Review: The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Sunday, April 27, 2014

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The Archived by Victoria Schwab 


Release Date: January 2013 
Publisher: Hyperion 
Age Group: Young Adult 
Pages: 328 
Source: Preordered 
Series: TheArchived (#1) 
Other Titles in the Series: The Unbound (#2) 

Summary (goodreads.com):  Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.

In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.


My Review:
Victoria Schwab is not only one of my favorite writers, but one of my favorite people as well. She is just such a wonderful, empathetic person, as is obvious if you were to follow her twitter. I’ve followed her career since 2011 and every time she posts that she has sold a new book my heart just soars for her! With my admiration for her in mind, I don’t understand why I waited so long to read the copy of The Archived that I preordered as soon as I had finished her first novel, The Near Witch (you can read my review of that HERE).


I was a fool to wait so long. The Archived is, quite simply put, perfection in book form. It has everything I want in a book: great storytelling, funny dialogue, well-fleshed out characters and a new world! Oh and keys! I have a fascination with keys, especially old-fashioned skeleton ones and this book just took that fascination and turned it into a full blown obsession. Keys play a huge role in this book, I won’t tell you anymore than that, but just know that I thought it was genius! What I liked most about The Archived, other than the glorious keys of course, was how Victoria described the Narrows and the Archive itself. She has a command over the English language that I couldn’t even begin to describe with my limited command over it. Hers are among the few books that I can truly visualize myself diving into. Victoria’s world building skills never cease to amaze me, the amount of detail she adds to her stories is perfect and I can see how much time and sanity she puts into every one. The language she uses is also the equal mix of contemporary (dialogue, ect.) and fantasy (the descriptions and such). This also can be applied to the settings in The Archived because they really bring to mind the phrase, “the familiar rendered strange.” Hotels, Libraries, even HALLWAYS are rendered strange in this, which adds another level of depth to the novel. I could go on and on about how everything in The Archived was amazing, but I will let you read it for yourself. Just know that I cannot wait to dive into its sequel, The Unbound.

~Laura!

Partying is Such Sweet Sorrow: Happy 450th Birthday, Shakespeare!

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

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How do a bunch of English Majors celebrate the Bard's 450th Birthday? 

This is my favorite Shakespeare meme.
I laugh every single time I see it.

  • We hung a bunch of Shakespeare memes on every available surface of our building.
  • We made our invitation as Shakespearean as possible by including at least 3 puns. (Ours included: Shakespeare wearing a party hat and the lines "Partying is such sweet sorrow," and "Friends, Buffalonians, and Shakespeare Lovers, lend us your ears!")
  • We handed out index cards with Shakespeare quotes on them (not all of them were real. We wanted to see if anyone notices that you've changed the words dramatically. Example: "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?/ It is the east and Juliet is banging as hell").
  • We ate copious amounts of stout cupcakes.
  • We watched how Sassy Gay Friend saves several Shakespearean females from tragedy.
  • And preformed dramatic readings of Dirtbag Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet.

How did you celebrate Shakespeare today? 

Collection: Bookmarks- From Places

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Bookmarks

From Places Collection


My FROM PLACES bookmarks!
(all pictured except the Toronto Zoo bookmark)


The bookmarks in this collection are some of my absolute favorites. Some of them are souvenirs from my travels, and the others are bookmarks that my family bought for me when they went on travels of their own! They are all unique and special and I love them all. 



My Washington, DC bookmarks!
Pictured:
  • Washington silhouette bookmark was a gift from my friends Graham and Kellie
  • Canvas bookmark from Mount Vernon
  • Washington, DC bookmark was a gift from my cousin's trip there in 2013
  • Lincoln Memorial bookmark
  • Smithsonian bookmark from the National Museum of National History
  • Manassas National Battlefield Park Bookmark
  • Hologram Smithsonian bookmark from the National Museum of Air and Space


My Baltimore bookmarks!
Pictured:
  • Ft. McHenry bookmark with charm
  • 3 dolphin bookmarks from the National Aquarium
  • Pratt eLibrary bookmark from the Pratt Library in Baltimore (I went there to see their Poe exhibit, but it wasn't open to the public!)


My Salem and Boston bookmarks!
Pictured:
  • La Japonaise by Claude Monet bookmark bought at MFA Boston
  • Old town Boston map bookmark bought at Old State House in Boston
  • American Revolutionary war bookmark bought at Old State House in Boston
  • Paul Revere bookmark bought at Old State House in Boston
  • Friendship of Salem bookmark bought at Salem Visitor's Centre
  • Salem bookmark bought at one of the witch museums


My random selection of From Places bookmarks!
Pictured:
  • Giraffe Buffalo Zoo bookmark, origin unknown
  • Wooden Buffalo Zoo bookmark bought during a trip there summer 2013 with Anne and Rachel
  • Gettysburg bookmark from my parents trip when I was younger
  • Statue of Liberty bookmark with charm bought during my trip there in 2010
  • Vidler's bookmark bought one of the million times I've gone to the historic East Aurora 5 & 10 store
  • Personalized Florida bookmark that my brother brought back from his honeymoon


Kelly's trip to Europe bookmark collection!
Pictured:
  • Winsor Castle (London) bookmark- this is my favorite bookmark. I use it all the time. It is made of leather and I pretend that it smells like the queen!
  • Prague bookmark
  • Eiffel Tower bookmark
  • Double Decker Bus (London) bookmark
  • Notre Dame bookmark
  • Vienna bookmark


My Toronto Zoo bookmark





Pictured:
  • Toronto Zoo Panda poo bookmark- my cousin Kelly and I both love Pandas so when she went to see them at the Toronto zoo in 2013 she brought me back this panda bookmark! It is made with Panda poop, I am not even joking. I love this bookmark SO MUCH even though no matter how safe the back insists it is I plan on keeping in its nice plastic case!
I hope you enjoyed this tour of my From Places bookmark collection!
If you'd like to see more of my bookmarks, check out the bookmarks label! 
~Laura!

Review: Haunted Buffalo: Ghosts of the Queen City by Dwayne Claud and Cassidy O’Connor

Sunday, April 13, 2014

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Haunted Buffalo: Ghosts of the Queen City by Dwayne Claud and Cassidy O’Connor


Release Date: August 2008
Publisher: History Press
Age Group: Adult (Non-fiction)
Pages: 128
Source: Borrowed from Mom who received it as a Christmas gift.

Summary (goodreads.com): Grab pen and paper, a flashlight and a camera and prepare to embark upon the haunted adventure of a lifetime using this comprehensive guide to some of Buffalo's spookiest sites. Avid ghost hunter and paranormal investigator Dwayne Claud and researcher Cassidy O'Connor entertain readers with stories of the city's most acclaimed spooks and spirits, such as Tanya, the five-year-old that can be spotted bouncing on guest beds at the Grand Island Holiday Inn. The book includes twisted tales from the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, as well as stories of roaming spirits at Frontier House- a hotel frequented by figures such as Mark Twain and President McKinley. This gripping collection of ghostly tales is sure to thrill anyone fascinated by the unknown.


My Review:

First of all, right off the bat, I need to get something off my chest: there are people called proof readers and they should be utilized. In a book that is only 128 pages there should not be a handful of typos. A couple misplaced punctuation marks are fine but when a book is published with words missing letters, names spelled wrong and one case of a name being accidentally substituted for another so it looks as if the ghost is the one hearing the haunting there is a serious problem that cannot be ignored. That being said, I enjoyed this book as much as I could.

I decided to read Haunted Buffalo because I live in Buffalo and I’ve always believed in the paranormal, ghosts especially. It starts out with a history of Buffalo which was incredibly interesting, and then moved into the ghost stories. Each “story” was a brief summary of the history of the place and then a quick explanation of the haunting and/or the investigation that found the most evidence, not exactly the “twisted” or “ghostly” tales that were promised in the summary, but overall the stories were interesting and worth reading. From a historical stand point I have to give Haunted Buffalo a lot of props for not adding the famous tales with no historical evidence backing them. Especially, the tale from Old Fort Niagara. They did not add its famous claim to fame: the headless ghost whose head is in the well (which despite having no historical background is still a great story). It was interesting to read stories about places I pass every day, like City Hall, the Central Terminal, and the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. The story about the last one in particular had me itching to explore the old Asylum seeing as its right next to my school. Too bad I would probably get arrested if I tried to set foot in there.


The book is nicely organized into chapters that divide each haunting into their location such as “Ghosts at Work,” “Historic Haunts,” and “‘Spirited’ Theatres” which makes it easy to navigate. Added at the end there is even a handy glossary of terms and a list of paranormal researchers in the WNY area. I fully plan on checking out some of the sights listed in Haunted Buffalo with my mom this summer! 


~Laura!



Thoughts From Places: New York City (2010)

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

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My Trip to NYC

Times Square at night!
What can I say about New York City that hasn't been said before?

Since I became a hard core bookworm I have fantasized about living in New York. It has so much literary history, amazing bookshops, so many fantastic publishing houses, and countless book signings. It is THE place to be if you love books.

However, when I went to NYC in May 2010 I didn’t get to do a single bookish thing. This is because I went with my high school’s Italian Club (I don’t speak Italian; the story behind me getting into this club is a very long story. If you’re interested in learning it just let me know). Every year the Italian Club would go to a city that had a Little Italy and my senior year they chose New York. To fund-raise for the trip I sold countless candy bars and begged for money from my parents. It was well worth it for the weekend I spent there.

I went with one of my best friends, Anne, and we had to get up at an ungodly hour of too early (I don’t remember the actual time but it was EARLY) so that we could get to school on time to make sure we were on the bus. I remember us all being way to cheery for that time in the morning but we were all too excited.

Me and Anne in Times Square!

We got to NYC earlier than expected so our driver took us for a small tour of Manhattan. We then went to Carmine’s Italian Restaurant on Broadway (they had the best chicken parm I have ever eaten). After that our driver did something probably illegal and dropped us off in Times Square so we could take pictures. It was dark and rainy but still amazing. After that we went to an Off-Broadway play at the Abingdon Theatre called “Weekend with a Killer.” It was produced by a friend of our Italian Teacher so we got tickets cheap. This is the only reason we went and I am positive that if our teacher had known what it was about he never would have agree, for it was very inappropriate for high schoolers and especially our teacher’s little kids who had come with us. I am sure that if I were to see that play today it would be fine and interesting, but I think it went a little over all of our heads at that time. After that experience we went to Fairfield, NJ to our hotel.

***

Ground Zero
First thing in the morning we went to visit Ground Zero. In 2010 there still wasn’t anything huge on the site. There was the memorial wall with the names of the victims was there, however, protected by scaffolding that was put up for the construction. We were allowed in the Millennium Hilton to it better. It was an extremely foggy day, so much so that while I was looking at the site all I could thing about was how even if the Twin Towers were still there we wouldn’t have been able to see them. I kept imagining that maybe the ghosts of them were still there and the only reason we couldn’t see them was the heavy fog. Being on that site was a surreal experience, one I will never forget.


Next we had some adventures in Battery Park and took a ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. I have decided to separate these thoughts from this post because I have a lot to say about them. (It should be posted on BWE on 5-7-14 and will be linked here as soon as it is available.)

After the Battery Park adventures, we went to the South Street Seaport, where we had lunch and did some shopping. There were a lot of ships and a nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge from the waterfront. The most exciting and memorable part of this leg of our journey was the one legged pigeon I saw. I really wanted to get a picture of this bird because I knew that our best friend Rachel would love to see him, but Anne stopped me from taking a picture for whatever reason. (Turns out Rachel DID want to see him and was disappointed that she couldn’t.  I will never let Anne live down the fact that she denied Rachel that right. That was not the last time I would see a one-legged pigeon, however, because a few months later I saw a stuffed one at the Smithsonian. I took a picture of that one and sent it to both Anne and Rachel!)

Little Italy

We then went to Chinatown and Little Italy. Most of Chinatown had a lot of scaffolding that we had to dodge in and out of so we couldn’t see much. We did have a lot of fun trying to merge into oncoming pedestrian traffic though. In Little Italy we had dinner at Puglia’s Restaurant where we at the most amazing garlic bread we had ever eaten. We still talk about that bread, even years later, that’s how good that bread was. After dinner a lot of us stopped at La Bella Ferrara Bakery at our teacher’s urging because he said it was the best in Little Italy (he was right, the cannoli was amazing!).

We ended our second day in New York by going to the Empire State Building’s 86th Floor Observatory. It was here that I had my only slightly literary moment in NYC: I checked the elevator for the 600th floor to see if I could go to Olympus like in Percy Jackson! However, since I could barely handle the elevator ride up 86 floors I probably would have had a mental breakdown on the ride to the 600th (I was afraid of elevators and hid behind people during the small ride because of it). While staring out at the beautifully lighted city spread out before me I couldn’t help thinking about how much I wanted to get a really good picture of it before my camera died. I am not lying. I had no thoughts up there other than getting a picture and concentrating on not dropping my camera off the side of the building and how much that would suck. I had no profound thoughts up there because I am afraid of heights and I really just wanted to say “did that, survived, and got the picture to prove it, now let me back down.”
View of NYC from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building
***

The next morning we went to the NBC-TV Studios and stood outside so we could be on the Today show! Then from 9am to 10am we were scheduled to do some shopping on Fifth Avenue. Yeah, that’s great except somehow none of the people planning our trip realized that 98% of the stores on Fifth Avenue open at 10am on Sundays, so we were only able to go to the Apple Store and walk around bits of Trump Tower (I will never get over the fact that I couldn’t go to the American Girl Place because of shoddy planning). However, I did eat a legitimate NYC soft pretzel from a vendor near Central Park so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. We then had a tour of the NBC studios including the SNL set (which honestly was not that exciting because at the time I didn’t really like any of NBC’s shows (still don’t like SNL)).

Our last adventure in NYC was an exploration of Times Square (in the daylight this time). We went to the M&M World, stopped in Toys R’ Us to see the Ferris wheel, and some of the guys dragged us into Billabong. We saw the famous naked cowboy and the 2010 New Year’s ball. I loved seeing at the gigantic posters for the musicals on Broadway and current blockbuster movies! I loved the hustle and bustle and just observing all the LIFE that was happening around us.

When it was over and we marched back to the bus that would take us home to Buffalo, I was both sad and relieved. So much had been packed into two and a half days that I just needed time to think about everything that had happened. Before this trip to NYC I was contemplating moving there, but now it’s official. I really, really want to live there for a while. There is so much more to see and do! I really hope I get to go back and experience as much as I can.

 ~Laura!