In My Mailbox! (1)

This is a feature (well, actually it's called a meme but I'm not really familiar with that term haha!) that I saw over at The Story Siren. Kristi shows you what she got in her mailbox every week and I found it to be inspiring to see new titles! I have discovered quite a few titles and/or series that I would like to read, which I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

I bought a couple of books that came in last week. Let's take a look!

Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It's about Eragon, who finds a blue stone in the forest that later hatches: a dragon.

Christopher Paolini was very young when he started writing and he was 19 when he became a bestseller author - I'm curious to see if the book lives up to my expectations! I know there are two more books out, but I wanted to try one first.

His Dark Materials bookset by Philip Pullman. It contains the books The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Someone recommended this series to me when I was looking for a new series to fall in love with.

The first book is about Lyra Belacqua, who lives in Oxford. When one of her friends gets kidnapped, she decides to save him and travels after him. It sounds like a really interesting story and I'm excited to start reading this one (or actually, three).

Harry Potter Film Wizardry, written by Brian Sibley and designed by Minalima Design. It's a book with more information about the films and the characters in the films that were made of Harry Potter. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so when I heard that this one was coming, I preordered mine immediately. It came in last week and it's awesome! A musthave for every Harry Potter fan if you ask me.

That's all I got in my mailbox last week! What did you get?

New Moon and Eclipse

It has been a little over a week since my last update, but I was too tired to read and blog so I hope you'll forgive me. I'm still tired (I have no idea what's wrong with me), but I've been able to finish both New Moon and Eclipse.

New Moon didn't really excite me much, not much news in the book but I could relate to Bella and Jacob really well. I won't tell anything about the plot in this one, but it leaves it open for another book - Eclipse.

Eclipse was a lot more exciting with an army of new born vampires wanting to destroy Bella (and the Cullens if they can). I don't want to say too much about it - I changed my mind on the summaries I posted earlier. I will leave them online since they contain my reviews as well, but I will not do them in the future anymore, because I think it's more fun when you read the books yourself.

While reading Eclipse, I found myself crying more than once over the feelings that Bella and Jacob have. I even cried during the moment with Bella and Jacob outside the tent.. *sigh* I bet I wouldn't have cried if I hadn't been through an emotional breakup before, but I can't change the fact that I have.

Eclipse builds up tension and gives me the idea that the worst isn't over yet, so I hope that Breaking Dawn will be awesome and live up to my expectations. I'm a little over halfway through the book (BD) so I think I can finish it tonight or tomorrow. Eclipse was better than New Moon in my honest opinion, I think New Moon is the book that is the least in the series, at least, so far.

I will try to update a little more in the future, as well as do something more review-like instead of the summarythings I've been doing. I hope that will be helpful for some of you!

Until next time, keep on reading!

New Moon - The First Half

I have to admit that I've been postponing posting about what I've read in New Moon so far, since typing on a touch screen telephone isn't really that comfortable. Since I'm halfway through the book now, I thought I'd give you an update.

To give a short summary: Edward dumped Bella and erased every trace that he was ever in her life. Bella collapsed because she was so emotional about the break. It was easy for me to relate to Bella at that time, since I've been through a rough breakup myself a little while ago, and I felt (and feel) exactly like Bella. Like there's no sun. There's nothing to be happy about. You go in a sort of standby situation. You do what they ask you to, but you're not really there. It was really confronting for me to read this. It came a little close to how I was feeling. So yes, I cried while I read the first half of the book. Quite a lot.

But then she began seeing Jacob again, because he was fixing two bikes for Bella. Bella had sort of an adrenaline junkie thing, because when she was in danger or felt adrenaline, she would hear Edward talking in her head. Jacob fancies Bella so it's a bit hard for her to be with him and not giving him the wrong impression at the same time. At one evening, after an evening of going to the movies, Jacob drops Bella off at her house. He tells her he'll call her when he gets home, but he never did. She spoke to Billy, his father, and he said that he came home.

After that, Bella collapses again because Jacob never tries to get in touch with her again. Billy answers the phone every now and then, but never gives much information. When Bella goes to La Push to talk to Jacob, she and Jacob have a fight. That night, Jacob comes to visit and tells her he has a secret and he can't tell her about it, but she can guess it, because he told her all about it when they first met one year ago.

The next day, Bella has figuered out that Jacob is a werewolf. She tells him and he's relieved (after having another fight). Jacob tells Bella about a vampire trying to break through the defences of the werewolfes, and Bella recognizes Victoria, a vampire that wants her dead because Edward killed her mate. Jacob tells the others and they start a plan.

Because they now know that Victoria is after Bella, they run more patrols, leaving Bella at La Push. She hasn't heard Edwards voice in a while now, and since Jacob isn't around, she decides to go cliff diving while there is a storm coming up. She jumps off the cliff and crashes into the water. Jacob saves her just in time.

Bella and Jacob are asleep when Billy comes home from the hospital and tells them that Harry died (a friend of both Jacob's and Bella's father).

And... That's about where I stopped reading. I will continue reading tonight before bedtime, and it's getting harder for me to put the book down because I have to go to sleep. I want to know the rest, what is going to happen? I can almost feel Jacobs affection towards Bella and the love he feels for her. It's somehow a bit painful for me to read, because I'm going through the same thing - although I'm not in the luxurious position of having a Jacob by my side to heal the hole in my chest.

So... I finished the book

I have to admit that I read the whole thing yesterday since I haven't been reading much the days before yesterday. I just settled myself in the garden in a very warm sweater and a pot of tea besides me and started reading. I finished the book so quickly, it was hard to believe it myself haha. So.. What do I think?

I think the book is an easy read and I can imagine why millions of teenage girls go nuts over this book. It has rather flat characters though so if you're into a more intelligent version of a vampire novel, skip this one. It felt my guilty little pleasure, because the story was pretty cheezy at some points. Some things are described in depth, like what she eats for breakfast (a granolo bar) and how fast she eats it (in three hasty bites). Maybe if it meant something to the story, but it contributed absolutely nothing.

I do want to say that I got sucked into the story completely and I could really imagine some of the interaction between Bella and Edward. It was tense at some moments and I could feel it myself. I don't know how Stephenie Meyer did that, because she didn't fully descripe the situations or whatsoever.

Overall: A nice, light read if you don't mind vampires that sparkle and don't even attack when there's someone bleeding all over the floor and they're dizzy with thirst (I didn't understand that they were going crazy because of the thrist, yet nobody tried to attack.. That just doesn't make sense!)

I'm gonna start New Moon tonight and I'll try to update some more so you know what I'm up to. I do want to tell you what happens in the story, so if you don't want spoilers (because you haven't read the book(s)), please be aware that I may tell something you don't want to know.