Book Review: The Fault in our Stars by John Green rated PG-13

Hazel is a professional sick person. Thats her job. Diagnosed with stage IV thyroid cancer at the age of twelve, Hazel has accepted the fact that she will die, eventually. So, her mother throws her into a support group for cancer teens. It's incredibly ridiculous. Until the arrival of Augustus Waters. Handsom, in remission, and, to her disbelief, interested in Hazel.  And thus starts their attempts to understand, life, death, and the legacy they will leave.


This book was awe inspireing (at least, it was for me). Incredible wit, Spectacular foreshadowing and symbolism, and thought provoking content. It is absolutely beautiful. It shows Cancer patients as they are, not the hero we make them out to be. I also quite enjoy hazels cynical view on the world. Her opinions are just as comical as they are true. Agustus, what can I say about him that will do him justice?  Welll, He's just one big metaphor. The book gives a hilariously poetic look on life.

Even though it is brilliant, I did rate it PG-13. First off, I would like to say, John Green did a very good job of showing how teenagers act, in all their (Im)Mature thoughts and statments. They swear, make crude comments about each other,They make crude comments about other things, they smoke (sort of), They drink, and, yes, at one point they do "It". It's not very detailed, it sort of skips over the actual doing, it's just implied.

But besides all that, this book is still amazing. Tear jerking, comedic, intelligent, and romantic, The Fault in our Stars is a beautifully written novel that will most likely leave you crying and pondering, what is the fault in our stars.
I would recommend this book to people who like romance and comedy. It is not for people who get offended easily or who don't much like rude and crude teens. Thanks for reading! Bri π
Rated PG-13 for: Mature content, drinking, mild swearing, and intimacy

Blimey Cow is Amazing.

Recently, OK, more like a couple months ago, I was introduced to the amazingness that is Blimey Cow.
What is Blimey Cow you ask?
Blimey Cow is a group of people who make hilarious videos that make you think. I especially enjoy their homeschooler videos.
Now why do I tell you this? Because it's awesome and funny and I love it! I am a Blimey Cow Fangirl. (Would that make me a Blimey Cowgirl?)
In other News, Books Wyrms (my recently created Book club for Homeschooling teens) has made the Library Events list for the Summer!! Yay!!!! Perhaps we shall have more people than just those I pester into coming. Also, if anyone happens to know of any books starting with the letters X Y or Z that would be great! Because as we where deciding what to read in June, someone (*cough*, Noah *cough, cough*) sugested we do books starting with X. We all thought "Hey! That sound fun! Lets do it!"
We came up with nothing.
So, we made itr a little wider.
And still I find nothing.
So, your help would be great! Thanks my dear readers, and enjoy Your day!
Bri π
P.S. I totally forgot! I'm entering my Pickles story into a writing contest!! Ok that is all. 

The Quest for Tuna

Far into the future, like really really far, there was a girl with Magical powers.
Now this was a good thing, because in her world there where also zombies, dreadful  things, these zombies. They where incredibly gruesome in an almost comical way. Now, this girl lived in one of the last safe places for our kind, Humans that is, as the zombies kind of just killed everyone else. It was a town called Gracia, and it was a hop, a skip, and threes days walk from the great city of Anza, which was completely overrun.
Now being a Magic user, every one in the town used the girl, forcing her to help them, and treating her badly when she did, and no one ever asked her name, she was simply called Girl.
then during a long famine, She looked at the world she was in, And got fed up with it.
"Thats it!" she cried "I'm going to Anza and I will bring back suplies with Magic! So take that universe!!"
So she gathered up her friends, which mostly consisted of a her Sister, a cat, and a boy who looked suspiciously like The Doctor, and they headed out, on their three days journey across the undead desert, into the Hordes of Anza.
They arrived, looking out into the sea of bodies,

"Can't you just say 'Magicy magic!" and make them go away?" asked the suspicious Doctor Boy, whose name was also suspiciously John.
"sorry, doesn't work like that" she explained.
"well how does it work?" Josn asked quite rudly.
She smiled, looked back at the Zombies, waved her hands around a bit and exclaimed "Like this!"
Then with all that build up, her magic made a zooping sound and spectacularly, nothing happened.
"was that suposed to happen?" asked her sister, whose name was Kay
The Girl laughed awkwardly. "no"
"well thats just fantastic, we've got a defective witch and a horde of zombies."
"I'm not a witch!" exclaimed The Girl "I need tuna!"
Both Kay and John looked at her sceptically, but not the cat, as he was busy licking himself.
"you need what?"
"Tuna"
Kay and John looked at each other "why?"
She rolled her eyes. "because it fuels magic, every one knows that"
"nope, I'm pretty sure that was a little known fact about tuna, which are also extinct"
"lets get back to Gracia and we'll discuss it there"
so the group of merry men, and a cat, raced back to Gracia. what they found was foreboding.
"The gate is locked, and also someone put up as sign." said John. he took a quick look at the sign. "Foreboding" it read.
"well thats foreboding" Kay said. The other groaned.
"is there any way to get us back in there?" asked John toward The Girl.
"perhapes..." so The girl plucked a rather large bobby pin from her hair, then placed it carefully in the lock.  after quite a bit of jiggling, they heard a loud Click, and the lock fell off. The Girl pushed the door open.
Inside the gates to Gracia, was a Zombie. it was running around chasing the Mayor, while a crazy hippie was chasing the Zombie, exclaiming that he should spread love, not infectious diseases.
Everyone else found that quite sickening. The zombie moaned.
the Girl, with one of her last bits of Tuna magic, cast the Zombie into Where ever things go when she magically makes them disappear.
"so any one happen to know where one can find tuna?" asked The Girl.
The Mayor looked at her in disbelief , while the hippie mourned the loss of his undead pal.
"Are you mad Girl? Tuna have been extinct for generations!"
"yeah well, I need them"
"Magic them!" The mayor exclaimed.
The Girls face lit up. "Hye thats a good idea!' Then with her very last bit of magic she created a large pile of canned tuna.
at this John looked like his face would explode. "you could do that all this time, and you didn't? why not!?"
The Girl shrugged. "I didn't think about it"

And then I woke up. 

Book Review: Ink by Amanda Sun. Rated PG-13

(Ink will be released in July this year, I have an advanced reader copy)


After her mother's death, orphaned Katie Greene must up root her New York life and move half way across the world, to live with her aunt in Japan. Her new life is full of foreign culture, new language, and of course, cute Japanese boys.  Tomohiro is one such boy, but there's something strange about him. Ink reacts strangely when he's in a room, Drawing almost seem to move. thats a bad thing, because some drawings can cause more damage than just a paper cut...

This book was very interesting to me. I really enjoyed the Japanese culture and language thats put in, along with Japanese folklore and myth, which for a folklore girl like me, is quite fun. There is a glossary in the back, for those of us who don't speak Japanese. There's quite a bit of action and romance, plus a little intrigue. Because one of the main characters is an artist, there are little sketches through out the book, which I found quite nice, I haven't read a teen book with drawing in them in a while. one thing I really liked was an ongoing argument about what makes you human and what makes you a monster (It isn't very deep I would love to see the author go further into that in the next books)

The book does have some drawbacks, One of them being swearing, both in English and Japanese. There's also some bloody injury's, a couple of gun shoot wounds and a sliced wrist, along with other less bloody injury. The romance of the book is mostly kept to kissing, but there are some slightly more passionate scenes, but they get cut short, and of course, there's also a bit of lying to adults and your average teenager total disregard for what ever your guardian tells you.

Ink is part of a series of books by debut author Amanda Sun, called The Paper Gods, Ink being the first of the series. I would recommend this book to Otaku and anyone interested in Japanese culture and mythology. I would not recommend it to people who don't like blood, as it can get quite bloody at times. In all Ink is a great book, with an interesting take on Japanese mythology, a driving romance, and enough action to keep you on your toes.
Thanks for reading my new and improved Review
Bri π
RATED PG-13: Mild Language, Violence, and Intimacy.
P.S. (I'll be posting more Book review over the summer, sorry for not having any in forever! I'll try to do one a week, because, among other things, I am a book Blogger)

Steampunkery and Other Sundry Things.

So, how about a post where I'm not half asleep and delirious, eh?
So, recently on instagram, people have been talking about how, if spiders could talk, they would be less afraid of them, and that it would be interesting to talk to them. My conversation with a spider would probably go somting like this
Me: Ladedadeda, just going about my daily buisness and stu- OMG SPIDER!!! DIE ARACHNID!!!!!
Spider: Woah! Hey wai- *squish*
Yup. I don't take kindly to spiders, not even taking ones. Actually, especially not talking ones. I mean, we all know what happened to Harry and Ron.
In other news, I got a bunch of awesome cool stuff for my room, wich shall be steampunk in a couple of months!!  I was squealing in delight at several of these items, playing with various buttons, switches, and doda's. Oh it was glorious.  Here are some pics of what I got.

Isn't this just gorgeous?! Pure brass, perfect glass, so happy with this!!

This, if you can't tell, is part of an old fashioned movie projector (I think)

More movie projector parts and a film splicer

This is the Film Splicer

the Projector

the wheely thingies, I don't know what they're called

The side of the wheely thingie

Box of odds and ends :)

e

Pantry sword!

So this evening, as we where eating, JJ kept interupting Morgan, trying to be funny. JJ was yelling random things, and combined a couple of sentences in her haste and ended up saying "Pantry sword"
Of course, being the people we are, I  grabbed one of our handy dandy swords (we have several of them, and we  keep them all over the house) and stuck it in the Pantry.
My mom walked over, saw what I was doing and said "No" she then removed the sword from the inside of the pantry, closed the pantry doors, then stuck the sword in the door handles.
And thus, the Pantry Sword.
Thanks for reading!
Bri π

My Amazing Language Abilities

Today I started reading a book called Ink, which is set in Japan. In some parts of the book people start talking in Japanese and I am quite proud of my self, as I have apparently picked up a bit of Japanese from all the Subbed Anime I have been watching recently. All be it, most of what I have learned is either insulting or profane, but hey, you've got to start some were right?
So more on my language skills. I can swear in Latin.
I can swear and insult people in Japanese, and then I can thank them and tell them to sit.
I can have a sort of conversation in Spanish
I can say random animals in French
I can sing in Italian and Chinese
I can say "your cat is a jerk" in Turkish
I can say a couple of phrases in Welsh and Gallic (or I used too, not sure if I can remember them anymore)
I can count in Korean and also give military commands.
And of course I am mostly proficient in English.
Those are my language skills. They are rather impressive. I can insult a large variety of people. Woo hoo!! Offending people Internationally!
Thanks for reading my blog, especially my middle of the night, grammatically incorrect ones!
Bri Pi

Thank You

Today I attended the RT book convention. I met Veronica Roth, Richelle Mead, Carrie Ryan, Rachel Vincent, Cynthia Hand, S.R. Johannes, Heather Brewer, Myra McEntire, and several other authors. I got to meet them, and they signed my books. and I said Thank You.
But when I said thank you, I said it for more than just signing my paperback. I was thanking them all they have given me. The lives they have let me live. For writing. I was thanking them for writing.
I almost started crying.
These people, they are my idols. You may idolize singers, actors, sports figures or others. I idolize authors. These are people that I have dreamed of meeting for as long as I have read their books.
and no matter how many times I said thank you, I couldn't exactly convey how much this meant to me, the fact that they write, that they make these beautiful stories that let me escape, that make me feel like I'm not alone in the world. They have given me more friends than I can count. They have made me laugh, and cry, and smile, and want to punch fictional people in their faces. They have given me so much, and I can't even tell them how important it all is to me.
Every time I read a new book, it feels so real to me, that these are real people, living their real lives. and It's not till I get done with the book that it hits me. This was written by someone. Someone stayed up for days on end to write this. Someone slaved over this for months. Someone went back, and rewrote it over and over and over. Someone found people to read it, getting over their own fears of rejection. Someone made these people, invented this world. Someone gave them life. And that's why I idolize them.
They write these beautiful, playful, funny, dark, amazing, light, happy, depressing, romantic, terrifying, epic, piercing, thought provoking, historical, creepy, sweet, wild, incredible, ridiculous, stories.
That's what hit me today, when I met them. That they are real people, not just names on the cover of a book, not just pictures on the back of a hardcovers jacket. they are real, and they wrote this.
 and it made me almost cry. Because it was just so awesome. In the literal sense of the term. It struck me with awe.
So Thank you all the authors out there, all of you who write these books, that make the worlds, that give us our escapes.
You are my heroes. 
Bri π