Valentine's Day Book Tag!

I have literally nothing with Valentine's day.
I don't think it's a special holiday or anything or a holiday at all - more a way for companies to get more money. I'm not saying this because I'm single, by the way.
But I can understand why people like it - a special day on which you have an excuse to give your valentine a little gift or to spend same extra time with him or her.
I guess that's fun.
Either way I'm going to do the Valentine's Day Book Tag created by Epic Reads!

1. First Book Crush
Ashallayn'Darkmyr Tallyn from the Iron Fey-series. I mean, he was just such a mysterious hot feary guy - how can a twelve year old who've just gotten into YA-books NOT love him?
He just had it all - he was a prince, he puts up this tough guy act but actually has vulnerable, sweet heart, he can fight, he's sexy, oh god he is sexy, with his scars and his muscles...
*ARHEM* Sorry, getting of track.
But anyway - Ash was my first book crush.

2. What book would you want to be your Valentine?
Wait, just one?
Can't I have various Valentines? Or does that count as cheating...?
Well, I suppose Wonder by R.J. Palacio would be a wonderful Valentine, since it just has this beauty to it and this heart to it; the story is just beautiful and has this beautiful happy ending - it's just beautiful (and I said beautiful three times in one sentence, hehe)!
Wonder would just be a cute and kind and sweet and lovely - and just so damned cute - Valentine!

3. Candy Hearts or Chocolate?
I'm not a big fan of candy - don't look at me like that.
But I just love chocolate... But I don't like to much of it.
You would make me way more happier with a box of Oreo's, 'cause those are little pieces of heaven *angels singing in the background*.

4. What book would you gift your true love?
I think I'd gift him The Humans by Matt Haig, because it's funny and touching and basically anyone will love it, even if you're not much of a reader. And besides at the end there are some, like, "life-tips" which could give him wise lessons or something?
It might be inspiring in some ways - it's just a beautiful story.

5. Favorite Rom-Com
Well, here's the thing - I just hate rom-com's.
Okay, maybe not hate, but I prefer not to watch them. Most of them are just soooooo cliché - ugh, blegh, ugh.
The funny thing is that I used to love them so much - and around that time I was like 7 or 8! It's like the whole child-to-adult proces went the other way around for me: I loved stupid rom-coms when I was younger and now I like fairy tales and games and magic and action and stuff like that, haha.
But my favorite rom-com....
OOH - I GOT ONE! HOW COULD I FORGET?
The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds! And no, I didn't watch this when I was a kid, because even though I liked them then I wasn't allowed to watch those movies... Either way - I just really really really loved this one, because it was funny and Ryan is just hot and Sandra such and amazing actress and the whole scheme was just messed up! Pretending to be engaged... Who the hell would think of that? And then eventually actually getting engaged - not cliché at all *cough* *cough*
It was just one of the rare moments in my life I enjoyed such movies. Yup.

6. Best Valentine's gift you've ever received (or want to receive)
I've never actually celebrated Valentine, although once when I was a little kid I gave my BFF a ring a made myself and she gave me one in return, which was pretty damn cute, but we're not BFF's anymore...
I guess books and food'll do - I'll be happy if I got that on Valentine's Day. Or any day actually.

7. Favorite thing about Valentine's Day (if you love it) OR favorite thing to do on Valentine's Day (if you hate it)
Like I said, I don't have anything with Valentine's Day, so I guess you could say that I hate it. And what I like to do on Valentine's Day is just to treat it as a normal day. Just doing stuff that I need to do or read a book or play videogames and just relax. Ooh, yeah, that's a nice Valentine's Day for me.

Well, that's it for this blog post!
I hope you enjoyed!
Until the next blog post, then! :)

Review Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

Perhaps, if you follow me on social media, you already know that I actually bought this book before I bought the other two in the Chaos Walking Trilogy.
It was quite an impulse-buy; it was priced off, so I thought: Why the hell not?
I didn't know then that I was going to love this series so much - I had even considered to bring this book back, instead of buying the other two! WHAT?!
I'm really glad I didn't.

Summary

Todd has finally beaten the Mayor and Viola has run off to the scout ship that has landed on New World, hoping to get there before the Answer does.

But then a new danger, a new army, enters the battlefield and so the war rages on.

Three armies with dangerous weapons fight each other off, while Todd and Viola are in the middle of it, trying to stay out of the nasty grasps of the leaders of this war and aiming for peace on all sides.

But will they manage, when there is a third voice who's out on revenge?

My Opinion

Rate: 9.5/10

AND IIIIIIII-I-IIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUU!

- My reaction after finishing this book and with that, this series.

Man, this was such a fun ride! A real emotional roller coaster - I've never felt so connected to characters or to books themselves before. Patrick Ness has done such a fantastic job on this series and I don't think that any sci-fi-/fantasy-writer can top that!

While reading, I really felt this war-like feeling; the desperation, the disgust for the dirty, dirty tricks all the parties dared to use, the pain and the madness - the complete madness.

And I think we can thank our amazing kind of-sort of-not really-but totally villains the Mayor and Mistress Coyle for that; their choices and visions that brought every single person in New World deeper and deeper into war; their pride that made them unable to see the most logical solutions, but also Todd and Viola, because of their strong feelings for each other - wanting to win this war for EACH OTHER and you consistently see this vision come back in everything they do.

And that's what has done the trick, eventually, I suppose - Ness consistently confronting us with the visions of the characters (what do they ACTUALLY want out of this war?), making us understand every character more and more, but also making the tension rise because of it and making things more complicated - are our heroes doing the right thing? Or are they being way to selfish?

Another beautiful thing to see, was how much everybody in the book has grown, and changed, of course. Some also literally like Todd, and some still changing (not going to tell you who, hehe).

If I'd compare the characters of the first book with the ones in the third, I must say I feel so much difference! They've actually grown up, learned how to deal with things differently, but not SO differently that they look like entirely different persons. 

I basically felt like Todd's mom, who was watching him from above and saw how he - and Viola - was dealing with everything that came at him.

I can tell you she's very proud. *wipes away a tear*

What was rather funny and fascinating than beautiful to see was how the different perspectives (Todd, Viola and the third voice (read the books if you want to know who exactly)) didn't only give us different viewpoints on the same situations, when they were in the same situation at the same time, but also seem parallel against each other. 

By this I mean that they are similar situations, but then at different places and at different times with different people.

For example in relationships: both Todd and Viola are forced to work together with the people who they hate the most: the Mayor and Mistress Coyle. Both the Mayor and Mistress Coyle are trying to use them to win this war, but both of course with different methods. Now both Todd and Viola are confronted with similar questions from them or about them, with the same feeling of having to work with them but not wanting to work with them, but both deal with them in completely different ways and as a reader you just see how different the outcomes are. It is a very simple thing, but I just felt that it was just a notable thing.

Actually I found the parallel between Todd and the third voice the strongest. I'm not going to tell you too much about - I'm trying to keep my reviews spoiler-free - but I can tell you that they're on complete opposite sides, and the third voice really hates Todd. Now the third voice is also working for his people and is close to the leader of them (like Todd to the leader of men, the Mayor) and you can just see, see sooooo clearly, without any of them noticing how much the same they both are and how similar the relationship between them and the leaders is - it's just so utterly fascinating!

And the fact that the leaders affect them both so differently, is just strange and kind of funny, I want to say but it sounds quite strange in this context, haha...

Furthermore; this book was really action-packed. Event after event after event after event - all so freaking terrifying and awesome and heartbreaking. People are dying all around you, New World is being destroyed - so much chaos.

I think Ness has portrayed this background perfectly!

Other than that I think that that what made the all the events so powerful are the way it's described. And then I'm not talking about the words that are chosen or the perspectives; I'm actually referring to more esthetical points of the descriptions: the way the sentences are built.

You see not only in this book, but in the two books befre, when Todd or Viola is going through a terribly fast and terrifying event they start to think in cut off-sentences.

They repeat words (We push forward- Forward forward forward-) and, like I said, they cut off their sentences (And there he is- Right in the middle of it- Fighting of Spackle- "Todd," I whisper-) and that makes the events really go fast and feel terrifying!

And that's actually all I've got to say! 

This book was a fantastic ending to the sorry, even though I'm really sad it's over. I'm pretty sure I'll be re-reading this series soon and I hope that I've convinced to try and read this series, too? Let me know in the comments or in social media if you do and I hope you will love it as much as I do!

Until the next blogpost, then! :)