Favourite Things- June edition

Hello everyone...
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I am feeling sad. I simply remember my favourite things and then I don't feel so bad! June edition!
Okay, I know mostly these are done as fashion or makeup tags but I've taken my favourite things from everywhere as a memorial to June 2015. Enjoy! 

Favourite book: MERCY 

I have decided that when choosing my favourite book I am going to choose from the list of those that I have already reviewed in that month so that you can go back and check them out in the reviews and buy them if you want to (there are direct links to Amazon). So Mercy is my favourite this month because it is one of Jodi Picoult's and it was so interesting to read about what is illegal but what might be moral depending on you moral compass. Still Alice is a close runner up. They are both incredible books though and well worth reading. Take them on holiday or something. :) 
Mercy Review
Still Alice Review
Purple Hibiscus Review

                                          MOLESKINE NOTEBOOKS 

These are my favourite notebooks of all time. Don't worry! They are not real moleskin! I use them for my diaries and I have a new one every year. Recently, I discovered a green one for 2015 (see picture) but in previous years, I have had black only. They have a little pocket at the back of them, where I keep little souvenirs from the year and a ribbon to mark your spot and an elastic band to keep it closed.  I would prefer it if they had bigger spaces between the lines because my handwriting is huge but it doesn't really matter because you needn't be constricted by the lines and you can write on every other line or something, (as I do) 
.

NOTE CARDS AND HIGHLIGHTERS AND FINELINERS
So, at the beginning of June, I had my exams and obviously, revision was high on my list of priorities during that time. I find that colour coding notes really helps me to remember the stuff particularly when similar pieces of information are written in similar colours. Highlighting the most important bits or the bits that I keep forgetting makes them really stand out as well and the crazier the colours of the highlighters,the better. I study history and there was so much to learn for the three exams and therefore, I found that writing dates or timelines out on little pieces of card and learning those as well as my full set of detailed notes helped to absorb it all. So maybe, if you have difficulty with absorbing huge amounts of information write the key details/dates/names of specialist cells on little cards and it really helps. They can be bought at any stationary shop, like WHSmith or anything similiar. 

YOUCOLLAGE

YOUCAM 

YOUCAM and YOUCOLLAGE 
These are my two favourite apps for this month. I think that they are available on Apple but I have an Android phone so I am not 100% sure. 
YOUCAM is an app where you can take pictures with a variety of settings and filters and then you can make all different types of collages and edit them in a variety of ways. There is also a beauty forum, (which I don't use) but you can chat to people who like the same beauty and fashion things that you do and share your pictures. 
YOUCOLLAGE is in case you just want to make collages without any settings or fancy design. They are really convenient when you have a group of pictures that you want to put together in one place. 


THATCHERJOE YOUTUBE CHANNEL

My favourite YouTube channel of this month is that of ThatcherJoe. His videos are hilarious, especially his prank videos and his vlogs are really fun to watch as well. I'll link his channel below so that you can watch his videos. 
https://m.youtube.com/user/ThatcherJoe 

FAVOURITES VIDEOS  

Science vs Philosophy 
https://youtu.be/i0Z6z2UaGiA

Romantic meal with ThatcherJoe 
https://youtu.be/qECL-sFIH6Y

Dare Joe 
https://youtu.be/hwGv98Ef2HI

Documentary on Stephen Hawking 
https://youtu.be/hi8jMRMsEJo

Honey Badgers by Vlogbrothers 
Watch the video here

THE IMITATION GAME

I firmly agree that Eddie Redmayne should have won the Oscar for Best Actor this year but I watched The Imitation Game recently and it was amazing! For some reason, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Alan Turing, especially when he didn't understand a joke or why it was important that people liked him, reminded me of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. It is a really serious film, I mean, on the really serious topics of the war and the illegality of homosexuality but it also is surprisingly amusing at times. Keira Knightley is also one of my favourite actresses of all time and she is also in the film. I know that I am behind in watching that film but I missed it in the cinema and have not had a lot of time to watch films recently. But my sister and I bought it for our dad for Father's Day and so now we have the DVD. Yay! 

FERRERO ROCHER
When people ask me what my favourite chocolate is, I always say I don't know because I love all chocolate. But, recently, I have been thinking about it and I don't like Aero, becuase I don't really like mint or bubbly chocolate but I love Ferrero Rocher.  My favourite are the original and not the dark chocolate or white chocolate/coconut ones. For those that might not know, they are balls of wafer that are coated in a mixture of hazelnut and chocolate and inside there is a whole hazelnut and something that tastes like Nutella. (It is a lot tastier than I have just described that.)

FAVOURITE FACT OF JUNE

I got this from my chemistry textbook when revising for my exam so I don't know how accurate it is because you know, education system and all that but anyway 

Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) is used in soap making and if you put it on your skin, your skin will feel soapy. That is because it is reacting with the fats in your skin and, in essence, turning you into soap!!!

FAVOURITE SONGS

Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Ray 
Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Ray 

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler 

Diamonds by Rihanna 

The Winner takes it all by Abba 

Lucky by Britney Spears

Superluv by Shane Dawson 

As seen by this list, I don't really have a favourite genre but my favourite singers are, and will be for all time, Florence and the Machine and Sia and some little bands, like Imagine Dragons and One Republic. But these were the most played on my 'most played' list and I think Young and Beautiful was at the top. It is such an awesome song. (I was going to say beautiful,but that is in the title.) It is so peaceful and soothing and the lyrics actually mean something so that is great. By the way, I am really bad at listening to music because I over listen to too many songs which means that after a few weeks, I do not like them anymore. So this list will change dramatically over time. 



Okay, now I am just going to jump on the band wagon and do my favourite things that are hair/makeup/clothing related. But it is only a few! :) 

COW GIRL HAIRSTYLE 
I am not exactly sure what the name of this hairstyle is but 'Cow Girl' has stuck. Now, I watched a video a while back by Youtuber Zoella and she was showing people how to do this hairstyle. But Zoella has beautiful, long, straight hair and I have curly and extremely puffy/curly hair. So I didn't think that it would work for my hair. But then I saw another YouTuber PyschoSoprano doing it in her hair and hers is more similar to mine and so I tried it and it worked! The bad thing is that it makes my small head look even smaller but it looks really cute...well, I think so, at least. I don't know how to describe it really, except that it involves an Alice band and bobby pins and shoving all of your hair into the back of the Alice band. However, I'll put both video links here so that you can watch both of them. 
Watch Zoella's video here
Watch PyschoSoprano's video here

CONVERSES
These are my favourite shoes. I am really not a fan of fancy shoes, like high heels because they really hurt my feet and after a day of walking around in them, my back really starts to hurt. (I have a pretty poor spine.) And these converses are really comfortable and I have worn them so much that they know the shape of my foot so it feels like a hug. From a shoe. They are quite old now, I think but I got them in Sports Direct for £2.00 or something reduced from £8.99 like that because the store was closing down and there was a sale so they were really cheap. And they have lasted for ages. They are not the real deal but they look like it so who cares? I have had to wear a lot of uncomfortable shoes recently so it is really nice to just wear them again now that I am on holiday. 

GREEN EYELINER  

BLACK KOHL PENCIL

These are my favourite two 'eye' pencils. I use it under my eye rather than over my eye because I personally think it looks a lot nicer, as long as you properly smudge and don't have a really thick line. The green is by Rimmel and the black is by Bourjois Paris and they are both available at Superdrug. I also have not quite mastered the straight line on the eyelid and because I wear big glasses, all mistakes are magnified. So...I'm working on that. 

THIS IS WHAT AWESOME LOOKS LIKE T-shirt 

At the end of every one of my blog posts, I write 'Be Awesome' because Awesome is my favourite word in the English language. I say that because there are words in other languages that I prefer the sound of but anyway...getting away from the point. So, when I saw this shirt in Primark, I thought YES! I don't care how much it is. I have to have that shirt. Also, it is really comfortable to wear in the summer because it is light and quite baggy (although I am a tiny person so maybe that is just me) and it covers your shoulders and neck really well so that you don't get too badly burned. And look at the Snoopy Dog! So cute.  

Anyway, that is it for this post. I really hope you enjoyed it and it made you smile a bit or something :). I think the next post will be a book review. I am going on holiday to Spain on Monday so it won't be for a while but I will probably do two or three when I come back.

Clare 
:)

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Hey everyone...

So here is review number two. Yesterday, I finished Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

Before continuing, I,would like to say that this book has a movie adaptation that I would strongly recommend. Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her portrayal of Alice and it really was well deserved.

Anyway, the book... Still Alice tells the story of fifty-one year old Alice, diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Proteins build up in the brain to form structures called 'plaques' and 'tangles'. This leads to the loss of connections between nerve cells, and eventually to the death of nerve cells and loss of brain tissue. People with Alzheimer's also have a shortage of some important chemicals in their brain that help to transmit important signals and messages around the brain. A shortage means that the signals are not transmitted as effectively. Before reading this book, I knew very little about Alzheimer's and, although this book does not contain excessive factual information (I do not like it when books do contain a lot), I did learn a lot about Alzheimer's through the eyes of Alice, who was suffering with it. Alzheimer's is a terminal illness that breaks down the neurones in the brain that deal with memory.

However, this is not a book about Alzheimer's. It is not overly factual or dry and it does not make you feel pitiful in a negative way. This is a book about Alice and her struggle with the disease. She is a Harvard professor of psychology and she has a husband and three children, Anna, Tom and Lydia. Narrated through her eyes, it is a heart-breaking and beautifully told story of how her life unravels at the hands of this terrible disease. 

Why do I like this book?

This book is heartbreaking but in a way that made me think. Alice was very intelligent and I myself am very nerdy and love to learn new things. Lisa Genova is able to show, very realistically and sympathetically how this terrible illness is causing her to forget everything that she has learnt and, even more terribly, the faces of everyone she loved. Can you imagine waking up and not knowing who your family were? Their faces were still somewhere in your head but you couldn't access them because your neurones had been destroyed.

I think Lisa Genova makes this living with this disease which, thankfully, everyone does not have to do, relatable to everyone who reads it. The author really develops the relationships between the husband and wife and mother and children to show how the disease attacks all parts of Alice's life.

Issues discussed in this book

Obviously, Alzheimer's is one of the issues discussed. To me, before reading Still Alice, Alzheimer's meant very little to me and I knew very little about it. I knew that it was a terminal disease but I had very little knowledge of the effect it had on peoples' lives. It meant the same to me as Parkinson's or Motor Neurone Disease. I could name a few people who had these diseases but I didn't really know anything about them. When someone says, think of a terminal illness, I think of cancer. It is a much bigger issue in my family and therefore, it mattered a lot more to me. After watching the Theory of Everything, I understood the severity of Motor Neurone Disease to a much greater extent. But I think that that a problem. I was learning about these illnesses from a film, instead of being given information about them from my school or from the world in general. Everyone I know, I believe  could name a form of cancer but not everyone could tell me what these other terminal illnesses could do, or even what they are. Let's focus on Alzheimer's. I do believe awareness should be raised about these diseases, to let people know more about them and to understand the severity of what many people have to face. Because I've studied in a good school and I have had a good education and I have never heard Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or even Motor Neurone Disease mentioned in any of my lessons and that is a bad thing. (I've included these three because these I have now researched a bit more but there are lots more.) How can we expect things to change without teaching people about them? 

Recommendations

There are two books that I recommend if you enjoy reading Still Alice. One is This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl and her parents. This book is the story of a girl who suffers from cancer. She died but her parents published her diary of her life, living with it. It is an amazing story and what I love about it is that although it is about cancer, it isn't a cancer book.

And the second book is Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. For those who do not know, Black Beauty is a horse and this book is the story of his life. Let me explain. I think this book is so sweet, for a start but also, through the eyes of Black Beauty, a horse, he accepts all that happens in his life, all the bad owners and the horrible things that happen and I think it is very similar to how Alice accepted what was going to happen in her life.

Okay...well that's it for this post. I am now reading Mercy by Jodi Picoult so that will be my next review. I might do an overall for Jodi Picoult as well because I love her books. I hope this post was interesting and you enjoyed it. Below are the links to buy all the books and also a link I found in the back of Still Alice to donate money to raise awareness for Alzheimer's.

BUY STILL ALICE ON AMAZON

BUY BLACK BEAUTY ON AMAZON

BUY THIS STAR WON'T GO OUT ON AMAZON

DONATE MONEY TO RAISE AWARENESS 

Click on the CALL TO ACTION- Alzheimer's button and donate money.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE HERE 

Be Awesome

Clare

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Hello everyone...

So this is my first review. I read Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and overall, I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to middle-ish teens and going up as it can be a little disturbing at times because there is domestic abuse. 

It tells the story of a girl called Kambili, living in Nigeria after colonisation. Because of this, there are many political and economic struggles for the people,which results in conflict throughout the novel. Kambili lives with her parents in Enugu. Her father is Catholic, but in a very oppressive and sometimes cruel way, subjecting Kambili and her mother and brother to beatings when they do something that he does not like. The novel is the story of Kambili growing up, told from Kambili's perspective and essentially breaking free from the restrictions that her father has put on her and the restrictions that she has put on herself, trying to live up to her father's expectations. Many themes are explored in the book, such as maturity, sexuality, civil unrest as well as the struggles that a girl faces growing up.

This book was the debut novel of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it was highly acclaimed, winning the 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers' Best First Book Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004. This doesn't always guarantee that a book will be enjoyable for every individual to read but it does mean that many people enjoyed the book. 

Why did I like the book?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (the author) is extremely good at capturing Kambili's thoughts and feelings and relating her struggles to the reader. Kambili faces difficulties that are relatable to all girls and boys growing up and Chimamanda is able to really bring that across in the writing. There is a lot of beautiful description in the book and the storyline is really interesting and developed. Although the first few pages are quite slow, once the story takes off, it really picks up pace and is very gripping until the end.

Issues discussed in the book

One of the main themes running through the book was religion and how it affected the lives of many different people. Kambili's father, Eugene, for instance, is a Catholic but extremely radical, one might say, in his views and practices. He teaches his children that pagans are all going to hell, for instance and he beats them when they do not follow his will, saying that it is because they have been possessed by the devil. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote a small message at the end of the book, saying that she did not want people to see Eugene as the 'villain' but simply someone who did horrible things but was not a horrible man. Eugene uses religion in the wrong way, utilising it not only to pray for himself and his family, but also to influence, in the wrong way, Kambili's ideas of religion and to judge and look down upon those who are not Catholics.

However, Kambili's grandfather, is a heathen, or traditionalist, as he calls himself, worshipping many gods and speaking to his ancestors. Needless to say, Eugene does not approve of this and will not speak to his father and will not help him in his financial distress. However, Kambili notices that her grandfather is not at all the person that Eugene makes him out to be. Although a 'pagan', he understands more about compassion and humility and also seems to be a lot freer in his religion than Eugene who follows a stricter, more accepted religion. (Catholicism).

I personally also believe that the issues of religion that are highlighted in this book are contemporary issues that we can now see in our world today. In the book, people use religion as an excuse to do wrong and today, we can see radicalists and terrorists uniting under a banner of religion in order to do wrong. I believe that there is nothing in any religion that says that killing and/or physical/mental abuse is justified and in this book, these issues are highlighted. 

Recommendations

But of course, this book is not for everyone and therefore, here are some other great books that I have read, that relate to Purple Hibiscus in some way but are also slightly different. 

The Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin. This novel tells of a difficult time for Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were hunting out Muslims and Jews, whom they believed to be heretics and burning/imprisoning them if they did not convert to Christianity. The novel follows the two stories of a poor boy called Saulo and a rich merchant's daughter called Zara. It relates strongly to the oppressive theme of religion in Purple Hibiscus and is also a really great book. 

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. This novels tells the story of William Beech, a young boy evacuated to the country during the Second World War. He goes to stay with Tom Oakley. I chose to include this novel because it has an underlying theme of breaking away from oppression and growing up, learning about love and the beautiful things in the world, despite the horror of the Second World War all around them. William Beech's mum is a Christian and does use religion in a similar way to Kambili's father but that is not the overall theme of the book. It has a wonderful ending and I really enjoyed reading it.  

BUY PURPLE HIBISCUS ON AMAZON

BUY GOODNIGHT MISTER TOM ON AMAZON

BUY PRISONER OF THE INQUISITION ON AMAZON

So that's the end of this post. I hope it interested you. I am now reading Still Alice, so hopefully I should review that soon. I
:) 
Thanks for reading,

Clare

Just checking in...

Hey all. I'm Clare and this is my blog. It will mostly be about books and recommendations and reviews but also random stuff that interests me...I'll see. I'm an author. My first novel was called Timeless and my second is in the process of being published so hopefully that will be out soon.
Anyway, I hope this blog will be interesting and fun to read.
This was only a short post but it is an introduction so that is to be expected.

 

Be Awesome
Clare ooo