City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

  City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett was an amazing book! I have never read a book by Bennett before but after reading this I'm looking into his other works. City of Stairs is in the fantasy genre but I think it could also be considered a mystery. Fantasy books are not usually my go to genre, neither are mystery's for that matter, but I could not put this book down. The only thing that annoyed me about this was the names in it, my gosh how is someone supposed to pronounce these names?

    I loved how incredibly detailed this story was. There were times I could see everything that was being described, as if it was a show playing on t.v. The fight scenes were amazing to read and had me holding my breath at times.

    This doesn't even take place in a specific time, it has it's own reality. The main character, Shara, is in the city of Bulikov many years after the "Blink." Which was a war so a lot of the town was destroyed. She is one of her continents best operatives and she is in Bulikov to investigate a murder of a dear friend of hers. She gets much more than she bargained for once she arrives. People are rude to her and automatically don't like her because of her race. She holds her own though and put a lot of people in their place.
 
    I absolutely loved the man, Sigrud, he is Sharas secretary. I wish he would have had a bigger part in this whole book! I would have been perfectly fine if it was written about him. He was funny, extremely tough and oddly very profound at times.
 
     Unless you are a Saypur, which Shara is, you can not talk about faith, religions, Divinities (Gods) or history. It is illegal to speak of these things. Which in turn makes everyone hate Saypur or Shallies (because of the amount of shallots they eat) as the locals call them. It's almost like a futuristic race thing.

    After further investigating Efrem's murder things start to get weird. People that Sigrud is following start to literally vanish into thin air. Ancient, believed to be dead monsters start showing up and then before she knows it a Divinity shows up as well.

    I was afraid that after the ending fight scene was over the book was going to end stupidly. But it didn't I was so proud of Shara at the end, it felt like she was someone I knew and I was rooting for her.  I highly recommend this to everyone, it has aspects I think everyone would like.

     Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

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Mentally constipated.

    This is what it's like to be a writer. I'm a writer, I've always loved english, reading, writing it's just my thing. Loving english and wanting to be a writer are two different things. Loving english is one thing, so you like to read or write poetry, that's fine. But deciding to spend your life writing is hard work.

    Especially if you work from home, there are so many distractions. Now my husband works from home too and sometimes that's good but sometimes it's more of a distraction. If I get stuck on a paragraph or a chapter it's so easy to log onto Pinterest and spend an eternity searching for cupcake recipes I'll never try or workouts to get killer abs. My dog will bring a toy to me and I'll spend an hour playing fetch with her. My husband will get tired of being in the house and want to go for a walk. You'll hear of a marathon of a show you like, or twelve days worth if you watched The Simpsons marathon a couple of weeks ago. Everything becomes a distraction when you work from home. EVERYTHING!

    I've tried all kind of things to stay focused. I wake up early and go for a walk around the neighborhood with some neighbors, I workout in the mornings, I do yoga, I meditate. Anything to get rid of pent up energy and clear my mind but that's not always a good thing. Sometimes I clear my mind too much and can't remember how I wanted to go about the next chapter.

    I don't know about other writers but I get stuck A LOT! Sometimes it takes me months to unclog my mind, I call it mental constipation. When I get mentally constipated the only thing that helps me dislodge the clog is to re-read everything I have already written. It takes a while but it helps me. 

    Then I go through a moment of panic when I question everything that I wrote. I wonder if it's good, if it will make sense to anyone other than me, if I'm cut out to be a writer, or if I'll forever be a freelance writer that doesn't get paid for the work I do. 

    Like I said before I love writing, it will always be my passion but geez does it have to be so difficult. I don't think I'll ever choose a different path for me. Writing is my life. And now I'm furthering my career by becoming a book reviewer. That brings two of my passions together, reading and writing. I don't get paid actual money right now but I get free books which is a win to me! 

    

Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

     First of all the cover of this book is Gorgeous and very unlike me I judged it because of it's cover. I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't get into it. Aside from the pretty cover there wasn't anything interesting about this. I feel like it could have been cut in half and it would have still made perfect sense, because that is how much useless irrelevant  crap was in it. I ended up skipping around a lot, desperately wanting to finish it so I could read something good.  It follows a young female angel named, Bethany. She along with her older brother, Gabriel, and older sister, Ivy, have come to a Earth to stop dark forces from messing with it. They are trying to bring people closer to their faiths like in Bible times.
    Bethany was thrown into the life of an average teenage girl so naturally she falls for the first pretty boy she finds, Xavier. Of course she gets in trouble for breaking the rules by telling him she is an angel and that her brother and sister are also angels. But like any "good" book nothing happens and the two lovebirds can stay together.
    This new guy, Jake, comes along and it is so obvious to me that he is the "evil force" they went to stop in the first place from the moment he was introduced. It took her far too long to figure it out! He tries to mess her relationship with Xavier up but fails.
    Beth being the stupid "heroin" that she pretends to be ends up almost getting herself killed to save her boy toy. Long story short, good prevails over evil.
    This book could have been so much better!
 

I know I'm weird but am I the only one?

     Have you ever watched a really good movie? Like so good that it made you dread having to live in this reality anymore? If you haven't then you must either live under a rock or have an amazing life; to not want to leave the usual for the special.

    I've seen some movies that I would give up my house and everything inside to be able to exist in their dimensions of time and space. I've also read some books so good that I try to picture myself in them (I'm lame, I know). 

    I read a lot! I read at least one book a week, sometimes more. So when I find a book good enough that I wish I could be a part of it then; I know I found a good read! I wouldn't want to be in The Hunger games! Not because it's a bad book but because I just really wouldn't want to be in that. Fighting for food? No thank you, I'll just sit over here eating cupcakes while watching it on Netflix. 

    But come on, who hasn't pictured themselves going to Hogwarts. Being best friends with Harry, Ron and Hermione, changing Draco to be with the good guys. Helping them defeat Voldemort and enjoy getting my mail from owls instead of the post office...Just me? Cool. 

    Anyways back to the point of this, how do you cope with reality? How do you just continue living your mundane life after reading a spectacular book or watching an epic movie? I'm at a lose here! 

    Kind of like after I watched The Avengers for the first time and wanted to be in it. I wanted to be fly around with Iron man and beat the crap out of evil robotic looking aliens. Yes I am aware of how incredibly weird I am, I have come to enjoy my oddness. 

    It took me weeks to get back to my normal state of mind after that movie. So maybe I should ask how do normal people cope with it because I am far from normal. Please don't tell me I'm alone in this because if so then maybe I need to be in a padded room screaming pudding at everyone that walks by me. (Supernatural reference)