Harry Potter movie to come out its almost killing me! Though there is one character in particular I absolutely love in the series: Severus Snape.
Severus Snape is a teacher at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry and teaches students to make potions. His character is incredibly fascinating to me, especially his personality in both the books and the movies. Snape can be sarcastic at times yet very cold  and bitter, especially towards Harry Potter. Through the entire series you believe he is a bad guy, but in the last book you find out the truth about him. When Snape turned eleven years old he attended Hogwarts. He was very smart and was in the top of his class, but was also a target for bullies. One of those bullies was Harry Potter's dad, James Potter. But before Snape attended Hogwarts he befriended a girl named Lily Evans who would later be Harry Potter's mother. Snape's past with Harry's parents helps me understand his attitude toward Harry. Half of him hates Harry because he looks like his father, James. And the other half cares about him because Snape was in love with Harry's mother, Lily. The picture I posted is of Snape when he was younger. To me, it really captures the essence of what life was like for Snape when he attended Hogwarts. I love when books have characters like Snape who are mysterious, dark, and misunderstood. Snape is in my top five favorite characters of all time. Rorschach from Watchmen being my number one!

New Favorite Movie

Last weekend I took my first road trip by myself all the way to Evansville, IN to visit my sister. It was a ten hour drive round trip. While I was there, we saw a movie called Let Me In, and let me tell you it's one of the best films I've ever seen.
 
Even after I saw the movie, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The movie is about a young boy named Owen who meets a young girl named Abby who moves in next door to their apartment and later becomes his friend. But Owen later discovers that Abby is not a twelve year old girl, but a vampire. Before I saw the movie I was thinking to myself, "Gosh I really hope this scares the crap out of me", but the movie isn't scary at all. It does have violence and gore but it wasn't scary. But the main reason why I'm blogging about this movie is that throughout most of the film Owen gets physically bullied, a lot. And I don't  mean the kind where they just push him into lockers, I mean they bully him to the point where they literally almost kill him. The bullying scenes made me think of Thirteen Reasons Why and how bullying was the main reason for why Hannah killed herself. And whenever a scene of Owen getting bullied popped up, it made me so angry to know kids do this and get away with it. Though I thought it was funny that one of the bullies looked like Justin Bieber which made me hate the kid even more since I don't like Justin Bieber. Though the bullies did almost kill Owen at the end I won't tell you what happens because if you want to see the movie I won't spoil it for you. You might think I'm weird or sick but I loved the ending! I highly recommend this movie because it's now one of my new favorite films.

So mean!

In Thirteen Reasons Why, I just read the part where Zach Dempsey tries to help Hannah out after the incident with Marcus. I feel like he didn't deserve the rejection that Hannah gave to him. He was just trying to help her and she pushed him away. The same happened with Clay. He said she shouldn't be around Bryce yet she told him to mind his own business. If Hannah really does have a mental disorder or hates that her reputation is ruined why can't she just accept help? Though Hannah made a stupid mistake, I feel Zach shouldn't have taken her compliment letters either. I believe he did it out of spite for Hannah's rejection. But I don't think Zach deserved to be on te list, to me, it wasn't that big of a reason to blame someone for your death. At the time Zach tried to confront Hannah he could have been going through a tough time too and when Hannah turned him away it probably caused a melt down for him.

I'm a freak!

I have a huge obsession with everything Japanese! The first concert I ever went to was a Japanese band called Aural Vampire and it was amazing! I also saw one of Japan's biggest band's ever, X Japan at Lollapalooza! Most of the stuff I read now a days is manga which are basically comic books sent from Japan and translated into english. Its weird how much I love manga and anime. I love it so much that if somebody even mentions it I start to freak out. Some of my favorite manga and anime titles are: Black Butler, Ouran High School Host Club, Fruits Basket, Vampire Knight, Trigun, and Pandora Hearts. Next year I'm going with my sister and a couple of my friends to Anime Central. Its an anime convention where you can dress up as whoever you want, see bands from all around the world, and you can buy things that haven't been released in the U.S. I went there last year and cosplayed as V from V For Vendetta. I had one of the best times of my life at Anime Central. I felt like I belonged with all the other anime geeks. Next year I'm cosplaying as Death from The Sandman series. Can't wait to go back next year and have another great time!

!3 Reasons Why

I've read 13 Reasons Why before this and I'd have to say I liked the book. I say like because some of the reasons in the book weren't worth taking your life over and it bothered me, but nevertheless I still liked it. Though Bullying effects people differently, and in this book, it caused Hannah Baker to take her life because it was too much for to bare. I don't understand why people bully others. Or whats going through their head as they spread around a rumor they know isn't true. The first person to be mentioned on the tapes (Justin Foley) always makes me angry. People like him who kiss and tell lies about it really make me angry. There were people like him at my high school who would lie and say they did some serious stuff with people I knew. The end was always the same: they were devistated and hurt. Though I suppose one reason Foley did that was because he thought he could get in his fifteen minutes of fame.

Phantom

Phantom By: Susan Kay is actually my second faovrite book next to the graphic novel series The Sandman By: Neil Gaiman. I didn't want to show The Sandman because it was too violent and inappropriate. But anyway Phantom is about a deformed child named Erik who is verbally abused by his mother and later runs away into the world where lots of sad and unbelievable things happen to him. I absolutely love this book because as your reading it you want to throw the book because it's so unfair what happens to poor Erik. At one point he gets kidnapped by gypsys and is shown in a freak show against his will. That part in the book made me so sad and angry I wish I could literally jump into the book and set Erik free. Now this book is making me sound like a twelve year old. Though the saddest part is the end where Erik dies. But it's when he dies that makes me sad. This girl named Christine, who Erik is madly in love with, chooses another guy over him and he dies of a drug overdose. This ending didn't occur in the movie but I can honestly say I cried when I watched it. Though the character of Erik does remind me of Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. He has a horrible childhood, he loses the love of his life, and dies a horrible way. These characters really tug at my heart strings.

Different kinds of reading

I read all the time whether its a novel or twelve pages for school. I think the difference between them is the interest at heart you have for the reading. When it comes to doing homework in a book for school, I only read it because I have to. Wereas, a reading a fiction novel or reading a facebook status, I only read it because I want too.