Book of the Month (TBT - June): JANE EYRE

Of all the books I have ever read (and I have read a lot of them) there is one I like more than others. It's a book that got me trough some though times. The book I'm talking about is labeled as a "classic". I'm a female, so you're probably thinking: "It's Jane Austen. It's always Jane Austen." Well, you'd be wrong. It's still a female author and with familiar topics of writing. And the title also has a Jane in it.

Yey, if you're thinking that the book I'm talking about is Jane Eyre, congratulations are in the order - you were thinking right.

Jane Eyre made my day when I was going through a tough time when I was about eleven or twelve. All of the sudden I felt like I was missing out on life. Everyone knew everything that was going on. I felt lost, and this might sound cliche, but I got a feeling everyone around me knew what they were doing except for me. I had no idea what to do. I've read a lot of books before, but when you're twelve, all of the sudden you realize that books on children and young adults section aren't as interesting as they once were.

I discovered Jane Eyre by accident. I was looking at the books in the library and there was this lovely blue book in soft print. I thought, "Hey, this book looks good and I heard it's supposed to be great." What was the turning point was the fact it was in soft print. All those years ago, it was rare for a book to be in a soft print. And I always choose the longest books. I believe I already had ten other books, so one in soft print wouldn't do much of the difference in the weight I had to carry home (it's a twenty minute walk from the library to my home).

I took my time before reading it. But when I did, I feel right into it. I left the 21st century and traveled back in time on this amazing journey with an orphan from Longwood. Jane Eyre was brave, though and intelligent. She was all I wanted to be and at the time, this book gave me courage to be who I am. To be brave enough to fight for what I want (and it wasn't to party) and stand behind what I believe in. Because no matter what, I had it better that Jane, I had (and still have) a family that loves me, stand by me and supports me. And for a teenager, full of hormones and all about pushing its rights, it was a revelation of the century.

There are a lot of books out there that are labeled as "classics". To me, most of them are boring. Maybe it's because I'm a child of modern age, were everything needs to be filled with suspense and action. Things should always move, stories should always have something going on. Or maybe I just don't understand what all the fuss is about. I don't care if the book is labeled classic or a fan fiction or a biography. As long as it has an interesting story plot to follow and it's well written I'm all for it.

One Night Love Affair

So, here I am again. Suzy (a.k.a. my laptop) is currently hibernating, because of excessive use of SPSS (that's a statistics program). Because, if you haven't figured out yet, I'm a psychology student and this year most of my studies centers on statistics. So thank you whoever created SPSS, I'd die if I'd have to manually calculate all the things we have to do. If you ever had to do something statistical, than you know, it's (mildly put) a pain in the as*.
But back to basics. If I'm not mistaken I already mentioned I joined Wattpad. It's this awesome Internet community in which you can publish your works and read works of other people for free. But be careful, you might get addicted. I definitely did. But join anyways!
Soooo, I kind of started on a new book. I decided to test my theory that I'm a decent writer and prove to myself I can write in English just as good as in my native language. So far, so good.
The book is called One Night Love Affair  (just click on the title and you'll be reading it in no time at all). I don't know if you know singer Paloma Faith, but few nights ago I was chilling and surfing the web, when I came across her song Only Love Can Hurt Like This. I absolutely loved it! So I checked out her songs and fell in love with 30 Minutes Love Affair. Yes, this is the song that inspired the story.

 The story currently only has one chapter, but I kind of know exactly what will happen in the next four. I just have to take the time and put my thoughts on a paper. Hopefully I'll be more consistent with publishing this story then I'm with writing the blog ;)
xxx
Lucy Jane

Book Of The Month: E. Bronte: Wuthering Hights

I got so into over my head the past month that I forgot to write Book Of The Month Series for December 2013. But not to worry, I'll write it now. Truly, I hadn't decided which book I want to present for the magical time of December. There are just so many great books that capture that Christmas Spirit we're all talking about in December. I'll do my best and pick one (hopefully) till the end of January and wrote what it's about, what other people say about it, what I think about it and of course, why you should read it.

This time I chose a classic, I picked up from my bookshelf and fell in love with the story all over again. I'm talking about Emily Bronte book Wuthering Heights. I remember a new movie adaption came out not long ago (one or maybe two years) and out of curiosity I checked iMdb to see how many movie adaptation this book has. I counted 10 movies (one had a different titles and some were just a TV movies). Am I the only one who thinks that's a bit much? I mean you'd need more than one day to see all the versions. When I'll have too much hands in my hands I'll definitely do that and wrote all about how they were (I'll rank them from on to ten based on different criteria, like accuracy or hotness of the actors...).

Emily Bronte is one of the writing Bronte sisters (her sister Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre). Wuthering Heights is her only published book, which was published after her death when she was 30 years old. If you want to learn more about her I recommend English Wikipedia or Sparks Notes.

I don't want to write a lot about what the book's about, because then people are either mad because I spoiled them all the important parts, or they think those twenty sentences can replace the entire book and they don't read it at all. But the first type of people at least read it. Story follows the life of Catherine and Headcliff, both of whom grew up on Wuthering Heights. The story starts when Heathcliff is a owner of Wuthering Heights and a man named Lockwood comes to the estate. Lockwood then narrates the story about Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights with the help of house keeper Nelly.

Wuthering Heights is considered one of the best stories in the English literature. With its "wildness" and "rawness" Emily Bronte created a one of a kind story. Even though critics were are still are skeptical about into which literary category the story belongs. The author called it a novel with "a story within a story" and occasionally even "a story within a story within a story", which was highly unusual for the 19. century when the book was written and published. These days some authors write books with more parallel stories that effect one another.

Another word to be used when describing Wuthering Heights is, as I wrote before: a classic. This is one of those books that you just have to read or at least know what's about. I don't know about your high school, but in mine we studied this book. Well , we didn't have to read it, but we had to know what's about, who wrote it, when it was written and stuff like that. I think this is a usable knowledge. I know what you think: "I don't care if some lady wrote a book in 19th century. This was two hundred years ago. That's like old and so out of fashion!" But what if (this is a total cliché, but I think it's still the best reason to have a basic knowledge of, well everything) you'll once meet someone you'll like and they'll loved this book. I don't know about you, but I like to hear from a guy (or girl) that they know what I'm talking about  when they ask me what I love. Mostly because I'm kind of a book nerd. I could talk books all day and night. Seven days a week. Basically all the time. And because the people I meet usually don't ever read something that it's not absolutely mandatory for school or work. With some exceptions that also read Cosmo (female friends) or Penthouse (male friends)  type of publications (this is not entirely true I have friends that read a lot, I just want to make things more black and white and easier to understand).

THE VERDICT:

The book is a classic and it's definitely worth of the time it takes to read it. I found the story a bit too sad and depressing for me, but it's beautifully written and the storyline is wonderfully executed. I think it's a perfect book for book clubs (even if you only read vine labels). The story can be interpreted in many different ways and this can create some interesting conversations and insights of your friends (or whoever is in the same book club) way of thinking and perception. Overall I think you should read it.

xxx

Lucy Jane

Words Left Unsaid: Prolog

Have you ever felt like you're not good enough? Like everything you do isn't worth sharing with others, because you feel like it doesn't contribute to the world. Have you ever gave up your dreams, because you didn't want to fail, so instead you just gave up? Are you afraid to wish for something, because you're afraid it won't happen? Were you ever told you won't succeed at something, and you believed that? I've felt like this my whole life.

But this isn't a story about my misery, it's a story about a battle left unfinished, words left unsaid and people left hurting. It's a story about a girl named Autumn. She was like that. All different colours and beautiful with her auburn curly hair and pale complexion. When she was around everyone laughed. And her laughter sounded like an autumn rain. She was perfect, everyone loved her, and it seemed like she loved everyone as well. But it turned out this wasn't true. I'll tell you later about that. Right now, this is not important. Autumn was everyone's best friend, helping hand, she did everything for other people. Sometimes even too much. The beauty of it was, that she didn't care. She liked to help and she always knew when there was someone who really needed her help and if they just wanted her help for the wrong reasons. 

And Autumn always knew all the right words. Something I always had problem with. She knew what was the right thing at the right moment to say to anyone she meet; Autumn knew how to make people feel better about themselves, about what they did or about what was done to them.

The story I want to tell you started in May 2010. I remember that it was a huge storm on the day when it all started. I remember the tension in the air the moments before the sky opened and took it all away. The storm is just a distant memory now, because after it the sun came back to the cloudless sky. It was beautiful. Thinking back, I believe that what happened that day changed my life forever. Not just my life, it actually changed the life of many other people as well.

It's funny how I can get along with people that are either older or younger than me, but somehow I can't connect with my peers. This is the main reason why I even met Autumn.

I've been living in the big city my whole life. I'm not complaining, I loved every minute of it. After I finished High School I went to college. I was doing what I thought I wanted. I was at college, the place where I wanted to be for the last five years. And as it turned out college wasn't for me. I hated every minute of the first semester, I was daydreaming during classes, I wanted to escape from the thing I used to want the most.

I felt so guilty, and when I talked to my parents about it, they were like: "But honey, isn't this what you always wanted? The thing you were asking to finally happen for the last five years?"

At this point I had no idea what to do. I felt trapped and unsafe. Like everything I do isn't good enough. Suddenly the big city wasn't big enough for me. I felt like it was suffocating me with all the skyscrapers and  bad air and people always in a rush to get somewhere. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe and one May day I just packed all my stuff, sat in a car and drove for miles. I didn't stop until I came to the other part of the country. I knew people would be looking for me, but I didn't care. I didn't say goodbye to anyone, or wrote a goodbye letter. I just left.

It was the day I met Autumn for the first time.It was the day the story really starts.

-------------

So this is my promised story. Or at least the first part of it. I hope you liked it. It took me a while to get the story on a paper the way I wanted it to sound, the way I imagined it in my head. I am kind of proud of it, since I never did anything even remotely similar. I did wrote a few short stories for school, when I was younger, but they weren't in English, and if everything goes according to plan this will become a novel. Please leave a comment or write me a message on facebook or something, so I know if you liked it or not. I will be happy of any constructive (that means that I hope that besides:this is awesome/sucks, you also write: ...because --> for example: I already read a book with the same story, your narration is horrible, and so on and so on) reply I get, weather it's positive or negative.

xxx

Lucy Jane

Book of the Month November; S. E. Phillips: Just Imagine

After a long time, I finally got my hand on Susan E. Phillips book Just Imagine. The book was first published in 1984 with a title Risen Glory. It was out of print for a long time, but the fans of miss Phillips demanded that its re-print. And they (we) got it. The author changed it a bit and the book got a new title: Just Imagine.

The story is the same in the both books, so it doesn't matter whether you got the Risen Glory or Just Imagine. But if you're not very fond of old books, than you'll probably read the Just Imagine version, like me.

The story takes place after the Civil War, when Kit Weston, comes to New York from a small southern town. She is dressed as a boy, and is on the mission to get back the only thing that matters to her, The Risen Glory plantation. To do that, she is convinced she has to kill the Yankee that inherited it. Yankee is Colonel Chain, whose late mother that left him the plantation was Kit's stepmother.

As it turns out Chain didn't only inherited the plantation, but is also appointed as Kit's guardian. They reach an unusual agreement, that sends Kit at a New York's finest school for ladies, and Chain to the South, where he takes care of The Risen Glory plantation.

The next time they meet, Kit is all grown up and... Well for more you'll have to read the book.

I liked the story, and I read it in less that a day. Or maybe it was because I wanted to read it for more than three years now and got my hands on it just recently. As I said, the book is good, maybe I'll even read it more than once, but the truth is, I prefer the books that S. E. Phillips set in the present (like Ain't She Sweet or What I Did For Love or Breathing Room). I read all of her books and I liked them all (except for Hot Shot, I just can't make myself to read it again from the beginning to the end, because the first time I read it I was in a hurry and read the first and last three chapters. Oh, and Hot Shot is also the only romance book I read that has a different end; The heroin doesn't end up with the guy she fell in love at the beginning.), but Just Imagine is different. If I'm not mistaken, it was S. E. Phillips first book and the story is set in a completely different area and time than the rest of her stories.

THE VERDICT:

The book is worth reading on a cloudy, grey day, because it will definitely cheer you up.

I would give it four stars (mainly because I prefer her other stories and know that she can write even better stories than Just Imagine)

Fer-well, my fellow bookworms,

Lucy Jane

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl: Beautiful Creatures

Have you watched the movie? We'll I did and I loved it. But as usual I read the book first. And I loved it too. The book has a few sequels (right now I'm too lazy to check how many) and I think the movie will get them too. I hope so, because right now I'm obsessed with everything that's from the American South. And I love their accent. So yes, a story about a sleepy southern town with dark secrets and a background story about ancestors from Civil War, I fell in love with the plot the minute I heard words Civil War and South.

The story is set in Gatlin, a small Southern town, and is told by Ethan White. It's first day of school and the story starts with Ethan dreaming about a girl, he doesn't know, and he's not able to save her from the death. Later the same day he meets the girl from the dream. She is new to the school, her name is Lena Duchannes and is a niece of the local weirdo. Ethan falls for her, but she has a dark secret, that will eventually drove them apart. Lena comes from a witch family, but they prefer the term Caster. And at their sixteenth birthday they are claimed by light or darkness. Lena's birthday is only a few moths away and she is afraid she'll be claimed by the darkness like her cousin. As the story progress Lena and Ethan become a couple despite the possibility that Lena becomes a dark Caster, with a wicked spell above her head. The story ends soon after Lena's birthday. And again I'm not giving y'all any spoilers, I think you should read the book, or at least see the movie. The ending is bitter sweet, but not final, and the story continues in the next book.

The book is well written and for somebody like me, that is capable of dreaming in the middle of the day and is still expecting a letter from Hogwarts (even though he/she is old enough to finish it a few years ago...), it wasn't hard to imagine Gatlin and everything and everyone in it.

As far as the differences between the book and the movie I won't write that down here, because I found a perfectly good page that did this for me :)

I guess I should stop dreaming about fantasy worlds and expecting a letter from Hogwarts (but I'm sure Dumbledore and later on Mr. Longbottom made a huge mistake, since I'm capable of... Well nothing to weird, but I do know how to make a killer apple pie, maybe they should take me as a supervisory cook for dobbies ;) or a key keeper, since I know how to lock things so good even I can't unlock them. For instance my password for an old email account). But I can pack my things and move to Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi or maybe Texas. I certainly wouldn't mind a wealthy Southern gentleman that lives in one of those big houses in a new colonial style. I would probably fell in love with him the minute he'd show me his house and introduced himself with the charm all the southerns are famous for.

xxx

Future southern belle, miss "Southern Gentleman" Lucy Jane

Stephen Chbosky: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I'm a bookworm :) I read at least two books a week, usually about 300 - 400 pages long. A lot of my friends think I'm super weird because I read so much. But don't you just love it when the beutifly written worlds suck you into a totally new fantasy world, where anything and everything is possible. To me those hours that I spend reading are precious and I always take time to read a new book.

A while ago I read this great sweet and sour story that everyone is talking about. It's not The Fault in Our Stars, but The Perks of Being a Wallflower from Stephen Chbosky. I must say that I first heard of the book  because of the movie, but I did read the book first. Because in my experience, most of the movies that are made after the book, are missing something. And I must say, that even though the movie is great, and I loved it, I wasn't as moved by the message of the movie as I was by the message from the book.

The book is written as a series of letters from 15 years old Charlie to a "friend". He's socially awkward and doesn't have any friends. The story takes place during his freshman year, when he decides to make new friends. During a football match he meets two a little bit eccentric seniors, Samantha and Patrick. They accept him for who he is and introduce him to their group of friends. During the story we also find out that that Charlie suffers from depression and sometimes has "black outs". The reason is explained at the and of the book, and I won't share it with you because I want you to read it.

The book is written in a beautiful English and is really easy to read even for non native speakers. I read both the original and the translated version, and I preferred the original.  But the truth is that I usually do, because there isn't two languages in the world that have the same amount of words. Basically I think some of the magic that story has is in the way of writing and this gets lost in translation very quickly.

Well I loved this book and I hope you'll read it and love it too!

xxx Lucy Jane