Update

Hey you guys

I know, it's been too long, and it brings me such joy and surprise that this blog still gets hits.

I didn't have enough time or interest to write reviews, but now that I've been reading more, I can't stop myself.

I feel like a different person than the original sophomore in high school who started this blog, now that I'm a freshman in college. So I'm keeping this for the memories, and I'm using my new blog (slightly under construction still) called "CollegeReads". I hope you check it out!

Sincerely,

Owyn

Book Review: Girl Online

NOTE: I got this book as an ARC the day it was published.

As an avid internet fanatic, I am a huge fangirl of YouTube. Especially British vloggers. One of my favorites is Zoella (Zoe Sugg), and she is a bubbly, beauty-focused vlogger who happened to write a book!

(I chose this gif because Doctor Who is British, not because he's shirtless psh no)

The premise of Girl Online hooked me: a sixteen-year-old girl decides to blog anonymously about her life, from fun things like shopping excursions and hanging out with her friends to more serious things like dealing with heartache and panic attacks. As her blog gains popularity, she goes to New York with her parents and her best friend Elliot and meets Noah, a mysterious, amazing musician, who has a secret of his own.

Disregarding my fangirl stance on Zoella, it was a really good book. I do have one bone to pick with it, but I'll list the things I liked first!

*NO SPOILERS BECAUSE I FEEL BAD*

One: I loved the characters. Penny, Noah, Elliot, and Tom, especially, were all fun to read, relatable, and had great dialogue. Especially Penny/Elliot and Noah/Penny. I, like everyone, fell in love with Noah because wow, that boy was fantastic.

SWOON

Two: Like I said, the premise was intriguing and I was instantly captivated. The internet and how teenagers use it (especially near the end) is a really cool bit to add to novels, especially YA ones. And Sugg did a great job of integrating the blog posts and the actual story, keeping the voice authentic to both.

Three: Noah and Penny's romance was one of the most adorable ships of this year. Don't even try to tell me otherwise.

I was super sad by how quick the ending was untIL I SAW IT WAS A SEQUEL so I'm okay now. I can't wait for the sequel! And I hope you all check out this book, it was so much fun!

Sincerely,

Owyn

ARC Review: The Bookseller

NOTE: Guys, I read a book for adults dammit, I'm growing up.

So today, I am reviewing the book The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson, that comes out in March. It's about this woman Kitty, a single bookseller in 1962 Denver (REPRESENT) who starts having these vivid dreams that she's Katharyn, a married mother of three. As Katharyn's life becomes more real, she must decide which one is the real world and which one is imagined.

*NO SPOILERS AHEAD, OTHER THAN WHAT'S ON THE SUMMARY ON GOODREADS*

First off, this premise is without a doubt one of the coolest I've seen. Plus, it's a bookstore! Look at the name of this blog. Swanson did a great job crafting the story and drawing parallels between the two universes. I personally loved this part a lot because it was fun seeing the similarities and differences between the lives of Kitty and Katharyn.

(get it? because they didn't have gifs back in the 60s)

I also loved the almost/kinda two points of view. While Kitty and Katharyn are technically the same person, their lives are vastly different. It became very interesting to see how Kitty became Katharyn and Katharyn became Kitty. Confused?

Plus, the twist at the end. God, when I read it, I had to set the book down for a second (which was very hard because I refused to set this book down) and just pause because wow. Swanson did a great job writing this story because it makes so much sense in hindsight but when I read it, I was very much shocked.

I rate this book 134 bookstores out of 134 because this debut is just THAT good.

Sincerely,

Owyn the Intern

Trilogy Review: Anna, Lola, Isla

NOTE: I've been waiting a long time to review these :D

The three books I'm reviewing are by Stephanie Perkins and are technically companions to each other, rather than a series. The first is Anna and the French Kiss, then Lola and the Boy Next Door, then finally Isla and the Happily Ever After.

So I keep myself organized, I'm going to first tell you about the series as a whole.

Me in every other aspect of my life but my blog

THE SERIES

The characters and dialogue, since these often go hand in hand. Perkins delivers realistic, complex, dynamic characters that offer sparkling, hilarious dialogue. I was in awe the entire time I read it, and I've read each book multiple times. They just make me so happy and flail-y with their awesome character development.


The plots They're actually very simple (even beyond the who girl-meets-boy) but Perkins weaves these stories in such interesting and fascinating ways that they seem brand-new.

The romance I think these books might have given me the worst relationship-envy I've ever gotten from a book that isn't Nora Roberts. THESE COUPLES ARE SO CUTE AND AMAZING AND DESERVE EACH OTHER LIKE GAH EMOTIONS.

Now individually.

Anna and the French Kiss

This one was probably the most dramatic and charming. Anna is such an awesome character and you instantly root for her, and St. Clair is just drool-worthy. Personally, I'm a sucker for guys with great hair but St. Clair just took that up a notch. I thought their romance was just sweet and the way they hit it off and stayed amazingly adorable just made me want more and more.

Lola and the Boy Next Door

Lola is probably the most interesting character of the trilogy. I totally envied her ability to wear whatever she wanted however she wanted. And Cricket was that kind of awkward adorable nerd that just warmed my heart. I think their plot line (no spoilers!) was realistic and sweet and also a great message, especially towards the end. Plus, it was awesome how Anna and St. Clair showed up. The fact they remain the ultimate power couple just reinforces every hope I had for this as a companion series.

Isla and the Happily Ever After

This one was the cutest, but at the same time heart-stoppingly realistic. It showed consequences and talked about mental disorders all while juggling one of the fluffiest beginnings to a romance I've seen. And it brought me so much emotions and cuteness. I read this on an airplane and I was awwing the whole time and I don't even want to know what the stewardesses thought of me. The only critique I have is that Anna/St. Clair and Lola/Cricket were not shown enough in the book. While I'll admit their appearance towards the end was very impacting, I'm greedy and I wanted more ;)

But yes, 98 SOAPs out of 98. Perkins did a great job. Definitely read them, especially since the story is now complete. Which both breaks my heart and warms it.

me

Farewell!

Owyn

PS Senior year is hard okay I'll try to post/read more though!

ARC Review: Horrorstor

NOTE: This book comes out in September, and also features a fancy double-dot thing on top of the third "o" that I don't know how to replicate on my computer.

Today, I am going to talk to you about a book called Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix. It is a haunted house story set in a store that is a lower-priced Ikea.

So this book is unlike most things I read. I don't normally read horror books, because I find them too slow. The first 40-60% of the book is tension/build-up with too many descriptions and I honestly don't have the patience to deal with it.

But this book is different.

It's slightly humorous, and gives you more about character dialogue instead of pointless build-up in the beginning. The build up is actually there. In fact, with the way that it presents itself, I thought it was going to a satire on horror movies. Especially since it's set up like an Ikea catalog and starts with snappy dialogue.

And then I read it.

I was so terrified in the middle of reading it, I had to put it down and just pet my dog for a while.

But this book is also terrifyingly good. Allow me to list the ways.

*SPOILER FREE DON'T WANT TO RUIN IT FOR YOU*

It's like real-life people got trapped in a horror movie. Yes, there were the standard tropes, like the Badass Girl, Badass Boy, True Believer, Horny Bastard and the Innocent, but their dialogues and actions weren't over the top ridiculous. You rooted for the characters to survive and winced at their downfall because they were so true.

The horror aspect. This book probably scared me more because I went into it thinking "oh this is a satire" but I was very, very wrong. It has the satirical aspects, but this book is straight-up horror. With intense action and cringe-worthy torture (physical and mental), I was instantly enthralled and frightened.

Me in the middle of reading it

It was clever as hell. The dialogue, characters, plot, and what caused the horror were all really well done. I was so pleased that the time I wasn't mentally screaming in terror, I was mentally praising the book and Hendrix.

When this book comes out, definitely check it out! It's awesome. 99 Brookas out of 100.

Until next time,

Owyn

The Moaning Incident

NOTE: I realized that I've never actually chronicled my time as an intern, and therefore this blog title was very misleading. Too lazy to change it, I'm going to tell you a story that happened almost a year ago.

I won't be going into too much detail in this part, but there was an incident at my bookstore involving a adolescent boy. He tried to aggresively hit on a customer, but he got rejected and left the store crying.

I read about this on our little news site, and of course I was a bit concerned, even though the situation was handled.

But reading about that is probably why I was so freaked out about the...

MOANING INCIDENT.

So I went downstairs into the basement of the store, going to work on replacing the recommended tags when all of a sudden I heard a soft moan.

I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I heard it again.

And I froze. 

As an awkward teenager (*cough cough* still am,) I did a "covert" turn around to try to find who was doing this.

 

It was a tall, older man. To be honest, he looked a bit homeless but he could've easily been a hipster. We get both of those around our store sometimes.

When I was looking at him (COVERTLY,) he did it again.

This was my reaction, not him moaning btw

Even though it was kind of under his breath and he didn't make any uncomfortable facial expressions at me or another customer, it still terrified me a bit.

Luckily, one of the business people I knew (who I shall name "May") was walking past at the same moment I couldn't find one of the books to put a rec tag for.

"May! May." I tried to have composure but I'm never composed. "Mind helping me find this book? I've been looking but can't." I make an "oh you" face at myself. 

She nodded, "Sure. This section is always terribly shelved for some reason."

We both looked for the book, and I wanted to tell her so badly about the moaning man but he was less than two yards behind me and he would've heard me. So I kept waiting for her to acknowledge it, but she never did.

What I wanted to do, to be honest

After like two minutes, she just shrugged and said, "Sorry, Owyn. I can't find it. I'm sure (your boss) will understand." Then she had to leave to do businessy things.

I just nodded and tried not to cling to her legs sobbing so I wouldn't be alone.

I finished the rest of the rec tags as quickly as possible and then ran to my friend in the Used section, "Mia."

"Hey what's up?" She greeted, spinning around on her swivel chair because she's cool.

"Okay I'm kinda freaked out right now." I told her.

She froze as well, "What happened?" She said, instantly concerned because I was essentially the baby of the store employees at 15 then 16-years-old. 

I told her everything. And she went downstairs to check on it while I manned the Used section. 

And by "manned the Used section," I mean "spun around in the swivel chair and waited for people to show up but no one did." 

In a total reversal of my bad timing, right as Mia was about to tell me what she discovered about the Moaning Man, a customer came in with a lot of books and I had to head back up to my boss "Elaine" anyway.

When I walked the flights upstairs to the office I worked at, I explained to Elaine what happened and she was concerned too, even though I explained that I was fine.

We called Mia, and Mia said that she went downstairs to the section I told her, and waited for him to make the moaning noise. She said he did it a couple of times (while reading an architecture book for the record) and she approached him as a bookseller and said, "Is there anything I can help you with?" 

Apparently, he was totally polite and nice and said, "No thank you!" Before turning back to the book.

My boss and I shared a look, then Mia explained, "I think he might just breathe like that. I don't think those weird noises had any ill-intentions towards anyone." 

After that phone call, my boss and I had a nice laugh about it and I went back to work. 

I remembered this incident the other day, and I was like: "This needs to be a blog post." So hear it is. 

Yay!

Hope you liked the story, and tell me if you want more!

Sincerely,

Owyn the Intern

Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

NOTE: It's been a while. Whoops.

While traveling the East Coast looking for colleges, I spent my spare time not having an existential crisis reading memoir-ish books. One of them was Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns by Mindy Kaling.

Now I've never seen The Office or The Mindy Project but I just might have to now because WOW she is hilarious.

This book had so many good things going for it, I'll just list the bigger ones for you.

Straight up hilarious. If I could repeat this seven billion times, I would but that would bore you. Kaling just has this great diction/voice to her writing style that instantly endeared you to her. Her whole book is like a friend telling you something stupid they did and you're allowed to laugh while still remaining their friend.

Me the entire book

Amazing interspersed pictures. I, for some reason, hate little packets of pictures in the middle of biographies/memoirs, so when this book had pictures of Kaling's childhood and her Broadway life, and selfies from her Blackberry throughout, I was ecstatic. Plus, pictures always make better sense in context, so it's awesome the book does that.

Inspirational. She details her rise to stardom, playing Ben Affleck and Kelly Kapoor and writing for The Office as the only woman writer on staff, along with essays about her childhood stories and friends in a hilarious and self-deprecating way. Truly inspiring.

But yes, definitely pick up a copy of this book and read it and laugh. The essays are charming and funny and cute and awesome so read them all and enjoy.

Giving this book a 30/30! For teh lolz.

Farewell!

Owyn