TILT: Book Posters: Little Monsters Edition

I've been saving a few of these prints for a while now, since I took my (unintended) break. But now I'm back, with a shiny new Things I Love Thursday, little girls & monsters edition! Kind of sounds like Lady Gaga right? :)

(as always, if you are the owner of one of these lovely pics 

& do not want your art referenced, please contact me!)

Books Can Take You Anywhere by TheLittleFox --such a pretty little print, don't you think? Click on the link for the full pic, she looks like she's floating away to adventureland.

I <3 Books by Fishcakesoboy --from the description "Educated narwhals love a good novel, doncha know." Lol...love it!

Reading Aloud to a Monster by GenevieveSantos --do you think they're reading Where the Wild Things Are? I love how "life-like" the monster looks. I would name him George. Or Pablo.

Little Lady Godiva by TheArtfulBumblebee --she may be Lady Godiva, but she looks like Pippi Longstocking to me and I love it!! Maybe it's Pippi playing Lady? 

Review: "Saga Vol 1"

Saga: Vol 1 by Brian K Vaughan
4 out of 5 stars

Brian K Vaughan is another one of my favorite graphic novelists. (After Terry Moore and Neil Gaiman, of course.) He has done 2 of my favorite series: Y: The Last Man and Runaways, so when my dad said I needed to read Saga, I agreed readily. He left one important point out though when telling me about it and I'm not going to be mean like him, so I'll tell you right now: Volume 1 ends on a cliffhanger and Volume 2 is not due out until July. He claims he didn't know before he read it...sure. ;) So that said, I would highly recommend this series, but you might want to wait until you can at least have 2 volumes to read.

Many reviewers call this "Romeo & Juliet meet Star Wars" and I'd have to agree with them. The beginning of the story is set up as two star-crossed lovers trying to be together for the sake of their unborn child, but then it's revealed that they are from different worlds. Literally. And those two worlds just happen to be at war with each other. And the two lovers? Soldiers for their individual homes. So yeah, it gets complicated real fast. Not to mention all the supernatural beings: the main male, Marko, has ram horns; the main female, Alana, fairy wings; there's a bounty hunter with a giant cat who can detect lies; dudes with TV's for heads (I'm not sure what their deal is yet); ghost kids; and lots more.

In case you can't tell from the cover, this is not a graphic novel for kids or young teens. The first page is Alana giving birth, graphically. It's got a lot of sex (a sex planet for example) and violence, so if that's going to offend you, I'd skip this one for sure. Besides that, this is a great story with lots of twists and turns. The artwork is really great, too detailed in some spots, but that can't really be considered a complaint, can it? I honestly can't wait for the next volume to come out. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I Most Recommend

It feels good to be doing a Top Ten Tuesday again...I have obviously been in a blogging slump lately, but I feel like I'm moving out of it now. Hopefully. I think. Writing yesterday's review at the library over the weekend was lots of fun (except for the creeper who sat down at my table) and I'm beginning to feel that urge to write ALL THE REVIEWS!! :) Because, uh, I haven't stopped reading in this slump and I now have a huuuuge list of books to review. Heh. Anyway, on to the Top10! These are 10 books that I would absolutely recommend to almost anyone.

1. Harry Potter. I know, I'm so predictable. But seriously, I would recommend it to kids, adults, readers, non-readers, wizards, muggles, anyone.

(want more HP funs? check out my pinterest board!)

2. Anne of Green Gables --definitely the first one, if nothing else. Young girls with big imaginations will love this one.

3. The Thing About Jane Spring --I recommend this one all the time. It's a little-known book but is super cute and I think it would make a great movie. Jane is a no-nonsense lawyer who doesn't understand why she can't "get" a man. After a Doris Day movie marathon, she decides to do a complete overhaul of her life and it goes from there. This book is part of the reason I'm so excited to read Going Vintage, because they sound very similar.

4. Cannery Row --if you're going to read Steinbeck, skip Of Mice and Men and The Pearl...read this one instead. There's no puppies or women getting accidentally killed, no babies getting stung by scorpions, no one shooting their best friends in the back of the head for their own good. You still get the good part of Steinbeck with all the descriptions and feelings but none of the bad Steinbeck.

5. Anna & The French Kiss --one of the best contemporary, young adult, romances around right now. If you haven't read it, here's my non-spoilery review. (And have you been living under an Internet-less rock??) And if you have read it, how about checking out my favorite bits? :)

6. To Kill a Mockingbird --everyone should have/want to read this book. It's still one of the most important and relevant stories young people should hear.

7. The Book Thief --along the same lines as TKAM, this book has such an incredible message. The BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words...She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.

8. The Baby-Sitters Club or Sweet Valley or any books you read as a young child/early teen. :) There's such comfort in knowing a book or series by heart and knowing it will always be there for you. Another one for me would be The Hunky-Dory Dairy. Or maybe Christopher Pike, with his teenage sex and murder books and cheesy, neon, 80s-tastic covers lol.

9. Morganville Vampires --this is one of my favorite supernatural series. Vampires? In Texas? Yes, please! :) And I just realized I am 3 books behind yikes! 

10.Strangers in Paradise --This is truly my favorite graphic novel series and you are missing out if you haven't read it. Terry Moore has a knack for getting into your heart and twisting it all up. He is a master storyteller of relationships, love, hate, women, revenge, deceit, and so much more. Katchoo and Francine will be some of your most loved characters after this. I highly, highly recommend this one and encourage you to take advantage of the new omnibus set he is releasing in July. You can preorder it on his site and if I had an extra $100, I would order it in a heartbeat. 

Review: "Twelfth Night" Classic a Month #3.2013

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
3 out of 5 stars

This is another classic that I was kind of iffy about. I picked it because of Just One Day (and the movie She's the Man, but sshh, let's ignore that!) and I wanted to branch out and try a play again. Well, let me just say this first: Shakespeare is hard to read. The dude likes to make up his own words and phrases and sometimes they work... "If music be the food of love, play on, 
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die."

And sometimes...they don't. "Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. So, not only do you have to deal with his made-up words, but you also have to read the old English style and figure out if he is actually being dirty when he says "I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off." Yeah, I'm pretty sure he is lol. Pervert. Luckily, I knew the basic story so it wasn't too hard. But I totally get why kids complain so much about reading Shakespeare. This play is meant to be one of his great comedies and yeah, I giggled a little, but I don't think you can just read a Shakespeare play thru once and expect to get it. I think you really need to immerse yourself, reading it several times, watching plays or adaptations, etc...

So what is this play actually about? Well, I guess it's about love but also about trickery and deceit. Viola is a young woman who has just lost her brother in a shipwreck (but not really, he's alive and thinks he lost HER) and decides to dress up as a man to work for this Duke Orsino guy. Why, I have no idea. Orsino is in love with this chick Olivia, who also lost her brother to a shipwreck, but she wants nothing to do with him. Orsino sends Viola (as a man) to try and get on Olivia's good side in his favor. Olivia starts to fall in love with Viola as a man, Viola as a woman starts to fall in love with Orsino, and it's all just super confusing. Then Viola's brother, Sebastian, shows up and somehow ends up married to Olivia, and everything blows up in the end. But, somehow, everyone is happy.

Then there's this annoying dude, Malvolio, that works for Olivia. Olivia's maid and other people in waiting decide to play a trick on Malvolio and make him think Olivia is in love with him. They make him wear these hideous yellow stockings and smile like a lunatic all the time around her and she eventually has him committed, because she has no idea what is going on and thinks he's become unhinged. He is, obviously, super pissed, and vows revenge on everyone. And that's how the play ends. Weird right?

There's also this odd part between the clown/fool and a Sir Toby where they are singing and it seriously reminded me of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I don't know why, but the wording and writing style was so similar, I actually looked it up to see if Freddie Prince was influenced by Shakespeare. (He wasn't.) Check it out:

Sir Toby: (singing) Shall I bid him go?
Clown: What an if you do?
Sir Toby: Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
Clown: O, no, no, no, you dare not.

I'm not crazy right? That totally sounds similar? And let's end on a great quote that I was totally unaware originated with Shakespeare: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."