The only thing I can come up with is more recent literary crushes... not the old favorite standbys, but characters from books read in the past couple of years. Ready? Go.
Top Ten Recent Literary Crushes
1. Tarver from These Broken Stars... I have talked about him a lot, because he stands out in the recent crush scene. He's just so, so, perfect.
2. Max from The Start of Me and You.... because of his nerdiness. Nerds for the win!
3. Paul from A Thousand Pieces of Pieces of You, also because of his nerdiness and shyness and tallness.
4. Jake from Not in the Script, because of his non-nerdiness!
5. Arin from The Winner's Curse, because... oh my. I don't even know how to articulate. I have no words for this boy.
6. Adam from the Raven Boys, I like Gansey too, but I like Adam especially because he's quiet and unassuming. And tall and gangly, which for some reason I find cute in my literary boys.
7. Warner from Unravel Me, because he's the one you hate at first and then love. It's such a complete unexpected turnaround that it gives your whip lash and it's awesome.
8. Akiva from The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and have I never mentioned him before? Because DANG. Smokin'.
9. Captain Thorne from Cress and Scarlet, because... swagger! There's just something about sincere swaggering. Am I right, or am I right?
10. Graham from This Is What Happy Looks Like, because how cute is he? An all humble celebrity. There's something about humble celebrities too I'm thinking.
And those are some recent loves. Have you read these books? Do you agree? Who's on your literary Valentine list this week?
Often my sister Megs will say to me... "Hey, I like this thing. I bet you'll like it too!" And many times it turns out that the thing becomes a life changing event.
For instance... blogging. She said... "Here you should join this thing and blog with me." And , since I'd been pondering blogging for oh probably two years by then, but had not been brave enough to actually start, I jumped in when she pushed without a second thought. And you know what's happened since.
Another example, Josh Groban. I'd heard of him. I thought, he sounds interesting, but eh, I don't know. She said, "Hey you should listen to this guy." So I did and, you know what's happened since.
And so well.. .she's done it again.
This time she said, "Hey, so my friend said Korean dramas are cool. I watched some. And guess what, they are cool! You should watch one!" And then one day she drug me (pretty much literally) to the computer where we watched the first episode of one called Lie to Me.
I kept watching. She was right. It was cool. I liked it. She said, "now watch this one called She Was Pretty. It has Siwon in it." I said, okay cool.
Meet... Siwon
And I loved that one, like, a lot.
Meanwhile, her infatuation with Siwon grew, and she discovered that he sings in a Korean boy band. And she sent me a couple songs through Spotify. I listened. I liked. I listened again. I loved.
That was a month ago and nothing has been the same since!
Together, we have immersed ourselves into discovering all there is about this particular group. We've learned that Kpop is a pretty big thing, especially around the world. And that there are several similar groups like this.
But this one, this group, will forever be the best because it's the one we discovered first. And besides... it has Siwon.
They are called SUPER JUNIOR, which, I agree, is a stupid name for a Korean boy band. But it grows on you. They have about 13 members, but the number changes all the time because the boys in Korea are required to serve two years in the army before they are 35 or something. So often, there are members missing. It started out ten years ago... TEN YEARS, with the idea that every year they'd switch it up and get new guys, but the first group was so awesome they didn't do that, and they've been going strong ever since. This means that now, ten years later, these guys aren't your normal young teenage band, they are late 20's early 30's which some may find weird, but others may find less weird. (When it comes to swooning over them for instance. That being said, they still LOOK like they are 18 years old!)
The list for why it's easy to fall in love with these guys is long. I'll try to sum up:
1. They are gorgeous. Beautiful. Adorable.
2. They have the most beautiful voices.
3. They dance, oh boy can they dance!
4. They play instruments too, sometimes.
5. They are funny, and cute, and silly, and humble.
6. They put on the most incredible shows, called Super Shows, which look like a roaring blast.
7. Their music ranges from rock, to hip hop, to rap, to pop, to ballads.
8. They throw in enough English that you forget that they are actually singing in Korean, a language that, alas, you don't know. But it doesn't matter because it sounds so freaking cool.
9. Did I mention the dancing? Because that's worth two points.
10. Did I mention they are gorgeous? Also worth two.
Here are the three favorites:
Donghae, Siwon, Eunhyuk
And of course, I made a collage of the whole crowd. (Minus a couple were in the group, but are not any longer.)
The two on the left in a together picture aren't in the main group, but are part of a sub group. Which is too confusing to explain. But I love their stuff just as much! Also, the group picture in the middle is missing one or two, but I'm using it anyway!
Across the top; Siwon, Heechul, Shindong, Yesung Second row: Kyuhyun, Leeteuk Third row: Henry and Zhoumi (together,) Ryeowook Across the bottom: Kangkin, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Sungmin
Of course, you won't really care who they are, or what I like most about each of them, you'll just have to go and discover for yourself!
Which is the whole point of doing this post, to see if I can convince one or two people to give it a try and see if you, too, aren't sucked in. Or, to find out if there are some other closet Kpop, Kdrama fanatics out there and then you can come out, and we can bond.
So...some links;
If you especially like dancing: Mr. Simple or Sorry Sorry
If you want to see what their concerts are like: Superman
If you are blown away by beautiful ballads: Concert Ballad Medley
If you find the playing of instruments and singing and dancing all at the same time cool: Fantastic
If you enjoy a big production number with costumes and acting: Mamacita
If you want to see boys all emotional about their 100th concert accomplishment: 100th concert
If you like just plain old cuteness: Oppa Oppa (This one is just Donghae and Eunhyuk)
If you like a rocking dancing mix: Motorcycle (Also just Donghae and Eunhyuk)
The song and concert clip that sealed the deal for me: Walkin' which I'll embed here:
And it's not even a dancing one! It was the last song of this concert after they were all recovering from crying and being all emotional and they just walked around the stage, singing and mingling with the fans. I love it.
And there you go. My latest obsession revealed. Do I have any takers? Will you listen to a few? Watch some dances? Do you think I'm crazy? Do you understand the tendency to find a thing and then go crazy loving it? Do you find it fun to do that? Or painful and annoying? What sort of things have you obsessed over? Do you hide it or share it?
Anyway, let me know if you watch and/or listen and what you think!
(P.S. Want to know what Megs thinks about all this? Here's her post on Kdrama, and here's her post on Super Junior.)
Movie: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Genre: Horror/Drama Starring: Lily James, Sam Riley, Matt Smith Rating: PG 13 My Rating: Two thumbs up
Yeah, so I refused to read the zombie distortion of this, one of my favorite books, but I guess when it comes to the movie, my qualms are lessened! When I saw this movie trailer I giggled and thought... that looks kinda fun. Maybe I'll go. So we were bored Friday, its opening night, and we went.
And we giggled, lauged, smiled and jumped out of our skin through the whole thing!
Actually, upon reazlizing that Matt Smith (aka the 11th Doctor Who) would be paying the part of Mr. Collins, I knew I'd go just for him. And yes, he was definitely worth it and lived up to expectations. So funny! What a great take on the character! And in fact, I pretty much thought Elizabeth should have accepted his offer this time around! Yes!
As for the movie itself, I'm guessing it follows the zombie version of this book pretty good. We have all the familiar characters living in an alternate Victorian world, one where the plauge has caused zombies. And so, many people, our girls and Mr. Darcy included, have been trained to fight them. Which is awesome.
Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley
The story follows the familiar bits until it comes to Mr. Wickham and then things change up quite a bit to have a dramatic zombie crazy ending.
The Mr. Darcy in this movie wasn't my favorite...but he grew on me. I loved Lily James (aka Rose from Downton Abbey) as Elizabeth. And of course... Matt Smith!
Mr. Collins
My favorite part by far (besides the Mr. Collins scenes) was Darcy's first proposal and Elizabeth confronts him and they get into knock down drag out sword fight. It. Was. Awesome. And first he pins her, and then she pins him and the sparks are flying. So funny!
Mr. Wickham
Many many parts made us all giggle like crazy in fact. Especially some fabulous nods to the Colin Firth movie. You may guess the scene!
All in all I really don't know how to describe this movie. It was much more fun than I expected and I'm so glad I decided to swallow my P and P snobbishness and just go and enjoy the romp. The zombie bits are not at all gory, the girls fight them without getting a drop on their dresses. I'm used to The Walking Dead, so this was literally nothing compared to that. There were some moments that made us all in the audience jump and squeal, which we loved.
Bottom Line: Way too much fun!
P.S. Stay until after the first bit of credits because then there's one more scene and, you guessed it, IT'S AWESOME! :)
Book: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard Genre: YA Fantasy/Distopian Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Once again, we have the dystopian world setting. People are divided into two groups: those with red blood and those with silver. The Silvers have superpowers, all sorts of types. And course, they have taken control and rule over the red blooded "normal" people. And there's a war on. And of course, the Reds have to go and fight in this war when they become a certain age. The book opens just as our heroine, Mare, is reaching this age (18 I think it is.)
But she plans to run away instead. And take her "friend that's a guy" with her.
But things go wrong and she gets caught because of a Red rebellion that happens right at the wrong time.
And bam, things change SO FAST from there! Like so fast that it made my head spin. I was definitely into the story, but I was like, can all this really happen this fast?
The story is filled with lots of edge-of-your-seat type action and really cool in-your-head special effects. The Silvers like to fight each other with their powers and it's crazy! And in the middle of all that, there's a sort of selection going on between the girls for who gets to marry the prince, though the prince doesn't really get to select. Because there's an evil queen and all. Sigh. Evil queens always ruin everything!
I really enjoyed the story even though I felt it is much of the same thing that we've seen a lot of lately. People are really into these sorts of stories right now!
Bottom Line: And you'll love it too if you are one of those people! So far, I am!
Other Reviews:
One of the best things about Red Queen is that even though the storyline is fairly predictable and extremely familiar to fans of the genre, readers will not care about that.From That's What She Read
It has the oppressive society, the downtrodden young woman who finds herself a pivotal member of society, and of course romance – lots and lots of romance. From Fantasy Book Critic
In an effort to read more widely, the book club has been adding graphic books to our lineup recently. This particular book is our February choice. It's one I've seen floating around for years, I remember it way back from my book fair days, which was a long time ago! It's fun to finally read it!
Basically, the author who is an amazing artist, has illustrated and documented her middle school years, which are defined by the fact that she has to get major orthodontic work because of an incident where she fell and knocked out her front teeth. It does sound quite traumatic and had I been her, I wouldn't have suffered through it quite as well as she did I'm afraid.
And her friends! Sheesh, what terrible friends! I was happy to see that even as a kid, she realized this pretty quickly and made changes. I think most kids would have just been devasted and wallowed in self pity.
It was fun to see the historical and cultural references she made to stuff going on in the world. This was during my "lost years" where I wasn't paying attention to much of anything since I had just entered my life as a mommy with little babies. So while I can't say totally that I related, I did enjoy experiencing it with her.
Bottom Line: I found it to be very fun and a fabulous way to preserve a bit of one's life story!
P.S. I was so happy to see they included a real life picture of the author as she looks today... smiling! So we could see how her smile turned out all these years later!
Other Reviews:
Something I love the most about this book - well, maybe it's just Raina Telgemeier - is the power of storytelling through comics, even stories from your own life.From The Blue Bookcase
What I really love about this book is how well Telgemeier captures tween angst. The accurately portrays many of the struggles tween girls are faced with, from fake friends to body image issues.From The Reading Zone
I really liked the artwork; it’s pretty straightforward panel-based narrative, but I like Telgemeier’s style of drawing, and the book is really bright and colorful throughout.From Fyrefly's Book Blog
I really enjoyed the nostalgia I felt while reading.From Jenni Elyse
Today's prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is sort of a two parter (well, I'm making it that way at least) and is all about the past and the future. Here are my two little lists:
Five Historical Settings I Love
1. Regency of course! Anything in this time period! What is about this era? I have no idea, but it's lovely to read about.
2. Also, anything from the medieval times or dark ages. You know, King Arthur type stuff. Love love love it. I think this era is fascinating just for the fact that people actually survived it.
3. I also enjoy stories sent during World War II because of the resilience of those people. Strong amazing characters all around.
4. Early American, especially western frontier type books featuring cowboys and Indians, though I haven't read a huge amount of these types, but when I do, I love it.
5. Stories from the British Tudor period are especially fun and fascinating too.
Five Futuristic Books I Love
1. These Broken Stars (and its trilogy). All the perfect elements of science fiction!
2. Through the Ever Night (and its trilogy). The pairing of a futuristic society with a rugged nomad society is fascinating.
3. Partials (and its trilogy). Set in the very near future, this one seems like it could totally happen.
4. Legend (and its trilogy). Ditto for this one.
5. The Sparrow. This book kills me. KILLS me.
Fun prompt this week! I know there's many more I could add to each list. What's on your list?
Welcome to our Little Women Read Along! Let's start this thing, yes?
Thanks to all of those who have signed up to participate. If you'd still like to join us, there's plenty of time, just let us know by linking up on this post.
Here are the plans for the month:
READING SCHEDULE with DISCUSSION QUESTION POSTS
Questions will be posted on the date listed... feel free to answer the questions on your blog that day or in the days following. A link will be provided so we can all easily find participants.
Read chapters 1-17 by February 1-10 with the discussion post Feb. 10 on Suey's blog Read chapters 18-33 by February 11-19 with the discussion post Feb. 19 on Kami's blog
Read chapters 34-47 by February 20-29 with the discussion post Feb. 29 on Jenni's blog
TWITTER CHATS
We'll be using Twitter for an ongoing discussion. Many of us like to post quotes and thoughts in real time as we read. Please feel free to do the same. Follow with #LittleWomenRAL and join in the discussion...give comments and feedback as you read! (We've created a Twitter list with all the participants which will also make it easier to follow everyone and see what we're saying. Be sure your'e on the list!)
We will also have scheduled chats in conjunction with each discussion post as follows:
Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 5:00 pm Mountain(Take note! This has been bumped a couple hours earlier from our original post.) Friday, Feb. 19 at 7:00 pm Mountain Monday, Feb. 29 at 7:00 pm Mountain The best way to follow a Twitter chat is to use a program like Tweetdeck, Twubs, or TweetChat in order to isolate that particular hashtag. Let us know if you have more questions about that! MOVIE WATCH ALONG
We love to end our read alongs by watching the movie together! If you are local, join us! If you aren't, you can still watch and join us on Twitter. We plan to do this on Friday, March 4 starting at 7:00 p.m. Right now, we plan to watch the Winona Ryder/Christian Bale version.
