Everblue Review!

I recently picked this one up for free from the Google Play store, I believe it still is if you're interested. I downloaded this simply because I'm dedicating this year to absorbing all different genres and styles and authors and trying new books. When I saw mermaids I realized that I hadn't read anything ever, that had mermaids. My mermaid knowledge began and ended with The Little Mermaid. So obviously I had to give it a try.

Synopsis:

Ash finds herself feeling lost as her best friend and her twin brother disappear for a 'family emergency'. Months pass without a word and Ash begins to wonder if there's more than just a 'family emergency' they're not telling her about. Feeling lost without them she's willing to go to drastic measures to get them back, but at what cost?

Review:

3/5

This was a read that really interested me, and I'll admit, it was mostly because of the mermaid aspect. I did enjoy the story, it was fun, it was cute, and at the right times you were wondering what was going to happen next. However, though it doesn't have as much to do with the author as the publisher this seemed a little bit younger than the 'Young Adult' label it has on both Goodreads and the Google Play store. The immediate comparison I make with the style of Pandos' writing is with the Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan which has both labels of Young Adult and Middle Grade. 

However, this is a book of it's own and should be treated as such. So putting that all aside I have to say I was pleased with this. I went in without expectations and came out wanting to read the next one. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the Mer world of Natatoria and didn't find myself even once comparing it to Little Mermaid (no jokes, that's the kind of thing I picture when I think mermaids).

As far as characters go, at times I was rather annoyed by Ashlyn, the main character who seemed to fall for every guy that showed interest in her. Though she tames out a bit by the end of the novel, I have to say I was rather irked by that at the beginning. Though it's because of this I questioned some things that were going happen, and whether my predictions I made at the start were going to be true or not. It did cross my mind that it might have been an intentional move by the author to stir things up a bit. I do hope we see a little more character development in the next installment as there seemed to be a lot of surface stuff going on and not a lot of depth.

You know when mermaids are involved that the book is going to be different from your average 'Young Adult' (though I still argue it's a little closer to Middle Grade...) book. The book itself is no exception, I have a feeling that the next one is only going to get better. Unusual, as I must admit sequels are generally what slaughters a good book. This one ends off in quite a hanger, a lot of questions left open. I feel like the next one is going to pick up the pace a bit, making things a lot more interesting.

Overall I would say that this book is a great quick, light read. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for something that isn't going to take too much out of them to read. I would not recommend this book if you are looking for some substance, this cutesy romance with mermaids probably isn't going to work for you. 

I have already purchased the next in this series 'Evergreen' and it will likely be my next read.

Camp Nanowrimo: Day 05

Well, I got lunch, that's all I can say so far. So if you happened upon my last post, you'll know that I've completed one goal so far. Thank god because I was getting really hungry.

Just some random reflection on Camp Nanowrimo so far:
I'm beginning to wonder if my narration is a little odd for my story. I'm writing it how it comes to me, which means that I'm writing in third person, but when it suits me I'm focusing on different characters but collectively if that makes any sense. So I'll be talking about Lacey and her reactions and her feelings and then when I feel I've wrote out what she had going on I switch to another character in the scene. Could be a paragraph, could be three and then I'm on to another, circling through my characters in no particular order. Is that weird?

Yes Damon, exactly I don't really know what to make of that either! What the hell is this Nanowrimo and what is it doing with my characters?! I also am finding that it seems to be almost easier to put the words down for this story than almost any other. I'm not sure if that means I'm babbling or that it's a story that needs to be told. I suppose I'll know in the end.

Enough blabbering, moving on to today's writing experience!

If you remember, my first goal was to reach the day seven goal word goal of 11,666 words or I wasn't going to let myself eat lunch. This was because I did almost no work yesterday and I felt very disappointed in myself. I am determined to stay ahead of the game this time around! No more cutting it close for this kid!

Second goal was to semi-resolve the conflict happening between two particular characters in my story. They fought it out- literally- and both of them have made their own very legitimate conclusions, which I hope to throw under the bus and run it over with a completely new player in the game, but more on that later.

My main character who I mentioned in the beginning (Lacey) is about to face her own conflict thanks to the two mentioned in the paragraph above. Soon she'll be facing a lot of life changing situations that should carry through until nearly the end of the story. Her situation is really only just starting to come to light. Not only will my main character learn something about herself, but so will everyone else. Yeehaw! Things are about to get real fun!

The last person to be introduced to the story should arrive probably within the next 2-3 thousand words, I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm aiming for the start of that scene still. I have not reached it as of yet, but I will edit when I do get there.

UPDATE: I have wrote as much as I can take today, feeling barely sane after pushing out a couple thousand words.

Lastly, with just over one thousand words left to reach my final goal of at least 13,000 words I need to get writing!

UPDATE: I succeeded, just passing the 13,000 mark. I was done that by 3pm and I definitely needed a break for the rest of the day, so there will be a review up shortly!

Currently my day Five mood is:

Yeah, annoyed as &*%$.

PS.
I'm having the overwhelming urge to start reading again so I've been doing that in my breaks. Hopefully I'll have a review to post soon, as it seems like it's been forever, and I doubt anyone actually wants to hear about my Nanowrimo experience anyways.

Camp Nanowrimo: Day 04

So, about yesterday....

A whopping 547 words later I accomplished none of my goals. Today will be an exercise in mass word production. I had hoped to get in more words than that, but obviously I failed. This is not the end all however, I'm back at the desk, with coffee and ready to annihilate today's word count. Because of this I am upping the stake considerably.

Day Four Goals (aka what I didn't do)

• break the day seven word goal of 11,666 (holy crap, that's more than 10,000 already!)
• semi-resolve the conflict between the two currently main male characters
• begin inner conflict with main character
• reach the start of the scene where the last 'big player' is introduced

Day Five Goals

• break the day seven word goal of 11,666 or no lunch!
• semi-resolve the conflict between two of the characters
• begin inner conflict with main character
• FINISH the scene where our last big player is introduced
• Break 13,000 by the end of the day

Day Five will accept no survivors, all goals must be slaughtered before sleep!

I'll try to write up the day five summary today, but I make no promises. I have words to slay.

Camp Nanowrimo: Day 03

It's day 3 of Camp Nanowrimo.

Yeah, that's what I feel like my brain is saying today. I was so focused yesterday it was ridiculous and the roll I was on seems to have died in a brutal murder. Burn, burn, burn. Now the ideas are just like 'meh, no $@#%! to give, #sorrynotsorry'. Maybe it was the coffee yesterday and my groggy brain isn't having any of this thing called 'focus' without it today. As I start this post I wonder if I should just give in and go across the Timmies and get some caffeine into this bloodstream.

15 minutes later...

I understand now. Focus comes with coffee... I have never experienced this before. WHAT IS LIFE?! maybe I should start drinking this magic elixir more often... or, you know go to sleep at a regular time.

moving on...

Day Three Goals

• Get to 6666 words before the morning is through
• Finish the day with more than 8500 words
• Address the brewing conflict head on
• Introduce another character
• Add a party... cause everyone likes parties.

With my focus setting in, I think I'm back on track to complete the goals I set for today, some of them I already have so here's how my third day is going:

I successfully completed my goal of 6666 words by the end of the morning completing the goal around quarter to nine. Which puts me more than a day ahead of schedule! This makes me very happy.

My second goal is in the works, with lunchtime a mere minutes away I'm 791 words from my goal of 8500 or more, this should be easy, but if I haven't posted this by the time I reach that point I'll write in an update.

UPDATE: I broke 8500 by one o'clock. I wonder if I can push to the 10,000 mark today? Is that too big of an ambition? My focus is back and in full swing. More than two days ahead of schedule now!

The third goal was to address the brewing conflict in my story, my main character is currently being made aware that something is up as I type here instead of there... Sorry Lacey McLean, I needed a break from your story! In doing this I inevitably brought in another character, a few more to go an I'll have all of my players in the field. My main character's best friend has finally made an appearance. The lies are flowing and the craziness should soon ensue, the ideas are really rolling now.

The party that was my last goal is in the works with invites out and supplies being collected. Hopefully by the end of the day I'll have reached at least the beginning of the bonfire party. It's going to be a big scene so I probably won't be able to finish it today, but such is life, there's always tomorrow.

UPDATE: I have successfully reached the bonfire scene. I feel the urge to jump into it but with the thought that I might not be able to finish it today I'm a little weary of doing so. 

Slowly but surely I'm noticing my story starting to gain some more bones. These characters are revealing a little bit more of their history with every passing chapter and as I only have vague ideas of where I wanted it to go I'm very happy with this.

Day four goals:

• break the day seven word goal of 11,666 (holy crap, that's more than 10,000 already!)
• semi-resolve the conflict between the two currently main male characters
• begin inner conflict with main character
• reach the start of the scene where the last 'big player' is introduced

I have set the bar lower for tomorrow as it's my day off and I know I'm probably not going to write much until the next day. I'm going to try and squeeze all of these goals in but it might not happen.

This day is nowhere near done, and I have extra writing time today, so here's to ending day three feeling like a champ and wishing it would last forever!

 I hope if you're participating you're doing good, you can do it!

Camp Nanowrimo: Day 02

I'm taking a break here part way through day two of this crazy month of writing. I'm not sure if I'll write more today, but I've found that I accomplished all of the things I set out to do in day two of Nanowrimo so I figured I might as well post.

Day Two Goals:

Goals for Day Two:

• Get to 1666 before the morning is over

• Get to 3333 by the afternoon

• Introduce at least one new character to the story

• Get a more solid idea of what is going to happen

Today I felt a lot more focused, the coffee that I never drink probably helped for the most part, not to mention the delicious lunch I ate. I may need to set the bar higher for tomorrow's goals though.

My first goal was to reach 1666 words by the end of the morning, because if you read my day one post, you would know that hey, I didn't complete my word count for yesterday (BOO!). Thankfully, it was a slow day today and I had plenty of down time at work to get some writing in. I had reached the goal of 1666 words before 9am. I was on a roll!

My second goal was to reach 3333 words, the day two goal for the month and I annihilated it with a smashing 6154 words, nearly doubling my word goal for the day. WOOHOO!!!

I also successfully introduced a new character to my story, his name is Draper Ryan, not that anyone really cares because you don't actually know what my story is about... but the introduction of this character added some clarity to my otherwise loosely planned story. I finally have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen which makes pantsing the actual details a little bit easier. 

I did say I was on a roll right? At 6:30pm, I have plenty of time to continue writing, but I think I might leave it for today and hopefully start tomorrow on a good note like today was. If I can keep this up I'll be stoked. But the wrimo in me laughs and says I'll hit a wall around 20,000 -30,000 again. This is why I get ahead when I can!

Goals for Day Three:

• Get to 6666 words before the morning is through
• Finish the day with more than 8500 words
• Address the brewing conflict head on
• Introduce another character
• Add a party... cause everyone likes parties.

Mood after day two of Nanowrimo:

If this is how every day is for the rest of the month, I can deal with it.

Camp Nanowrimo: Day 01

Well it's April second and if you like to write you probably already know that it's day two of April Camp Nanowrimo. I think I'm going to do periodic updates this month could be fun to come back and see what my attitude was and how it changes throughout the month.

So with day one behind us here's what I accomplished:


Well, actually I have mixed feelings about yesterday. I broke 1000 words but I didn't break the 1666 words to stay on track for the month. I just came back from a trip where I didn't have a computer for days so my focus went out the window. I got way too distracted by the internet in all of it's glory. Excuses. I could have probably pumped out another 500 words and I chose not to.

Not off to a good start.

I didn't get too far into my story, but already I know this month will be interesting if I can just keep with it. My characters have already decided to meet in a manner different than how I had originally planned. Which means that although my idea this camp was to do a mix of planning and pantsing it's looking like a lot more pantsing and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I'm not worried yet, but I think this month is going to be a lot more difficult than November where I had decided to get back into writing with a fanfiction. I hope I don't regret my decision to write an original piece.

Goals for Day Two:

• Get to 1666 before the morning is over
• Get to 3333 by the afternoon
• Introduce at least one new character to the story
• Get a more solid idea of what is going to happen

Mood after day one:

... well this could be problematic.

Bookstore Adventures! - Mini Haul 01

I finally got out of this boring place and visited beautiful British Columbia! Besides taking like a million pictures, it being my first time seeing the mountains and all, there were a few things on my list that weren't really trip related. Well, one thing: visit Chapters. You see, the city I currently call home only has a Coles and if you're from Canada you'll know the difference immediately, for anyone who doesn't let me explain. Coles, Chapters, Indigo are all the same company but Chapters and Indigo are their big stores, in some cities multiple floors of books in one place. Coles is like the sparks notes of Chapters, small, always found in malls and carry only really newer books but you can find a bit of everything there. They get picked over quick and the selection is limited of course if they don't have it though, they can order it for you. 

Chapters, Chapters has all kinds of books which means lots of books go on sale so naturally, I went straight to those. Coming away with five books, four of which were hard covers for a whopping $23.00 I felt pretty accomplished. 

Here's what I got:

 Top to Bottom:

The Secret of Raven Point by Jennifer Vanderbes

Which takes place during the war. A girl gets news that her brother has gone missing in the field believed to be dead. She lies about her age and gets herself sent over as a nurse all while secretly searching for the truth about her brother.

Born of Illusion by Teri Brown

Taking place in the 1920's our main character has the power to read the future. Desperate to keep it a secret from her mother a fake illusionist who would cash out on her powers she finds herself between a rock and a hard place when her visions show her mother in peril. 

Sounds similar to Libba Bray's Diviner's world.

The Red Queen Dies by Frankie Y. Bailey

Taking place in the near future of 2019 soldiers are administered a drug called lullabye to help them cope with post traumatic stress in fact it takes the memories away. So when a murder occurs and the star witness has taken one how do they solve the case? Apparently with clues from the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane

A widowed empty nester lives in a beach house on the outskirts of town growing older everyday she doesn't question when a woman shows up on her doorstep claiming to be a care worker. Later she realizes this may not be the case but she's already let the woman in and now she searches for answers. *I got this because it has a gorgeous cover. 

The Host by Stephenie Meyer 

I have always enjoyed this book, so when I saw it for a nice $6.99 I couldn't leave it. 

Aliens come to Earth and take humans as their hosts, but not expecting the emotions and the whirlwind of humanity it's only a matter of time before complications occur. 

Have you guys got any good deals on books lately? The non-sale price of my books here would have been well over $100.00 which is crazy to think about. Where do you guys find good book deals?