Attainable Goals? Or Goals That Make You Work Your Ass Off?

Goals. I have a really hard time with making goals, sticking to them and finishing them. If you’re a person who does well with goals and accomplishing them, please share your magic secrets with me!

A big question for me is how to create goals that actually help me.  I go back and forth. Sometimes making attainable goals, which mostly work, but sometimes I find myself finishing them easily and then being bored and saying “what next?”   So then I try to make really hard goals, something that I know I might not finish because I’m competitive and then I work hard for a long time. The problem with that though is burning myself out.

Lately I’ve going back and forth on my goals. I need to get writing done, but I have to balance my every day life with my creative life. But I can’t help thinking that there must be a balance for me somewhere. What do I need to do to make my goals work the best for me.

If you have any thoughts on this I’d love to hear them! What works for you? What kind of goals work best for you?

 

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Library of Souls – A Review

Find on Amazon and Goodreads. 

Goodreads Synopsis: A boy with extraordinary powers. An army of deadly monsters. An epic battle for the future of peculiardom.
The adventure that began with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and continued in Hollow City comes to a thrilling conclusion with Library of Souls. As the story opens, sixteen-year-old Jacob discovers a powerful new ability, and soon he’s diving through history to rescue his peculiar companions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.
They’ll travel from modern-day London to the labyrinthine alleys of Devil’s Acre, the most wretched slum in all of Victorian England. It’s a place where the fate of peculiar children everywhere will be decided once and for all. Like its predecessors, Library of Souls blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

It’s ended! I’ve officially read the end of this series. Excuse me while I go into a deep cave of depression. Also read with caution as there will be spoilers!

Library of Souls is a fantastic conclusion to the Peculiar Children trilogy.  It’s interesting because this book had an almost completely different feel to it than the first two books. For the most part it was the same, featuring delightful and sometimes creepy peculiar people or animals.  A fast paced and intent plot, and wonderful character development. But this book felt a bit darker. We moved away from the time loops and spent time in the depressing and super dark world of Devil’s Acre. Honestly though I liked it.  I liked that the situation was dire and intense. Never once did I doubt that Jacob and Emma and Addison were fighting for their lives and the lives of their friends.

Interesting enough though the end part of the book was almost more whimsical than any of the rest. Finding the Library of Souls was one of my favorite part of the books, as it was almost myth-like in it’s telling.  And the twist with Miss P’s brothers was so surprising! I didn’t see it coming at all.

Jacob’s character goes through a lot of transformation in the last book, and we finally see him becoming the leader everyone needs.  His peculiar ability was so cool! Poor Emma’s character was great and sad all at the same time. The way she let Jacob go and do what was best for his family was admirable.  Speaking of his family the last few chapters in the book were so frustrating! Though believable.  Jacob is of course taken to a mental hospital as everyone doesn’t believe him with what happened. And then the whole thing with the letters. It made me so mad!
For me the end was also a bit long, I felt like it was dragged on. And also the way that they find away around living in time loops was a bit too easy in my opinion. Though I have a hard time deciding what would have been better. Honestly the characters were all happy and that just made me happy.  It was so good and so sad to reach the end of the book.

I gave this book five stars on Goodreads, and it’s probably my favorite of all in the series. I love the way Ransom Riggs writes and I really hope he writes more stories in the future.

Let me know what you thought about this book! How did you like the ending? 

What To Do When Monday Sucks

Somedays, especially Mondays, it can be hard to sit down and get to work. For me at least. Somedays I get so bogged down by feeling like what I’m doing is useless or no good that I don’t even know where to start. So in light of how shitty Monday’s can be I wanted to share five quick and easy ways that help me start my week right.

1. Journal: The first thing I usually do is get out my journal. I sit down and write down everything that comes to mind. How I’m feeling about life, what projects I want to finish, what’s bothering me. Just everything. A whole lot of ranting.  It helps to clear my mind of any excess feelings or ideas that are getting in my way.

2. Eat: For someone who loves food as much as me it’s amazing how often I forget to eat. Sometimes when I’m feeling off all I need to do is take a moment and eat something. Usually I just get out some leftover soup.

3. Talk to a friend: Friends are the best when it comes to talking out ideas. Usually this friend is my husband.  But the point is friends can give you ideas that you hadn’t thought of, or help get you started on an old project you’ve forgotten about.

4. Put on some upbeat music:  Whatever you’re in the mood for.  Be it soundtrack or or pop, a catchy beat can help get my fingers moving faster.

5. Read a book: Inspiration comes at it’s finest in books. I try to pick something related to the genre in which I’m currently writing and then read away. 🙂

It was helpful for me to write down some of my thoughts, so I hope that you are helped by my post too. Let me know what you do when you want to write but can’t! 

 

How I Read Tag

Fine, I admit it.  I wasn’t tagged in this, but I wanted to do a post today and I couldn’t think of anything to do. So when I saw the tag on one of the blogs I’m following,  I decided to do it. Btw the blog that I found it on is here. 

HOW DO YOU FIND NEW BOOKS TO READ?

Blog that I follow, or by going through TBR lists on Goodreads. 😀 I wander through the public library a lot too.  Honestly books just find me!

HOW DID YOU GET INTO READING?

Thanks to my mother, who read to me and my siblings when we were growing up. She always encouraged me to read more and was always on the lookout for good books for me. I actually had a hard time learning to read at first, I hated it. But my mom kept trying to teach me and eventually I understood and from then couldn’t stop reading!

HOW HAS YOUR TASTE IN BOOKS CHANGED AS YOU’VE GOTTEN OLDER?

Well as a kid I read mostly all classics, so as I’ve grown older I’ve actually started reading more YA books.  I also used read a lot of fantasy and fiction, but now I’ve decided my favorite books are biographies. I love reading about real life inspiring people. But I’ve also changed in little ways, like allowing myself to pick up books because I adore the cover. I used to NEVER do that. I’ve also gotten more picky, and I’ve let myself get that way because I don’t want to waste my time reading crap.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU BUY BOOKS?

Not often enough! lol Like  once or twice (at most) a month. I’m a poor married woman, I have to save up money for things like food and rent.  *sigh* Adulting is terribly  boring sometimes. 😀

HOW DID YOU GET INTO BOOK REVIEWING?

Well I loved reading book reviews, I loved the idea of helping people know if a book is good or not.  But I soon found out that I disagreed with a lot of reviews, because I’m such a picky reader. So I decided that I couldn’t be the only one with unpopular opinions on books and I thought reviewing would be a good way to get in touch with people whom I did agree with.

HOW DO YOU REACT IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE ENDING OF THE BOOK?

I usually set the book down very quietly, think about it for a few minutes in silence, then I go find my husband and rant to him for half an hour. 😀

HOW OFTEN DO YOU TAKE A SNEAK PEEK AT THE ENDING TO SEE IF THERE’S A HAPPY ENDING?

Never.  Once in awhile I’ll flip to the back to count pages or to read the very last line and see if it gives me any hints. But the only time I actually take a good peek at the end is if I’m bored with the book.

So that was fun! I haven’t done a tag in awhile. If I’ve been tagged by anyone and I haven’t done it yet I’m sorry! I’ll try to remember if I have any to do this next week. 

Meanwhile I’m tagging:

Jessica @Introverted Randomness 

Deb @The Road of a Writer

Nevillegirl @Musings from Neville’s Navel 

 

 

Throne of Glass – A Review Told in Gifs

Goodreads Synopsis: In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.  The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass–and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.

Find on Goodreads and Amazon.

I have so much dislike, and so many complaints about this book I don’t even know where to start.  Well that’s a promising beginning.  I promise I don’t intentionally dislike popular books…It just always happens?

So I suppose I should start by saying Throne of Glass is a good idea. Assassins and magic! It’s a cool thought.  And we have a female protagonist whose supposed to kick-butt and be awesome. I’m all for that.

But then we move on to the characters. Our main character is Celaena, she 18 and she supposed to be the greatest assassin in her whole country. This is complete and utter bullshit. Throughout the book she consistently cares more about clothing and boys then training or acting like a half decent assassin. People sneak into her bedroom and she sleeps through it.  A bag of chocolate is left on her bed and she eats it even though she knows that other people are being murdered in the castle. She’s reckless, stupid, vain and shallow.  The author did silly things like have Celaena be in a mine for a year and then miraculously get back into top shape in 2 weeks.  Celaea spends all her time being arrogant instead of actually sizing up her competitors. Which also meant I never had any doubt she would win which equaled a boring story.

Then we had the sides of our love triangle, Dorian and Chaol.  I spent the entire book being confused about which one was which. I mean when Celaena was with them separately I could tell them apart by one being all “Oooh look at me I’m the player prince” and the other being “I’m super broody and mean and also I’m the captain so do what I say.”  But then the other half of the time their dialogue was so similar I almost gave up reading the book in frustration. Which also made the love triangle confusing to me. Like who was saying what? Why did she like both of the guys? They were so flat and stereotypical.

Then I had a big problem with the court. Everyone talked and acted like teenagers, there was no court intrigue, there was no one interesting. At one point she sees this two guys that hired her to murder someone years before and they don’t have the brains to act cool and calm. One actually drops his cup. Like this is a evil royal court right? I’m sure everyone has had someone murdered but you would think they would be more chill about it.  Characters walked around broadcasting their intentions from a mile away. Celaena becomes friends with this princesses Nehemia whose plot twists I could see from miles away. Also she practically told Celaena what she was doing but our ”greatest” assassin was too convinced this girl was her friend to actually wonder what was going on. Excuse me while I murder everyone in this book. (I had to use a Deadpool GIF okay)

Then there we have the competition. Wait…there was a competition? Oh you mean the rock climbing and the archery contest? Yeah not much of competition. I was bored to tears.

Then there was the POV jumping around. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate this? The book jumped to the prince to have him complain about being court with his mom. And then it would jump to Chaol to have him give unknown love eyes to Celaena. At one point it even jumped to the king so that we could learn about the plot twist.  It’s weird, like maybe if the assassin acted like an assassin we wouldn’t need POV jumps because she’d actually be sneaking around the castle and stuff.

To sum up I felt like this:

So yeah…I gave it one star on Goodreads.  Please tell me I’m not the only who disliked this book? If you liked it, my apologies. 

Hollow City – A Review

This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises.

Find on Goodreads and Amazon.

I love love love this series. It’s one of my favorites of all times. (See I do love YA once in awhile :D)  But anyway on to the actual review. Where do I even start?

We join up with our peculiar friends right after having escaped the island, and if you thought things were dire before leaving, things get even worse.  Ransom Riggs is a genius writer. I was always on the edge of my seat, hoping things would turn out alright. Jacob, is again a fabulous protagonist.
Again the pictures were fantastic, though a bit creepier than they were in the first book. I loved how in the book we start to see the peculiar world outside of just the time loops. In this book we meet gypsies, peculiar animals and more. I don’t know what else to say without giving spoilers. Suffice to say that this book does not disappoint. The plot kept me guessing right up till the end when there’s a huge cliffhanger!  I gave this book four stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this book yet? Or the series? Let me know if you liked it or not! I’d love to discuss all peculiar things with you. 😀