The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer

I may not be good in writing a review, but I can't help to share my current reading, The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer. Colfer is back with the sequel of this spin-off of childhood fairy tales. The first book, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell had enough taken my breath away I couldn't imagine he could write the sequel better. And yet, he accomplished it. The Land of Stories has successfully brought back my childhood fantasies into a perfect twist. I must appreciate, it isn't disappointing at all.

After traveling from The Land of Stories for the first time and knowing that both of them were parts of the two worlds, Alex and Conner Bailey lived their lives as normal teenagers. Except, they did not. They, especially Alex, had always wondered when their second chance to visit would come. After more than a year without contacting to the Land of Stories, they got a shocking news that even their grandmother, The Fairy Godmother, could barely stand: The Enchantress had returned. After more than a hundred years she was considered dead, now the Enchantress grew more and more powerful. She came with a quest to conquer both of the worlds: The Land of Stories and the Otherworld, namely where Alex and Conner belonged. Worse, the Enchantress successfully kidnapped Charlotte, Alex and Conner's mom in order to pursue her quest.

Finally, they got a chance to come back to the Land of Stories by accident. Alex was happy to know that, but seeing the situation was not so-called fairy-tale-y, she knew that something big was up. Alex and Conner, once again, did an adventurous journey to find and rescue their mother as well as to defeat the Enchantress. Would they be successful this time? Then what did it mean the Snow Queen saying to Alex 'Of the four travelers, one will not return?' Did one of them not survive?

After reading all of his three books, a young adult Struck by Lightning, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, and The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns, I like the way how Colfer delivers the story. He's not in a rush, nor too detailed. He seems very accurate in calculating the pace. He knows when to slow down and when to run to keep the thrill of the book's felt so real. One of his greatest strength is his ability to reveal every key point of the book. Therefore, everything is related very neatly. I sometimes find a book that cannot really relate one event to another, so the plot seems a waste because it has no point in that book. However, Colfer has successfully managed the other way around. If he determines to make the third sequel of The Land of Stories, I will definitely be the first to read.

Pretty Little Liars: On Print vs. On Screen

I'm currently addicted to it. Both the novels and the TV series.

It started about a month ago when my friend "provoked" me to watch the series (yes, I'm that easy). I've tried months ago to start watching it, but I hadn't had the "clique" yet. Especially because the opening of the Pilot episode is soo... gloomy and even spooky (maybe because it was opened by a dark night and heavy rain). However, my friend kept convince me that the series is worth to watch. So I tried.

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 But, before I tried to watch the series, I bought the novel and read it, so it kind of a judgment of the series whether it is really worth to try. Ha. Yes, I'm that complicated as well. Aaand, I fell in love with the novel. First, I honestly not a big fan of mystery, but, this kind of mystery that Shepard wrote is not that "scary". Maybe because it actually is a teenager book. Second, I love the characters--Hanna, Aria, Emily, and Spencer. Even though she's a mean girl, Hanna's kinda sweet. I also enjoy the love story between Aria and Ezra. I also love the honest and sweet Emily, but I'm not really into her gay thing. And Spencer, although she always longs for what her sister has, somehow I like her, too. And FYI, I don't like Alison. To me, she's such a pain in the ass, too egocentric, and too bossy. She's very easy to hate. Nevertheless, that might be the purpose of the author in creating Ali's character.

I feel sorry to four of them because they encounter terrors from A. Among the book series, I have read three of them, Pretty Little Liars, Flawless, and Perfect, and I like Perfect best. Maybe it's because the thrill of the book feels so real and the conflicts keep going and getting more complicated. I also found it pretty depressing. It's just too harsh for high schoolers. I don't know what to do if I were one of them.

However, if I compare to the TV series, the plot of the novel is quite slow-paced. The ending of the first book is also the ending of the Pilot episode. I spent 3 days to finish reading the book, but I could get the same storyline in the series for only 45 minutes. Some of the details were left behind, though.

After the first episode, the plots of both the book and the series go into different way. I was watching the series while I also reading the novel, so it got me confused to recall what was what because the gap is quite distinct. For example, I am used to the reunification the the ex-bestfriends in the series. However, in the novel, I also need to accept the "reality" that these four ex-bestfriends do not get along anymore. If I may say, they seem to keep a distance from each other. They also do not feel that they belong together. They're just strangers with memories.

If I may choose, I like the series better. Not because the novels are poorly written, but because I like to see those girls support each other in the series. They seem perfect and alive together. Nevertheless, I also like the novels because Shepard gives every details that the readers need, so I could imagine clearly what she is trying to say.

The review above is according to my opinion. I'm happy to have your own comments!

Favorite Excerpt by Augustus Waters

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

"I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you."

Augustus Waters

Date A Girl Who Reads

Source: We Heart It

"You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Taken from Goodreads, quote by Rosemarie Urquico

The Land Of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

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"What the world fails to realize is that a villain is just a victim whose story hasn’t been told."

If it is not offending, I will give my FOUR thumbs up for Chris Colfer to liven up my childhood memories of fairy tales at one book. He has successfully formulated every single well-known fairy tale into a charming and heart-warming story. And I definitely can't wait to read the next sequel of this book!

Alex and Conner Bailey are twins whose childhood were full of stories from a fairy-tale world. One of the stories that their father ever told them is The Walking Fish. Their Grandma, on the other hand, lives in a lively wooden cabin and has a thick and old book titled The Land of Stories. Alex is a passionate girl and always imagines how her life will be if she lives in a fairy-tale world. She isn't quite good in making friends, so reading stories can lessen her lonely feeling. While Conner, is a rather-lazy boy who cannot stand to stay still every time he attends Mrs. Peter's class.

One day, their Grandma inherits them The Land of Stories book. Even though Alex doesn't really so sure to accept the book--because she knows this book is very important to her--she finally accepts it. In the middle of the night, Alex opens the book and wishes to visit the fairy-tale world and meet the characters she always longing for to be her friends.

Surprisingly, the book trembles and radiates a shimmering light. Alex tests the book by dropping some of her school stuff, such as pencils, pens, and her bag. But, Alex doesn't know where her belongings go and how they will turn back. Alex couldn't say anything at first, and she even cannot sleep, thinking about what is going on with the book.

Alex finally tells Conner about this peculiarity. At first, Conner doesn't believe her, until he sees the shimmering light with his own eyes.

After going home for school, Alex tries to put her hand into the book. It makes her curiosity grows more and more higher. She then drops her feet and her body until waist-deep. She doesn't mean to make herself drown into The Land of Stories book, when Conner suddenly opens her bedroom's door and surprises her to not to going down into the book. Alex loses her grip, then fall into The Land of Stories.

Conner, on the other hand, cannot stay still seeing his sister disappears into an unknown world. He then catches up with her and falls int the middle of forest with thick and tall trees. He even barely can see the sunlight. The atmosphere is very dim and mysterious. He cannot deny that he's scared, and he doesn't know what world he's living in now. With Alex, Conner tries to adapt with the whole new world he faces, and searches for the way to get back home.

The are told by a human-like, gigantic frog called Froggy that there is a well called The Wishing Spell which can grant whatever wish they ask for. Maybe the well can grant their request to go home. Then they are given a journal which lead them to collect items they need to be dropped into the well. But, The Wishing Spell only can grant two wishes. The first wish had been granted a long time ago, so The Wishing Spell only can work one more time.

At first, Alex's and Conner's journey seems very easy, but it is more and more harder when they know that the Evil Queen--yes, Snow White's stepmother--also after The Wishing Spell and is collecting the same items as them. Moreover, there are so many adventures and shocking moments that they should face every time they meet each of the character they once ever read in the book.

Red Riding Hood, for example, now owns her own kingdom. Cinderella is about to become a mother. Goldilocks is a wanted fugitive, dead or alive. Jack falls deeply in love with someone that is far away from him. Sleeping Beauty is anxious because she doesn't know how to wake the people in her kingdom up and how to get rid the sleeping curse. Snow White's kingdom is in a chaos because the Evil Queen escapes from the dungeon... And so many other stories that we ever know, in The Land of Stories, finally everything has changed and gives you the best surprising ending.

Don't forget to follow the twins' journey. Hope they will find their way home!

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonneblick

"Instead of agonizing about the things you can’t change, why don’t you try working on the things you CAN change?"

I found this book review on Goodreads (as usual, consult to this particular website before I start reading a book). Actually, I was searching for The Fault in Our Stars review, but then I was shifted to this unique title of young adult book.

What made me really curious was, the readers said that this book was filled with sarcasm by the main character, Steven. He was an eighth grader and had a super annoying five-year-old little brother, Jeffrey. As what little siblings did, Jeffrey was the big fan of Steven and always depended on him on many occasions. Steven found this rather annoying, especially when Jeffrey unintentionally humiliated him in front of his girl friend, Annette, and his crush, Renee.

However, when Jeffrey’s illness was discovered, Steven’s life suddenly turned upside down. He was detected to have a leukemia. His mom was suddenly forced to resign from her job to take care of Jeffrey. His father worked harder to cover up Jeffrey’s treatment. Steven had a difficulty to deal with his school and his drum lessons as his mind only directed to Jeffrey’s condition. His family’s life was no longer the same as before.

It seemed pretty cliche, a story that told a family whose member suffered from some sort of illness. However, the author, Jordan Sonnenblick, had succesffully formulated this Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie into a heart-warming story. As it was told from a young adult’s point of view, we would be invited to feel the deepest feeling of Steven’s. Also, because he was only thirtheen, we also could see how Steven dealt with his girl friends and his environment by using such sarcastic words, but in a hilarious way.

As the Goodreads review said, “a brave and beautiful story that will make readers laugh and break their hearts at the same time.” Because by reading this book, we learned that, no matter how annoying your siblings were, no matter how annoyed you were by them, deep down in your heart, you know that you really did care of them.

Found this excerpt on my piece of crap writing, then I thought it's pretty cool

As long as the future is still blurry, there’s nothing to worry about. Karena ‘misteri’ itulah yang seharusnya membuat hidup ini santai. Karena kita nggak akan pernah tahu what’s up ahead, why worry?