Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? | Mindy Kaling

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It's funny.

This is really funny.

Like I said before in my Yes Please by Amy Poehler review, this is not a memoir or 'how to' on being funny. I lied on my Yes Please review when I said that it was my first memoir because technically this is my first but I didn't finish it and I finished Yes Please before this one. 

The only reason I put this book down for like 4 MONTHS(!!??!?!?) was because I got bored... Mindy actually mentions right in the beginning of her book that, and I quote "If you're reading this book every night for months, something is not right." BUT MINDY IT'S NOT YOU OR THE BOOK, it' me being an annoying croissant and unable to commit to reading adult books. Condolences. 

Another thing I would like to mention before I actually get into this is that I took the top picture of the book last year and it is super saturated because I was in the phase where I thought saturating everything looked wonderful, when it really didn't!

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is an Humour, Memoir written by Mindy Kaling. Mindy give us a journey of her life and how she grew up and writes about her family, friends, boys, growing up and tops it all off with fantastic humour. This is an adult book and maybe that is why I wasn't 'hooked' (not that this is a story book with a plot) but also because I am not yet an adult that has to do adult things, I mention this exact issue in my Yes Please by Amy Poehler review as well.

Did I enjoy this more that Amy Poehler's book? I mean I think it's only right if I compare the memoirs.. not the people. !!! Don't compare Mindy to Amy. You might as well just be saying 'Parks and Recreation or The Mindy Project' which is stupid because both shows are hilarious! I gave both books 3/5 stars.

The writing was easy to follow and read, she threw in a few jokes here and there that got me giggling. I feel as though Mindy brought us more into her early life and her life overall whereas Amy passed through her early life quite fast and had a really long pit stop at the beginning of her career, improve acting, SNL and basically her acting debut, however Amy did give more 'life advice' whereas Mindy not so much. Both books had pictures however if you go look at my Yes Please by Amy Poehler review (I will stop saying this now) you will see that her book it slightly lengthier and filled with colour, whereas Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me is written like a normal book with printed pictures that are black and white. Not to mention Yes Please is quite heavy for a book and this one weighed what you'd expect it to, like a normal novel. 

The storyline or in this case the timeline of the book is mostly Mindy and her life, she starts from the childhood and she addressing many different things but not much of The Mindy Project and not a lot of the book is dedicated to her career and how she 'made it' (if you will). Which is the complete opposite to Yes Please by Amy Poehler, this is because Amy spends more of her book (that has 300+ pages whereas this has 200+ pages) addressing her career and what she did and how she 'made it' and like I said a few times already you can go read all about that in that review here.

You also might know Mindy as Kelly Kapoor on The Office (another national treasure) but I'm more familiar with Mindy from her own produced show called The Mindy Project. Now, lets talk 'The Mindy Project', if you don't already watch this show. What are you doing? Like, what are you doing? It is one of my favourite shows alongside: Friends, Parks and Rec, Greys Anatomy, L&O SVU and Orange Is The New Black.

Mindy is a very lovely person and it was very heartwarming to read all she had to say about her close friends, work acquaintances, her family and her career. I think the most I laughed was at a page, quite close to the beginning where she titles it 'Alternate Titles for This Book' and let me just say some of the ones she mentions are so funny I almost died. Mindy also has a second book coming out this year in September called Why Not Me? . I hopefully will read that as well when it comes out because this was a nice read to be frank. It was heartwarming and delightful. 

I would give this as a lovely present for my mum or my aunts because I'm sure they would like it and if you ever need to give someone a preset (last minute or not) this is a really good one! This is really good to give around the holidays or birthdays as it's a good size read and people will really appreciate it. 

I would highly recommend reading this if you're contemplating, because it is good. Another thing I would like to say is that both memoirs (Yes Please and IEHOWM?) are more steered towards adults as both writers are adults looking back at their lives and both memoirs are written by Mindy and Amy who are adults; it has more of an adult feel to the book. Nevertheless it was lovely reading this! 

p.s

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The Winner's Curse #1 | Marie Rutkoski

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3.5/4

Wow.

This is book is.......different (odd?) I feel like my mind could change tomorrow on what I thought on this book which is never a good thing. I don't know whether I should sleep on it and come back to this review. 

(Update: I slept on it and I still feel the same.) 

The Winner's Curse if the first book in a Young Adult, Fantasy trilogy; so far only this book (#1) and the second are out, the third currently has a set date for March the 1st 2016. This is labelled as a fantasy but it's more of a ROMANCE fantasy. I say this because when I think of fantasy I think of Throne Of Glass and The Girl of Fire and Thorns and this is nothing like that, it is more focused surrounded by a romance. 

Lady Kestrel's engagement to Valoria's crown prince calls for great celebration: balls and performances, fireworks and revelry. But to Kestrel it means a cage of her own making. Embedded in the imperial court as a spy, she lives and breathes deceit and cannot confide in the one person she really longs to trust.

While Arin fights to keep his country's freedom from the hands of his enemy, he suspects that Kestrel knows more than she shows. As Kestrel comes closer to uncovering a shocking secret, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. This is the goodreads synopsis. 

Okay, I did not think I would read this in a day and I knew once I started this that by the end of it I would have mixed feelings about what to rate it. My prophecy is true. I literally have no bloody idea! Did I enjoy it? Did I not? In the end I'm going to give this a 4 star rating however it fluctuates between 3.5 and 4. 

The plot was interesting. It intrigued me enough to be hooked so that I didn't put this book down, not until I realised I hadn't had lunch or dinner. The beginning of the book (1/3) was quite slow but not achingly slow that I got bored and put it down; the book starts to pick up in the second third of this book and towards the end. The plot twist in this book kept me on my toes to be honest. Frankly I'm not sure if the reason I read this book really fast was because I was in the mood for a straight up romance book that I knew I could speed through as those books are my fav types of books to read once in a while, or because the book was actually written really well. I still don't know. I've actually read a few other reviews on this and a recurring theme is the uncertainty of what to rate this book and what to make of it. One thing I know for sure is that I will be going into the sequel a little worried. I hope it's good. The idea of this book is genius and the follow through with the writing is also worthy of an applause. 

I just want to properly clarify that this book isn't built on a romance like the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi but I will not consider this a fantasy fantasy book worthy to be labelled and sorted into such books as the Throne of Glass series, A Song of Ice and Fire series (The first book A Game of Thrones is EPIC FANTASY and just beyond me AMAZING!), City of Bones series and The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy. Also I hope I don't come across as if I sped through this and didn't enjoy it at all because I really did like the book, it was a quick and much needed pick me up read to get me into the mood to read more books. With that being said, this isn't much of a memorable book for me; I can see myself later on in this year not remembering much of this book at all. I'm crossing my fingers that the second book in this trilogy The Winner's Crime is breathtakingly amazing. I've read some really good reviews on that book, so I'M EXCITED! 

The characters were not fully developed to my liking. I feel like there could have been more, for example a better back story but it didn't take away from the plot that they weren't fully delved into. I say this because the moment you start this book there is no leading up; the first thing you read is the purchase of Arin - the slave, so we don't get much of Kestrels life before him or how she lives and her family/friends. That also aids my point that this is mostly a romance fantasy. We follow mostly two point of views as two of the main characters in this series. Arin and Kestrel. We follow in third person which helps as there is limited bias views with a third person perspective.

The female protagonist in this book is a very strong woman. Which I'm all about! Having well represented heroines in novels is what I live for, however she could be written better and I hate this main character. Hate is quite strong more like I heavily dislike and maybe I'm cheating here but I've been writing this review for a day now and I've already started the second book in this series (which I do plan of reviewing here as well) and I've started to tolerate (slowly) this main character. The thing is, I just don't like the way she has been crafted. She isn't a super loveable character, maybe it's just me. 

The writing is alright and I didn't mind it too much however at some parts I found it quite irksome but other than that I think it's easy to follow, not poetic or lovey-dovey but alright. I enjoyed the book so I guess her writing style is easy to follow as well as it being fast and fluid to read. I have never read anything by Marie Rutkoski and I don't know if this trilogy is her first to be professionally published or if she has other books out. 

I want to also address my point of this being a 'romance fantasy' because I'm not saying I don't read fantasy books without romance, for example, Throne of Glass, Game of Thrones and The Girl of Fire and Thorns all have romantic aspects to the book but they are also very well developed and structured alongside beautifully crafted world building and characters. This was not as good as those, but it is worth reading because it is enjoyable and keeps you on your toes. 

I would also like to mention that I own the paperback copy which IS NOT AS NEARLY AS PRETTY AS THE HARDBACK and this also goes for the second book in hardcover, they are both such gorgeous books. If you have these in hardcover, I envy you! 

This is not something hardcore fantasy fans want to be reading unless you're looking for a romance-y fantasy book then this is perfect but other then that not so much. The world building is alright, so is the writing and the characters but it's a bit iffy for me. I have the second book so I am going to read that and probably review that as well. I did enjoy this, as I finished it in practically a day but it's a really debatable book in my opinion. There will be people who despise it and others who adore. I think it depends on the mood you're in whilst reading and depending on what you want to read at the time. When I first started reading the book and I was around 100ish pages in, I remember thinking and tweeting that I felt as though this book was going very slow for minimal world building. 

All in all it's a solid book worthy of 3-4 stars. I hope I don't come off as if this was a pain to read because I read this really fast and I was delighted. 

Also, I am very excited because I had my last exam today and now I'm off for summer (!!!) and I will have much more time to read more and write reviews which is wonderful considering I plan on reading lots over summer. 

p.s

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Amy & Roger's Epic Detour | Morgan Matson

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NOW I JUST WANNA GO ON A ROAD-TRIP!

I always do this thing where I read books that are PERFECT for the summer time and for when I go on holiday yet I read it literally the month/few weeks before summer begins. This is one of those moments. I'm so mad about that but so glad I read this. 

Also before I go into this review, my lenient and wonderful friend Tess (who I mention in many reviews/blog posts: here, here, here and here) lent me this book, so I just want to take this part of the review to thank her (Tess I love you), you can follow her on tumblr here. (She hasn't actually even read this book yet so when I give this back to her I will whack her in the head with it!) 

This is a Young Adult, Contemporary, it is also a standalone. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour follows Amy Curry who is not looking forward to her summer. Her mother decided to move across the country and now it's Amy's responsibility to get their car from California to Connecticut. The only problem is, since her father died in a car accident, she isn't ready to get behind the wheel. Enter Roger. An old family friend, he also has to make the cross-country trip - and has plenty of baggage of his own. The road home may be unfamiliar - especially with their friendship venturing into uncharted territory - but together, Amy and Roger will figure out how to map their way. This is the synopsis on goodreads. 

I hope none of you find this cliche. I didn't. I give props to whoever wrote the blurb cause it got my attention and I had never read a road-trip book before and let me tell you, this being my first is going to be hard for any other books to top this. As well as this being my first ever road-trip book, it is also my first standalone in a very long time (my first one this year I believe). This is definitely a favourite and possible my favourite book I've read this year so far! 

Contemporaries are supposed to be realistic and that is one of the reasons most people read them in the summer when they have a couple months off to do nothing and have more free time to read, however me being a total nut decided to read this before my summer holidays meaning I'm one contemporary down from my summer tbr. Tragic. 

The google definition of a Contemporary romance book is: a subgenre of romance novels, generally with the setting after World War II. The largest of the romance novel subgenres, contemporary romance novels are set in the time when they were written, and usually reflect the mores of their time.

This in a way means that in our 'time'/'era' would be modern and realistic to our daily lives. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour is super realistic. I used to be iffy about contemporaries because I thought most of the 'romance' is forced and unnecessary at times. In a way I think the romance in this was forced almost as if Ms Matson was like "Oh, the book is about to end, lets make them kiss now." Although that is very debatable. I slept on this thought and the next morning I realised you could take it both ways. What I'm trying to say is that the romance part of this book can be realistic. Don't get me wrong, it didn't lessen my love for the book I just thought it was abrupt but then later realised it was realistic for the book to steer in this direction. If you don't agree I can see why but the rest of the book was so realistic, like the whole road-trip. 

The main character Amy was interesting. I really loved her only because she was relatable and made me laugh (out loud!). Another thing is that the way she acted towards the road-trip and Roger is probably the exact way I would react but she has more balls then me. We mainly follow Amy and Roger (as it's their road-trip and it would only make sense..) At the beginning I didn't like Amy at all but she grew on me just like the book did. I really like the way Roger was written and characterised, he was very loveable. Both of them were. Morgan Matson's writing is wonderful and humours. I don't have anything bad to say about her writing because I truly savoured this book. If anything I just wanted more, I wanted to follow through but the book ended and I felt like I had just lost a friend. 

There are so many thing I adored about this book; one of them are the playlists. Actually give me a second, I think I'm tearing up. The fact Morgan Matson decided to include playlists in each chapter/every time the main characters were heading to a new state was so thoughtful and really added to the book. You know that saying "someones music taste says a lot about the person" (I think I made that up) and I totally agree (with myself) cause it added to my perception of these characters. Also the songs are legit and most of them I hadn't heard before so I was (no joke) searching them all up and I just wanna thank Morgan Matson for getting me into some new tunes and adding to my never ending playlists. 

Not only that but Morgan Matson added scrapbook pages of Amy doodling her trip and receipts from diners and motels they stayed in. Throughout reading the book I was questioning whether Ms Matson actually went on a road-trip to write this and SHE DID! Which is a whole new level of dedication but she had a wonderful time! Not to forget that the book was amazing! I really enjoyed it. 

I just feel like the experience of reading this book and following the journey is a story in itself. Now I just feel like reading more road-trip books (any recommendations?) and going on a road-trip. 

Who wants to go on a road-trip with me? 

p.s

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