Saturday

wassup october? / musings, tbrs, challenges and such



Hello everyone! Happy actually fall! The East Coast has been having some... identity crises and is totally mimicking what should be happening in the Southern Hemisphere because for some reason it has been 90 degrees all of last week.

IT IS OFFICIALLY OCTOBER. *throws leaves and pumpkin cupcakes frantically at your face* AH. How I missed this month in all of its spooky glory. You make my heart sing.

I'm sitting here in my mustard sweater, sipping black tea and ready to start my morning even though it's 1:40. let's go.



TO BE READ

Last month I read a whopping total of, 2 books! Which is a step up, and I'm getting out of my slump and it's all smiles over here. ONTO THE BOOKS.



PHOENIX + WINGS / elizabeth richards : I recently started reading Phoenix after I finished Black City in.. a day... and I'M LOVING IT. or am i. i don't really know. There are lots of tropes and it's quite cliche actually but the plot is thrilling and EVERY CHAPTER LEAVES YOU ON A CLIFFHANGER. i don't know how to deal.

OF FIRE AND STARS / audrey coulthurst : I fell in love with this book when I first saw it on Goodreads for two reasons: lgbt relationship and badass princesses with the gift of fire. And it looks like it can break my heart so I'm ready for it.

-  FOREVER / maggie stiefvater : When I hit my book slump in May, I forgot about this series and let it catch dust on my shelf. But I kind of forget the plot. So I may have to go back and read all of them again.  Which means I may not get to reading anything else. Oops? Not oops I'm not really sorry because I remember how good this series is and MWAAHAHHA my TBR shall suffer! HAAH. ah. ha. yikes



INKTOBER? NANOWRIMO? Oh lawrd.

Am I doing Inktober for the first time? Am I doing NaNoWrimo again? I DON'T KNOW STOP PESTERING ME. 

Soccer season ends on Tuesday (I'm sobbing but jumping for joy at the same time) so I'll have free time after school to practice my violin until my hands fall off (still sobbing and jumping for joy)

This gives me time to do other things like draw an ink drawing every day of October and write 1,500 words every day in November! (the sobbing and jumping never ends) Can I do it? I don't really know. But I have to decide soon because October is actually tomorrow. AHHHH. 

I found this witchy Inktober 30 day prompt thingy picture blob on the internet somewhere (does this prove I'm not ready for NaNo) so maybe I'll do like half of Inktober? We'll see how it goes. 



LAST MONTH’S MUSINGS

I started HIGH SCHOOL IN SEPTEMBER. It was not the place full of wraths and demons and dragons who want to bite your head off like people said. Everyone hates freshman which sucks but it's really not that bad. *curls up into a ball* GET ME OUT. kidding. joking. it's fine. 

School is slowly consuming the soul I did not have but we're making it through, chugging along on life's toboggan. (took me 5 tries to spell toboggan and i'm not actually hundred percent sure what a toboggan is.) 

Here are a few snapshots from my life that you probably don't want. 


A lovely view from coming back from my soccer game. Also CLOUDS ARE SO FREAKIN PRETTY?? They're like nature's paintings. Geez. 

My  #selfie with my computer playing DOCTOR WHO. Aka the show I was obsessed with in 5th grade and now that obsession is coming back. AH. missed it. 

These weird pizza things my dad found at the supermarket which are strangely PHENOMENAL and can be devoured in exactly 5 minutes. 


Creepy eye drawing I was working on that actually wasn't half bad. That lighting though #idonotdrawat3amwhat

Candid of me and my friend walking through the hallway taken by my other friend who had my phone. I could totally be a model. 

Some more art of mine of queen ZENDAYA that made it onto queen ZENDAYA'S APP. I AM FAMOUS. I AM CRYING. THIS IS MY GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT. AHHHH. 




Delve into your psychic minds and predict how your October will be... GO! Are you doing NaNoWrimo? Do you also love clouds and Doctor Who? What are you going to read this month? Any miraculous and spectacular book recommendations for me?

peace out,
noor

Sunday

top five things that will make me rate a book five stars

Sometimes, authors do really good things. Things that make me flail, things that get me excited, things that make me rack up the stars and praises and make me FALL IN LOVE. Things that make me do this:


And because I'm a basic little book blogger, I compiled them into a list, because no one has done that before. ha. 

one word. diversity. yes.

i mean, this was a given. It really doesn't make sense to me when all the characters are the same. It also makes me sad when every book I read is set in Nowhere Town, U.S.A.

I did a whole post somewhere.. hold on.. HERE on why we need more representation in YA, which I wrote back in January, but I still stand by 100%. POC are really cool, LGBT are really cool, everyone is cool, put them in your books!! They deserve a badass story too. 


secondary character development (you find this in most books BUT WHEN IT'S DONE RIGHT?? YES.)

When I see a secondary character develop, my heart flutters. Most of the times, a secondary character is my favorite character, and it makes me so happy when I see them get the proper and nice love they deserve? JFJFDWFDBHF

Sometimes though, character development goes wrong and it's not very pretty, and the character is broken and SO IS MY HEART. But the pretty development. AH. Don't get me wrong, development is hard, so the lovely crazily talented authors that can pull it off are pure... genius. 


a good villain with a good backstory and a good plan and the ability to put up a good fight

Villains cannot be weak. They cannot be taken down in a chapter. And they should have some backstory besides I WAS BORN EVIL IN THE WOMB. weak. 

hahah yes i am token villain and i will take over the world with token weapon that can be taken down with a single button. great plan yes i am genius hAHAHHAHAHA. 

hahah yes i am token ruler and i will kill u all if u don't listen to me. but wait there is a girl coming to kill me o no! my thousands of men can't take her down! i am weak. weak. 

hahah yes i am token bully and i will make every person in token high school fear me! but wait i have one flaw that main character discovers and now i am #exposed! o no



main characters that actually know what they're doing

I AM SO TIRED OF CLUELESS MAIN CHARACTERS. Yes, I get that main characters aren't supposed to know everything so we can learn with them blah blah blah but once they understand, they should be doing smart things. NOT FOOLISH THINGS. 

Genius characters are fun, decently intelligent main characters are great too, but I don't like reading characters that act like they've never encountered any bit of the universe. It's annoying. 

It's quite nice to see that once the main character gets everything explained to them, they actually take the information and do something useful. That's all. Just my personal preference really. 


teenagers that act like.. teenagers

Obviously most YA protagonists are teenagers, but they all seem to be so grown up. Of course I understand you're all busy about saving the world but what about homework, and a crazy fashion sense that includes a few pairs of avocado socks.

I want a YA character that has a few problems like mine, like running out of Poptarts at 1 AM, and not having the right pair of jeans to go with my t shirt for the day. However when I find those characters, I keep them close to my heart because who doesn't love characters that are #relatable?


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HOPE Y'ALL ENJOYED!! I missed blogging so much AAA ranting about books every weekend really is a refresher. 

tell me some of your fave bookish things! let's chat :D

Love y'all,
Noor

we are the ants by shaun david hutchinson: a journey of existential crisises



The universe may forget us, but our light will brighten the darkness for eons after we've departed this world. The universe may forget us, but it can't forget us until we're gone, and we're still here, our futures unwritten. We can choose to sit on our ass*s and wait for the end, or we can live right now. We can march to the end of the void and scream in defiance. Yell out for all to hear that we do matter. That we are still here, living out our absurd bulls*it lives and nothing can take that away from us. Not rogue comets, not black holes, not the heat death of the universe. We may not get to choose how we die, but we can choose how we live. 

The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching on.


Do you ever pick up a book and know that it's going to be good? You don't read the back, you barely glance at the cover design, but you read the title and just know? That's the vibe We Are the Ants gave me the second I took it off the shelf at Barnes and Noble. 

There is no way to describe it besides saying it was marvelous. It's been a long time since I've given a book 5 stars, almost a year long time. It's been a while since I sat down with a book and was able to just read until time wouldn't allow me to read anymore. It's been a while since I've been able to call a book one of the greatest books I have ever read. 

This book shot down and broke me. Broke my mind, my soul, everything I have ever thought of. This book made me rethink my entire life. But in the best way possible. You pick up this book and you follow Henry Jerome Denton through a course of one hundred and forty four days and you live the hell out of those one hundred and forty four days.



Because this is not your average sci fi book. This book tackles more than just the impossible possibility of aliens and the world ending. It basically tackles everything, and it made me understand a lot of things. 

Spoilers ahead! Go read the book if you haven't and if you have, keep reading :)


Broken people will let the world end.

I'm living in an After Jesse world where I ache from missing him and nothing makes sense. My boyfriend and best friend both abandoned me. I am a punch line at school, a ghost at home. I hate Jesse for leaving me behind. If he asked I would have walked into the air with him. 

Before reading this book, if someone approached me with a button and told me if I didn't press it in 144 days, the world would cease to exist, I would have pressed it then and there. 

At the beginning of the book, I was appalled that Henry chose not to push it, why wouldn't you? 

But Henry was a broken clock still ticking, and broken people see more than happy people. Broken people are pessimists, they see everything wrong with the world, they see every reason not to push a button that would save the world. They see humanity as fools who have ruined every opportunity to succeed, they see a fresh start, they see a better universe. 

And like I said before, this book broke me and put me back together, so I began to see everything wrong with the world and every reason not to push a button that would save the world.



However, after careful consideration I decided that I would push the button. There is too much in this world worth saving, and I think by the end of the book, Henry realized that too. 


There is an infinite amount of ways the world could end. 

On 29 January 2016 at 1:39 UT, the Jürgen Eichman impacts the Mediterranean Sea.
The United States Armed Forces invade North Korea on 29 January 2016 at 20:03 GMT.
It begins on 26 January 2016 at 7:35 am EST, and the new Fixers, whose sole function is to replicate, consumes the entire planet in three days, leaving behind nothing but an ocean of grey goo.
Emmanuel Roth arrives in Geneva on 29 January 2016 at 10:19 UTC and detonates a fission bomb, atomizing the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, and most of Switzerland. 
On 29 January 2016 the South Korean government passes a mandatory Mind's Eye Legislation and in a matter of months, every person on Earth is living in a fantasy world. 
On January 29 2016, at 11:23 pm EST a boat off the coast of Maryland is trapped in ice. It is the first reported incident of the Atlantic Ocean freezing. By the time the sun grows bright, no one is left alive to feel its warmth. 
On 29 January 2016, the last hive of honeybees, located on an almond farm in California, succumbs to CCD. 
On 29 January 2016, a pair of CroMS escape from a lab in Austin, Texas. They begin to breed.

The world could cease to exist because of one little thing. And we could potentially never see it coming. i hope i didn't just give you the creeps.



Development of secondary characters is one of my favorite things to read.

The amazing thing about this book was that Henry wasn't the only character who was developed. And it was so much fun to read.

Henry's mother seemed to be a stubborn yet loving woman, who was just as broken as Henry was. She lived through seeing her mother suffer through Alzheimers, her eldest son dropping out of college and getting his girlfriend pregnant, her youngest son barely making it through high school, her husband leaving her and their kids behind, and stuck at a depressing job waiting tables. 

But by the end of the story, we see her take on a job cooking which she loves to do, making her mother happy by putting her in a retirement home, and living a life she genuinely enjoys, which is a pretty great improvement if I do say so myself.



Henry's brother Charlie probably had the most development out of every character in the book. You could even argue that his development was better than Henry's. It's not that he changes, it's just that you get to see more of him. 

Through Henry's eyes, Charlie is nothing more than a high school bully/jerk turned college dropout who got his girlfriend pregnant and hates his little brother type of guy. But as we see the events of Charlie's life fly by our eyes, such as losing his kid, giving up his dream to become a firefighter to support his family, you and Henry both realize he's more than that person. You realize that hey, this guy would have been a great dad. You got to see the inside part of Charlie that Henry never got to see until Charlie lost his baby. And by the end of the book, for the first time in his life, Henry actually felt like his brother loved him, and that's bada*s character development right there. 

There is such thing as love, or is there?

"Remember when you asked me if I'd save the world?"
"I didn't think you'd heard me."
Marcus snorted like I was stupid to think otherwise. "Well I would."


This is not a romance novel. This is not a sci fi novel. But without either, this book wouldn't be the same. We encounter three different romances in this book, and all of them are different, but they're not. Because in one way or another they're all misguided, and they're all based on foolish mistakes.

Jesse abandoned Henry. His foolish mistake was thinking that Henry didn't think he was enough, his foolish mistake was suicide. Diego hid from Henry. His foolish mistake was waiting too long to tell Henry the truth, and time is everything, you never have too much time. Marcus ruined Henry. His foolish mistake was taking Henry on a hook, reeling him in, and letting go, reeling him in, and letting go, until finally, Henry was the one who let go. 

Were any of those three love? Each one of them said that they in fact did love Henry, but did they? I still may never know what true love is, true love may not exist? ASDBGBG i told you there would be existential crises.




- - - - 

AHFBJFBF I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH!! I can't wait to go out and buy more books by this author because I just LOVE LOVE LOVE his writing style so much oml. Check out the book with all the linky links down below :) NOT A PAID PROMO!!


First official post of bookmarkd!! SCREEEEAAAAAMMM. Hope you guys enjoy the new me. woo confetti pumpkin cupcakes. SPEAKING OF WHICH. FALL. YES. DEW. HOODIE WEATHER. PUMPKIN FREAKIN CUPCAKES. 

i really haven't changed at all. 

love y'all!
noor

ALSO ALSO check out my Goodreads where I post all of my reviews!! 

Saturday

i was a little bit of sunshine, now? idk but hi

Hello everyone! I didn't forget about this blog, I just thought I didn't have time for it. And I still do but then I also thought, why not?

I changed the name, I wasn't feeling A Little Bit of Sunshine anymore, that's not me really, I'm not 10 anymore. I'm still only 13 but I started high school two days ago! SCREEEEEEE it's so scary and overwhelming which is why relaunching this blog is probably the worst idea I've ever had and I'm probably not going to end up publishing this post and HHHHH

I missed y'all. Like a lot. I thought about coming back a lot and then I was like "NOOO you FOOL. You have area all state coming up, you are TAKING AP EURO AND AP ART and you're playing varsity soccer you have no time and you'll become a mess."

But then this morning I woke up and went through my stories on Insta and saw a picture of a book and someone saying "Perfect way to start my Saturday" and a pinge of guilt went through my heart. And then I looked over at my bookshelf at all my unread books and began to follow over a hundred bookstagram accounts and then my books started yelling at me to review them and well. Here I am.

So welcome to bookmarkd! I'm not actually sure where this is going but I actually realized one thing, I can do whatever the heck I want to. I don't owe anyone apologies because this whole shabang is for fun and not for numbers or blablablabla you know the spiel.

All I know is that I'm going to review books and talk about books and just BOOKS because sometime after May I forgot how much I LOVE BOOKS. I may throw in some #rants about how much I hate AP Euro and how much I love Bio but that's just the norm right?

Let's see how this goes. And to everyone who comments on this thank you for sticking with me! wow like really it means a lot <3 I PROMISE I'LL TRY MY BEST AND I'LL COME HOME AND READ ALL OF YOUR BLOGS AND FALL IN LOVE WITH BLOGGING AGAIN AND IT'LL JUST BE A GREAT TIME OKAY

I'm not promising to post like every other day but every week is probably possible?? most likely on sundays because I do all of my homework on saturdays.

i hope you didn't forget about me :)))

<3, Noor

also my domain is going to remain the same until i build up the courage to ask my dad to change it lol