Nibble Boxes: Graze Box #3

Received my 3rd Graze box on Friday yet I was sick over the weekend and couldn't enjoy it. Now that I'm feeling slightly better, it's time to dig in!

Boston Baguettes with a BBQ Relish
So far I'm 1-1 with these dippers. First thing I notice when I open up the pack is that the "baguettes" have some sort of dry rub on them. My automatic thought was that the BBQ Relish had spilled over but that's definitely not what happened. I had to look at the website to find out they're actually tomato baguettes. The dip is very tasty, it's a sweet BBQ that has chunks in it. Yet the chunks aren't great as I ended up not having enough dip for my dippers because big chunks kept attaching to the dippers! Which wasn't too bad of a thing as the dippers themselves are tasty with the tomato seasoning on it.

Scandinavian Forest (lingonberries, blueberries, cherry raisins, apple)
First thing that I notice is that there are 4 ingredients in this one whereas usually there are up to 3. Awesome! I'm also surprised that all of the fruit is still moist, I was expecting dried fruit only. Yet everything is nice and plump. Even the tiny ligonberries, which is great since I'm honestly not sure if I've tried them before or not. In this small a quantity it's hard to really gauge what they'd taste like in a normal meal. I know they're a Scandinavian staple for cuisine (especially jam, it seems) which explains the name. This is a very delicious fruit combination that actually is good eaten mixed versus individual sampling. Oddly enough, when eating them this way, the ligonberries really shine through and you can really taste them!

Jalapeno Fiesta (jalapeno peanuts, salsa almonds, roasted seeds)
This smells delicious! Reminds me of what a typical Mexican bar mix would be like. The spices on the nuts are not too strong so you can't enjoy the taste of the nuts while enjoying the flavors, which is great. The roasted seeds are a mixture of sunflower and pumpkin seeds. As with other similar snacks they become coated in the spices of both the salsa and jalapeno.

Honeycomb Crunch (milk chocolate honeycomb, almonds, raisin)
I have no clue how almonds and raisins relate to honeycomb. Not complaining, just find the combo a bit strange. The milk chocolate honeycomb, as expected, was amazing. They're basically a bite sized version of Esther Price and I only wish there was more of it. Mmmm!

Review - Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups

I had heard about the Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups a month or two ago but forgot all about them. Until today when I finally found them, that is. I was surprised to see them at the Circle K by work. I greedily grabbed 2 packs, wanting to eat them right away in the morning but knowing I should wait. Will power at it's finest!

Once I finally had the chance to gobble them up, it was perfect. First, to describe the look. They are obviously intended to mirror Reese's Peanut Butter Cups:

• two to a pack
• surrounded in small cardboard to protect the cups
• the cups themselves are bite-size
• they have ridges
• same look and feel

Yet there are a few differences:

• square cups instead of circular
• no pesky paper wrapper that usually removes a chunk of the bottom layer of chocolate
• one downside is that they aren't as thick as Reese's Cups

 

Biting into them, they are delicious! The center is softer with the grit, yet you do have a slight crunch from time to time. It's unlike biting into a Butterfinger Bar which is all crunch, these have just a tiny crunch amid the smooth peanut butter center. I am surprised that the color of the center matches that of the Butterfinger Bar. Looking at the ingredients, I guess it's the annatto paprika extract color since there aren't any food colors used. It also obviously tasted like a Butterfinger Bar!

I hope these stay around, wouldn't mind seeing them become as popular as Reese's Cups. Only time will tell!

Nibble Boxes: Graze Box #2

Received my second Graze box in the mail the other day. Been way too busy to even dive into it so I'm excited to snack on the goodies. As with the lost box, I got a small packet with notes about what the company does for charity and it included a few "friend invites". So if anyone is interested in joining, let me know as I've got a few to give out.

A very good variety this box. My first "flapjacks" from them, I am intrigued to see what the consistency is (looks like a soft granola bar). The last "dip & dippers" I got from Graze was not that great yet it was due to me not liking the sauce itself. This one I'm very excited to try and predict I'll love this one. Then rounding out the order are 2 "healthy treats" which are mainly fruit based.

My Thai (sweet chili sauce with baked soy bites)

Ok, this was amazing! The sauce is very viscous so the soy bites get covered in it when you dip them. The dip was very, very good! It was a normal sweet chili sauce so there wasn't a big surprise to me. Had the touch of sweet taste with the slight burn aftertaste. The dippers themselves go very well with this as they aren't too powerful of a taste to distract you from the dip. I can see myself eating those dippers plain as a normal snack. The only problem I had was that half of the dippers broke apart in shipping, so I had small bits left over that were difficult to get the dip. After eating all the pieces I could easily dip, I just tipped the leftover dipper crumbs into the remaining dip and ate it with a spoon. It would be awesome to get a box comprised of 4 of these, they were THAT tasty!

Scrumptious Blueberry Swirl (blueberry yogurt raisins, raspberry infused cranberries, and blackcurrants)

An interesting mix and it is indeed scrumptious! The blueberry yogurt raisins have a nice blueberry flavor, yet they're not strong in raisin taste or texture. I actually had to bite one in half to see if it actually had raisins as all I tasted were the blueberry and vanilla yogurt. Which isn't a bad thing, just something I found interesting. The "raspberry infused cranberries" are great yet I am a bit confused as to where the raspberry is since the ingredient list says "elderberry juice concentrate" with no mention of raspberry. Guess people wouldn't be excited to try it if was called "elderberry infused cranberries," huh? Still tastes great even if it wasn't really raspberry infused. Only problem I had with this mix is the blackcurrants were a bit bitter compared to the other 2 items. If you eat a handful, you KNOW when you're chomping on a blackcurrant. Not that it's really a bad thing, I just don't feel it really meshes well with the mix. It could also be my batch had a strong dose of the lemon juice concentrate they were soaked in. 

Fruit & Seed Flapjack (rustic rolled oat flapjack with mixed seeds and dried fruits)

This was nice and soft, a bit springy to the touch. It definitely leaves you with a satisfied feeling, likely due to the oats. It had a big buttery flavor yet looking at the ingredients it's margarine instead. Guessing margarine was used instead of butter to make it vegan. I honestly felt the butter taste was a bit too strong for my liking, but I do have peculiar tastes so I don't think anyone else would notice. The mixed fruit and seed content was nice and eclectic, comprised of apricots, dates, currants, raisins, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds. I'm excited to get some of the other flapjacks, especially since I considered this to be most "simple" of the flavors. 

Eleanor's Apple Crumble (apple, raisins, cinnamon honey almonds)

I'm surprised by how great this! I was expecting a normal mix, something I've had hundreds of times yet this one actually surprised me. The raisins aren't the normal raisins everyone is used to, I'm guessing these are golden raisins as they are plumper and more moist than normal dark raisins. I was expecting the apple pieces to be like the chips, where they are hard and crispy. Nope, these are soft and moist so they work well with the raisins. The cinnamon honey almonds aren't anything new but the cinnamon is powerful here. Usually when you get these types of almonds the shell is more honey tasting than cinnamon, yet these are a good mix. This mix is pretty much the perfect thing for me to eat before drinking the Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea that's waiting to be drunk.

Nibble Boxes: Nibblr Box #1

Yesterday I got my first Nibblr box in the mail. I actually got an email the night before letting me know to expect it in the mail, which was pretty helpful. Whereas Graze is a square, this is a rectangle with a much more decorative box. Yet unlike Graze's recyclable/compostable/whatever box, this box doesn't appear to be. Yet graphically it is far superior!

As with the Graze box, this came with an insert. Again, graphically this insert is much better. In fact, it's a fold-out poster of "Life's Too Short to Be Hangry" by Dana Tanamachi with a bio of the artist. One thing that I appreciate about this insert is that it has a handwritten note!

The snacks themselves are just like Graze, individual packs that contain the name as well as nutrition info on the box. There is a "use by" date for each snack as well as weight. Same with Graze, the weight varies from 0.95 oz/27 grams to 1.45 oz/41 grams (and as with Graze, the heaviest item is the more "junky" item).

Sesa-Me & You (sesame honey almond)
Very tasty! It's similar to other honey glazed nuts. It's simply almonds with a hardened honey glaze then rolled in sesame seed bits. The only thing I wasn't too thrilled about was the fact that sugar was the #1 ingredient. I expected almonds (or honey) but it's sugar. Other than that, it definitely a great snack!

Ale House Blend (brazilian steakhouse peanut crackers, corn nuts, and mini pretzel)
It's been a very long time since I had any corn nuts. I'm not the biggest fan of them but they're not bad. They do work in this mix, a perfect fit! The mini pretzels were slightly salted and, well, they're mini pretzels. Not much else to report. The "brazilian steakhouse peanut crackers" were peanuts encased in a spicy cracker shell. So you had the very slight hint of strong spices to mix with all the salt. Obviously being "ale house" I expected it to be salted (since the whole purpose is to get you to buy more drinks) and the name was exact. It wasn't too salty but it was salty enough to make me thirsty.

My Ipanema Love (banana chips, currants, brazil nuts)
From Wikipedia, "Ipanema is a neighborhood located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil." I've heard the name before but honestly didn't know much about it. Now I know! As for the mix itself, it's WYSYG (what you see is what you get). No extra spices or anything, just a simple fruit and nut mix. It went together pretty well, but I was disappointed to only have 1.75 brazil nuts (yeah, one of them had a quarter missing off of it). So besides getting fewer nuts than I wanted, I enjoyed it.

PB Graham (peanuts, peanut wafer, graham cookies)
Lot of peanut flavor here! The peanut portion is the majority of the mix which is expected, but the peanuts are unroasted and unsalted. The graham cookies matched well here. The peanut wafer is basically a disc of sugary peanut butter (think those peanut butter chips used in cookies melted into a disc). Obviously that was the most delicious part of the mix! Overall I think it would have been better if the peanuts were roasted and salted. I can also see using this mixture in chocolate for "peanut butter chocolate bark". Hmmm...may have to whip up a recipe for that!

Nibble Boxes: Graze Box #1

The other week I decided to join a subscription program called Graze, which mails you a box of 4 "healthy" snacks. Obviously they're not tasteless healthy, but instead healthier snacks which taste great. These types of boxes are called nibble boxes.

With Graze, there are 100 different types of snacks they have to get. You don't explicitly choose what you're going to get but you can rate the various snacks available on a 4 option scale of "do not send" up to "I want this snack more frequently". Almost all the snacks to choose from sounded delicious but I knew I wanted to try new items so I selected about a fifth of the options as "do not send". You can always change how you rate the items, in fact they encourage you to always update based on what you like and don't like from what you try.

I got my first box this week, so it took them only a week to get it to me. It's a nice size box 9.5 inches by 6.5 inches so it could fit in your mailbox. All the snacks are in a plastic container so if it doesn't fit in the mailbox it will still be protected. In it is a welcome note introducing me to the company and some other notes. On the back of the note is the nutrition facts for the 4 snacks in the box which also includes weight and "best by" dates. They're 28 grams (0.99oz) up to 41 grams (1.4oz). The "best by" range is pretty good, going from 4 weeks all the way up to 20 weeks. Not that I honestly expect any of these to last that long!

Chili and Lime Pistachios
It didn't look like a lot but about halfway through I realized it was actually quite filling, which surprised me. The pistachios tasted like the name suggests with hints of lime and chili. The chili isn't too overpowering but you can still feel the slight tingle of chili on the tip of the tongue, while the hint of lime is soothing. This was a very well done combination!

Brooklyn Bites (poppyseed pretzels, cheese cashews, roasted pumpkin seeds)
I tried this one-by-one so I could get an accurate taste of each piece. The poppyseed pretzels were ok but nothing outstanding. I honestly found they lacked taste since majority of the poppyseeds were scraped off in the container due to friction. I still enjoyed them, just not as much as I hoped. The cheese cashews, though, were fantastic! It has a cheesy rub on it that isn't too powerful but still has an adequate cheese taste. The roasted pumpkin seeds actually picked up the flavor of the cheese rub and also were attached to a few of the rubbed off poppyseeds giving them an extra "oomph" taste.

Smoky Gazpacho with Wholemeal Crisp Bread Slices
I've never had gazpacho before so I was hesitant about this one. It was...ok. It had a smoky flavor for sure, and I couldn't exactly comprehend the taste of the gazpacho. Tomato of course with strong onion and a hint of garlic. I don't know if I'd want this again. Not that was bad, just not as tasty as I want. Maybe I just need to get used to it.



Florentine (Belgian dark chocolate, cranberries, pumpkin seeds)
This is likely one that should have been "too normal" for me to get, but I did salivate at thinking of this combo. Well this was quite amazing! Obviously looking at the ingredients it's not hard to tell why. Chocolate, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds? Delicious! The chocolate discs were nice size and perfect for scooping up some cranberries and pumpkin seeds. I'm glad this one was the heaviest of the bunch.

Overall I thought this was a good introduction to nibble boxes. Had an eclectic mix of snacks including things I had never tried before. I also signed up for Nibblr which is almost the exact same thing, I should get that box at some point soon. I actually signed up there before I signed up for Graze, so I'm surprised I don't have it yet. Once I get that I'll make a post, then in 2 weeks once I get my next Graze box I'll make a post for that.

Movie Review: Assault of the Sasquatch

I'm taking part in the Reddit October Horror Movie Challenge and as part of that, there is a checklist of various types of movies to watch. I wanted to try something different for the Sasquatch. Thus, I looked on Netflix and found Assault of the Sasquatch. Wow, I was pleasantly surprised by this!

It's a cheap movie, I'm not going to lie. Some of the graphics are cheesy, and the acting isn't stellar. There are a lot of gorey death scenes (Sasquatch rams his fist through someone's head and it's spectacular!). Yet keeping in mind that it's a low-budget movie, I think it did very well for what it was given. They did an interesting thing where they used CGI to manipulate Sasquatch's face so it looks as if it's movie and not just a mask, which I thought was perfect! You look at the body and it looks like rubber, yet the face looks close to real.

They threw in some comedy with Don and Murphy, a duo who are members of the Sasquatch Society and spend most of the movie in the background trying to get film footage of Sasquatch. The dole out fast dialogue between each other with Don, who is obese, claiming he is God's gift to women and wished they would realize it.

One thing that was a neat touch was adding in flashbacks to something completely unrelated to Sasquatch to give reason why two characters should have a lot of tension between each other. It worked and wasn't too annoying a deviation.

The main thing I didn't enjoy was how fuzzy/dark the film quality was. They used color highlights a lot of the time which distracted me from time to time.

Overall, if you go in expecting a cheesy movie, you will be pleasantly surprised with it not being ALL that horrible.

Movie Reviews - Dustin Wayde Mills marathon: Easter Casket, Bath Salt Zombies, and Night of the Tentacles

One of my friends is friends with Dustin Wayde Mills and he introduced me to Mills' movies. Before tonight, I had already watched Puppet Monster Massacre and Zombie A-Hole and thought they were both great and campy. I was in a horror mood tonight and wanted to watch these before watching the movies I got yesterday (bunch of potentially cruddy movies, I made a post about it last night here). So I spent the night watching Easter Casket, Bath Salt Zombies, and Night of the Tentacles. They're no budget/low budget films and for being made on just a couple thousand dollars they're pretty great!

Easter Casket basically is about the Easter Bunny getting pissed the Catholics want to get rid of him so he goes on a mission to destroy a group voting to oust him, while Father Asher is sent to destroy the Easter Bunny.

Bath Salt Zombies is based on the outbreak of "zombies" in the US after a few people consumed the drug bath salts and went a bit crazy and cannibalistic. In the movie, a scientist (portrayed by Dustin Mills himself) creates a new high dose formula to get an edge on other drug dealers in the area and the main character gets addicted. After consuming one dose, obviously you go crazy and become a cannibal for a short period of time with increased strength, then wake up with no memory. As this is going on, a DEA agent is trying to crack down on the distribution of the drugs that culminates in a standoff with the other main character.

Night of the Tentacles is about a guy who has a heart attack while jerking off to the girl in the apartment below him masturbating. Then he sells his soul to the Devil for a new heart, which is now located in a box that he keeps in his room. As long as the heart is treated right, he'll live forever. Thus, he is forced to feed the heart some meat to keep it satisfied. Hijinks ensue as he has to find things to feed it without having to resort to humans all the while creating a relationship with his neighbor downstairs. It's a play on Faust (included his new heart being referenced to as FAUSTHEART 2.0 in the contract the main character doesn't get to read). And I have to say, I love the line "you blasphemy a lot for an atheist."

I like to think of Dustin Wayde Mills as the Kevin Smith of horror. He's chunk and bearded like Smith. He's incredibly vulgar but with very realistic dialogue. He makes sure he has a bit role in each of his movies (in Zombie A-Hole he was a hilarious voodoo doctor). The one area that he differs from Smith is that his movies are filmed on a small percentage of what Smith had originally and whereas Smith talked about nudity, Mills includes loads of nudity.

The nudity isn't even needed half the time but he makes sure to get a dose in each movie. I briefly listened to the commentary on Bath Salt Zombies and in one scene, he specifically said "this scene is here for more nudity" lol! Granted, it was worth it because it's of the incredibly hot actress Erin R. Ryan (who is now a celebrity crush of mine because her involvement in Easter Casket and Bath Salt Zombies). I had a friend check out Zombie A-Hole and he commented how the movie would be at least 10 minutes shorter if the nudity wasn't as gratuitous as it was. Sometimes it is a bit weird and out of place (such as in Bath Salt Zombies where a girl is randomly stripping while the main character is taking the new form of bath salts). I'm not really complaining, just commenting on it. It definitely lives up to a classic horror standard of lots of bloodiness, cussing, and nudity.

Now one thing you have to keep in mind before watching the films is that they're ultra-low budget so don't expect a masterpiece. You are in for a good ride, that's for sure. Yet the computer graphics are sometimes exaggerated as if it were a comic book/anime movie. Some of the real special effects aren't perfect (Night of the Tentacles had the main character ejaculates on the floor and it looks like they simply spilled milk instead of trying to create something close to jism; Bath Salt Zombies had a character start bludgeoning someone in the face with a rock yet the rock was obviously 6 inches away from the face). I also had a lot of problems with the sound quality on Bath Salt Zombies, where it would constantly fluctuate. I was watching on my computer and had to have the sound go from a 12 to a 100 throughout the movie because some scenes were too soft whereas others were too loud.

Overall though, the movies are very worth it to watch. Mills reuses a lot of his cast again in the movies so it's fun to see the characters have completely different roles. The writing is fantastic, it is very fluid and has a real world feel to it.

Movie Review - About Time

I was able to get a pass to the preview of About Time (thanks to my awesome roommate!). I arrived early since these things always sell out and there was a nice crowd 45 minutes before the movie began. More and more people began streaming in but the house wasn't completely full, I'd say at 75% capacity. Those 25% definitely missed out!

About Time is the best movie I've seen in 2013. And I've seen a lot, about 50+ in theatres! I am so very glad I didn't have to wait another month to see this, it lived and exceeded expectations.

The premise is pretty straight forward: the men in the Lake family are able to travel through time but only to events they personally visited. The main character is Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) and his father (Bill Nighy) introduces him to the concept, saying you couldn't kill Hitler or shag famous people from centuries ago. The relationship between these two is breathtaking, you actually begin to believe they are father and son in real life based on how well they mesh together on screen. Tim's love interest is Mary (Rachel McAdams) and he makes use of his time travel ability copiously to make sure their relationship happens and works. Tim's mother (Lindsay Duncan) and sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) are both fantastic additions as well, with Kit Kat playing an important role later in the film as she finds herself in relationship trouble.

I don't want to give away too many plot points as the whole movie was brilliantly done. It felt like The Time Traveler's Wife done right, with a perfect balance of comedy, drama, and romance. The filmmakers want you to cry while laughing in some scenes, and they definitely accomplish that. I felt the problem with TTTW is that it was too far on the drama side with not enough comedy or "normal" events, which pushes it into a depressing feel at times. About Time did not have any of those problems, the emotional ride was perfect.

Bill Nighy steals every scene he is in. He plays a very aloof and carefree character, perfectly capturing the mannerisms of someone who knows how to enjoy life. Then again, I am a bit biased as there hasn't been a Bill Nighy movie that has disappointed me! Lindsay Duncan was perfect as his wife, even though it wasn't shown as much I think their chemistry was very nice.

Domhnall Gleeson, best known for me as Bill Weasley from Harry Potter, was perfect as a lead actor. Rachel McAdams was able to easily portray her character's insecurities in the beginning of the relationship and you could see how she became more of a comfortable-in-her-skin character as time went on. It is weird that this is the second time travel romantic drama (or dramedy in this case) that Rachel McAdams has starred in (the previous, of course, being The Time Traveler's Wife).

There were a few scenes where the camera was randomly shakey, as if someone just walked off a small ledge and wasn't expecting it. Most people likely wouldn't even notice that so it's nothing major.

Another problem is that some of the time travel rules can be confusing until you really think about it. I have read some people get annoyed or confused by the ending, saying that it logically couldn't be done based on the conversation Tim had with his father about time travel. I honestly am not sure whether it could or couldn't happen (again, difficult to talk about without spoiling the scene). Only reason I can think is that it was something so small, an event that wouldn't have changed anything, that they felt the risk was worth it and it paid off. Time travel movies can definitely be confusing if you think too much about the rules because it can often distract you from the movie.

Yet those were really the only things wrong with the movie. The writing and directing was perfect. Towards the end things got a bit emotional and it was so perfect that I almost burst out crying, I had to bite my lip to stop from sobbing in the middle of the theatre! You get so drawn into the movie by the great blend of everything that it can overload you and make you believe it's real life.

Even small things such as choice of music was perfect. The music chosen to play over the montage of Tim and Mary's budding romance fit perfectly, even synching up to the events on screen. The scenery was beautiful and makes me really wish I had the spare money to travel there.

I absolutely positively loved this movie. I urge everyone to see it when it comes out in November, you won't be sorry!

Movie Review - You're Next

It's, uh, been awhile since I made a post. Even though I've seen a hundred or two movies since my last update, I felt that when I was regularly reviewing them the actual watching session of the movie changed. I began looking for something to criticize the movie over, which is not something I enjoy doing. I'm more of a "sit back and enjoy the movie" kind of person. And as for recipes...I haven't done any new versions and didn't want to just post copies of other recipes and say "it turned out great!" which would have been obvious. I'm not a creative person, more of a near-expert copycat.

As for why I'm posting about the movie You're Next? Simply put, I really enjoyed it and wanted to share what I liked about it with others. Since I went into the movie not thinking about doing a review, I was able to sit back and enjoy what I saw.

The movie, if you don't know, is the latest home-invasion-horror-thriller movie with a slight twist, this time someone fights back with expertise. Most of the cast are unknowns but I felt they all did a great job. I will admit there were a few scenes which showed acting that was a bit shoddy, yet that's expected from time to time. It's nothing like what Justin Timberlake's acting in Runner Runner looks like, which is pure crud (which is a shame because Ben "newly announced Batman" Affleck looks superb in that movie!).

Obviously it couldn't be a horror movie without blood, and you get lots of it. There is a very unique killing of one of the villains towards the end of the movie that is quite simply Troma-esque. It reminds me of when I was a kid, yelling in excitement as the Toxic Avenger killed someone with a VHS player. In the same format I cheered in the scene in question. The blood itself in the movie did appear to be slightly faking at times, looking very watered down with a strange hue of red. Yet that wasn't distracting unless you specifically looked at it. Only reason I paid attention was because I know a lot of movies don't get it right and it looks really out of place. Not the case here, even with it looking a tad wrong it didn't look out of place or distracting.

One thing that surprised me a lot was the fact that there are a few twists. 2 major twists, in fact. I won't go into any spoilers on it but I am happy to see twists that I don't expect. One they laid the building pieces for with a random comment that you don't even think about. The other, I didn't really catch much of a hint and it did appear to come out of left field.


The big problem I had with the movie, which itself is slight, is the soundtrack. It was too overpowering at times and the music felt out of place. I kept having flashbacks (soundbacks?) of music from the last 80s/early 90s where it too electronic, almost verging on that of 8 bit video game themes. Definitely didn't fit here, but it did remind me how the movie had a bit of an 80s feel at times. Not sure if it was intentional or not.

Another small problem is after a death, the phrase "You're Next" is written in blood on the wall. Yet the size of the text doesn't exactly compute with the time given based on how fast the rest of the people ran to the room in question. Especially if you take into consideration the person writing on the wall would have to reach back for more blood to write everything. Even with 2 people I don't think it would have been possible. Then in another scene it is mentioned that the owner's of the house had been staying there for several days, yet that wasn't properly displayed as it felt like everything occurred in a single day with everyone getting to the house that day.

Overall it was a great movie. Most of the wrong things could easily be dismissed by all the good things. The high content of blood and slashes definitely appeals to horror-fans.

Book Review - Horns

I'm current on vacation in Maine, staying near Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. I just finished a book that was simply amazing, a beautiful piece of fiction. I had planned to wait until I got home next week to write a review of it but felt I needed to do it before it left my mind completely. Since I'm doing this from my phone, please excuse any weird spelling mistakes as I have been hit by autocorrect many times.

Joe Hill is a writer I specifically got into due to my huge enjoyment of Stephen King. I read Hill's Heart-Shaped Box a few years ago and automatically loved it, noticing the similarities but still extreme differences than King's work. I later got into Hill's comic series, Locke & Key, which is also pretty amazing as it's not like any other comic out there. His short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts, was great from the stories I read (I tend to read short story collections piecemeal, bit by bit). It was inevitable that I'd enjoy his latest novel, Horns, but I didn't expect it this much.

The story of Horns is really intriguing. Ignatius "Iggy/Ig" Perrish wakes up one day to find horns growing out of his head. it has been a year since his girlfriend, Merrin, was mysteriously murdered, a crime Iggy was blamed for but was never declared guilty due to a fire destroying all key evidence. After waking up with the horns, he finds out that anyone he talks to doesn't pay much attention to the fact that he has horns, but instead com into a type of trance and want to declare their deepest desire to sin, asking Iggy if it would be ok to do it. Examples are his current girlfriend waning to literally pig out on a box of donuts, a reception wanting to tell off a mother with a rowdy daughter, and a cop wanting to cause Iggy pain just be size he doesn't like him. If Ig somehow touches someone, he experiences parts of their life, mainly sins they have done. Talking to his family shows him just how much they do not like him. His powers eventually lead to him finding out who murdered his girlfriend, and the rest of the novel follows Ig as he tries to bring about revenge.

I found the style of exposition to be incredibly unique. After the first part of the book, we have a section that is a flashback to the summer 11 years before where Ig's life changed when he met Merrin and his best friend Lee. The reader is torn at this point, wanting to know more of present Ig's powers and quest for revenge yet also intrigued to see more of younger Ig's adventures. Hill does a great job of keeping the reader interested in the younger Ig, making you almost forget about the present Ig.

Several times throughout the novel, the narrator also changes, during Ig's power of touch where we experience the sin of Others first hand. A real interesting section of the book, right after a very climatic scene that leaves us wondering about Ig's fate, switches gears and tells us the life story of Merrin's murderer, about how they got to be the way they are and all the bad things they had done. Included is the exac point everything changed, which was never explicitly blamed but the reader just knows that's where it all went wrong. Once again, Hill gets you emotionally invested in someone, where you don't mind not reading about Ig and wondering what had just happened to him.

The final narrative direction that cemented my love for the book was towards the end, in a beautifully written scene that con currently tells a life-or-death scene and a flashback to the night before Ig started growing horns, showing the reader exactly what occured that unknown night. The style of writing throws you straight into the scene, you fall even more in love with the Ig and his well-being. I'm not going to lie, at that scene in the book my eyes began to get misty. Then, during the last 3 chapters of the book, the tears began uncontrollably streaming down my face.

Now, I don't normally cry with books. I do with great movies and tv shows (most recent was during the Doctor Who episode that took place on Devil's Run). The last time I remember crying this hard over the ending to a book? Stephen King's Insomnia. You can get so emotionally invested in these characters and the writer just knows the exact way to put you emotionally over the edge. Those are the times when I know what I just read was a great piece of literature. Horns fits that bill beautifully!

Now, Horns is not for everyone. I tried to describe the book to my mom yet when I started talking about how a central plot point was when Ig realises that the Devil was actually a hero and not a villain, she just did not want to hear anymore. She's very religious (she doesn't think so, but this just proves my point) so putting the Devil in a good light means she could be never be emotionally invested in a character that has turned into s literal Devil. You get to the point where you're rooting for Ig as he begins his baptism of fire and ascension to revenge.

If you are not extremely religious, or are at least open minded enough to be able to read a book about a literal Devil, then I highly suggest this book. I had been in a rut with books recently and glad I picked Horns up. This book has definitely climbed into my Top 10 favorite books.

Movie Review - The Puffy Chair

I'm not going to lie, I'm a big fan of Mark Duplass. The first movie of his that I saw was Humpday, which was an incredibly odd, Indie movie that was just a lot of fun. I was lucky to catch it at my local indie movie theatre and went in not knowing any of the actors/actresses. Even though I saw him in a couple other movies, it wasn't until earlier this year that I actually read up on him in an issue of EW magazine. After that he was suddenly in 3 things that I saw in quick success (People Like Us, Safety Not Guaranteed, and The League). After seeing his brilliance in those, it made me want to see other things he's done. Thus, tonight I watched The Puffy Chair.

This movie seems to be his first full-length movie he (and his brother, Jay Duplass) worked on. There were short movies before, but nothing like this. The first thing you can automatically tell is that it is indeed an Indie film. Yet that's not a bad thing, it's just something you need to acknowledge to better enjoy the film.

The basic plot is Josh (Mark Duplass) plans a trip to get a puffy chair for his dad's birthday. Originally planned to only be himself, yet soon his girlfriend Emily (Katie Aselton) and brother Rhett (Rhett Wilkins) join in on the road trip. Obviously they run into several problems and have difficulty over coming them in a real world way (none of the usual Hollywood "I'm going to snap my fingers and everything is right in the world again" BS). Cheating the system, lust at first sight, broken expectations, etc. It's not a movie where everything works out in the end, it had a surprise ending that fit perfectly.


It has some of the usual problems with an Indie film: not the best lighting, sound could occasionally be muffled, and very limited equipment so there is likely only 1 camera. And as with most Indie films, the plot is that of human fault that isn't tainted by a usual "my life is somehow better than everyone else's and just enjoy all the crazy coincidences that occur." Nah, this movie is all real world type stuff, things anyone can easily get into themselves.

For a bunch of amateur actors, everyone did a great job! Mark Duplass seems to have not changed his style of acting at all in the 6 years since this movie came out, I guess he found his niche and knows what the audience wants him to do. I didn't recognize Katie Aselton at all, just had a hint of "she looks familiar" going on and was incredibly surprised to see she's also on The League (and is married to Mark Duplass in real life). Rhett Wilkins played his character as a free spirit, quick to lust and will tell it like it is, no avoiding the subject even when it's in his best interest.

The dialogue has a feeling that everything is said exactly as it should, nothing forced and nothing sounding out of character. It's everyday speech, so sometimes it calls for stumbling as they arrange their thoughts. The cussing that makes this an R-rated movie fits when used, no feeling of the writers inserting it just to insert it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, but then again I absolutely LOVE Indie movies so it fit in my taste. This won't be a movie for everyone, that's for sure. There are many scenes with little dialogue, just the cameraman running around and catching the movement of the actors with just enough talking to get by. Some may find it boring (as shown in the IMDb forums), so if you want a movie to be top quality with no perspective moments then you likely won't enjoy this. If you're open to Indie comedies, or like Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton, check it out!

Movie Review - House at the End of the Street

The midnight showing this week as House at the End of the Street. It was...ok. Overall good but with a lot of plot-holes. I felt the movie left you with more questions than answers, and not in a good way. It's not a bad movie, just a movie that has some problems here and there.

House at the End of the Street is about Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) and her mother (Elizabeth Shue) who just moved from Chicago to a small town somewhere in or near Penn State, not sure if they specified besides that it was 2 days worth of driving from Chicago. They got their house for dirt cheap because their empty house next door was the scene of a double homicide, where a young girl killed her parents and fled. The young girl evidently drowned in a nearby lake yet no body was ever found, and 4 years late that's still the hugest thing the town can talk about. We soon find out that the house actually isn't empty, instead the son of the murdered family, Ryan (Max Thieriot), lives there by himself. Elissa, finding herself at a distance from the "popular" kids, has a chance meeting with Ryan and develops a liking to him, soon hanging out with him any chance she got; even after her mother declares she doesn't like Elissa hanging out with Ryan (at an awkward dinner between the three of them), Elissa still won't give up. The big secret is that Max's sister actually isn't dead, instead he is keeping her in his basement locked away due to her mental instability. I can't really tell you much more at this point without going into spoilers, which I'll do in a separate section.

There really isn't any problems with the acting. Elizabeth Shue does a good job, but at times she appears distant and it leads me to wonder if they're trying to make her character a hidden layer that is never explained. Jennifer Lawrence does a great job as a quasi-outsider, her only friends being another group of quasi-outsiders that form a band (which we definitely do not see enough of!). Max Thieriot was creepy creepy creepy, which perfectly fit his character. He exudes the dark and stormy personality that his character needs, a sense of mystery surrounding him.

I did have a problem with the directing and cinematography. It felt like the movie was directed by two different people with the first half being filled with a lot experimental shots whereas the second half is more of a horror feel. The first half features a lot of random scenes where the camera is at a strange angle yet the same scene just a different shot has it level. One time in particular we had Elizabeth Shue at at a 25 degree angle yet when we switched back to Jennifer Lawrence she was level. And they were each standing in the same room, facing each other. No need for that at all. There were also many shots that were intentionally blurry yet for no reason at all.

Now in the second half, I didn't have any problems. In fact, they had a perfect first-person shot scene where someone is using a faulty flashlight. It has a feel like the game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, where you only see through a flashlight in first person mode. Very similar feel, and with it flickering on and off it brought on a great sense of suspense.

I did enjoy the plot of the movie, despite the plot holes. Usually I can tell when a twist is about to come up, yet this time around they did a great job of not really dropping any major hints. They did a great thing with the big reveal and left the pieces for you to assemble instead of telling the ABCs of everything.

I would suggest this a matinee showing. With so many other movies out this weekend that all appear better, save this for a cheaper time. It is a fun movie with just some hiccups here and there.

SPOILERS

Ok, here are some of the things that lowered the quality of the film. A couple are plot holes, others are just things that make no sense. I won't spoil everything as there are still plenty of surprised that I don't touch on.

Throughout the whole movie, almost everyone in town trash talks Ryan for no reason. According to the story, he wasn't even living at the house when his sister went crazy and killed their parents. Yet he instead moved home a year before the start of the movie and refused to sell his house, and suddenly now he's the villain to everyone. One scene we have him going to hear Elissa's band play, and all the popular kids randomly decide to trash his car! No warning, just BANG with the bat breaking a window. When Ryan runs out to stop them, 6 of the kids gang up on and him start giving him a serious beat down. And again, for no real reason! He wasn't living in the area when his parents were murdered so he should not be turned into the town villain, instead he should be the town sob-story.

As for the twist I mentioned earlier, it is revealed that Ryan's sister that he kept in the basement was actually not related to him. Instead he captures girls, forces blue-colored contact lenses on them, and chains them in the basement. There are a few things that don't fully make sense. Earlier in the movie, his "sister" escaped and tried grab a knife to seemingly kill Elissa yet Ryan luckily thwarted her without revealing to Elissa anyone was there. Why would Ryan's sister want to kill Elissa when she doesn't even know who she is? Only explanation I can think of is that she was actually wanting to kill Ryan instead, yet they definitely made it appear she was planning to go after Elissa instead.

Another plot hole with her being locked in the basement is that Ryan constantly drugs her with something that makes her lucid and put to sleep. Where is he getting these kinds of drugs? This type of stuff is not over the counter type of things, it's an injection of some sort.

One of the biggest plot holes, in my opinion, is when the cop Weaver (Gil Bellows) goes to Ryan's house in search of the missing Elissa. He begins searching the house, knowing that Elissa must be there. Ryan kills him, and soon afterwards we have Elissa's mother coming to search for Elissa. The big problem is, what about Weaver's cop car? Ryan didn't have any time to move it as he didn't even have time to move the body of Weaver, instead having to take care of an escaping Elissa. Weaver's car was in the front driveway and Elissa's mom should have seen it and known something was up, yet we see her drive her car to the same spot the cop car was only it's not there anymore.


One goof that annoyed me was that there were several Mason jars in the tunnel to his "sister's" room that kept disappearing and reappearing, sometimes in the same scene at different angles. That's just poor continuity which I always get annoyed at.

Movie Review - Stonehenge Apocalypse

There's no easy way to say this: the movie Stonehenge Apocalypse was bad. Really really bad. It felt like one of the usual made-for-TV SyFy movies where the graphics are distinguishable and the dialogue is painful to listen to, such as a dumb character talking scientifically "it looks like a giant proboscis!" and the look on the actor's face tells you that he doesn't even understand what he's saying.

The worst thing about the movie is the graphics. Now I'm not going to lie, these are better graphics than I could make. I'm definitely not saying that I could do better, cause mine would totally blow. Yet it seems they went with CGI for places that didn't need to use it. The movie is about Stonehenge and it's shown extensively, yet it appears they never actually shot any real footage of Stonehenge. Instead, almost all shots appear to be CGI. So when people are walking around Stonehenge in the beginning, everything just looks off. They likely would have saved a lot of money by creating Styrofoam cutouts of blocks and colored to look like Stonehenge, that way it would have looked real and at least made the movie somewhat enjoyable.

The best thing about the movie is Misha Collins, aka Castiel from Supernatural. He does his best in such a bad situation. It is nice to see him out of Supernatural and the role seemed right for him, hopefully he can get in some better movies soon so he can show how much he can shine. I really thought the beginning sequence with him as a radio host was pretty great besides the incredibly fakey accents from the "British" characters calling in which were baaaaaad.

There are also loads of various types of goofs. Sounds like the continuity editor didn't check some stuff while doing the movie. To read them, check out IMDb's Goofs page for the movie.

I looked into the Writer/Director, Paul Ziller. Evidently he's done a lot of other movies, most of them also made-for-TV movies. Guessing the quality will be similar to these so I'm not sure if I'll ever give them a chance. I'm reading some of the descriptions (Ghost Storm, Iron Invader, Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon, and Beyond Loch Ness) and they all sound promising. Just like Stonehenge Apocalypse sounded promising, so it's a crapshot on whether you'll find a good movie or a bad movie. Looking at the user-submitted reviews for the other movies, sounds like they will all be just like Stonehenge Apocalypse. Maybe if I ever want to do have a "Bad Movie Night" then these will be considerations, lol!

Movie Review - Resident Evil: Retribution

 I'm going to preface this review by saying that I'm not really a gamer. I play every once in awhile, but I mostly stick with old school games involving Mario or Zelda. I think I have only played the first Resident Evil game and found it fun but not my schtick so I don't even know if I got through the first level. Definitely not trying to talk down the games, I know they're popular and a lot of people enjoy them. They're just not the genre I'm big on.

Now with that said, I really did enjoy this movie. I went in with only seeing Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Resident Evil: Extinction, missing out on Resident Evil: Rebirth (thank the fates for Wikipedia summaries to bring me up to speed!). So I sort of kinda knew what was going on with the movie series, but obviously was still at a disadvantage. Luckily this movie was prepared for people like me.

The movie begins beautifully! The first few minutes are all in slow motion and being shown backwards, so we start with Alice (Milla Jovovich ) looking lifeless in the water until suddenly her body floats up onto the ship Arcadia as explosions occur all over it. Bullets zoom out of dead people, nets untangle the tangled, Jill Valentine floats up a zip-line. It's a combo of melodic violence, where even though the destruction is obviously destruction, the slow motion backwards style keeps you at ease.

Once we get back to the beginning, the filmmakers decide to help out newcomers to the films as well as people who can't remember what happened in the previous four films with bits on pieces as Alice describes what is being shown on various video feeds. Once she's done with that, we go back to what was shown at the start of the film but the exact opposite, fast motion forwards taking the couple of minutes down to a minute.

What you see is what you get in the movie, everything is basically at face value. It's not really a movie you must use your brain to understand, instead it's the opposite. Sit back and turn your brain off, just enjoy what you see. The plot can be summed up as Alice is being held hostage by Umbrella so Wesker sends operatives to rescue her and get out of the maze of this Umbrella facility while trying not to get everyone killed (huh, that doesn't quite work out). There are loads of various enemies faced, from the regular zombies to Umbrella operatives to Axemen to zombie Russians to finally a licker.

The action is very well done, it makes me wish I had seen it in 3D. Regular glasses don't work well with 3D glasses, sadly. Throughout the movie in 2D, you just keep muttering things like "whoa, that would be awesome in 3D" and "this looks cheesy in 2D but likely amazing in 3D". There were a few hiccups in the graphics where events and creatures ended up looking a bit too cartoonish, but again if seen in 3D you likely wouldn't notice it. Explosions are the backbone of the movie, from a simple car crash to an aircraft being destroyed. As usual in the series, you get to follow the flight path of bullets from time to time, usually in slow motion to increase the impact. This is a popcorn movie so they definitely insure that you get you money's worth of action.

The only real complaint is that majority of action scenes can end up being a blender to the brain if you try to think about it. Physics gets defied many, many times in the movie. One scene in particular I cannot discuss as it would be a spoiler and I try my best to not spoil. At times the movie felt like I was watching the Matrix all over again, with overexaggerated jumping scenes and being able to twist around in the air four times completely before you land, after a normal jump. Definitely means that it's best if you just don't try to think about how some of the action can occur in the real life. Just don't, save yourself the confused looks that will automatically pop up. Just sit back and enjoy.

Overall I thought the acting was good...except for Leon (Johann Urb), that is. Some of his lines needed more emotion yet instead he mainly deadpans everything (if only Jensen Ackles had gotten the role, he would have been a hundred times better). Leon was perfectly fine with everything non-dialogue related, unlike how ridiculous Wesker looked as he tried to look stick as a board while walking but instead achieved a my-arms-are-metal look. Luckily we have everyone else who can shine much brighter than him to help out.

The filmmakers did a smart thing and shoved Alice into unfamiliar territory: motherhood! Milla Jovovich is able show a side of herself that is rare in this saga, that of pure compassion. She is forced to look concerned for her "daughter" Becky (newcomer Aryana Engineer, who only past stared in Orphan) and do anything necessary to protect her, even though she doesn't really know who she is. It works and it was a very good subplot as one sequence involves Alice having to rescue Becky.

As stated before, this is a fun movie to see. You get an added bonus if you're a gamer as you'll be extremely entertained and feel as if you're playing a game on the big screen. Now if you go into all movies looking for the plot to make 100% sense and for everything to be as it is in real life, you're going to have a hard time. Learn to turn the brain back and watch the pretty explosions unfold.

Movie Review - Drones

Just finished watching the movie Drones on Netflix. I had been eagerly waiting to watch this since it first came was announced as being in production.

I'm a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and I try to follow some of the alumni in their current work. Amber Benson, to me, is in the top five most successful people to come out of the show. She has written and directed two movies (Chance and Lovers, Liars & Lunatics) yet I've sadly only seen Chance (still hoping to be able to catch Lovers, Liars & Lunatics somehow, especially for James Leary (Clem on Buffy) and Michael Muhney (Sheriff Lamb on Veronica Mars). Chance was amazing, showing a different side to James Marsters (Spike on Buffy/Angel) than we've seen before. Amber Benson has also muddled her hands in the literary world, collaborating with Christopher Golden on Ghosts of Albion; yet to me, I love her Calliope Reaper-Jones novels. Four have been produced so far, one a year. I find her incredibly talent and from what I hear, very nice to fans.

While she didn't write Drones (that credit goes to Ben Acker and Ben Blacker) yet she does direct it along with fellow Buffy alumnus Adam Busch (Warren on Buffy). For some unknown reason there is not a Wikipedia page on the movie, yet there is one on IMDb. 

The movie stars Jonathan M. Woodward (a three-time Joss Whedon almnus, having guest-roles in Firefly, Buffy, and Angel), Samm Levine (Neil Schweiber on Freaks and Geeks), Angela Bettis (May in the movie May), Tangi Miller (Elena Tyler from Felicity), and Dave "Gruber" Allen (Jeff Rosso on Freaks and Geeks). Great cast, in my opinion!

The movie revolves around Brian (Jonathan M. Woodward) as he encounters new and unexpected problems in the workplace. The whole film takes place in a small office but surprisingly it all works perfectly; there are no scenes that make you go, "hmmm, I really wish this would have taken place outside the office." Brian inadvertently finds out his best friend (Samm Levine portraying Clark), a fellow coworker, is an alien. Then, after starting an office relationship with Amy (Angela Bettis), she reveals to Brian that she is also an alien. We then find out that neither aliens are of the same species, with each species going towards a different goal: Clark's species wishes to just enslave humanity while Amy's species wishes to destroy Earth for fuel. Both act nonchalantly about it while telling Brian, who spends parts of the movie looking as if he had just been slapped across the face with a 2x4.

It was obviously a dark comedy with a dry sense of humor, how else could destruction and enslavement be thrown around in conversations as simply as what they planned for an evening at home. Clark even jokes, "eh, not much will change except I'll be your boss now." If you're looking for a slapstick comedy, you're going to have a bad time. While this isn't exactly a sophisticated comedy, you still laugh a lot throughout the movie if this humor is what you understand.

Overall I was very happy with the acting. Samm Levine was great as a "play it cool" type character, someone who can be annoying but not over the top annoying while still being slightly amusing without being over the top funny. Angela Bettis portrays an emotion-stunted character who has ups and downs while experiencing emotions for the first time. Dave "Gruber" Allen...well, he plays the same character as always which is a fantastic role that seemed to be written specifically for him. I will admit, while I do really like Jonathan M. Woodward, a few of his scenes just came across a bit stale. His acting was fine, it just felt when you compared his character to Samm Levine's and Angela Betttis' that his seems less human than their alien characters does. He over-exaggerates a few scenes, going more for dumbstruck than confused which is truly only a subtle different but one I did notice. He did great, don't get me wrong!

One final little bonus to the movie is finally getting to hear music from Common Rotation, which Adam Busch is a part of. I've heard all about the band but never actually got to hear any of their music. I was pleasantly surprised by the band, it wasn't what I was expecting yet that's not a bad thing. They're a folk rock band and very well done. I just found out the band's music is up on Spotify so I plan to start checking out more songs.

Ok, so I won't spoil anything else about the movie (and granted, those really aren't spoilers are they're discussed within the first 15 minutes of the movie). I highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys crazy circumstances where the end of the world is casually discussed near the water cooler. The acting is superb, the writing is brilliant, and the directing was spot-on!

Book Review - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I'll start things off with a review of one of my favorite novels, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

After reading this book for the first time shortly after it came out (and while I was still in high school), I put it on a pedestal. I was reluctant to read it again after 10+ years of holding it in such esteem. Yet due to the moving coming out soon, I took the plunge and broke it out again. Surprisingly, I found it to be even better the second time around! Then again, several life experiences had occurred that made me relate to the protagonist, Charlie, even more than before.

When I first read the novel, I automatically fell in love with it. It was so different from what I usually read at the time. I wasn't familiar with epistolary novels (I hadn't tried reading Dracula) so the style really struck me as being incredibly unique. For those of you who don't know, epistolary novels are novels that are primarily written in the form of documents. In this novel, it's in the form of letters written by Charlie to someone he has never met. The letters are only written by Charlie as he never gives a return address, and the letters are days and sometimes weeks apart. Thus, the writing starts as a "this is what I did" and slowly evolves into something much better but still that simple.

The story follows Charlie as he enters his Freshman year of high school after his best friend passes away. He's an introvert, staying in the background as much as possible. That is, until he meets Sam and Patrick. Soon his introvert ways are swallowed up by these extreme extroverts and he is folded into their style of life. He miraculously fits in with them, not quite blossoming into an extrovert but at least out of his previous introvert ways.

The things that truly gets me excited about the book are the subtle mysteries included. Who exactly is the main character? You can tell that something is "off" with him just by the way he writes and Chbosky slowly tells it from time to time. He has deep, mental scars and an instability brought on by anything, which usually leaves him crying for no reason or turning into a ball of rage he wishes to avoid. Whenever a new part of his past is written, it's never made to be a big revelation but more of a common knowledge. Since the style is only in the form of letters written by Charlie, we can only find out about himself from what he lets out. He is a surprisingly honest writer, just saying whatever comes to mind, letting it flow from his fingers to the page without extra thought put into it.You can tell that Charlie does get better at writing but not by much; it's more a subtle change, something Chbosky doesn't really make into a big deal.

Occasionally while reading this book, you may want to scream at Charlie for being so oblivious and almost simple-minded. He sees so many things but sometimes they just don't click for him. The good thing about that feeling is that it lets you know that you truly care for the character. There are times you can tell something horrible is going to happen and the dread builds up to a point where you won't want to read it. Yet you will obviously keep reading, why wouldn't you?

This was one of the rare books where I absolutely cannot put it down. It took me only a day and a half to read the whole novel, which is very unusual. The last time I was this enthralled by a novel was Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. This is a book I highly recommend.

Quotes

"Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life."

If you're too busy thinking about life, how can you experience life? I relate to this as I sadly do this. I overthink everything, talking myself out of doing simple stuff that shouldn't really be even thought of.

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

This is an incredibly powerful quote, especially for people with low self-esteem and issues with their body image. When you convince yourself that a person won't like you, you don't give yourself a window to even try. It relates to the above quote, how you can think yourself out of participating in life. This also falls into the category of people who settle for someone that is beneath them simply because they don't believe they can do better, they feel that what they got is what they deserve.

"You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand." 

The epitome of being a wallflower. He keeps to himself, but at the same time he absorbs everything around him. In the novel, he uses this unknowingly to his advantage in gift giving by getting things he hears people talking about yet they truly don't realize how often they bring it up. This is also good in keeping secrets, which can fall more into "minding my own business" type of category. He knows things about everyone but most of the time doesn't think twice about them. 

"I want to make sure that the first person you kiss loves you."

That's my ultimate desire, and I know it's sort of an archaic type of thinking but it's such a beautiful concept. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it, just thinking how powerful this statement truly is. A first kiss to some is a casual event, whereas to others it is an achievement. So many people take it for granted.