The Magician's by Lev Grossman

Spoiler-free 

Some have described this book as a "Harry Potter for grown-ups" or "Hogwarts with sex and drugs" but I highly disagree. This book isn't about love and friendship with heros overcoming obstacles. This is a dark novel that leaves you feeling as numb as the main character. Quentin Coldwater is just your average highschooler with an above 4.0 gpa. He has two good friends and pines for his best friends girl. He feels miserable all the time so he escapes by doing magic card tricks and reading Fillory children's novels. Everything seems excruciatingly normal as he goes on an interview for Princeton until his life is turned upside down. Suddenly Quentin finds himself at Brakebills- a college for magicians. He finds out that magic is not all sparkly- its very hard work.  After him and his friends graduate and move to New York, Quentin once again finds himself miserable and wondering what the point of life is as he drinks and parties the days away. The book takes an unexpected turn at this point when Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. He decides with his friends that it's time to go embark on a real adventure and this is where the motto "Be careful what you wish for- it just might come true" ties in. 


My Rating:
This book is a strange read the first time around and i'm not sure if I liked it because I wasn't expecting it to leave me feeling so empty and quite shocked at times. However after going through it a second time I found that I really liked it. It's not your average fantasy novel but sometimes it is good to read something that doesn't always have a happy ending. I give it 4 out of 5 stars! 

~ Spoilers~

My Thoughts:

The first half of this book is all about Quentin's journey through Brakebills which I didn't find that interesting the first read through.  It was also really weird when they were turned into geese and sent to antartica. I still have no idea what that was all about. I mean what kind of teacher turns their students into foxes and makes them have sex? The second half of the book was way more appealing to me.  The whole thing with discovering the neitherlands was facinating. I mean how many other worlds could have been real? I would have loved to see that explored more, especially at the end when Josh was going to go look for middle earth.  Also who expected that the beast was going to be Martin Chatwin? When he first appeared at Brakebills I didn't quite understand what was going on but it was explained later on. I'm still so shocked by the events that happened in the tomb. I was expecting them to go on this nice adventure to find the crown and become kings and queens. Instead I'm reading about Martin eating Penny's hands off and Alice becoming a niffin.  In the end though I'm glad I read the book and am looking forward to reading the sequel which will hopefully explain some of the things that were missing from this story.


Audiobook:
The audiobook was narrated by Mark Bramhall in an American accent. I think the audiobook was very well done and kept me sitting at the edge of my seat. His voice is very easy to listen to and he did a good job portraying the characters. I would definitely reccommend to listen. 

Let me know your thoughts on book below!

Bead Sizes 101

Bead Sizes Explained!

When I first went online to buy some beads,  I was completely baffled by the sizes and just ordered at random. I even had this bead measuring tool but I still don't know what it's trying to tell me. So I did some research and decided to share my knowledge so you wont waste your money getting beads that are too big or too small. Especially when it comes to shopping at stores like Michael's where the bead sizes are not even listed!

Seed Beads

When it comes to seed beads the bigger the number the SMALLER the bead.  For example a seed bead with the size 11/0 would be really tiny and a seed beed with the size 6/0 would be much larger and easier to work with.

        Below is an example of a bracelet using 11/0 seed bead and another using 6/0.

Regular Beads

With regular ole beads the sizing is much simpler. The larger the number the bigger the bead. Easy right? Well as long as you have an estimate as to how large a 14mm bead would be compared to a 6mm bead you are good to go. 

Bead sizes from left to right: 34mm, 14mm, 12mm, 10mm, 8mm, 6mm, 4mm

Here are also some examples of jewelry made with some of the different bead sizes.

12MM                                                                  10MM

8MM                                                                        6MM

4MM

Check out my beads101 video!

Firemountaingems/ Auntie's Beads Haul/Review

BEAD HAUL!

I ordered some beads from Firemountaingems.com and from Auntiebeads.com about a week ago and they have finally arrived! I love getting mail, its just like getting presents! Everything from firemountaingems comes individually packed in sealed plastic bags with tags on them. All of the beads I got were 16 inch strands that had about 68, 6mm beads except for the glass pearls which came in two strands with about 100 beads each. Overall I'm pretty pleased with what I got except for the yellow firepolish beads which definitely doesn't look like the the bright yellow in the website picture. From Auntie's Beads I thought the products were pretty pricy so I only ordered some composite rose beads which were 5.99 for only 12 of them. I'm a sucker for girly flowery things so I got them anyway.  Ive posted some comparisons of the website pictures and the real deal in natural lighting so you can get an idea of what they look like before you order.

Firepolish Bead CRYS/AQUA

Firepolish Bead BL/GRN

Glass Pearl Ivory

Dynamite seed bead inside dusty rose

Dynamite seed 

bead inside 

turquoise

Firepolish Metal Pale Gold

Firepolish Metal Apricot

Firepolish Bead Yellow

CZECH Clear Rose Montees

Firepolish Bead Pink

Composite rose bead

Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella

Spoiler free

The story begins with the main character Emma Corrigan flying home to London after a disastrous meeting in Glasgow for her job  at Panther Cola. Turns out she is terrified of flying and is a bag of nerves especially after ruining her chances of a promotion. The flight attendant sees her distress and bumps her up to business class where she is seated next to a handsome and quiet stranger. The plane suffers some pretty intense turbulence causing Emma to believe she is about to die. Thinking these are her last moments she happens to blurt out her inner most secrets to the man next to her. She spills everything from her boyfriend looking like ken and not finding her G-spot, to having a lesbian fantasy about her best friend and about lying on her Panther job application. She keeps going,not stopping until they have landed. The story takes an ironic turn when the major CEO of the company Emma works for is coming to look  things over turns out to be Jack Harper, the man who heard all her secrets on the plane.


My rating:

Overall this is a very enjoyable book, consistent with most of Kinsella's humor of putting the heroine in hilarious, over the top situations. The supporting characters have entertaining stories as well, creating an easy to read, fun novel. I give it 4 stars!

~Spoilers~

My thoughts:

 Although most of the characters were easy to follow and their stories easy to believe, I found Jack Harper to be kinda of flat. I felt as if he was missing something and it wasn't easy to relate to him. The plot progressed quite well but the whole mystery surrounding his secret trip to Scotland didn't really grip me. I found that I didn't really care about his secret. Also the story climaxed very well, I have to admit I was on the edge of my seat when Jemima brought in the tabloid journalist just after Jack's big secret was revealed. Speaking of the big secret, Pete Laidler had a love child. Big whoop! I think the secret should have been about him. As for the ending it was very unbelievable and forced. Jack just decides to instantly forgive Emma and start suddenly opening up about himself. And that's it. There wasn't really any closure. I did like the epilogue with Emma still collecting her secrets. It leaves the reader with a laugh and a possibility of a sequel. Overall the book is a good read with only an ending that is slightly disappointing.

Audiobook

The audio book was narrated by Kate Reading which honestly ruined the image of Emma I had in my head. The voice was not young at all and didn't have much variation when it came to the other female characters. However the male characters were voiced well. Her American accent was also very believable. I have to say I love novels that are narrated in a British accent so after awhile I got into the story and the voice didn't bother me much. On a final note , the nasally, whiny voice that she gave to Jemima fit her character perfectly!

Here's a little sample of the book for you to check out :)

http://www.4shared.com/music/jwU5CSDX/Memo.html

Please leave your comments below on what you thought of the book!