January Favourites

I want to take a mini break from all the book theme posts. So for today I thought I might discuss my favourite / most used items during January.

Favourite Book: So lets start of with the basic; Books. I got so many books for Christmas! I had my nose stuck in a book all the way from Christmas, to New Year, to the start of school, so it's going to be difficult choosing a favourite... However, a book which pretty much blew the hats off for me was Inferno by Jo MacAuley. I'm pretty sure I had a grip on the book all the way through 'till the end. It's just such an exciting and very well written novel.

Favourite Food: I'm sure everyone starts craving or loving a particular food during the month. Mine isn't really a sweet sugary food, but more of a 'this food is perfect for a cold rainy day that warms you through to the bones' type of food. I've recently been loving meals when I have these goats cheese and spinach pastries. They actually sound sort of yuck since I hate spinach on it's own, but this is truly delicious!

Favourite TV series: This is sort of a weird one since it's quite a quirky TV show (that I'm sure a 7 year old loves watching), but I've been completely obsessed with watching a show called Mew Mew Power, or the Japanese version, Tokyo Mew Mew. It's an anime but a really good one. It's actually originally a Japanese series which half of the episodes were dubbed to English, however, they stopped dubbing it so I ended up watching 26 episodes in Japanese with English subtitles. I sort of well... preferred the Japanese version, is that weird?

Favourite Music: I don't really listen to music much, and when I do it's usually in the car with my MP3 player, which hasn't had it's music updated since the July 2014. So basically I'm going to base my favourite music off the song I most play in the car. This month I've been listening a lot to A Great Big World (which is the group, not the song). My favourite song of theirs is Rock star. 

Favourite Make-up Item: In January I haven't really been wearing too much make-up at all, which is a good thing, right? I mostly just wear make-up for the fun of it, or to have fun with different looks. For Christmas I got the naked 1 palette which I was super excited about. My favourite eye-shadow combo from that palette would be Sin, Naked, Smog and Dark horse. 

What's been your favourite 'stand-out' item for January?

How I Organise Myself

If you have your own blog, I'm sure you must know just how important it is to organise yourself. I for one have a few tips on making sure you won't end up under a pile of papers.

1. Why not buy a small planner? This way, you can write all your future posts. If you don't want to buy one, you could just use Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. I find this super helpful, when I need to, I just open up my planner, have a look at what upcoming posts I have planned, for what date, then write them. I then tick them off when they're done.

2. I have to use Google Sheets, however for this tip, you could just use Microsoft Excel. Have separate sheets for separate stuff. Why not have a sheet for all the publishing contacts (this would mostly apply to book bloggers), you could write out all the books you want to review, or the books that you want to read. The options are endless!

3. In my laptop, I have a folder which I've named The Ombré Diaries. In this folder I basically store headers, pictures and previously used designs ect... I also have a folder with the same Google sheets files so that if I need to copy them onto something else, should be easy enough!

4. This tip mostly applies to help with the reading other peoples blogs. I sometimes find it annoying when I have lots of different favourite blogs, but I have to go on a different website each time. Not only that, but sometimes there isn't even a new post on their blog. So that's why I use bloglovin'. I'm pretty sure most bloggers use this site, you follow all your favourite blogs and it groups all the new posts and feed together for you. Isn't that just great?

That's all the tips I've got for you today. Those are the things I pretty much follow by.

Have you followed any of these tips? How have they worked out for you? :)

Books I Wish Were Made Into Films

Yes, yes I know. Books are mean't to be better than films, right? Well yes, for me they are. I would definitely say I read more books than I watch films. However, sometimes I read a book and then I think of what an incredible film it could be! Here are some books I wish were made into films and why...

Firelight by Sophie Jordan

You may have read my previous post which was a review on this book. Whatever the case, this book really rocks and I would so watch the film about 20 times if it ever came out.

Smuggler's Kiss by Marie-Louise Jensen

The cover! One - well two words...the cover! When I look at the cover I feel all warm and fuzzy inside (not really but I just really like the cover. Okay?). There are some scenes in this books where I am like 'oh that would make an amazing film...' and then I get all excited, but then realise it's probably never going to happen. I'm still keeping my hopes up though.

Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson

To be quite honest, this book wasn't incredible and amazing like you see on the other two books mentioned. It's not my most favourite book but it was still a good read. However, this isn't about which books were good reads now, is it? It's about books - good or not, and which ones would make great films. This book has got to be one of them!

I decided I would stick with my top 3. Not because I couldn't think of many, because trust me, I could come up with another batch of these. 

Do YOU have a book you want to be a film?

Review: Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Book Title: Firelight
Author: Sophie Jordan
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Nº of pages: 323
Date Published: 7th September, 2010
Rating:

A hidden truth.
Mortal enemies.
Doomed love.
With her rare ability to breathe fire, Jacinda is special even among the draki—the descendants of dragons who can shift between human and dragon forms. But when Jacinda’s rebelliousness forces her family to flee into the human world, she struggles to adapt, even as her draki spirit fades. The one thing that revives it is the gorgeous, elusive Will, whose family hunts her kind. Jacinda can’t resist getting closer to him, even though she knows she’s risking not only her life but the draki’s most closely guarded secret.
Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.

My Thoughts

This is the first of a three book series, it kept me captivated 'till the end! The characters are very well done. They just go so well together, Will and Jacinda. Although I thought sometimes Jacinda acted fairly childish for a 16 year old. The writing was incredible, when she turned into a dragon it felt really easy to imagine what transforming looked like - not so much what she looked like when a fully transformed dragon...

Each book pretty much leaves you with a steep cliff-hanger. Which mean't after I read the paperback book, I quickly headed to the kindle store and bought the other two! My only proper criticism is that I really wish the author would write more of their adventures together. There is another book based around the same stuff on Jacinda's best friend Azure, called Breathless so I might check it out. Even this isn't much for proper criticism!

“A hunter in love with his prey.”

 I honestly think that this quote describes the book best. Will is a hunter and Jacinda is the hunted. What better thing to say than "opposites attract".

I would really, definitely recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for a fantasy, romance mixed with contemporary novel. This book literally had me blabbing about it for days, the cover also. I know people always say "never judge a book by it's cover" however, I always find that it's more often the cover which attracts the reader to the story or the summary as well.

Would You Rather: Book Edition

Since I'm new to the blogging life, my mind was fresh with ideas. Along with all the other previously posted posts (I wish there was another word for 'posts'), I came up with the Would You Rather: Book Edition. I'm not entirely sure whether others have done this (I'm sure they have), but lets get on with the questions!


Would You Rather...

...Only ever read books that you didn't like at all, but read as many as you want. Or only be able to read your favourite book over and over again?

Well, this may be a tricky one. You could say that even if you didn't read your favourite books, they last longer because you don't want to read them - so it means you get to read less of them. However, if you read a book that you enjoyed, you're left with memories and dreams from that book. *Huffs* I'm going to be all 'Hazel Grace' and only ever read my favourite book - and yes in my case my favourite book would be the equivalent Hazel's 'Imperial Affliction'.

Would You Rather...

...Burn all your favourite books, or get strapped in a chair while spiders climb all over you?

What?! How am I meant to answer that? Well I suppose the spiders is a one off (even if you're left with the horrible memory), who knows, I could end up loving spiders. Although I have come to the conclusion that, instead of going through the experience that would only ever happen in a horror film, I would burn all my favourite books, memorise which ones they are, and just go and buy myself all the ones I lost. I know right...very thoughtful.

Would You Rather...

...Save one of your favourite books or save all the books you didn't like during a zombie apocalypse?

Hmm...I would probably go with saving one of my favourite books. I mean, it's not as if you have a lot of time to read during a zombie apocalypse?

Would You Rather...

Be allowed to use the internet but never read books. Or only read books and never go on the internet?

This could either go down to which one I use the most - which would be internet. I was going to say I could find books on the internet, but that would be cheating the question. I'm going to go with not going on the internet. I'm pretty sure I couldn't last a week without reading something!

Would You Rather...

Read books or watch films?

This is quite the classic would you rather question. As much as I want to say films, I'm going to say books. With films, they can be pretty amazing, but so can books, and with books you can imagine the scene exactly how you want it.


That's it for this post. I was going to keep it short, it did take me a while to come up with the questions. I really hope you liked it!

Would you rather read books from one of your favourite genres? Or Read books from all genres except your favourite?