Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Lets start by saying, I love Rainbow Rowell as an author. I've read two of her books, Eleanor and Park and Fangirl, and both have left me frantically messaging my book loving friends saying READ. THESE. BOOKS. However, despite being a big fan, I don't track her book writing and had no idea this book was coming out until I was wandering through Waterstones, crying over all the books, and I saw it on a table (with a £2 off sticker). I was so desperate to read more Rainbow Rowell that I didn't even read the blurb or understood what it was until I got home. Then it made me flip even more. Out of the two Rainbow Rowell books I'd previously read, Fangirl was my favourite because I could relate to it more. So when I found out that Carry On was the Simon Snow world I'd grown attached to in Fangirl, I shoved all of my other TBR's off the shelf to make room for this.

To start with, I was sat in the common room in stitches because the links to Harry Potter seemed so obvious. I thought that it was going to be such an easy and comical satire of Harry Potter and I was ok with that. However, my friends being die hard Harry Potter fans, this was not one of the books i could go to them and say READ. THIS. BOOK. because they'd immediately shut it down as a spoof and a lie.

But as the plot developed, the less it seemed like Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and more like Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I grew more and more attatched to Simon, Baz and Penelope and although I found the action lacking, the romance and friendship stories had me in tears and stitches all at the same time.

I love how Rainbow Rowell has embraced homosexuality in this books because in other books it can seem like they are trying to force it on society like 'hey look at me I'm a revolutionary writer' when really its just totally unrealistic portrayal of what being gay is like.

I don't want to give too much of the book away so I'm going to finish by encouraging anyone who loves Rainbow Rowell or Harry Potter to read this book as, despite what you might think, this book creates a whole new take on magic and romance with the added bonus of vampires and merwolves.

Gif that summarises the book:

Also:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ophelia L x

All Hail The Pumpkin Queen

This week I've been stuck inside so have carved a lot of pumpkins! The one on the left is Mike Wazowski. It's gone slightly mouldy and hairy because I did it a couple of days ago. It's also missing a tooth. Middle is my storm trooper one I did today. I got the stencil off Disney's website. They have loads of really cool designs and wanted to do Yoda but couldn't find a pumpkin big enough. The one on the right is my brothers. He did it the same day I did the wazowski one so is also a bit mouldy. Ah I love Halloween 😊

Ophelia L x

Chapter 1

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I thought I'd get this started by introducing me and what this blog will be. So, step one is find an over used 21 facts about me instagram tag and paste it onto here for you all 

1.Do you have a middle name? Technically Ophelia is my middle name. My first name is Lady which is the most ironic name ever seen as though I'm not that lady-like. My parents were big fans of Shakespeare. 

2. What was your favourite subject in school? My favourite subject in school is English Literature. I am a massive literature nerd so it seems only fitting that I love this subject! I also really enjoy Psychology and used to like History but it got really political at A-Level and I'm not into that... 

3. What's your favourite drink?  

4. Favourite song at the moment? I've been listening to a lot of Twenty One Pilot's lately and I love their new song Lane Boy. It's really weird because I never listen to that kind of music but I just love them. I'm also loving Backwards Walk by Frightened Rabbit which is more fitting to my usual music taste

5. What would you name your children? Something literary related. Or I'm a big fan of gender neutral names because I don't think I'd want to know the gender when I'm pregnant.

6. Do you Participate in any sports? I used to row but gave it up because A-Level's. I'm hoping to get back to that and start swimming again next year. 

7. Favourite Book? Of all time? Wuthering Heights but I have current favourites as well that change a bit. 

8 . Favourite Colour? Green. Like my car. 

9. Favourite animal? Sloths

 10. Favorite perfume?  Yves Saint Laurent - Opium 

11. Favourite holiday? New York. But I'm going to Scotland next year and I am so excited for that.

12. Have you graduated high school?  Nope I'm in upper sixth. But I wish I had! 

13? Have you been out of the Country? Yeah. My family save up for a holiday abroad a year. 

14. Do you speak any other Languages?  Tried French and failed miserably. 

15. Do you have any siblings?  I have a younger brother but I hardly see him since he never comes off his X-Box 

16. What's your favorite store?  Waterstones. I could live there. 

 17. Favourite Restaurant? I don't think I have one... I love food in general. My favourite type of food is Sushi so... 

18. Did you like school?  I neither enjoyed it nor disliked it. I guess its something I had to do. I can't wait to take a break from education for a year though because sixth form has been draining.  

19. Favorite YouTubers? I love booktubers like peruseproject and abookutopia but I also love beauty vloggers like Zoella and velvetgh0st as well as gamers like pewdiepie and markiplier. I just have general youtube subscriptions.

20. Favourite Movie?  Gah this is hard. I love Up, Back To The Future, Star Wars 4-6 and Guardians Of The Galaxy. And the Harry Potters. There's more that I know I'm missing but these are at the top of my head at the moment. 

21. Favourite TV show?  I really like Sherlock, House, Game Of Thrones and Outlander (of course) . 

22. PC or Mac?  I love Mac. I used to have one but then I broke it so can't afford a new one and I've been slowly dying inside because I really hate using PC. 

23. What phone do you have? I just got an iPhone 6 as an upgrade from my iPhone 3 because my poor baby couldn't keep up with ios9 

24. How tall are you? 5'10 or 11 depending on how messy my hair is. I tower over most people its so frustrating most of the team.

What is this blog about?

1. Books. Books. Books. 

I love books so here there will be reviews of books, book hauls, recommendations, basically everything to do with book blogging. I just love books.

2. Lifestyle 

I'm moving to Hong Kong next summer so thought I'd use this blog as a guide for expat-teens/gap year students living out there. I will be experiencing everything for the first time but with the help of some friends over there, I'll find out what to do and what not to do. This will include some general lifestyle things until then such as movie reviews, a-level stress, rants (probably a lot of them) 

and other little things.

3. Previews of things going up on my shop 

I am opening an etsy/redbubble/society6 shop soon selling typography prints so look out for that

Anwho thats all for now I guess. I hope you enjoy this blog if I remember to keep up with it. I'll try and post weekly for now but may end up posting more or less often. 

Ophelia L x