Book Review: “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer

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Hello!

Since I upped my reading challenge to 30 books, I was making that decision mainly to explore all kinds of stories. If I could, I would make room to read books that have made me curious in the past but fought against it at the time or lost interest either in the beginning or halfway through, and oddly enough Twilight is one of those books. As you might know, one of my favorites: The Vampire Diaries came on the air in 2009, which was less than a year after the first Twilight film came out. I do remember taking a chance and trying to read the book at my school’s library in that time frame but I just couldn’t shake it and ended up shoving it all away.

Mentally, I had Twilight on my to be read list, but it wasn’t until all of the films appeared in order on Showtime that I was like, “okay, I’m doing this! I am reading the books.” and within a few days, I had ordered it right along with my other books on my Kindle. It was the only print book I bought myself for a late Christmas gift and the sheer size intimidated me once again, even my dad thought it was a lot at the time, and was very proud to know that I had finished it too. These 300-400+ paged books have nothing on me anymore!

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About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him—and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.

taken from Goodreads.

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The funny part about this whole thing, was my thought after I finished working on the banner above, it was simply, “would anyone be interested in another reading a review of Twilight?” I thought it was hilarious at first, but then it was, like I think I could make this different from others, to make it look like a brand new book. Eh, we’ll see what happens after this post publishes.

There is one more thing I need to point out; I have maybe seen each movie possibly once since they were all out on DVD. So, I was actually able to create what all of the characters, setting and what I was reading in general looked like, and it was so freeing! I’ve never been so proud of myself for doing this, because even though I kept seeing Billy Burk for Charlie, Anna Kendrick for Jessica, and Robert Pattinson for Edward, everyone else was very much of a blur at first but as I got towards the middle of the book, I could see different features for everything and it was interesting to say the least!

I want to say that I was pretty interested at the start, when we are introduced to Bella. It was sort of odd how Edward isn’t able to read her mind but yet we, as the reader, know everything she is thinking when she’s with and without Edward around, and as we continued in the story, I began to see this character in a new light, because I just thought she was too stoic, but learning more about her and how she thinks, was enlightening to me.

“How ghastly it would be, I thought, shuddering, if Charlie had, even the slightest inkling exactly what I did like.”

There are not very many times I will pick out favorite chapters, but I thought Chapters 13 to 16, were some of the most thrilling stories. It also answered a lot of things I remember weren’t really shared in the films. I absolutely loved learning more about Edward, how he became a vampire and what kind of circumstances were present when Carlisle gave him new life. My respect for Carlisle went over the roof as Bella was introduced to the story of how he was created and why he became a doctor in the first place. As I was reading these four chapters, I was allowing myself to slow my pace, because I have always been curious to learn more about the rest of the Cullens.

Once I got to Chapter 17, which is called “The Hunt” everything kind of changed and there was really no stopping in between because the events taking place are quick and you are automatically reading it as fast you can or at least, that’s what to me. Unfortunately, I had to stop just before I hit the epilogue, because my mom wanted to go to bed and it irked me so much to stop that I couldn’t get her out of my room fast enough; once she left though, I resumed my position and finished the book all in about four hours!

Now that I am done reading, I kind of want to restrain myself from actually watching the films and finishing the book series, in case, there is information featured that I might want to know beforehand. Of course, I’ve been waiting to watch the fist one for like two months and I don’t know when I’ll be able to receive the next book yet.

Have you read the Twilight series or maybe just one of the books by Stephenie Meyer? Do you remember if you had a favorite chapter(s) in that first book? Which couple do you ship?

Album Review: “Dogviolet” by Laurel

I am very behind on some of my new releases lately. I had plans on putting up at least four reviews throughout September, but I just didn’t feel like it, so I eventually decided on the two that I knew I wanted to talk about the most, and we start with Laurel’s first full album called “Dogviolet” that was came out on August 24th 2018! The album itself consists of 12 songs so we’re going to be here for a while.

I have talked about Laurel before, the first time I was introduce to her mysterious voice, was during a steamy scene on The Vampire Diaries with Damon and Elena, they were basically having vampire sex and her song “Fire Breather” came on and I remember rewinding that scene so I could hear that song again. At that time, I wasn’t a “Delena” fan so that definitely wasn’t the reason for the repeat of that activity I swear! When she released her EP “Holy Water” back in 2014, and it kept that dark alternative sound to it and I just loved it! However, I’ve noticed that her music has went in a totally different direction, it’s more in the indie rock category now and even though I was a bit taken back at this new sound, I did slowly coming into it with an open heart purely because I love her voice, and honestly it works with both genres in a way.

Laurel did release a first single back in June I think and afterwards she began to put out three to four songs on EPs throughout the summer. I was tempted to listen to those but I knew this was coming so I kept myself away for as long as I could! So, let’s start with the first track “Life Worth Living,” I want to say that I like the title, but the song itself is fairly soft, although I do like when the drums make their presence known, against her raspy voice, she has such a blues-y tone that it works that good with this sound. It actually made me feel good, and I was even dancing too! I liked it a lot. Next we have “All Star” and this one has a seductive tone to it in the way she sings her way through the story, and again I had trouble not dancing to the gentle groove of the guitars.

Third is “Same Mistakes” and this has a more hearty sound, it still that soft undertone but the best way I can describe to what I’m hearing is a sassy sound. I think it fits with the topic of the actual song, because it’s very upbeat and I was somewhat surprised that I liked it that way even though it was basically a break-up song. After that is “South Coast,” I generally loved this. I thought it’s an ideal autumnal type of song by the fact that it’s so easy-going and full of emotions. I didn’t really want it to end that’s how much I enjoyed this one! Next is “Hold Tight” and from the moment it started, I was glad to hear a different cord on the guitars. It’s definitely a lot calmer in the groove. The song is so different compared to the previous tracks, and I’m so glad because I can’t stand when most, if not, all of the songs on an album sound alike, it’s annoying!

“Adored” is next and I really love this one! When it first came on, I was like “this is going to be good” and I was right. It has this fierceness quality about it, and another uniqueness that I enjoyed was the “ah, ah, ah” throughout the choruses, they just added another element to this track.  Next is “Sun King” which at first reminded of what people called the Kings in France before the monarchy was overthrown in the 1700’s. That’s strange, I know! Anyways, the song itself is interesting because it’s an admiration song for whoever she’s talking about, and the sound is quiet but in a good way. You only hear two things: Laurel’s beautiful and dreamy voice and a breezy electric guitar. It’s actually very pretty!

We move on to “Crave” and as I figured we have a song that has a more seductive way about it. It’s not that dirty but with just the cords and velvet voice, it gives the song a sexy vibe. I can tell it more so with this track than any of the other songs which surprised me because they all are somewhat similar in their own ways, but we’ll get that in a bit. Next there’s the first single that came out in the early part of summer, “Lovesick” and what shocked the most was when I heard this for the first time, I didn’t think I’d really like this direction, but the song changed my point of view. Unfortunately, there is one bad part of this song. Since I’ve heard the rest of the album after listening to this on repeat, it does sound incredibly similar to “South Coast” as far as the tone and sound around the choruses, so that is a bit of a let down for me. but it makes sense in a way since I really meshed with both tracks in the same way!

We’re almost done with the review, we only have three songs left. “Take It Back” is this fun song to listen while cruising in the countryside in the middle of the afternoon. At least, that was came to me when I started listening to it! It’s upbeat and chill at the same time, and I really liked it. There’s “Empty Kisses” and I hoped that this would be a quieter sound to it, and I wasn’t necessarily happy or sad on what I got with this, because the sound itself was a little cheerful – although the tempo never went away so it still kept that quiet way to be counted as a sweet, love song to my standards. Lastly, we have “Recover” and I decided to let it play and see what the outcome would be and somehow what I wanted in the previous song, I got with this one but I actually liked it better because I would rather have an album like this, fade off into the distance. I’ve always been this way and I’m glad that this is how it ended. It even ended with this last shard of uniqueness of what sounded like a ukulele in the background of the song, I thought it was an interesting element to add for this song.

 Now that we’re done officially, I can say that even though there were many songs that sounded like the other, it was actually pretty good! One of the things that I thoroughly enjoyed (which freaked me out) was the clear 1970’s vibe I was getting from majority of the songs on this album. I thought at first, that this was caused by Laurel’s voice but then my views quickly changed when I discovered that it was the blues-y guitars. It was a fun and interesting pop-rock album, definitely not what I was expecting, but a good end of the summer release though!

Have you listened to Laurel’s new album yet? We’re you supportive in the change to her music? I’d like to hear some of your thoughts in the comments below!

 

What The Vampire Diaries Taught Me

Howdy!

It’s been a whole year since the final season of The Vampire Diaries aired on The CW. I haven’t accepted it fully, mostly because we still have The Originals for the time being, and as it was just announced a last month that Hope Mikealson will get her own show called Legacies with Matt Davis, as he was on the banner with the older “Hope” played by Danielle Rose Russell! So that’s all exciting that we’re going to get another TVD spin-off soon!

Today’s post was inspired by a meme I saw on Pinterest, literally stating “what TVD taught me” with what the general fan base could agree with, so I wanted to play off of that idea and come up with my own. If you loved the shows, because even though I’ve only put “TVD” on the title/banner above, we do have to include TO in there too!

6. ) You may or may not have a doppelganger out there!

Before this show, I never really heard of the word “doppelganger” and now that’s it’s over, I actually hear and see it frequently online and other shows! It’s actually started a weird obsession that I now have, where I’ve gone on different sites to see exact replicas of people, mostly celebrities throughout history! It’s actually fun but also strange too, but they are so dead on with facial expressions and alignments too.

One of my favorite seasons of TVD was season two, we got to dive into the history of Katherine Pierce and why she and Elena look so alike, and how the both of them have the Salvatore brothers under their spells. No pun intended. I also feel after this happened, that should have prepared us for season four and eventually meeting “Tatia” in an episode of TO! We have officially met all four doppelgangers of “Amara” and then on top of that, we met “Silas” who just so happened to be Stefan’s doppelganger and we met other smaller versions of his distant relatives too. It was cool.

5. ) Nobody ever dies.

I know a lot of people will think this probably should be #1 but I had others that I felt as though they needed to be higher on the list.

Nobody ever dies on either show, and if they have died, their character has been brought back in some form, like in a dream or flashback. It’s always these two moments though that can create the most tears though! Only a couple of people have actually came back in living form, which had better consequences for them then the first time around! My favorites were: Grams, Alaric, Lexi, Katherine, and Liz of course! And we have to admit, nobody can say they are the top of this phrase, but Mama Salvatore! She was the best surprise of them all, even if her introduction scared the living shit out of me!

4. )  It’s hard to resist.

One thing that I’m really missing on my TV screen are the scenes with Mr. Tyler Lockwood. I will admit, I hated that character during the first season, but once Uncle Mason showed up and Tyler broke his werewolf curse, I started crushing on him hardcore. His death about killed me!

We’re just going to continue confessing up some things on this post. Matt Donavon! Oh. My. God. Again, this was another character that I never meshed well in the beginning, actually if I’m being honest, there’s been many times where he aggravated me, but who can deny his baby blue eyes! Everybody had a thing for Damon, which yes, I did too, but to me Matty is the true blue eyed boy that all of the girls loved!

And we can’t forget about the ladies. Hell, I’d be pissed off at myself for not saying anything about the women of both TVD and TO. So let’s discuss Anna first, yes, I thought she was very pretty. I could understand why Jeremy had the hots for her in season one and two. Hayley, was another favorite, I mentioned her on my top hottest vampire diaries and originals characters post, and I still love her to pieces! Her character just continued to get better and better!

3. )  You need a good bourbon on hand for any occasion!

There are scenes, especially in the early seasons where you could literally play a drinking game of whenever Damon (or Stefan) grabbed a bottle and a glass, everytime he took a sip, you would too! Thankfully, I wasn’t 21 during that time frame so I never could join in with some crazy, hardcore fans on that little adventure! My emotions were already messed up as it is, I did not need alcohol to cope, I’d prefer ice cream to be quite honest with you!

2. ) It doesn’t matter if it’s one witch or a dozen, don’t mess with them!

I think if there’s one thing we’ve learned from both shows, is that do NOT mess a witch. I think between the Gemini coven during season five and the addition of the dead New Orleans witches were probably the strongest group of characters. I’ve always loved Bonnie. I think she’s one of the most underrated people on the series, but the storylines of where these two covens belong in their respected shows was very neat.

I think being able to put Kai into another world and then as Kai went on to kill Jo, her family went on to basically give their lives to safe the lasting reminder of their coven. So they transferred the twins into the only living (or in this case, un-living) thing they could, Miss Caroline Forbes. Even if that whole plot was designed to hide Candice King’s real life pregnancy, it was still unbelievable considering what we just watched beforehand; out of all that bad was this miracle.

And then you have the influence of the NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) witches after they’re dead and gone, you knew that once they brought back both Celeste DuBois (season 1) and Esther (season 2) you know they had a bigger story to the mix and when Davina destroyed the control that the Ancestors had over not only her, as they didn’t like her one bit, but the other witches.

1. ) Don’t break a brother’s heart.

This kind of goes with the doppelganger point I made earlier. Before Elijah and Niklaus showed up in Mystic Falls during season three, we thought the only sob story was the fact that Katherine used both Stefan and Damon’s affections against them. I know Damon gave Stefan a lot of shit for being the reason he killed/fed on his first victim, thus turning him into a vampire afterwards.

When the whole story of why Katherine became a vampire in the first place, everything started to make sense. She was also flirting her ass off to the Mikaelson brothers as well! I find it hilarious that one of those brothers wasn’t Kol. I feel like he would have been a better candidate since he was pure evil, I just want to clarify this suggestion is prior to meeting Davina! Anyways, I think it’s fair to say that Klaus never really fell in love with Katherine, he just wanted to use her as part of breaking the Sun and Moon curse, but we can say he dived all in as much as Damon did. He loved Katherine, he would do anything for her, obviously, but I don’t think there was anything else to expect out of Damon then destruction after she confessed that she never loved him.

After I finished writing and scheduling this, I accidentally went through my other vampire related blog posts I’ve done, and it’s shocking how many of these I’ve done since the beginning of The Vampire Diaries in general! I really do miss the show, but I have the first two seasons on DVD and I know both series are on Netflix so if I ever decide to create it as “Vampire Day” I can, well.. when it decides to work again!

What are some things you learned on both The Vampire Diaries and The Originals? What do you miss the most about now that TVD is over? Who were your favorite characters too?

 

My Tribute To Katerina

WARNING: If you haven’t watched “500 Years Of Solitude” I wouldn’t suggest reading this just yet!

It’s been a long day and a very long life for Miss Katherine Pierce. You might be like Elijah and Klaus and know her as “Katerina Petrova” as she’s been alive for over 500 years. Besides the originals, she’s the second oldest female vampire that has arrived in Mystic Falls. She’s been there twice in her life. She’s a fighter, and always been ever since the almighty Klaus has been after her. There’s a reason why a lot of people would hate her. Now she’s dying of old age after Silas sucked the cure out of her. Oh yeah, you didn’t know that? Yeah, Elena and Katherine fought over it in the boiler room and Elena stuffed it down her throat. She’s had a rough few weeks lately. 

After Katherine suffers from a heart attack, Stefan takes her back to the Salvatore house and she spends her last day being sedated thanks to Sheriff Forbes, but something happens before all of that. Matt and Jeremy find a very drunken Damon asleep next by a bottle of booze. He gives them the “good news” as Stefan gives Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie the good news too and they play a quick game of “name what awful thing that Katherine did to me” and that’s when the one liners kept rolling out and they were awesome to say the least! Anyways, Nadia comes walking in and spoils their fun by knocking out Matt and stuffing him in the safe that Stefan was stuffed in at the beginning of the season. So everybody goes looking for him and Stefan and Elena go with Nadia to “volunteer” for some sort of travelers spell to make Katherine’s spirit transfer over into Nadia to keep her alive. Well, as everybody went out, Damon was left with Katherine with whom he wants to kill. He’s just having an awful day after breaking up with Elena and now his other ex is dying, but instead of killing her, he haunts her in her memories. Yes, I mean that as in flashbacks!

She goes back to the memories of she had her baby girl and when Klaus slaughtered her family shortly after she turned into a vampire. Well, we had some surprises in between those flashbacks and let’s just say some originals make it back to the scene. Caroline and Klaus have a “moment” if you want to call it that. Plus, Matt gets saved by another hot blonde, anybody know who I’m talking about? That’s right, Rebekah  makes it back to rescue her old lover from the summer. Plus, Caroline might’ve found out that Bonnie and Jeremy slept together. Anyways, back to Stelena, I mean Stefan and Elena. They get ambushed by a bunch of travelers and they chant and take some of their blood. I’m still confused about that honestly. In the mist of all this, Nadia and her friend Mia head back to the Salvatore house and find Katherine heavily sedated and seeing some familiar people like Aunt Jenna, Uncle John, and Elijah.That was such a sweet moment too, but Damon of course ruins it once again. Nadia breaks Damon’s neck and gets to hear a mother-daughter speech of the centuries. I almost cried during the beautiful speech too. Damon awakes in the middle of it and hears the conversation. Nadia and her friend leave and that’s how that scene ends.

Well, after Elena and Stefan get back. Things get a little bit slower and Stefan goes to Katherine’s side and talks to her sweetly, unlike Damon. After that, everybody comes back to the house, Bonnie, Jeremy, and Matt are sitting and talking about Bonnie’s secret part of her life as she can see spirits but also feel them crossover. Well, that’s when Caroline walks in and then the next thing you know Matt’s sister Vicki, who was killed in the first season. Bonnie gives Matt a message from her, also a character that I was actually wondering about, Tyler comes back in the most awkwardest time of Caroline’s life as of right now. Think about it for a second, it’ll come to you. Plus, another character comes in as Damon makes his entrance to get another drink. Yes, even Alaric makes an appearance as well. After that, I was basically bawling my eyes out. I couldn’t help it. In the final scenes, Bonnie sees Katherine’s spirit but Katherine is pushing herself to stay alive after having the drugs in her system all day long. Elena talks to her in her last few moments and actually says she forgives her, but then as Katherine acts like she’s dying for real, she grabs Elena’s head and says the chant that Nadia taught her before she left and Katherine’s now in Elena’s body. Are you confused even more now? If you are, you obviously haven’t been watching all of the episodes to actually see the differences between them.

So tonight’s episode was the best. I’ve had my fair share of favorite episodes too, but seeing all of these characters that we’ve basically grown to love over the last few years, it’s just unbelievable! Especially the fact that they brought back Joseph Morgan, Claire Holt, Daniel Gillies, Sara Canning, Daniel Anders, Matt Davis, Kayla Ewall, and Michael Trevino in one episode. The tears and laughter I did throughout the whole episode was so worth it. At the beginning of the season, I didn’t I’d get back into the series again. I was more into “The Originals” than I was with TVD. I was really disappointed in a couple of the episodes, but tonight I was pumped and I fully enjoyed the surprises that they put together. I just wish we could have more episodes with these characters considering both Bonnie and Jeremy can see them too. I just miss them and I didn’t know how much until tonight I guess. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you watched it, what was your favorite scene and one liner? Who was also your favorite character to come back tonight?

This Week

This week has a number of things going on. Tonight is a sad night though. Last episode of The Closer tonight. My mom has to go to work tonight too so that just makes ten times worse because of things. I have nobody to watch it with and two I have to wait. Thing is, she knows how to work the DVR thingy so she’ll probably watch when she gets home from work tomorrow without me. Trust me, she’s done it before. Dad and Em won’t watch it with me because they don’t like the show. Well dad will watch it with mom but that’s only on his good days I think.

That’s Monday night’s show. I don’t have anything on Tuesday, which is a good thing because in a matter few days it’s going to be my only good night of not watching anything on a schedule. Wednesday, nothing on TV but it is September 14th. If you are a big Linkin Park fan like moi that day is really special. It’s the one year birthday of Linkin Park’s album, “A Thousand Suns.” If I remember right I think we’re all trying to make it trend on Twitter, but I don’t know that’s going to go. It would be nice and everything, but the trends just seem to hate us for some odd reason.

Thursday, it’s the BIG day! The long four month wait is over on that day. I am so excited! The Vampire Diaries season 3 starts up on Thursday. I might watch the new show The Secret Circle afterwards but if the episode gets all crazy with their twists and turns then I may not be able to watch it because I’ll be still in that mood and possibily pissed off at some of the characters and director for making it end so early. I’ve done that before. I’ve screamed because people think its funny to scare the shit out of me when it comes on. I’ve cried but only twice. And last but not least I’ve yelled at the characters because of their stupid actions.