"Howl's moving castle" by Diana Wynne Jones

Cute. That's the first word that come to my mind when I think of this book. Really really cute.

I love kids stories, and I love fairy tales, and I love magic. So obviously I love this book because it is all of these wrapped into one. And it's so lovely I can't even begin to explain.

This story takes place in an imaginary land where magic is an every day occurrence and the main character is a young girl named Sophie Hatter.

I love Sophie Hatter because at the beginning of the story she is so shy and afraid of everything. She's a mouse and she doesn't like going outside because she doesn't feel safe in the crowds outside her home. Basically I can relate to her very very much.

And it's so great because despite all of this fear she goes off and has an adventure anyway, even if she didn't exactly plan it.

Now Sophie gets cursed by and evil witch who turns Sophie into a ninety year old woman. Sophie then goes off to try and find someone who can fix her, but she can't actually tell anyone that she's cursed.

And that's when she finds Howl's moving castle.

Howl is a sorcerer and he is supposed to be an evil man who eats woman's hearts. Turns out he's just a terrible flirt who breaks women's hearts. Nuance.

Sophie goes on to make a deal with a fire demon and becomes friends with Howls apprentice and it's just a really lovely story. A modern day fairy tale if you will.

And if you're not reader (in which case I'd be curious to know why you're reading this) you don't have to read the book to go on this adventure with Sophie.

Normally I never say watch a movie if you can read the book, but in this case I will. In fact the best thing here would be to do both. So the movie is also called Howl's moving castle and its a cartoon by Hayao Miyazaki, and it is terrific. It really really is.

So my advice is the following : read the book, then watch the cartoon. It's worth your time I promise.

"The perks of being a wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky

So "The perks of being a wallflower".

Not entirely sure what I think of this one to be honest. I liked it, I really did, but it's not really the kind of book I would read over and over again.

Now I know this is a really popular book so don't hate me. Like I said before I did think it was good and I thought it was really interesting and well done and I read it in one go.

So I am very far from saying that I didn't like this book. Right so now that's been cleared up, let us move on.

This book is an epistolary novel, and basically what that means is that it's in the form of letters written by a boy who says that his name is Charlie to an unknown person. So really the book is made to look as if the letters have been sent to you and you are the unknown friend. You're made to feel as if you are directly involved in the story.

He says that his name is Charlie because he wants to remain anonymous. So at the very beginning he tells us that all the people that he names, including himself, are fake names just in case. And then he tells us all about what happens to him.

Charlie is really smart, and shy, and he's not mentally 100% well. And by this I don't mean he's crazy, I just mean that he seems to have trouble understanding the world, and people in it. I understood this as him being slightly autistic, but I guess that's just the way I saw it.

Charlie seems to go through a lot, and so do his friends. There seems to be a lot of trauma for everyone. It's kind of sad. Nothing is easy for any of them.

Bittersweet. I think that's the perfect word to describe this book.

It's bittersweet because throughout the entire book there's this one consistent theme : the ones who you love the most (or the ones you think that you love the most), hurt you the most. And Charlie has such a large family and yet he seems to be completely isolated.

It's an interesting read that's for sure.

"The fault in our stars" by John Green

I got "The fault in our stars" yesterday in the post and I finished it yesterday after reading through it in one obsessive go.

So yeah I liked it.

I cried though. So if you like crying because of fictional characters then read this book. And if you don't well read this book anyway. It's worth it.

Why all the crying? Well to say it in a completely spoiler free way it's about kids with cancer. There. Now without even knowing what happens, or who the characters are you already know that crying will be involved for a complete legitimate and reasonable reason.

But really this story is about a young girl called Hazel Grace who falls in love. And it's lovely it really is. It's very sweet, and simple, and sad.

It's also very real, and by that I mean that there's no scenes with a balcony and a guitar. It's more like "Oh I think you're really hot and I enjoy talking to you wanna hang out yeah awesome cool". And yet it's still somehow really sweet and and kind of romantic. How the fuck did you do that John Green? Seriously though. How?

And even though it's a love story, and a sad story about kids with cancer, this book also manages to be quite funny, with witty sarcastic characters (those are my favourite kind).

So all that babbling to say please read this. It's good I swear. Also you have read this and you did enjoy it (or didn't cause that does happen) then you are awesome! Reading is life, and I have to say it's really awesome to find a book that I can read in one sitting without getting distracted by tv shows. There's nothing better than a good book.

"The Protector of the Small" series by Tamora Pierce

So first of all I'm going to start off by saying that Tamora Pierce is one of my all time favourite authors. She is fucking awesome. Her stories are always great, and addictive, and don't even get me started on the characters.

So yeah. I like her a lot. And so now I'm going to try and convince you guys that you should too (and if you already do, well then GO YOU!).

Right so "The Protector of the Small" is a quartet that takes place in a fantasy medieval land called Tortall. Now Tamora Pierce has written many stories about Tortall, some of which take place before this quartet, and while you don't necessarily need to have read the previous stories it does help.

The main character of this series is a girl named Kelandry of Mindelan (but everyone just calls her Kel, so I'll do that here too), and she wants to be a knight. And so the extremely basic resumé of this story would be the following : girl wants to be knight, struggles to prove herself because she is a girl in a mans world, proves herself, becomes a knight, has adventures.

But like I said that's only if you want to be really basic.

Now like I said before reading the previous books helps understand some of the stuff that goes on. Like why is it so hard for her to become a knight? Well in previous books Tamora Pierce wrote about a character named Alanna who to become a Knight needs to disguise herself as a boy, and she ends up becoming the kings champion and proving to all the kingdom of Tortall that girls can be tough and ferocious too (God I love you Tamora). And since she's done this the King decided that if girls want they can try out for knighthood too without the whole getting disguised as a boy thing.

And this is where Kel come in. She is the very first girl to sign up for knighthood as an actual girl. And she has to put up with a shitload of prejudiced people, who think that because she's a girl she automatically sucks at anything to do with fighting, or physical strength. In the first book she's actually put on probation because no one wants her to succeed. But not only does she succeed she ends up being one of the best in her class, and ends up gaining lots of respect from her fellow Knights and from the Nobles and the common folk.

And to make things even better not only is she an excellent role model for any girl who wants to do something that is considered as typically male, she's also a wonderful character. She's extremely likable, and you really want her to do well. You want her to succeed, and you want her to be happy. She's wonderful.

And this is something that is common books written my Tamora Pierce. She always writes amazing heroines, and they prove that girls can do what boys can do. And it's great to read a book about a girl who is tough, and who is able to take care of herself.

Tamora Pierce creates amazing role models for young girls, and I for one love her for it.

So if you want to read about an amazing heroine in an amazing land filled with magic and adventure, please read "The Protector of the Small" series by Tamora Pierce. And then read all her other books. You won't regret it, I swear.