Music: More Songs!

Hello there!

Sorry for the long time since I last posted; I have just started school again, and it's been a hectic two weeks of working, studying for quizzes (already, sigh), etc.

So I have time for a quick post today, and this time it's a new list of songs I currently listen to on repeat!

Plastic Jungle - Miike Snow

Sail - AWOLNATION

New Low - Middle Class Rut

Little Lion Man - Mumford & Sons

Stripped - Shiny Toy Guns

What the Water Gave Me - Florence + the Machine

That's all I can think of off the top of my head right now, but it should last for a little while. I'm going to try to get back into posting at least once a week, if not more!

(I also have a facebook page now, so you can like me there if you want.)

xx Emma

Divergent

Review Time!

This time, it's Veronica Roth's Divergent - a thrilling dystopian novel in which sixteen year old Tris must make decisions that will change her life for ever.

There have been a lot of dystopian type novels lately, and although I read some, I don't read too many of them. But that's probably just because my library doesn't have too many of them, and I don't buy too many books, if only because they're so expensive here.

Anyways, whilst I was in London, I did, as mentioned earlier, some serious book shopping.

One of the books I bought was as you've probably figured, Divergent.

I wasn't entirely convinced if I would like it or not when I bought it, but it seemed interesting so I chose it. I started reading it once I got back home, and finished it in under a day.

For me, it's a good book if I can get into it enough to read it all in one go without feeling the need to stop reading and taking a break.

Divergent was well written, and I really did enjoy reading it, but I had a few issues with it; the main one being that several loose ends were not tied up, or even given any thought. The book was really mostly about Tris' new life with the Dauntless faction (having left her old faction, Abnegation, behind). And whilst that was all well and good for me, the author kept raising questions that made me want answers to them - answers that were never given.

One example of a question like that was "Why are they closing the gates from the outside?" Was it to protect the city from unknown dangers (and what would those dangers be?), or was it to keep everyone inside? None of these questions were actually answered, or even adressed more than just to be asked, and that was quite disappointing.

It detracted a lot from the rest of the book, in my opionion, because I kept on waiting for at least one of them to be answered and explained.

But other than the loose ends, the book was good, exciting, fastpaced and original. I loved the idea of different factions, and then having to choose, because the idea is something I haven't really seen much of before. I've read something along the same lines once, but I cannot for the life of me remember what book it was.

Anyways, I definitely recommend the book, because it's a great read!

xx Emma

Listening to: Rox in the Box - The Decemberists

More Music: Current Obsessions!

So, here's a quick list of songs that I am currently obsessed with, and that are just plain awesome!

Spread Your Love - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Live)

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

For Emma - Bon Iver

Sheets - Damien Jurado

Elephant Gun - Beirut (Can incidentally play it on my uke.)

Blowing Kisses - Exlovers (Saw them live, they're awesome)

If She Was Away - Rebecca & Fiona

Luminary Ones - Rebecca & Fiona

That's all for now - don't want to list too many, or you'll never get through them all! A short note about two things: first, I think the Exlovers are way too under recognized. They were the opening band before Noah and the Whale, and they're really great live. Second, by now I've mentioned my uke a couple of times, and I just wanted to explain that quickly. I play the ukulele casually, and am part of a Ukulele Orchestra - not the Ukulele Orchestra of Britain, though. I wish.

Hope you like the music! I'd love it if you'd comment with your own favorite songs.

xx Emma

Movie Monday: Sweeney Todd!

Let me begin with this: I am a total Johnny Depp fan. It's pretty bad, really, but I can't help it. He's very good-looking considering he's over forty years old. *swoons*

And I love Harry Potter to the moon and back - both the books and movies.

So imagine my joy when my friend told me about the movie Sweeney Todd - how had I not known about this earlier? - I knew I had to see it. And then, not so long ago, another friend was sleeping over at my house so we went to rent a movie. And to my utter amazement and joy, I saw that they were selling Sweeney Todd for five dollars! So I bought it. And I have not regretted it since.

By the time we had watched no more than ten minutes of the movie, we were both breathless and squealing. Because yes, my friend and I are both total dorks. I mean, Johnny Depp alone is awesome enough, but then he's joined by first Helena Bonham Carter, then Alan Rickman, and then Timothy Spall! But it doesn't stop there! Because not much later than that, Sacha Baron Cohen is singing opera and shaving a man at the same time. Again, swoon.

At one point, my dad came into the room just to ask if everything was okay - apparently he had heard us screaming. Oops.

So here's what I'm trying to say: if you haven't watched Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of Fleet Street, DO IT. And do it now. Because it's awesome. And amazing, and every other positive adjective that applies to the situation. Because movies don't get better than this. Not to mention that it's a musical, so wait, actually, it does get better.

And that concludes Movie Monday - come back in a week to hear me geek out about another movie of whatever kind!

xx Emma

Listening to: Climbing Up the Walls - Radiohead

Music: Noah and the Whale

I am a music nerd. Fanatic, whatever you want to call it - I listen to music whenever I can, whether it's on the way to or from school, when I'm doing homework, wherever, whenever. It's pretty bad, actually.

I have a bad tendency to listen to the same song or album on repeat for several hours, until I feel like listening to something else, at which point I just repeat the whole procedure once again.

A band that I have been totally head over heels obsessed with since sometime in April is Noah and the Whale.

They're a British-based band who released their first LP, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, in 2008. To begin with, the band consisted of Charlie Fink on vocals, Tom 'Fiddle' Hobden, on, well, the fiddle, Charlie's brother Doug on drums and Matt 'Urby Whale' Owens on bass. The four originally formed the band in 2006, but have since expanded and changed.

Doug left the band to be a doctor, and was so replaced by Michael Petulla, and Fred Abbott later joined the band during their latest album playing keys and occasionally guitar.

Above: Tom Hobden playing the fiddle, Charlie Fink on vocals and guitar - and no I didn't zoom the camera on the pictures.

So far, they've released three albums in total, and it's fascinating listening to the different LPs, as each one has its own, distinct sound.

Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, the band's first album, was made in the at the time popular nu-folk style - in other words, used a lot of ukulele and flutes. The lyrics are interesting, and each song is very recognizable, yet they all connect to each other in some way.

My personal favorites from this album are Mary, Second Lover, Jocasta and Five Years Time - the latter only because I played it on ukulele (which was how I discovered the band in the first place).

The second album, released in 2009, is called The First Days of Spring.

The difference in sound is incredible. Whilst Peaceful was very happy and upbeat, the second album is so sad. The difference in tone is because of Charlie and his ex-girlfriend, Laura Marling, breaking up. Charlie took it very hard, and he explained in an interview how when they were listening to the whole album, he was crying by the end of it.

The album is both melodically and lyrically beautiful and haunting, and listening to the album always gives me shivers. 'Blue Skies'

Which leads me to the latest album that they've released: Last Night on Earth.

Whilst the first LP was about being in love, and the second about heart break and living with it, the third album is all about moving on. There are several songs that relate to moving on with life, like L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N, and Life is Life. A lot of the lyrics come back to the same theme once again - in Life is Life, for example, the chorus starts like this: "He's gonna change, gonna change his ways, and it feels like his new life can start."

All of the songs in all three albums are amazing, and if you think that they sound good on album, you have to hear them live. I have no words for it, but the experience was definitely something else.

Because they're a smaller band, they were preforming at a local club when I went to see them, and so there weren't any safety barriers - I was literally standing and touching the speakers. And not one meter away from me, stood Charlie Fink. It was pretty awesome. If they're playing somewhere near you are, go. You won't be disappointed, because Noah and the Whale is epic.

xx Emma

Gone

Gone is the first book in a series of four by Michael Grant.

I initially chose the book because they had a three for two deal at a bookstore I went to in London, so I needed another book to read. What had caught my attention was the highlighter yellow sides of the book (I'm a sucker for those kinds of books - whoever said not to judge a book by it's cover didn't know what they were talking about), and so I picked it up, read the back, and bought it.

Gone is a revisit to a Lord of the Flies style plot, although modernized to fit the world of today. All of a sudden, everyone over the age of fifteen disappears, leaving the FAYZ, or Fallout Alley Youth Zone in chaos. It's an interesting twist on the classic novel, and certainly exciting and intense.

At the same time, it is clear that the book is meant for slightly younger ages. It's definitely not a young adult novel, and is consequently not written as such, but for a light, fast read, the book is great.

Personally, it didn't make enough of an impression for me to want to buy the rest of the series, but I would for sure borrow the books if my library had them. Grant approached the Lord of the Flies theme from a new angle, and added his own touches - the science-fiction elements, for example. Some of the teens began to develop powers of different types, and there were several more teenagers who didn't turn savage and try to kill the ones who disagreed. However, the leader of the 'evil' teenagers is indeed power hungry, and consequently traps the hands of all of the teens with powers in blocks of concrete.

The book was a fast read, which was nice, but was still challenging enough to read that I didn't get bored by it.

For younger readers, this book is great - for older ones, not as much. Like I said, it was written from seventh grade and up, so the vocabulary wasn't too complicated. If anyone has read the sequels to Gone, leave a comment and tell me what you thought of it!

xx Emma

Listening to: Jocasta - Noah and the Whale

I Am Number Four

Another book I read this summer was I Am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore.

I thought that whilst it was a relatively easy read, it was also a very exciting one, and I finished the book the same day I bought it. The book was well written, and with a creative and original plot-line that didn't remind me of any other books - something which is somewhat difficult to avoid nowadays.

I enjoyed the quick pacing of the book, and the little plot twists that keeps the reader on the edge of his seat the entire time. Like the dog, Bernie Kosar: until the end, I kept thinking that he was a Mogadorian spy dog of some sort. Little did I know that he wasn't evil after all. Which was a nice surprise for me.

My two biggest issues with the book were one, the big size of the text and two, the character Sarah. Firstly, I don't like reading books with really big text sizes; although this is only a personal thing - I just don't like it because it makes the book seem like its audience is for smaller children, instead of young adults/teenagers. But that's a matter of opinion, and really doesn't have much to do with with the book itself.

Secondly, the thing that I didn't like about I Am Number Four was the 'gorgeous' Sarah. Her character was very one dimensional - except for a paragraph describing her when they first met, there wasn't much description except for labeling her as gorgeous. It made her seem like a very flat, stereotypical popular blonde girl, except for that this one started taking pictures.

That's what I really liked about the movie adaptation, which I watched not very long ago: it fleshed out Sarah's and Mark's backstory slightly more, and more believably, than was done in the book. My main problem with the movie was that none of the details about Lorien, and what happened to it, were really explained, so the nine Children of the Garde may as well have been gifted humans, instead of aliens.

Either way, both the book and the movie were excellent. Exciting and tense, I Am Number Four was a fast paced, interesting and captivating book, and I recommend it to anyone who likes any sort of action and science fiction book!

xx Emma

Listening to: Satellite - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour