Well it’s monday for starters…….
and while I may be writing this on a Sunday night instead of studying for my history exam on Tuesday (because I’m just a rebel) I can tell you that I am probably not happy this fine Monday morning. The reason is simply because I am currently burning my way through George RR Martin’s Storm of Swords as quick as I can, which means that I will be up late tonight burning through the pages, completely absorbed into Martin’s fantastic world. The choice that I make will leave me exhausted and cranky in the morning. I’m hoping to finish this book pretty soon so that I can write a review on it for you guys. I’m trying to find some time to write some more reviews or really just get more content on my page in general. I have been pretty bad about my New Year’s resolution so far. I have plenty of ideas like for example, I still have two MCR albums that I have to review for you guys. On top of that, I have The Black (Asking Alexandria’s new album) to review and I think I’m going to finally write a review for House of Cards season 1 which is a brilliant show.
Today, for some reason I was thinking a lot about young adult novels. I think I started thinking about them because I was watching some Vlog brother videos which is a Youtube channel that is run by John Green and his brother Hank. John Green mentioned that he was working on a new book which made me very excited. John has written some of the best novels I have ever read, period. Then I thought about some of the other big YA novels, mainly The Hunger Games and The Divergent Series which have both become phenomenons in the young adult genre. Both have movie series with big name actors in them and both are in the same sub-genre: dystopian. Now I think that this is going to be about dystopian for the most part. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to read a dystopian YA novel again. I remember when I was young and I read The Hunger Games when it was first released. I loved it. The whole concept of it was….. dark. I felt like I shouldn’t have been reading a book this violent, this dark, with such a terrible but wonderfully original concept. I read all of the novels as they came out. The original is still my favorite to this day. The second just made me think meh and the third novel did not impress me. Then I heard about a new series called Divergent. I borrowed all three books from a friend of mine and read them in a week. I know what you’re thinking, well if he tore through them then he must have liked them and that is true. The novels were well written and were addicting to read. There was a lot of action and I never got bored as I ripped through the pages. Once I had finished that series though, I sat back and thought about how Divergent felt vaguely familiar to another series I read. Strong female lead character, sappy romance, overthrow of the government, lots of death and lots of feels. You know where I’m going with this. The Maze Runner is also quite similar to Divergent and I saw a pattern between all three of them.
Now before you jump down my throat, I’m not saying that their bad books, but they’re not exactly different. And I’m not saying that all dystopian novels are like these three franchises. I’m sure some are very original and frankly, if you think you have some good ones to recommend, I would love to check them out. Leave a comment below (please!). I’m just annoyed with the fact that the three biggest YA franchises that have movies being made are all similar in more ways than one. Like I said before, I’m not hating on all YA novels. I love John Green’s books and I just bought another YA novel the other day called Mosquitoland by David Arnold. I’m excited to read that one because it’s a novel about a road trip (I’m a sucker for road trip novels), but besides that I don’t know much else about the book. Who knows though? I might have just grown up (sad face) and have become uninterested in the whole dystopian setting.
The Windfest show
If you guys don’t know this yet, I am in a band. I play guitar and sing for a band called Just Alice. We just released a Youtube video of our new song called Time Bomb and it would be super cool if you guys checked it out. I’ll also leave a link for our Twitter and Facebook page below so you guys can check out our page and follow us. In a little under two weeks, We will be playing at the annual Windfest. Windfest is a small festival that is held in Portland every year. The last time we played at Windfest, we were all super young and we still had Jarrett as our bass player. This will be our first time performing on a stage in almost 2 years (I believe that is correct but I could be wrong)! It’s been a long road and we are very excited to get the opportunity to play again. We got a sick set list that we think you guys will love! So if you live in Portland, Mark the calendar! We will be playing on Saturday April 16 from 1:30-2:15.
Anyways…..
That’s actually pretty much all I have to tell you. That’s kind of my little blog for the day. It was kind of fun writing that one. Have a great week guys! Stay awesome!
Check out Just Alice’s Facebook page here
And check out their Twitter here
Entertainment Central 