TFIOS, my sister's keeper and the Watersong series

My god, it has been FOREVER since i have written a post. I was going to today, but because it was going to be way to long, i decided to make another video post. These seem to be working for me. Expect more in the future (especially since i also just became a youtube Partner!!) I look forward to sharing more time together in the future!

Happy reading,

-Hillary-Erin

This is a public service announcement.

Hey Readers, so today was a super busy day for me, and as i always like to post on thursdays if i can, it needed to be done today. That, being said, i just did not have time to sit down and write so i sat down in front of my puter and talked. And then i uploaded. that was it. Hopefully you like this, i sure did! and i am actually looking forward to doing another one, just because i enjoyed my time so much. Anyways please enjoy this half assed non- edited video.

-Hillary-Erin

My thoughts on Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

Wshew!! i can not believe that i am finally getting this post done! life has been so hectic and chaotic recently that i just havnt had the time. honestly i finished the book on easter weekend, so im going to write what i can and just hope that everything is all still fresh in my mind!

SPOILER ALERT! harry potter is a wizard. Do not continue reading if you wish to read the novel Safe Haven and/or watch the movie!!

The Novel:
So katie, or should i call her Erin?? stumbles upon this small town, South Port, on her run from her psychotic husband. There she buys a shitty old cabin, and while fixing it up meets Alex (the guy in the store that sells her paint), and his children Josh and Kristen, as well as her next door neighbour Jo. To know more about the characters please read my character analysis in my previous post. Long story short the beginning was kind of slow, but sweet, but the secong half! oh. my. goodness!!! i could not put it down!! So her drunk of a husband drives all the way to southport from boston (talk about dangerous) during the independence day weekend! Seriously he consumed more than 4 bottles of vodka in a 36 hour time period! His liver must be well pickled at this point! anyways he shows up drunk as a skunk, tracks down katie,and realizes that she is with Alex. So naturally the only sane thing to do is destroy all of them right?? According to him it is!! so he pours gasoline and even more vodka all over Alex's Store (In which his house is on top of the store, where katie and the kids are currently sleeping!) and sets it on fire!!! Katie manages to get the children out and the run to her cabin in the woods, but Kevin follows!! Alex arrives (after picking somebody up from the airport) realizing that his home is on fire, and rushes to Katie's Cabin. Hammered Kevin hits Alex over the head with a crowbar leaving him to bleed to death and hold Katie and the children at gun point. Just before Kevin shoots Josh, Katie jumps in front of Kevin and tries to wrestle the gun out of his hands and Kevin ends up shooting himself in the face. In the end Alex is just fine,a getting a few stitches, and a bad concussion, the kids are traumatized, but Alex and Katie stay together and everybody is happy happy happy.
Oh yeah, and Jo? Turns out shes the ghost of Alex's late wife. weird right?! i know!!

Rating: 4 Channing Tatums out of 5.

4/                                     5

The Movie:

same plot line, although parts were different (Such as crazy Kevin printing out most wanted fliers with Katie on them accusing her of Murder 1, which actually seems legit, because hes not introduced as Kevin until almost half way through the movie) So yeah they did a great job of keeping Crazy Kevin Crazy, and Alex wonderfully handsome, and Katie well katie. The Movie was very much so a suspenseful thriller. Very not Nicholas Sparks! Which i quite enjoyed. The one thing i really did not like was that they renamed Alex's daughter Lexi instead of keeping it as Kristen. Why? Just why? its not like it effected the plot at all in any way. it just seemed so unnecessary. That being said this movie gets a rating of:

4 Adam Levines out of 5

















Also Stay tuned, because ive started a new book as well!! Its very well known and ive had it reccomnded to me by more than 3  people!! You guessed it! Coming soon A review of The Fault In Our Stars by John Green!! (Ive already read the first chapter and its SOOOOO GOOD!!)

A sigh of relief, and a character analysis!

"Im so upset i could blog about it!" 

My thoughts for today. Not only was i looking forward to reading my book, i also needed it for an assignment in class today, when i couldn't find it ANYWHERE!! I checked every room that i have been in the past 3 days and searched my brains out! I was actually starting to get worried that i dropped it in the middle of the halls or that somebody had lifted it off of me. However to think that somebody would steal a book of all things from somebody at the sturg was a long shot. Perhaps if i was looking for "my" pack of cigarettes that would be a completely different story! I did find my book though and had that wonderful sigh of relief! I had forgotten that i spent a night looking after my god daughter, and had left it in my over night bag from friday. Seriously thats how long its been since I've read! its actually really concerning. I had planned on doing the review for this one a week ago, but things have just been so hectic that i just haven't had the time to read my book. That being said I'm just over halfway through so it shouldn't be too terribly long until i can do this review. Until then i figured i would do a quick overview as to what i have already read! 

just a disclaimer (that i suppose i really should have added in her in my last post) Because this blog is about reading and will contain reviews on different books and Movies there will be SPOILERS ALL OVER THIS PAGE! if you're planning on reading the book or watching the movie at some point in your life then perhaps i would hold off on reading just yet. 

Ok now that, that tedious little bit is out of the way lets jump in with a little character introduction:

Alex- the male protagonist in our story here, is an older man "salt & pepper hair". He owns and manages the general store in their end of southport, and has two children. His late wife Carly, and mother of the two children passed away because of a brain tumour, and now Alex has been forced to be more responsible than ever looking after Josh (6) and Kirsten (5) A former detective with the marines, he is very good at reading into the actions and behaviours of many of the other characters, and uses this skill when he meets Katie. Alex is a very genuine person and its easy to see why katie feels so safe and comfortable around him.

Katie- Our female protagonist and main character in the story. Katie is very complex and is quite hard to write about, because she really is two different characters. Katie is the strong, green eyed brunette, woman who was able to escape from her violent husband in Boston. Although Katie is still very apprehensive about Alex and living in south port, she is and independent woman now and is trying to teach herself that it is ok to be happy, and that it is ok to have nice things in life that you can enjoy. Erin is the other side of "Katie" that we see when she is with her husband Kevin. Erin is extremely submissive,  timid and to a certain extent mousy. She grew up with her parents alcoholism and is now living with her husband who also has sever alcoholism and is a violent and abusive man. 

Kevin- Our antagonist and honestly the most well written character in the novel in my opinion. I should probably just say that i dont feel like hes well written because i agree with his actions or dialogue for that matter but rather i disagree with every single passage he is written into. He just comes off as exactly what he is. A ruthless, violent, drunk, corrupt, cop. I cant help but feel so strongly for this character, but not in the good way. I actually have nothing good to say about him. The nicest thing i could come up with is that he is a complete and total scum bag. So far we know that he would do anything to control Erin, including locking her in the house, stopping by and calling at random to make sure that she has not gone out, which would be impossible considering he would not let her have a drivers license. We know he beats her black and blue if she cuts the tomatoes for the salad incorrectly, holds her at gunpoint when she stands up for herself and lets not forget the countless number of times he has raped her. This guy is that fucking ass thats really not worth anybody's time and oh yeah! he's a high ranking captain with the Boston PD. And is currently trying to track katie down to kill her. what a hero.

Jo- Is Katie's neighbour and a counsellor. occasionally she walks over and they share a glass of wine and Katie tells her story's about her life with Kevin. Really her character is a filler, but i can't help relating with her, just because our personalities are so similar. I feel like she really is the most interesting character in the book! 

Thats the four main characters in the novel, i think im done now. my head is starting to hurt, (i had two tests today and i think its getting the best of me) however i am SO HAPPY that i found my book!! 

stay tuned for the rest of the review!!! 

-Hillary-Erin 

"Im so excited, i think i'll blog about it!"

Just a Small Announcement:

So i know i have not written in quite sometime and i apologize for that. The truth of the matter is that i started this blog as a way for me to pass the time in my dorm room throughout my first year of University. It Started out as a great idea but as things got more and more busy i had less and less time to actually sit down and write something, and i had started lose inspiration and things to write about. So here is my Announcement: This blog has now been reborn and has taken a turn in the totally opposite direction. Don't get me wrong i still have Burtram my Beta fish and he is doing awesome, but i have recently been very inspired to try this new idea i have had for quite sometime. 

So i Suppose i should start off with  aNew introduction to myself, as i have changed significantly since my last post. First of all i've grown yet another year older and now being 20 a lot of things have changed. My Name is still Hillary, I'm still Canadian (but no i do not say oot and aboot or Eh.), i am still a sister and ' still a music lover! What has changed is my field of studies. To this day i don't think i've really been honest about why i stopped studying music and moved into healthcare, the reason being I'm not totally sure i know myself why. Being a nurse just seemed right. As much as i loved singing and doing my music, i never really felt like that was my dream. I can still remember when my parents would always ask me what i wanted to be when i grew up i would always answer with "a Nurse." Its always been my dream, and i can't even begin to describe how happy i am doing what i do. 

So because of the 3+ years to actually get into a nursing program, i decided to get my healthcare aide diploma first. that way i could get myself into the workplace, get some experience, and if i hated it i would have spent far less time and money on it. Now i've graduated, i am fully certified, but jobless. There are just no jobs out there to be had, so i made the decision to go back to high school. To keep my skills up to date, and also because a lot of the curriculum has changed since my graduation in 2011, and majority of those courses are required to get into a nursing program. Currently i am taking a grade 12 Biology, math and English. Now, i have previously had both my Bio and Math teachers in my grade 12 year, but i had never met my current english teacher (Even after hearing of her for four consecutive years) I had heard many things about her, both good and bad. Rumour had it that she was one of those teacher that you absolutely loved or hated. 

She is so different from any other english teacher i've had. EVER. Taking higher level english the emphasis was always on how to write an essay, and the novel studies were always on some dry ancient "Classic" like Wuthering Heights. God, even the title makes me cringe. Mrs Smith (not her real name), however puts a lot of emphasis on reading. I have written only one assignment so far and all of our novel studies are on the books we pick out ourselves! For example every friday we get all class to just read a novel and when we return on monday we spend the class writing and responding to what we read. The first assignment we were required to do was not the usual "write a paragraph about yourself" assignment, but rather tell me your three favourite books and why and why you like to read. I Hillary-Erin for the first time EVER, L O V E my english class! 

Mrs. Smith has this philosophy that life is too short to read a shitty book so why waste time doing so? so that is exactly what i am not going to do! She has gotten me BACK into my love for reading, and man am i so thankful for that! I almost thought i was starting to lose myself for a bit. 

Anyways enough of my ramblings, This new blog: Dog-eared Corners is going to be devoted to my current reading. And will feature a book review every time i finish a novel (I want to say once a month, but some books are longer than others), as well as a review of the corresponding movies if one exits. I hope nobody is expecting any Jane Austen, or any of the Bronte sisters on here because it just is not going to happen. i have absolutely no interest in reading that nonsense. So i will be reading relatable new"er" aged works. Starting with Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven. 

I know right: oh god why? well although i find a lot of his works very predictable and cookie cutter (i.e. the rescue, Dear John) a lot of them are beautiful and keep you on your toes at all times (ex. The Lucky One). And i also have this weird thing on my bucket list to own and read every sparks novel. (Im almost halfway there, YAY!) 

ok this is officially way to long! Until next time:

-Hillary-Erin

stay tuned page turners

COMING SOON: 

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

a review by Hillary.

RIP Claus

it is with Deepest regrets that i need to inform you that Claus has suddenly passed away. Claus had many health problems and struggles in life. He suffered a stroke paralyzing half of his body. Thus leaving him only able to swim in circles. His inability to swim to his food caused him to parish due to starvation. This is a tragic loss to his family and ours. He will always be remembered as a great fish.

Claus October 2011- December 2011

p.s. i have already attained a new Fish. His name is Burtram.... he's Awesome.

its a Pittance of time

   Lets discuss an important matter, that i find to be very important to me. As it is november remembrance day is quickly approaching. This is a day honoured in canada, as a day when we take the time to remember all of the soldiers who fought in the war.

   Recently there has been a fascination with 11:11: 11, 11:11. November 11, 2011, 11:11:11 AM. The specific pittance of time that we have set aside to honour those fallen, or those who have fought for our freedom. But instead many have become caught up with the ida of "make a wish day" WTF! I apologize for getting so worked up about this but its true. As a person with a very close friend of mine in the Canadian military i find it extremely disrespectful that we would use a day like remembrance day to "make a wish". I find this almost as disrespectful as some find Justin Beiber's new hit "Mistletoe" Sac-religious. Im not as offended as i am confused as to some priorities. To me it seems more important to be grateful for our freedom rather than making a wish. Wishing in itself is Sac-religous. Here we are saying "I wish, i wish, i wish." idolizing some kind of higher power asking for things for ourselves when we could just as easily be saying "Heavenly father, Holy Lord, dear Jesus" for things that we can help others with. So no. i will not attend your Facebook event. i will not "hashtag on twitter" and i will most defiantly will not pause my day for such a meaningless moment. Instead,  Lets make a deal to throw our wishes away for that 60 seconds of november 11, and instead pay our respects for those who deserve it.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

-LCol John McCrae

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5_YZbhtl0