Book post #4

The Farm 

By Emily McKay

So this story revolves around two twin sisters, Lily and Mel. Lily is the main source of narration throughout the book as she endeavors to look after her severely autistic sister. The story begins after there has been some form of outbreak which has caused infected humans to turn into vampire like creatures that are known as ‘Ticks’. It is quickly learnt that the government sent teenagers to safe facilitates where they were to be held until the outbreak was brought under control as the ticks appeared to have a greater liking for the taste of teenagers. These facilities are ‘Farms’ where the inhabitants believe they are being housed almost like cattle as food for the ‘Ticks’ and have blood donations taken regularly. The teenagers at their 18^th birthday were told they would be going home but the story indicates that this is not the case. Lily plans to escape before her 18^th with her sister, and just before she escapes someone called Carter, who she knew in her life before, appears and basically puts a spanner in the works.

The most interesting aspect of the differing narrations between Lily, Carter and Mel, are Mel’s chapters as they give the audience a look into how her mind is working differently. She sees and feels everything as if it is music of some form other than this unfortunately for the majority of the book not much happens. The story felt so dragged out and took so long to actually start going somewhere, I began to wonder where this story was heading. At around the half way mark the story began to pick up but still had a long winded feel to it, considering this there was a definitely a lack of description of character look, surroundings and what the ticks actually looked like. This is perhaps why I felt so disconnected to the story.

The book only redeemed its self very near to the end of the book and even then not enough of a redemption for me to recommends this book to others, or to want to read again. I had high hopes for what seemed a well rated and interesting book concept.

Competition Post #6

Handbag - King of Bags

So the other day my handbag finally arrived. I won a competition back in June but there had been some delays. I was then allowed to choose any bag from the website instead of the from the choices listed in the original competition.





So I chose a satchel type bag. I must admit it is much bigger than I expected. But now I can use it for Uni and fit not only my laptop in it but comfortably fit A4 paper/folders.








This is the inside of the bag showing a pouch at the front. Inside of the zip compartment there are two phone size holders as well as the small zip pouch which actually you can fit a smart phone behind and completely hides it.












 Stay Matte mouse foundation - Rimmel

So this also arrived the other day and is a full sized tube of mouse foundation. I normally use liquid, or powder as I have quite oily skin and find even with a good primer the foundation doesn't have much hold on me. I've tried this once so far and I'm unsure whether it works for me. I just feel like it clumps and looks patchy on my skin and it feel very heavy and visible. I had to put a little powder over it to feel more evenly covered. I will try it with different methods of application and see if that makes a difference.

Book Post #3

The Dark Heroine: Dinner With A Vampire - Abigail Gibbs

Dinner with a Vampire written by Abigail Gibbs is a work of fiction with a romantic edge. I am less inclined to list it as 'dark fiction' which a lot of these vampire romance novels get listed as, as I didn't find it very dark at all. But I will get on to that in a little while. This is the first book in a series of books (The Dark Heroine Series) with the second book awaiting release. So the book in general, and for its majority covers the plight of our main character Violet Lee who is taken hostage by a group of Vampire royalty and where she develops for feelings for one of her captors Kasper Varn.

Now my first impression of the book from the first chapter are not good. I found the writing very mediocre and that lots of sentences seemed poorly constructed, which actually made the book hard to read at times. For instance in the first chapter Violet witnesses the vampires from a hiding place, where they haven't noticed her I'll add, and for a very flimsy reason pronounces one of the vampires a 'Jerk' out loud which causes them to notice her and ultimately capture her. It just felt this was a very unimaginative way for the two main characters to be thrown together.

As I progressed on from the first chapter (I must admit that I nearly didn’t carry on reading due to this first chapter) I still felt that the writing style was poor and many sentences seemed childish and it is obvious that the author is young and that she is new to this. I would have expected better editing from the publishers and over the course of the book I found many missing words and repeated phrases which ruined to the flow of the book (which does pick up after around chapter 5). The book is written mainly from Violets point of view. I also found at times scenes where very ‘Twilighty’ such as when Kasper picks Violet up over his shoulder and runs off. The story line begins to pick up from around chapter 3 but found that for the majority of the book was very alike to the majority of books from this genre and nothing standout about it.

I will add the writing improves greatly as the story carries on and actually the story as a whole is very pleasing to read. I managed to read all of it in about a day and considering the author started writing this when she was 15 and that is used to be listed on watt pad that the writing errors are less her fault and more down to poor proof reading by the editors. I will be reading the sequel when it comes out as I whole-heartedly believe her writing will have improved as it did through the course of the first book. It is however very similar to twilight/house of night etc. so if they are your sort of book go for it. Just don’t expect anything out of this world as you will be disappointed like me, who thought I was going to be reading something new and exciting rather than a gory version of books I have already read many times before.