I usually hate resolutions but...

I have made some resolutions. These are things I've been thinking about doing for a while and things I had started incorporating into my life towards the end of 2015, but I haven't really voiced them and I feel like if I do I'll be more likely to stick to them.

I know this photo is blurry but it's kinda cute and candid if you feel me, plus it was taken on New Years Eve so I feel it's appropriate for a New Years Resolutions post..

MAKE THE CONTENT I WANT TO MAKE - I said in my last post that I created a new channel on YouTube so I could start fresh and make the sort of content I really enjoy, but I want to apply that to my blog as well. I've become really b(l)ogged down with the sort of content I do and I feel like my content has become quite contrived, so for this reason, taking effect immediately, I'm stopping any 'series' I have on my blog until I feel like I want to do them again because it's making me feel forced to post content that I don't care about, which in turn is making me care less about my blog. So, I'm just gonna post when and what I feel like posting.

READ MORE BOOKS - If you remember, in this post I said I wanted to read 50 books in 2015 and follow a very challenging regime, which killed my love of reading. I'm serious, like I've been a bookworm since I learned to read but this year I just didn't feel like reading according to this schedule, so I'm setting my reading challenge to 15 books and I'm going to read the books I like.

GET BACK INTO MUSIC - This is quite specific in terms of singing. I have kept up with playing guitar and ukulele since being at University, and the times I've visited home I've had a whack at the piano, but in terms of singing I've completely let go. I had vocal lessons for 4 years, and I feel like since then my voice and slowly deteriorated and I've only realised how dramatically it has recently (my range has decreased significantly) so I'm going to try and work on it everyday to try and get it back to where it was. I used to be able to hit an A5 and I was really proud of that but I can't really do it anymore which is sucky. Plus, I want to do music on my new YouTube channel (which will be properly up in February) so I feel like I should do some sort of preparation for that..

GET A JOB - This isn't a goal I'm expecting to fulfil until the summer, but I have never had a proper job. I've had about 4 days of work experience before, but other than that, zilch. I would really like to get a job for the summer so I can stay down in Brighton for a bit and get a bit of job experience, failing getting a job in Brighton, I might try and get one in London and stay there for the summer. Part of the reason I want to get a job, of course, is so I can sing 'I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now' and have it be somewhat relatable.

Have you set yourself any resolutions?

Ten things and ten blogs #2

one.

The 1st of February can only mean one thing - it's time to change the month on my calendar - y'know it's going to be a good year when you have a Beatles calendar.

Try and spot baby Bess.

two.
It was my Dad's birthday on the 2nd February, we had a nice quiet day in and watched 'the Buddy Holly story', it's not strictly historically accurate but I enjoyed it nonetheless (I do enjoy me a bit of Buddy Holly). It was also my Mum's birthday on the 5th February, unfortunately I had parent's evening on the same day but we managed to make it home with enough time to eat a meal and have some cake, and watch this show called 'the Tomorrow people' which is a show from from the 70s - full of bad acting and terrible special effects, but it was pretty funny because of that.

three.
My piano teacher passed an analogy onto me during my lesson, to put it into context I was finding it difficult to play triplet semiquaver chords in the tempo I had to play it in (bloody Oscar Peterson, he's brilliant, but he sure didn't think about incompetent grade 8 students when writing 'Hallelujah Time') so she said 'it's like running a race where both of your shoes are tied together, so you have to cut the laces [so cut out some of the notes in the chords], you've ruined a perfectly nice set of laces but at least then you can finish the race' which I thought was a good analogy for toxic relationships and is quite a relevant theme in my life at the moment, you may feel worse in the short term for cutting people off but at least then you can continue on with your life and move on, etcetera etcetera* (a bit cringe, but I enjoyed it nonetheless).
Whilst on the topic of my piano lessons, my grade 8 piano exam date has been confirmed - 18th March, so I have just about a month, which is crazy because ever since I started playing the piano at age 4 I always wanted to complete grade 8 and here I am potentially doing that, absolutely bizarre.

four.
I finished reading Howl's Moving Castle (which you can see a review of here) and it was so so good, now I really want to rewatch the film as it's one of my all-time faves.

five.
I think I've made it clear to you all that Harry Potter has a special place in my heart, but in case I hadn't made it clear enough, I did a Harry Potter tag on my YouTube channel (yes, you may not care about my favourite Harry Potter books and films, but there's an entire montage of creepy tweets I sent to Tom Felton in 2013 and a badly photoshopped picture of me with Tom Felton, so y'know y'all gotta check that out)

six.

Call me crazy if you wish (most people do) but I never played Pokemon as a child. I used to like the show but I was a Digimon girl at heart, but my parents gifted me Pokemon White for DS because I wanted it for Christmas and didn't get it for me so they gave it to me on their birthdays (me and my brother usually get one present on other people's birthday to avoid negative feelings) and I have been obsessed. I know I'm sort of a noob but I'm honestly loving it, my Oshawott evolved into a Dewott and I found it very emotional - I'm sure you'll understand.

seven.

Hank Green uploaded a video talking about the common fear of being forgotten which I think, especially if you're stuck in a permanent state of existential crisis and constantly wondering why we exist and what the point is if we're all going to be forgotten anyway like me, is a pretty good video to watch. It may be things you know already but it's nice to have a reminder, plus from Hank Green - it's sort of a double whammy y'know.

eight.
Y'know how I said in my last 'ten things and ten blogs' post that binge watching generation 1 of Skins in the space of a week was bad.. try binge watching generation 2, series 4, in the space of a couple of days - generation 2 is my favourite generation as well. I then went on to binge watch the whole of generation 3 in the space of a few days, my heart is so broken right now it may as well be non-existent.

nine.
Kanye West's video for Only One is one of the cutest things I have watched in a long time, I already liked the song (not just because it's Paul McCartney and Kanye West a.k.a modern deities) but the song's actually really sweet, I think North is one of the most adorable babies I've ever seen in my life, and that's probably one of the most generic things I've ever said in my life but I'm 'totes hipster' the rest of the time so it's okay.

ten.

I literally started cry laughing at this short clip of Wallace and Gromit. I haven't the faintest idea why I found it so funny, but I was in hysterics (so I recommend you watch it too, y'know if you want something to brighten up your day)

blogs.
Little Fickle (in particular this post)
 Magpie Jasmine
Keep dreaming
Sailboat
Porcelainbeautyx
Stephanie's look
Aspiring London
Robowecop
Ellalogy
The beauty ideal

What's been the best thing you've done in the past couple of weeks?

*For reference, check out Sweet and Tender Hooligan by The Smiths

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Book review - High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I'm going to be frank. I love reading the book before the film generally, but it's very rarely that I do it because it's usually a film that brings the book to my attention - I am so sorry. That's how I came across this book, I really like the film, and I chose to read the book because I needed to read a funny book as part of my 2015 reading challenge so I googled 'funny books' to get some ideas and saw this there, so I thought I'd give it a go because I remembered finding the movie pretty funny. Furthermore, I felt as Valentine's Day was coming up (and this review is going up on Valentine's Day), a book about a bad breakup and the story of other breakups was just relevant.

Synopsis:

Do you know your desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups? Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it - even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behave as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove - and it's called Laura. Soon, he's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life - and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.

My thoughts:

I just want to say that this book is quite possibly my favourite book of all time, which is a sweeping statement, but that's how much I enjoyed it. I found myself constantly laughing, and I loved all of the references to music - I'm pretty certain I'm Rob, purely because he loves The Beatles (seriously like he's on my level of Beatlemaniac) and he quite likes The Smiths amongst other cool artists and groups, but he's a massive twonk - you can quite understand why Laura splits up with him, but you also sort of like him too, or at least I did but that's probably because I relate to him. Rob cares more about music than he does maintaining relationships whether they be with friends, family, or people of the romantic persuasion. I think my favourite character was Barry (who's played by Jack Black in the film and he does a brilliant job), Barry is sassy as heck and he's even less likeable than Rob but I think that's why I like him, I found myself laughing whenever Barry was mentioned. 

The storyline wasn't an epic story, it's not life changing in that sense, but it's so funny and if you're into music (y'know music history, pop music on the whole) this book will definitely be an enjoyable read. I really love Nick Hornby's writing style, it's conversational and straightforward but not in any means simplistic, just not overly complicated making it suitable for practically anyone.

I feel that because one of the recurring jokes in the book is the lists of 5, I should do a list of 5 best things about the book:
1. Barry (just Barry, no explanation needed)
2. The music references - especially the ones made to The Beatles
3. Rob's annoying behaviour (he's a loner who can't bear to be alone, it's pretty funny)
4. Hornby's comfortable writing style (I'm sorry if that's a strange way to put it, but it just is comfortable and conversational)
5. The recurring lists of 5 in the book

Overall rating:

I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads, I really really enjoyed it and I'm rewatching the film as I'm writing this very review, and finding it even funnier than I did the first time now that I've read the book. As I said, I've discovered I love Hornby's writing style so I think I'm actually going to read another Hornby book very soon!

Have you read or seen High Fidelity?

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Book review - Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

Hello there readers, by the title of this post you will have guessed that I am reviewing yet another book. I'm sorry for all of the book reviews and not much else at the moment, but I have a video filmed (and a blog post to go along with it), and two other posts planned which are not book related. Furthermore, I've been reading a lot more since exams finished and all that jazz. Anyway, today I am going to review a book that is considered a classic and by the title of this post you know that the book I am talking about is 'Catcher in the Rye' by J.D Salinger. I've wanted to read this book for a very long time because, if you didn't know I'm a massive beatlemanic, the person who killed John Lennon (Mark Chapman) claims that it was this book that made him kill John Lennon or it was a contributing factor, so I've always wanted to read this book to see whether his claim has any justification whatsoever and let me just say now it doesn't, nothing could justify the murder of John but even if something could - I don't think this could.

Does anyone else love the look of battered old books? This copy is so old it doesn't even have a barcode on it! Courtesy of my Dad (I think), just so you know my parents are massive book hoarders so lots of the books in my household are old and battered and very nice looking (to me)

Synopsis:

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.

My thoughts:

I didn't really have any expectations going into this book, except I knew my Mum didn't like it and my Dad did, and I know Mark Chapman used this book to justify murdering John Lennon. My thoughts on this are clear and simple. I love the writing style, it's so easy to read. I would compare it to the likes of the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, the only difference between the two books is that I didn't like the main character in this whereas in the Bell Jar I felt some sort of affinity to Esther. 

Okay so I said I don't like the main character. Holden doesn't really say anything nice about anybody, he doesn't really seem to care about anyone except a couple of relatives and a girl he knew from when he was younger. This put me off.. at first. Then I watched a video of John Green talking about the book, and he rightly pointed out that when we read a book we want to read about characters who we like or who we want to be which after watching I discovered that I think this is true for the most part. 

The actual story itself doesn't have any serious plot twists or drama in it, it simply follows the tale of Holden over a short period of time because he doesn't want his parents to know that he's been kicked out of yet another school, so he meets up with a few people from his past and essentially procrastinates going home. Nothing super dramatic happens to be honest, but the thing that makes this book interesting for me is the symbolism and basically getting inside the head of someone who has some issues to sort through (which is basically every character in a book ever)

The chapters are short (I found myself reading several in the space of one bus journey) and there aren't any words that I found hard to understand, so I would say pretty much anyone can read it however there are some sexual references (quite subtle in some parts but I looked up what some of his slang meant and I recommend you do the same if you don't understand what Holden means by 'chewing the fat' and so on..)

Overall rating:

Overall, I am going to give this book a 4/5. Yes, I didn't like Holden as a character. Yes, nothing very dramatic happens. What drew me into it and kept me reading it was the style of the book, it was like reading someone's personal journal, I found it so easy to visualise every scenario to the point that I could hear the voices of the characters in my head whilst reading it. What I am basically saying is, I would recommend it. If you look on goodreads you will see that the reviews are very mixed, some people say it's 1 star whilst others say it's 5. I think for a 5 star book, I need to be so gripped that I stop breathing and nearly die from oxygen starvation, but this isn't a terrible book so I think to rate it only 1 star is quite harsh. Seeming as the reviews are so mixed, I would say you have to read it to see - it's often compared to perks of being a wallflower (haven't read yet) and the bell jar for its writing style so if you like those books purely for the style go for it and I wish you well, if you refuse to read anything where the main character is anything other than what you want to see in a person then this may not be the book for you.

Have you read the Catcher in the Rye?

Book review - the Fault in our Stars by John Green

Hello there readers, I'm back with another book review. This is a book that is so famous on the webiverse, I can guarantee that you've seen pictures of this book repeatedly on tumblr and instagram - have you guessed it  yet? If you've not then I guess you've not read the title of the post, but yes it's the Fault in our Stars by John Green. I'm so late on the bandwagon, 2 years too late, but I knew I had to read it before the film. I want to watch the film either in the cinema or on DVD because Nat Wolff is in it and I've had a crush/obsession on Nat Wolff since the age of 9 when I watched him in the Naked Brothers Band film, tv shows and film sequels.. (I also bought his album 'Black Sheep' but that's irrelevant). Anyway, I'll stop rambling and get on with the review (you can also add me on goodreads here if you want to see what I'm reading as I'm doing a reading challenge)

Synopsis:

Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

My thoughts:

I have to say what I loved the most about this book was the writing style, John Green has a really unique way of writing so it doesn't feel like a bunch of long words that people don't use in conversation has been thrown at you, it's simplistic enough that it sounds like you're actually being spoken to by Hazel. Don't get me wrong, I love books with long words it makes me feel much smarter but I think this was a nice easy read which is always good.

The storyline itself was quite cheesy, but I found myself attached to the characters. Something I like to call the Mean Girls Complex, where the story is pretty cheesy and could so easily be cringey if the characters and the comic relief weren't so good. I found Augustus to be quite cringey in the beginning but he was such a deep character and he did introduce some philosophical points in the book which I found interesting. Hazel was a bit dull personality wise but I think that was intentional as she's a cancer patient so she thinks cancer defines her, but she is obsessed with this author and his book - I won't mention any more on that though. I loved Isaac so much (was it the image of Nat Wolff in my head? Who knows..),  he provided some comic relief but he also had an interesting story and he plays a role in getting Augustus and Hazel to meet. 

The book is divided into short chapters (the odd one or two are longer though, and the odd few are very short) but it's very readable and easy to get into, I found myself doing quite a lot of binge reading with this book.

Overall rating:

I would give this a 4/5, I do think it is overrated but I did really enjoy it and I can definitely see myself reading it again. I didn't cry, but I think that's because I knew what was going to happen at the end (trying so hard not to spoil it although I really wonder who doesn't know what happens..). I would definitely recommend this, keep in mind that isn't directly about cancer - that's more of the side stories that comes into the main story if you get what I mean. It's a coming-of-age story but it's like a grown up love story because the characters are all cancerous and know they won't live very long so they take their first loves quite seriously.

Have you read the Fault in our Stars?

Have you read any other of John Green's books?

Book review - Autobiography by Morrissey

Hello there readers, although I'm sure there aren't many of you as this is my first post on my new blog. As you can see by the title of this post I am starting off with a book review of a book that caused quite a hoo-ha a while back because it was made a penguin classic, but enough on that. I am a massive Morrisey/The Smiths fan so when Morrissey came out with his autobiography I knew I had to read it (after my Dad read it of course being the ultimate fangirl). Anyway, keep reading if you want to hear my thoughts on this book and if you're interested in what I read and my 2014 book challenge then please feel free to add me as a friend on goodreads :)

Look at Morrissey's little face aw - the book is a bit battered whoops

Synopsis: 

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982 - 1987). Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.

Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others.

An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest norhtern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv.

It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'

My thoughts:

I think this book is beautifully written in some parts, the description Morrissey gives is astounding, it literally sounds like song lyrics. I do recommend this book for a super fan of Morrissey or the Smiths but I would say that unless you are a fan and a big fan at that, you will find this book to be rather tedious. I'll be honest, I was let down by this book. Parts of it were very interesting for me, like how he met Johnny Marr and how he felt about growing up in Manchester, his musical influences and I enjoyed the mentions of David Bowie too. However, I found parts quite dull to read and truthfully when I finished it, I was relieved that I could move onto something else because I found the last section to be a bit difficult to get through. Again, if you're a super fan do give it a go because then you can say you've read it and it gives you an insight into Morrissey's life.

The thing that annoyed me the most about this book was the total lack of structure. Firstly, there are no chapters whatsoever so it makes it difficult to know when to stop reading and put the book down. Secondly, sentences and sometimes even words are divided over pages making it even harder to know when to put the book down. On the other hand, most of the events in the book do flow into each other so I suppose it would be difficult to divide it into sections but it still really frustrated me.

Overall rating:

I would give this a 3/5, I feel terrible about that rating because I love Morrissey so much but this book was just frustrating for me to read because of the lack of structure and the detail in events that I wouldn't have thought to be necessary to mention, but if you are a fanatic do give it a go.

Have any of you read Morrissey's autobiography or planning to read it?
Do you like Morrissey or The Smiths?