Book Reviews: 'Reconstructing Amelia' by Kimberly McCreight and 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf

1. Reconstructing Amelia, by Kimberly McCreight:

I loved this book. And I really wasn't expecting that. It's like Gossip Girl meets Gilmore Girls meets Desperate Housewives. It's also what would happen if Jodi Picoult ever wrote a psychological thriller, because McCreight's writing style reminds me so much of Picoult's. I wouldn't really describe Reconstructing Amelia as a psychological thriller, but it's definitely a thriller of some sort. It follows the story behind Amelia Baron, who dies one day of an apparent suicide from jumping off the roof of her prestigious Brooklyn private school. Her mother Kate soon receives an anonymous text saying only three words, "Amelia didn't jump." This leads into an investigation of who Amelia really was in the months leading up to her death, and what was going on in her devastatingly stressful life. I've never gone to private school, but I feel like this book hits the mark on what it's like to go to one. Nothing is what it seems, and it really just goes to show that sometimes we have to take a closer look, because sometimes people we thought were perfect were doing things we never could have imagined them doing. It's also a little sad, given that Amelia dies in the first chapter and we begin to learn what led her to that point, so you know it's not going to end with a pretty happy ending, but it was still worth reading. Reconstructing Amelia pulled me in from the first page and didn't let me go; I finished it in under a week. McCreight makes excellent use of her characters; literally all of them have a purpose and you quickly find out no one, absolutely no one, can be trusted. Highly recommend. I also need a television movie or miniseries based off of this starring Lauren Graham as Kate. 5/5 stars.

2. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf:
Have you ever read something that you think is really beautifully written, but you have no idea what the hell it's about? That's what I felt the entire time I was reading To the Lighthouse. It has some lovely passages with poignantly used words, but most of the time, I had no idea what it pertained to in terms of the story. I know it's one of Woolf's most challenging works as well as the most autobiographical of her stories, but I still found it quite difficult to read, despite the beautiful writing. I've already read Woolf's collection of autobiographical writings, Moments of Being, so I could see which fictional characters in To the Lighthouse could have been based off of real people. However, I'm glad I read it and I might revisit it sometime in the future to see if I can understand it better. A teacher also recommended Mrs. Dalloway to me and said it was better than To the Lighthouse, so I think I'll read that first. (I also read To the Lighthouse now because Woolf was Amelia's favorite author in Reconstructing Amelia). 3/5 stars.

Book Review: 'Sister' by Rosamund Lupton

Ugh. What a disappointment this was.

Sister sounded like a really good psychological thriller when I came across it on Goodreads, so I made a point of taking it out of my library as soon as I could get the chance, because thrillers generally aren't boring. But Lord, oh Lord, Sister was boring. Among other things.

The novel follows Beatrice trying to solve the mystery behind her younger sister's death, Tess, who the police believe killed herself. Sounds interesting, right? I'm fascinated by suicide in fiction. I think it can be really interesting to explore the motives behind a character's decision to end their life. It's definitely one of my favorite plot points to include in a story. But the suicide aspect of Sister wasn't that interesting or unique or anything else of the sort. It was just a contrived plotline. Not only that, but the dust jacket really makes the book sound like it's about, at its core, the bonds between sisters and that's why Beatrice feels she owes it to her sister to find out the truth. But I really was not feeling this bond that was being described. I really didn't feel like Beatrice knew her sister anymore than the reader did, which obviously was not the intention of the author. I felt Beatrice knew Tess when they were kids, but all she's done since they've been adults is criticize her liberal and open-minded lifestyle, and resent her for not taking her advice. I don't think she knew who her sister was at all, really. I think Lupton spent too much time devising and plotting how the story would be resolved that she didn't focus enough time on developing her characters into actual people. Yes, we get to read and find out all these "interesting" details about the late Tess' life, but that was about all I felt I knew about her when I think, for the sake of her and the story itself, I should have known more. The same goes for Beatrice, but it's even worse in her case. I felt like I didn't know her at all other than the fact that she became ridiculously obsessed over finding out what happened to her sister.

Also, what was so boring about Sister was that it spent a lot of time exploring the living characters' grief, which is a plot point that is glossed over in a lot of other thrillers. And there's a reason why it's glossed over in a lot of other stories: because it's dead boring. It's not interesting. I'm supposed to care about Beatrice's plight to find out what happened to her sister, but after 200 pages, I just really didn't. I think I realized the character and storyline were beyond redemption when I started to sympathize with the people who were telling Beatrice that she was crazy and she should let it go.

And, honestly, the ending is just plain bad and implausible. I'll keep this review spoiler-free, but I will say that they introduced the plotline that would end up being the resolution to the story way too late in the book. And by that point, I'd given up hope on the characters or the story, so. But, I suppose Sister did have some somewhat okay parts. The writing style was kind of interesting and unique, but the fact that the story is told from Beatrice's perspective became a drag by the end, because she became so annoying. This book was recommended to me on Goodreads because I read The Girl on the Train, which is one of my favorite thrillers. So if you also read that and Goodreads recommends Sister to you, my suggestion is to just keep scrolling. 2.5/5 stars.

13 Songs That Reduce My Stress and Anxiety

I don't usually post about music or health related things on here, but I figured I'd share a playlist of 13 songs that I listen to when I'm feeling anxious. I myself have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and control issues and find myself having anxiety over things that I cannot control (which is certainly a long list). Music seems to give us a place where we can find our own sense of help and it can even have a calming effect. These are 13 songs I came up with that have a tendency to reduce my stress and anxiety when I'm feeling anxious as well as really calm me down and put things into perspective.

1. So Yesterday - Hilary Duff
I've loved this song since it came out way back in 2003, when Hilary Duff was riding high on her Lizzie McGuire and other Disney related successes. Sure, it has a bit of a Disney sunshine pop sound to it, but it always manages to calm me down when I'm feeling stressed, overwhelmed or anxious, mostly because the lyrics of the chorus encourages letting things go (I know it's about letting go of a relationship, but it can be applied to different relationships, like a person's relationship with anxiety): "If it's over, let it go and come tomorrow it will seem so yesterday, so yesterday. I'm just a bird that's already flown away. Laugh it off, or let it go and when you wake up it will seem so yesterday, so yesterday. Haven't you heard that I'm gonna be okay?"

2. Complicated - Avril Lavigne
I like to think of this song as me singing it to myself when I'm anxiously overthinking things that are way beyond my control. "Chill out, whatcha yellin' for? Lay back, it's all been done before. And if you could only let it be, you will see I like you the way you are, when we're driving in your car [...]" The song, of course, is about how people can act differently around different people which is certainly annoying, but I tend to use it as a way of asking myself to just chill out and let things be once in awhile.

3. Blow Me (One Last Kiss) - P!nk
I love P!nk so much for so many different reasons, the number one reason being that she's awesome and her music is awesome. This song, in particular, I like to blast when I'm just really done with everything. Maybe something hasn't gone my way, or I've found myself putting my all into something only to have it be blown up in my face, or I've found myself caring and worrying about something that ended up not being worth the time I spent caring and worrying over it. "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" is about someone leaving a relationship after trying to hold it together for so long, and quite often that's me, when I'm stressed over work or a wide variety of other things, and this song is me leaving my relationship with my stress or anxiety, if only for a short while. It also promotes trying to worry less, which I'm always trying to do.

4. Miles Away - Madonna
This song's interesting beat has always had a calming effect on me ever since the first time I heard it and I can't really explain why, it just has. Also an obvious breakup song, it always just puts me in a nicer mood if I'm having a bad day or stressing out over something. My favorite lyric is, "Too much of no sound, uncomfortable silence can be so loud."

5. What the Hell - Avril Lavigne
I don't listen to this song as much now as I did when it first came out, but I find myself relating to it on the same level as "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)"; when I've found myself caring and worrying about something that really didn't deserve the time I spent caring and worrying about it, I just wanna shout "what the hell" and do whatever I want. It also helps me stop second-guessing things, which my OCD leads me to do and more than half the time it's second-guessing things that others would not think about for more than 3 seconds. And, this may sound strange, but the lyrics that go, "You're on your knees, begging please stay with me. But honestly, I just need to be a little crazy", is kind of like me attempting to let go of my OCD tendencies and just relax, which, if you have the disorder, you'll know is very hard at times. So maybe in my case my OCD is begging me to please stay with it, and I'm just not going to.

6. Why Can't I? - Liz Phair 
Another song with a really soothing beat, and, you guessed it, another breakup song. I actually first heard "Why Can't I?" in 13 Going on 30, one of my favorite movies, so I quickly put it on my iPod and unexpectedly just started listening to it all the time. Nothing about the lyrics in particular remind me of my OCD or anxiety, I just find listening to it and singing along calms me down in a way that's hard to describe; it just works.

7. I'm Not Your Hero - Tegan and Sara
I actually only put this song on my iPod recently, but it was always one of those songs that I'd hear on the radio, sing along and tell myself to download later, but I would always forget and then once the radio had moved onto other songs, I almost forgot about it completely until I was searching for Tegan and Sara songs a few weeks ago and knew I had to buy it immediately! The message I get from "I'm Not Your Hero" is just that even if you're not the best at something, it doesn't mean you didn't try really damn hard, so you should give yourself a break every now and then and stop being so hard on yourself.

8. Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
No one can tell me they don't like this song even in the slightest... It was used in so many commercials about a decade ago or so, and was on the radio all the time. It's a great song for just releasing tension and trying to make yourself realize that every day is a new day with new chances, new experiences and just any new things that can come your way as long as you open yourself up to them.

9. Today is Your Day - Shania Twain
I love this song so much, almost as much as I love Shania Twain herself. This is one of her most recent songs to date; Twain stopped recording music and performing around the mid 2000s when she separated from and divorced her longtime husband, Mutt Lange, who she discovered to be having an affair with one of her best friends. As she stated in numerous interviews, she just lost the will to perform for quite a long time, and I think that's more than understandable and even respectable for her to take a break. In 2011, she released this song, a memoir and had her own reality series on the Oprah Network. "Today is Your Day" is about how everyone is worth it, and that today is your day to be who you want to be. Life can be unfair and cruel but you eventually have to pick yourself up and recover; you've survived the worst and the best is yet to come. My favorite lyrics are, "Life is gonna kick you, it's gonna kick you around, it's gonna keep you down. But brush yourself off, no regrets. This is as good as it gets. Don't expect more or less, just go out and give it your best."

10. Human - Christina Perri
Christina Perri is such an amazing singer and songwriter. This song is about what the title suggests; being human. We're only human, we're not indestructible and sometimes we need time to recover when shitty stuff happens to us. Yes, we have to be strong, but there's only so strong a person can be. For someone with anxiety, this song gives hope that they are not the only one struggling to keep it together sometimes. The chorus is really powerful and my favorite part of the song: "But I'm only human, and I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human, and I crash and I break down. Your words in my head, knives in my heart, you build me up and then I fall apart 'cause I'm only human."

11. Scream - Hedley 
Hedley is one of my favorite bands and while I wouldn't describe this song as my favorite song of theirs, it is still a good tune to play when you need a break from everything. It basically promotes screaming when you need to, and I think we could all benefit from that! As goes the chorus, "Will you scream when you're alone? Even the beautiful lose control. Will you scream when you let go? I got a burning need to know, know, know. I can't explain my bad behavior and baby you're my savior and I don't wanna end up alone. Will you scream when you're alone? Even the beautiful lose control."

12. The Call - Regina Spektor 
This song was written for and included in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which I have seen so many times and I only picked up on this song the last time I watched it. It's so soothing and has very nice lyrics about accepting change as you go and just picking a point in the sky to stare at as you move the hell on.

13. Do Somethin' - Britney Spears
I like to listen to this song sometimes when other people are just being annoying and judging you when you don't really deserve to be judged. It's also your typical Britney song (pre-autotune) so it's fun to dance to and pretend you're putting irrelevant people in their place.

Book Review: 'Paper Towns' by John Green

"Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one."

I don't know why I waited so long to read Paper Towns, because I loved it oh so very much. Okay, maybe I do know the reason why I put off reading it. Because I was totally put off by the un-originality of one of John Green's other novels, The Fault in Our Stars (which I didn't read), that I kind of wrote him off as just another YA author with unoriginal stories about teens in love in high school. And Paper Towns was just that, except it wasn't unoriginal.

There's just something so endearing about YA contemporary novels. Like I can sink my heart and teeth into them almost no matter what happens. I'm so glad I finally decided to read Paper Towns. Everything about it is very original, funny, heartwarming and heartbreaking. Quentin, who narrates the story, has been in love with neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman since they were kids. When she goes missing after a night of payback to those who had hurt them, Quentin decides that he must find out what happened to her. With a fun and quirky cast of supporting characters, overall, it was a very entertaining read. I think it's worth pointing out that Green wrote Paper Towns a few years before The Fault in Our Stars, so my opinions of his writing may not have been completely valid.

There were a few minor issues I had with the plot, but I'm choosing to overlook all of them because as a whole, I really enjoyed Paper Towns. It may be cliché, but it's just so lovably cliché. It reminded me of the first time I read Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park; it was just so quotable. There are so many passages that I wanted to write down in a notebook and stare at forever because they are so accurate, so real and so true. I also found Quentin to be one of the best YA protagonists I've read. The way he thinks and the way he narrates just really stood out to me, and I soon fell in love with him as a character. He basically reminds me of a straight version of myself. If Paper Towns was my narrative, I'd be chasing after Quentin!

I'm glad that I chose this to be my first John Green read. Clichés aside, he does have an exceptional voice in the YA literature community and his writing style definitely reflects that in Paper Towns. If you haven't read any John Green (like me a week ago), I'd definitely recommend starting with this one. It's original, quirky and downright lovable. 5/5 stars.

(I also watched the film adaption after finishing the book. Overall I enjoyed it and I can respect the changes they made from the book, but my only problem with the movie is the actor who portrayed Quentin, Nat Wolff. I kind of liked him at first, but he just really did not live up to the image of Quentin I had in my head. I obviously know the filmmakers' vision could probably never match up with that of mine, but I just didn't like Wolff as Quentin and what bothers me is that I think I could have; he's definitely cute enough to be Quentin, but the actor's mannerisms and overall body language gave me the sense that Quentin was just another high school boy pining over a high school girl who has trouble expressing his feelings, and that is just NOT the impression I got from the character in the book. But this is just me; everyone feels something different about the characters they read in a book, and I can respect the filmmakers for what they created. I did, however, really enjoy Cara Delevingne as Margo and I think that was an excellent casting choice. I'd give the Paper Towns movie 3.5/5 stars; maybe a little closer to 4.)

Book Reviews: 'The Opposite of Loneliness' by Marina Keegan and 'Brooklyn' by Colm Tóibín

1. The Opposite of Loneliness, by Marina Keegan 
This book is really great and really sad at the same time. The Opposite of Loneliness is a collection of essays and short stories written by Marina Keegan, who graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 2012 and was tragically killed in a car accident five days later. This collection was published two years later in 2014, featuring essays and stories written by her before her death after her essay titled "The Opposite of Loneliness" had become an Internet sensation and, as the dust jacket says, made Keegan an icon of her generation. It was definitely sad in the essays when Keegan spoke about how she wanted to live the rest of her life, knowing that she died so young (22) with such a bright future. Her writing is exceptional, reminiscent of Lena Dunham and Roxane Gay. It's so sad that she was taken from the world so soon; I'm sure she would have had her shot at a writing career if she was still with us. I definitely preferred the essays over the short stories; I've never been a huge fan of short stories in general because they just feel so compressed; I much prefer stories where things can develop and play out in a more clear way, and Keegan's stories happened to fall into the category of short stories I don't really like, but they were still nicely written and somewhat interesting. My favorite essay was definitely the one in which Keegan talks about her life with Celiac Disease (the title is escaping me and Google hasn't been helpful, but I remember it was clever). It was heartbreakingly sweet. I definitely recommend this if you're looking for a quick read and a little pick-me-up when you're losing faith in yourself or, say, humanity. 4/5 stars.

2. Brooklyn, by Colm Tóibín
I can't really review this book in full because I didn't exactly finish it; I read a little more than half and decided to abandon it. I just found it so boring and slow-moving... Historical fiction isn't exactly my forte, but I have read it before and thought I would enjoy this because I really wanted to see the film adaption when it came out earlier this year but never made it to the theater. I received a DVD copy as a gift just as I discovered it was a book before it was a movie so I wanted to read the book first, and it was a bit of a disappointment. But, I do not place blame on Brooklyn, it's me; I just don't think this book was for me. I really just could not get into it; I had no motivation to pick it up again after putting it down, which is a clear sign for me that I'm not into it and there's a strong possibility it will become a hassle and obligation to read. I'm still going to see the movie, but the book was just too boring for me. 2/5 stars.