Wednesday Words – Movie Dream Cast

Have you noticed that our Wednesday Words posts are often lists of hot people that we love? LOL yeah, me too. But here we go again! This week our topic is to think up a dream cast for a movie version of a book. 🙂 Being the often confused one of the group my first thought was, “Of a book I’ve written? Or a book I love that isn’t a movie yet?” Then Jess in all of her wisdom was like, “Either!” Which didn’t help me at all, damn it. LOL (I still love you, Jess!)

Here’s the thing… I’ve got a handful of finished books I’ve written but they’re all fanfic. Specifically, fanfic revolving around a particular hot boy band member, sometimes in an AU type of setting. So the obvious dream cast would be to have the people they’re based on star in a movie version of the book. But that would be a really boring blog post. :p My other issue is that of my non-fanfic stuff, none of them are finished and only a handful of people have read them. To add on to that, the thought of choosing some other book to cast is making my head hurt. LOL why do I make things so difficult?!

So I guess I’ll just cast one of the unfinished pieces. It’s actually not that hard because when I started writing this one, I had a bunch of people already in my head. Haha… not to be confused with the voices in my head. The book, at this point at least, is called Homecomming. It’s about a chick in her twenties named Jasmine Pezotti who is from Michigan and she’s a writer. A film crew comes to her home town to make a movie and she meets a uber cute movie star named Carter Greene. They have this amazing love affair but over the years suffer tradgedy and when the book begins it’s pretty much the end of their relationship. Jasmine comes home to Michigan to be with family, and dun dun dunnnnn… her long-time crush Trevor Hart is back home and totally single and still head over heals in love with her. So she’s trying to find herself again, falling in love/lust, and trying to figure out if things with Carter are truly over or not. Typical love triangle gushy love story. 🙂 Oh and in an interesting twist, Jasmine’s in the process of having one of her books turned into a movie during the story too. So there ya go… 🙂

Here’s my cast as they currently live in my head.

Jasmine Pezotti – played by Jennifer Lawrence

Kevin Pezotti (Jasmine’s big brother) – played by Kevin Richardson

Gracie Pezotti (Niece extrodinaire, Kevin’s daughter) – played by random adorable kid

Carter Greene – played by Nick Carter

Trevor Hart – played by Joe Manganiello

There are other characters too, but I don’t have anyone in mind for them. LOL

So let’s see what the other Wednesday girls have in mind for their movies, shall we?

Bronwyn Green | Kris Norris | Gwendolyn Cease | Jessica Jarman | Jessica De La Rosa | Kayleigh Jones 

Wed Words : Fictive Crushes

Edit: So apparently I got this week’s topic wrongish. I thought we were only talking about fictional crushes in books. But as you’ll see, I was the only one who did that. LOL so yeah, I could’ve made this way easier if I included tv and movie crushes. Oh well…

It’s almost Wednesday which means I’m once again sitting here with my iPad treating to figure out what to type to fit this week’s topic for Wednesday Words. I don’t know why these are so damn hard for me! 🙂

This week we’re supposed to be talking about crushes we have on fictional characters. So of course I’ve drawn a total blank. LOL Don’t get me wrong, I fall in love with characters all the time, I’m just having a hard time thinking of who those characters are.

“Jace” from The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare – Yeah, he can be kind of a selfish dick, but I admit, I love the kid. Plus I loooooved Jamie Bower’s portrayal of him in the City of Bones movie.

“Ron Weasley” from Harry Potter – I heart Ron. I loved him when I read the books and loved him even more when Rupert Grint brought him to life.

“Alcide” from the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris – I loved Alcide before I fell in love with Joe Manganiello. I tend to love the warm blooded shape shifters. 🙂

“Peeta Melark” from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – I’ve always been Team Peeta! Gale just sort of annoyed me. LOL

“Graf” from American Vampire by Jenny Trout – I thought Graf was awesome. He’s a vampire who is totally ok with being one instead of the tortured soul so many paranormal writers have made vamps.

“Augustus Waters” from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – Oh, Gus! I love him so much, it’s ridiculous. So many great quotes from him in the book and he’s just so damn easy to fall in love with!

“Devin” from Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen – I love to write quirky kid characters into stories and Devin was a great example of that. Devin was a kid I would love to know and hang out with because she’s just so cool. I loved everything about the little girl.

“Bear” from Donut Days by Lara Zielin – A big bad biker who knits… What’s not to love?

That’s all I can think of. I’m sure once this posts I’ll think of a ton more. LOL

Do you have a Book Boyfriend/Girlfriend or a character you just adore?

Bronwyn Green | Jessica Jarman | Kayleigh Jones | Jenny Trout | Gwendolyn Cease | Kris Norris

Wednesday Words Favorite Things: Books

Today we’re talking about our favorite books.  Asking me to do that is like asking a parent which is their favorite kid… aka very hard!  I kind of have ADD when it comes to listing my favorite things.  In random conversations I can rattle off my faves easily, but when someone asks me to make a list I’m all, “Uh… well… you know…”  Then afterward I’ll suddenly remember everything when the time has passed. Like the other day I was having dinner with friends and one of them asked me who I liked to read.  I couldn’t list them.  I read all the damn time and I couldn’t make a list!  I was like, “I read a lot of YA, vampires and stuff.”  Seriously?!  Geesh…

But yeah… my favorite books (that I can remember at this moment, LOL).

Ohhh this book!  This book broke my heart and made me laugh at the same time.  I’ve only ever had two books make me cry and this wasn’t one, but I was definitely touched.  I read this book in two sittings and it’s calling me to read it again.  That alone means that I loved it because I rarely re-read books.  I did figure out where the plot was going to go early on, but I think maybe that’s just the writer in me.  I try to figure out what’s going to happen and think about how I would make it go if it were my book.  This was the first book by Green that I’ve read and I just fell in love with his writing.  I’ll soon be reading all of his books.  Oh and, 29 days til the movie! I can’t freaking wait for the movie! 🙂

This was one of my favorite books growing up.  It’s so cute and sweet Grover is so clueless you can’t help but love him. 🙂  If you haven’t read it, do so.

I had to read this for a book club I used to belong to.  I was too busy at the time to sit and read so I got the audio book from the library and holy cow it was amazing.  The dude who read the book did different voices and accents for people and just did a phenomenal job.  Then of course there is the story itself which is all kinds of awesome.  I’m so pissed that the movie didn’t get much publicity (so little that it came to and left the theaters without me knowing) because it looked like it was going to be great too.  I’m sure it’s a great read, but I highly suggest getting the audio book for this one.  🙂

I’ve been looking through my goodreads history for five star books to put on this list.  Every single one of Jen’s Blood Ties books have five star ratings from me and I read them years before I met her in person and started hanging out with her.  So yeah, I’m a fan!  I remember reading these books and thinking, “Cool! They’re in Michigan!”  “Cool! The author is from Michigan too!”  “Son of a bitch, she’s younger than I am and has already been published!”  LOL  I adore Jen’s writing.  She has a way of pulling me into books that I never would have thought I’d liked.  For example, I’m not a big fan of historical romance, but I’ve read some of Jen’s stuff that she’s written as Abigail Barnett and have loved it.  Basically, Jen rocks and if you haven’t read her books you need to. 🙂

Neil Gaiman rocks my socks.  I have loved every novel of his that I’ve ever read.  I got turned on to him though through Backstreet Boys fanfic, believe it or not.  A friend of mine was writing this amazing fanfic that blended the Boys with the Endless and as I read the fanfic I was like, “I need to read this series…”  So I started buying the twenty dollar volumes slowly and totally fell in love with the series. I own the whole set and it’s the only graphic novel series that I’ve read from start to finish.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is supposed to be trying to bring it to the screen and holy wah, if he gets it done I’ll love him even more than I already do!

This and A Light in the Attic are books I read so much as a kid that I memorized a bunch of the poems and page numbers.  I recently got my Where the Sidewalk Ends out to share with my youngest nephew and it just warmed my heart to see him enjoying the poems and pictures as much as I do. 🙂

 

Sarah Addison Allen is brilliant.  I’ve loved every book that I’ve read that she’s written.  When I read her books I think to myself, “I want to write like her when I grow up!”  She’s just, magical.  In fact, she has a new book out that I need to get badly. 🙂  It was sold out the last time I was at the book store though.

Last but not at all least… Lara Zielin.  I’ve read all of her books and loved them all but this was the first one read thanks to Bronwyn’s suggestion.  It’s wonderful.  Lara herself is all kinds of amazing and she’s a Michigan author so yay for that!  She just quit her job to write full time too so yay for more wonderful Lara books!

There are tons of other books that I love, but I can’t simply name (or remember) them all. 🙂  I’m curious to know if any of these are books that you love!  Let me know in the comments, then check out what favorite books my girls have on their lists!

Bronwyn Green | Kris Norris  | Jenny Trout

Gwendolyn Cease | Jessica Jarman |Tess Grant | Leigh Jones

Review: Rapture

Rapture by J.R. Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. I was skeptical at first about having Matthias as the main character but I ended up really liking him in this one. I also enjoyed that the female lead was a strong woman who had her faults but knew how to take care of herself too. Looking forward to book 5.

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Review: Rapture

Rapture by Lauren Kate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was going to wait until this was available in trade paperback but then I saw that it’s a free lendable ebook through my library so I just had to read it. 🙂

As with the previous books this one still was a little too long for my taste, however it was quite possibly my favorite of the series. Luce transitioned from a Too Stupid to Live (TSTL) character in books 1 & 2 to tolerable in book 3 but in book 4 I actually liked her! In fact, I liked everyone in this book. Daniel wasn’t the moody pain in the ass he’d been in book 3 and this book did a great job at FINALLY explaining the big secrets that have been going on for the last three books. Some of it was pretty obvious a few books back, but other details caught me by surprise. I also absolutely LOVED the epilogue. Had that not been included I would probably have knocked the book down to three stars, but I think the way this book ended was by far the perfect way to end the series (I don’t count the 5th book as part of the series but rather a sidecar).

Great book, great ending. 🙂

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Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to love this book. There were parts of it that I simply adored but there were many that I just didn’t like. The grandparent flashbacks were often more confusing than anything and left me with more questions than before I read them. I also didn’t like how Safran Foer used his own weird formatting and ignored basic writing rules. I’m all for creativity in presentation but putting a conversation between two people all in one paragraph is just annoying to read. I often had to go back a page and re-read to see who was saying what.

I really loved Oskar. It took a while to get used to his narrative but once I did, I fell in love with the kid. However, as a social worker I wanted to know his diagnosis. LOL He presented as someone on the Autism Spectrum but was extremely high functioning too and there were times when I wondered if he had Aspberger’s but then others when he didn’t seem like it. Then of course there was the Grandpa. WHY did he lose his words? WHY didn’t anyone ever try to help him with it? So may questions left unanswered.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I read the book and I look forward to finally seeing the movie. I just don’t know if I’d suggest this book to other people without a disclaimer on how odd it is.

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Review: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a hard one to rate. On one hand I wanted to give it four stars but on the other I was aiming more toward three. I guess that means it’s a 3.5. I liked this book… I enjoyed the characters and situations. The idea of a shrink for teens who is completely unaware of her own children was kind of brilliant and quite realistic. What I didn’t like about the book though was that it seemed like Ginny’s problems all got solved over night. One day she’s miserable and self mutilating and the next she’s all outgoing and making huge changes. It just felt too rushed. I still think it was a great book though despite the poor pacing.

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Review: The Peach Keeper

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think I start every review of a Sarah Addison Allen book the same way. I gush about how much I love her writing and how I want to live in the books she writes. This book is no different… it’s not my favorite of her books, but I still loved it and read it in about five hours.

One weird bit was that she repeated herself a few times in the book and I don’t recall her doing that in the past. For example she must have explained three or four different times how the government had bought the land and turned it into a national park. It was also different to see that the magic in this book wasn’t as subtle as it usually is. Not that it was bad, it was just interesting to see so many people in the book accepting of magical things this time around.

I loved seeing a little sneak of previous characters make cameo’s too. In all, I really enjoyed the book.

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Review: Long Relief

Long Relief by Abigail Barnette
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only reason this book didn’t get 5 stars is because it was shorter than I wanted and I needed more! I’m a Cancer… I fall in love fast, especially when there are great characters in front of me. Despite the fact that the book was short, it was great and I’m told that the series will continue so that’s awesome too.

It’s pretty clear that I’m a sucker for Michigan writers and Michigan stories. This book was, of course, both. I absolutely loved all of the details that Barnette put into the book without it being overly descriptive. For example on opening day of the season the fans in the crowd had mittens on. That’s a total Michigan thing and it’s not rare for it to actually snow on opening day around here. Little tidbits like that were thrown in throughout the book and made it great.

The relationship between the two main characters was adorable. What girl wouldn’t love to be faced with a childhood crush once she’s all grown up? I adored the way Barnette wrote Chris’ character too. He’s an aging baseball player who is aware he’s getting older and his body has limitations it didn’t use to have and yet, he’s still extremely sexy and knows it. (Damn it… I totally didn’t mean to reference LMFAO there. But hey, it’s true!)

I can’t wait for the next installment of the Hardball Series!

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50 Shades of Domestic Violence

I haven’t been shy about my dislike of the book 50 Shades of Grey and the message it’s sending.  If you follow me on twitter you’ve heard me bitch about it even more over there when I get on one of my rants.  There are many, many reasons why this book just plain pisses me off.  Shitty writing, shitty fact checking, shitty editing, barely making an effort to change it from AU fanfic before publishing it… I could go on for days.  But honestly, the thing that bothers me the most about this book is that it is so incredibly full of universal red flags for Domestic Violence (DV) and women all over the world are eating this book up like it’s cake. 

BDSM is not domestic violence if both partners fully consent to it.  That’s not by any means what I’m getting at.  I think that when the DV term is thrown out there people automatically assume that you mean physical violence.  That’s not at all what I’m talking about here.  So let me give you my social worker rundown real quick.

Domestic Violence is not about anger management or just about physical abuse.  It’s about power and control over another person.  That can be physical control in the form of beating the shit out of someone, or emotional control through threats, isolation, and mind games.  As someone who has lived through emotional abuse I can say that it royally sucks and it’s just as awful dealing with someone emotionally beating you up as it is getting physically beat up.

An alpha can be an alpha without being an abuser.  Someone can assert themselves and be in control without having to control you.   The person who beat me never touched me physically.  But that person crushed my spirit, made everything bad in the world seem like it was my fault, blamed all of their problems on me, and kept me in this fucked up world where I actually believed that I was the problem.  But I wasn’t.  That is what domestic violence is about; having power and control over someone else and making them believe that they’re doing it for your own good.

I enjoyed the Twilight books and movies.  I’m not a Twilight hater by any means.  But the books were very hard for me to get through because of the little things that Meyer put in the books that screamed of DV.  I mean come on, step away from your love of Edward for a moment and think about it.  He would crawl through Bella’s bedroom window at night to watch her sleep and started that before he even was her friend.  He was nice to her one moment and then mean the next.  He got mad at her for tripping on the field trip to the greenhouse.  When he saved her life and she wanted to talk about it he blew her off and said she had hit her head.  He told her that he could kill her and how everything in him wanted him to.  Even Bella’s mom says to her in the second book how Edward is so clingy.  

Check this out and think about Bella and Edward’s relationship: Power & Control Wheel.

I can honestly point out something in nearly every spoke of that wheel that Edward does to Bella in the Twilight books.  I’m not the only one either, there have been plenty of articles about DV organizations pointing out the red flags in Twilight.

Even though Twilight is full of red flags, I was able to separate it as fantasy and just enjoy it.  Unlike when I rewatched Phantom of the Opera as a social worker and could not stop obsessing about how creepy the Phantom suddenly was! 🙂  But then we come to 50 Shades.  A story that is not about vampires even though it was written about Twilight characters.  A story that women all over the world are eating up and saying how bad they want a man like Christian Grey in their lives, how they wish their husbands were more like Grey.  That, my dear readers, is where I have a really big fucking problem with this book’s success.