Figmentator Naja

    As you might know, I am a member of a website called figment.com, where you can read free short stories, poems, etc. written by other members. I have a list of stories from there I like somewhere on my blog, but I would like to feature a really good writer: Piper Simmons. As far as I know, she's only written a few things. Click here to access her works.
  
     I am also going to recognize another talented writer on Figment, Liesel Bobbysocks. This is an interesting name, no? The "Liesel" part, I know she got from The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak. The origin of her chosen surname, I have no clue. Anyway, Liesel writes poems, mainly about her homosexuality and suicide. I haven't spoken to her in a very long time, and I am not sure of her whereabouts: I don't know if she killed herself or if she just doesn't get on Figment anymore. On this day, December 8, she emailed me and told me that if I didn't hear back from her by 8:00 P.M., could I please give one of her friends (another Figment user), a note. Now, I'm not going to post it on the internet, because that's just not a very smart thing to do, but I hope you will not be surprised when I tell you it was a suicide note.
     I never had to send it because she did in fact email me back after I sent her a reply to the email she sent me with the suicide note. But it has been a year now, and I have emailed her, and I have tried to contact her, but she has not answered. And as I'm writing this, it's 10:50. So I sent the note to Liesel's friend, whom we'll refer to as A.S.M Michellins. I just hope she isn't dead. Click here to access her works.
    

On the Subject of Paper Towns.

I finished Paper Towns by John Green. I plan on re-reading it- I don't want to provide a review on it yet because I don't really get it much. I actually found it quite dull.

What I Plan To Read Next.

So as you've probably already guessed, I'm a little bit obsessed with John Green. So far, I've read almost all of the books he's written alone. These are the ones I haven't read yet:

1. Paper Towns.

2. Will Grayson, Will Grayson (With David Levithan. Also debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list for children’s chapter books, the first book starring gay characters ever to appear on the list.)

An Abundance of Katherines.

NOTE: I will NOT be including a link in the cover photo, because I don't advise anyone to read it. But whoever won the cover design contest, they did a hell of a good job.
NOTE: I did not really like this book. maybe it was all the math, maybe it was because it was boring, I don't know, but I didn't like it. So, instead of taking the time to actually write a maybe-halfway-decent-review, I will simply post the one from Wikipedia. There, I don't think that it's plagiarism now.

_________________________

Colin Singleton is an anagram-loving seventeen year old boy who has become depressed because though he has maintained his status of a child prodigy, he has not yet become a “genius.” He wishes to accomplish this goal by having a Eureka moment. As well as not being the genius he hopes to be, his girlfriend, Katherine 19 (over the span of his life, Colin has dated nineteen girls named Katherine, all spelled in that manner), recently dumped him. In these relationships, Colin remembers only the Katherine dumping him.
After graduating from high school, and before college, Colin's best and only friend convinces him to go on a road trip with him to take his mind off the breakup. The friend is Hassan Harbish, a funny, lazy, Judge Judy-obsessed Muslim. After driving for a while, they come across the alleged resting place of the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There, they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, a “paramedic in training.” She is the tour guide for those seeing the tomb of the Archduke. After a short time, Colin and Hassan find themselves employed by Hollis, Lindsey’s mother and the woman running a local factory that currently produces tampon strings. They live with their employer and her daughter in a rural town called Gutshot, Tennessee.
As time passes, Colin finds himself becoming attracted to Lindsey, though matters are somewhat complicated by her on-again, off-again boyfriend Colin (he and Hassan call him TOC, "the other Colin"). Our Colin, the prodigy, attempts to become a genius by having his Eureka moment. He chases this goal through his theorem, which is meant to determine the curve of any relationship based on several factors of the personalities of the two people in a relationship. It would predict the future of any two people. His theorem eventually works for all but one of his past relationships with a Katherine. But it is later discovered by Colin that he had dumped this Katherine (Katherine the Third), rather than the other way around. The graphs all make perfect sense at this juncture.
As Colin’s story is revealed to the reader, we find that K-19 was also the first of the Katherines, “Katherine the Great.” While the backstories of Colin’s life play out, Hassan gets a girlfriend, Katrina, a friend of Lindsey’s. The relationship is cut short when Colin and Hassan find her having sex with TOC in the graveyard where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s corpse is. A fight between TOC and all of the surrounding acquaintances begins when Lindsey finds out that he’s been cheating on her. While recovering from a kick to the groin, Colin anagrams the Archduke's name to dull the pain, and discovers that it is actually Lindsey's great-grandfather, named Fred N. Dinzanfar, that is buried in the tomb.
Colin finds Lindsey at her secret hideout in a cave that she had shown him previously, where he tells her the story of every Katherine he ever loved. Lindsey tells him that she feels so self-centered, claiming that she does not feel sad but instead slightly relieved by TOC's affair. They then confess their love for each other. But when Colin applies the Theorem to him and Lindsey, it calculates that she will dump him in four days. Lindsey then slips a note under his door, four days later, stating that she cannot be his girlfriend because she is in love with Hassan. But she leaves a P.S. stating that she is joking. Colin realizes that his theorem cannot predict the future of a relationship. It can only shed light on why a relationship failed. Despite this, Colin is content not “mattering”. Hassan also states that he is applying for two college classes, which Colin has been trying to convince him to do throughout the book. The story ends with the trio driving to a nearby Wendy's, with Lindsey saying they could just "keep going and not stop." Colin takes her advice, as a transcendental and ecstatic feeling of "connection" with Lindsey, Hassan, and everyone not in the car surges through him. He has finally found peace and happiness via connection with other people, rather than from the pursuit of distinguishing himself from everyone, feeling "non-unique in the very best way possible."

Looking For Alaska Review.

     I am going to start by saying that, 1) I think I might start reviewing again and 2) I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE John Green. Now, The Fault In Our Stars is usually all I need (I didn't want to push my luck with the whole perfect-book thing. Because An Abundance of Katherines? Well... WHOLE 'nother story), but I'd heard tons of great reviews, so I decided to try it.
       Looking for Alaska is, in a nutshell, what one would probably call a 'coming-of-age' story. But I don't really like that term. So I'll call it  'grows-on-you-and-with-you' story. Anyway, the book doesn't really have chapters; each "chapter" is labeled as " _____ Days Before." Like, the first "chapter" is "one hundred thirty-six days before." Then, in what I guess is supposed to be Part Two, instead of counting down to the crazy, kickass, absolutely MIND BLOWING event that I will not disclose, it goes on from the days after the crazy, kickass, absolutely MIND BLOWING event that I will not disclose.
     The book follows a boy named Miles Halter, whom everyone calls "Pudge." He is obsessed with famous last words and, until he goes to boarding school, he has no friends. Upon enrolling at Culver Creek Boarding School, he meets Chip Martin, whom everyone calls "The Colonel," Alaska Young, whom everyone calls "Alaska," Takumi, and Lara, who becomes his girlfriend in the later books. Pudge and his friends get into crazy antics that involve setting the Dean of Student's ass on fire, smoking in the woods, and "Climbing up Strawberry Hill," referring to the brand of cheap pink wine they drink throughout the story. Like I said, the book is basically split up into two parts, and if you don't like sad books, I would advise that you do not read past page 133. That is all I will say.
     Looking for Alaska made me cry. And not just that, "And a single tear trickled down my cheek." I mean some all-out sobbing was going on. And it has been hard to make me cry about books and movies since I saw E.T.  the second time, and cried my eyes out for the second. Time.
     In conclusion, I would give this book an A plus, but this is the type of novel that can go either way, depending on if you like this kind of plot; you know, the sad, dramatic, romatic type stuff that chicks like me enjoy.

Mobile Version?

It's eleven o'clock at night and I'm writing this from my iPod.... Wow, 111 page views. I'm so proud.

The Fault in Our Stars Video Review!

I really liked the written one better, but I tried my best, so...