April Thoughts: Goodbye Winter!

 

Hello Spring! Goodbye Winter!

Okay...I know the first day of spring was a few weeks back but lets be honest, it hasn't really felt like spring until now. I know April is famous for its showers, but I will take showers over snow any day. So help me, if I see so much as one more snowflake fall from the sky there will be consequences...

But I digress.

This morning I was pleasantly awoken (those two words form a paradox) by birds chirping outside my window. And when I went for my run, I saw buds on the trees! This means its about to get a whole lot green around here, and, sadly, it also means I will soon be suffering from the customary bout of springtime allergies. I have waited what seems like an eternity for the temperature to remain consistently above 55. Fortunately, all the snow has melted. Still, it feels like I'll be waiting a bit longer before I can twirl around in a sundress.

I know for many people, New Years is usually the time to commit to change. They promise themselves to start eating better, to exercise more, to commit to positivity. But as I said in my New Years Resolutions Video, such changes are difficult to make in the middle of winter when its cold and miserable and all you want to do is curl up in a ball on your couch with a bowl of steaming mac-and- cheese. I personally prefer to commit to self-change in the spring, when the warm sun helps fuel my motivation. With that said,here are my goals for spring:

1. Go outside and explore!
2. Buy at least one flower crown.
3. Learn the Boston T system better so I can visit friends.
4. Commit to cardio at least three times a week.
5. Start writing more, no matter how tired you are.
6. Clean out my car and wash it.
7. Paint a beautiful springtime scene.
8.Stop abusing the snooze button on my morning alarm clock.
9. Do more vlogs outside.
10. Get a nice indoor plant.

Well, Thats all the goals I'm going to set for now, I'm sure by the time summer rolls around the list will have grown. Do you have any springtime suggestions for me? If you do, let me know down in the comments!

Much Love,
Hayleigh

Book Review: "The Coldest Girl In Coldtown" by Holly Black

I love books.

I love the texture, the smell, the feeling of turning page after page; but, if I had to pick what I loved about books the most, its the escape they offer from everyday life....and boy do I need to escape sometimes. 

So without further ado... this is the first of the many book reviews I plan on doing in the future, and what better way to start off than discussing the work of my favorite author: Holly Black

I first discovered Holly Black when I was in high school (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth). The first of her novels I picked up was "Tithe" which is part of her " Modern Faerie Tales" trilogy. To this day, I cannot remember if Tithe was recommended to me by another individual or if I simply stumbled upon it in my local Barnes and Noble, what I do remember is how much I fell in love with the story and its characters. Tithe was also my first introduction to dark fantasy. And just as I found myself immersed in the second book in the  Modern Faerie Tales Trilogy, my brother found himself wandering the world of The Spiderwick Chronicles; Miss Black's most popular series which was subsequently made into a movie. 

Seeing that my eyeballs are magnetically drawn to anything with Holly Blacks name on it, I purchased "The Coldest Girl In Coldtown" in a most expedient fashion. It took me a while to finish as my schedule became very hectic over the past few months, but as of last night I found myself experiencing what I refer to as "post-literary-withdrawal"; an affliction characterized by extreme sadness that you have just finished reading a truly good story.

So what is my full opinion on "The Coldest Girl In Coldtown?"
Well, in the words of the owl from the Tootsie Pop commercial...Lets find out...

Book Cover

THE STORY
Tana wakes up after a high school party one morning and, instead of finding herself surrounded by red solo cups, she finds herself surrounded by corpses...(hows that for a beginning, huh?). Why? Because of a certain blood loving, sunlight-fearing infestation that now plagues the human race; that's right...Vampires. Once bitten by a vampire, you become infected, or as they say in the book you "go cold" and its not until you drink human blood that you become a vampire. All of Tana's friends are dead-aside from her exboyfriend, Aiden (who has been bitten and tied up as a "leftover" so to speak) and a mysterious but docile vampire she finds shackled next to him who goes by the name of Gavriel. Against her better judgment, she manages to rescue both of them before the fanged menace who murdered her classmates returns. However, it is during their escape that she herself is bitten, leaving her and her companions with a short time to get to one of the walled cities known as Coldtowns. Coldtowns are essentially the governments solution to a world overrun by Vampires; quarantined areas where both Vampires and humans (both infected and non-infected) live together. Tana believes that by taking them all to Coldtown, she is  saving her loved ones, and herself, from unnecessary peril. But there is far more to the Coldtowns, and their history, than meets the eye, and her new vampire "friend" Gavriel has a few secrets of his own.
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WHAT I LOVED
Not gonna lie, when I first read the back of the cover in Barnes & Noble, I had no clue this was gonna be a Vampire story.  There was no mention of the V-word anywhere (clever girl..) and, as far as fantasy goes, this is a new chapter for Holly Black; who has always stuck mainly to fairy lore. However, after reading the the entire book, I can firmly state that it wasn't really a major deviation for Mrs. Black or her writing style. The story maintains a satisfying balance of  the dark, the elegant, and the witty. Her characters have complex backgrounds; infused with plenty of emotion and a touch of madness. The only difference that distinguishes this book from Mrs. Black's previous books, is that this one keeps you "on the edge" throughout the whole story. It doesn't have that slow buildup, or peacefully quiet moments that you might find in her other books (not that there is anything wrong with those other things). No matter what happens in the story, you always have fear that Game-of- Thrones-Style-Feeling that someone will die or, in some cases, die and become the undead. And, big surprise...they do! There is a lot of bloodshed (and blood-drinking) in this book, not to mention Tana's horrific back-story. Sometimes this can bring a story down because all the violence can distract you from anything truly meaningful about the characters themselves. That, happily, is not the case with "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown."
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FAVORITE QUOTE
"Maybe it's just us, us with a raging hunger, us with a couple of accidental murders under our belt. Humanity with the training wheels off the bike, careening down a steep hill. Humanity freed from the the constraints of consequence and gifted with power. Humanity, grown away from all things human."
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WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE
There was only one thing I didn't like about the book and this may sound a bit nitpickish, especially for someone who considers herself a huge admirer of Holly Black's work. But, I didn't feel like the main character's name  suited her very well. All of the characters in Holly Back's other books have names that seem to fit the character's personality or the world they occupy; the name "Tana" didn't seem worthy of either. I cannot pinpoint exactly why I feel this way, its not as if the main character doesn't deserve an usual name; shes not an ordinary girl. Perhaps if it had been made to be more unusual (like adding an "H" at the end), it wouldn't have bothered me so much. However, this one minor critique.
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CONCLUSION: A

I truly enjoyed this book. As always, Holly Black delivers a superb story with clever characters. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those desiring to read a good Vampire story without any sparking...

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Much Love,

-Hayleigh