thesparklingletters-blog
Sparkling Letters
Puput. 22. Avid reader. Lovers of all things pretty. Book blogger at Sparkling Letters (http://pupuutc.wordpress.com)
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Review: Caraval // Strange, Magical, and Enchanting
Review: Caraval // Strange, Magical, and Enchanting
RATING : Goodreads • Amazon • The Book Depository TRIGGER WARNING : PARENTAL ABUSE Going into a hyped book could be utterly terrifying. There’s always that dreaded question of “what if I don’t like this book?”. That’s why I was so, so wary of starting Caraval, especially since I’ve been in fantasy slump for the past 3 months. But wow, this book was pretty amazing! It reminded me of how much I…
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I Need More NA Fiction in My Life : Help Me Find the Right Books!
I Need More NA Fiction in My Life : Help Me Find the Right Books!
Hello everyone, welcome to another discussion post! ♥ If you’ve been following me for a while, you must have noticed that almost all the books I review here are YA. That’s right, I’m a huge YA reader and proud of it. I don’t care about the fact that ignorant people are calling YA “not a real literature” or how some of my friends keep saying that I should start reading “grown up books” now that I…
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The Diversity Corner #1 : February News, Muslim Representation, and March New Releases
The Diversity Corner #1 : February News, Muslim Representation, and March New Releases
Hello everyone, welcome to the first edition ever of The Diversity Corner! ♥ You might remember my post about my stance as diverse book blogger and the introduction of my feature. I’m a bit nervous but HERE I AM, with its first edition ♥ Today I’ll be talking about Muslim representation. I chose this topic because this is the one topic that is so close to my heart. I’ve been living and learning…
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ARC Review : The Inexplicable Logic of My Life // Lyrical, Beautiful, and Heartwarming
ARC Review : The Inexplicable Logic of My Life // Lyrical, Beautiful, and Heartwarming
RATING : Goodreads • Amazon • The Book Depository WHAT A BEAUTIFUL BOOK INDEED ♥ I had high expectation going into this book because I enjoyed Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe as much as the next fan girl and I was expecting this to be even better. Plus the cover was so, so gorgeous. Imagine my excitement when I got approved on Netgalley. I freaked! I ditched my…
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Hello everyone! ♥
It’s been a while since the last time I did a Top Ten Tuesday but this week topic just basically called to me! It’s Ten Books I Loved Less/More Than I Thought I Would. I’ve read 21 books this year but only two of them are 5 stars. This month I haven’t even rated a book 5 stars</3
Being let down so often inspired me to make a list of books I loved less than I hoped I would. It was a coincidence that this week topic is similar. True story, I swear! :P But BEWARE, I’ll be dragging a lot of people’s favorites. It’s okay for you to be upset with my choice, it’s okay if you disagree and want to discuss it, but there’s no need to be angry or fight over favorite books, alright? ;) Anyway, it’s definitely more than 10. Here you go!
(PS. all the title links will take you to my goodreads review while the full review links will take you to my blog review)
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
I’ve seen nothing but praise for this book so without a doubt, I bought it the first time I saw it in the bookstore. I was prepared to cry and be amazed but it turned out to be just an okay read for me! I hate one of the protagonist and his chapters were pointless. Though to be fair, it’s partly my fault because me + historical fiction = not best friends 😂 Full review.
Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Now before you yell at me, let me start by saying I did not dislike this book! I’m only slightly disappointed! It was 4-stars so I still enjoyed it so much. Buuuut compared to Illuminae, this one fell short for me. I feel like I didn’t connect with the characters as well as I did in the first book. Not to mention that this one was so much more confusing, but less scary :P Full review.
What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick
I adored My Life Next Door so much because adorable romance + juicy family drama are my jam. I was so excited to read another book by Huntley Fitzpatrick but boy, I disliked this one so much </3 there’s this witholding of important information that irritated me so much. It took a long time for me to finish it.
The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
Again, I didn’t dislike it. It just didn’t live up to my expectation. I loved The Winner’s Crime a lot it broke my heart to pieces, so obviously I expected the final book to blow me away. It didn’t. This was too technical, too much descriptions of war strategy and the mythology. And due to Kestrel’s condition, I felt like we were back to zero.
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Helig
The premise of this series sounds so promising. I mean, time travel, ship, maps, diverse characters, what’s not to love? Unfortunately, the execution was too all over the place. The main character lacks of personality, there was unnecessary love triangle with a boring 2nd love interest, and info dumping :( the good news is, the second book was better. It comes out in February 28. Full review.
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
Oh God, the disappointment of the year. I know a lot of you love this series, that’s why I picked it up in the first place. Sadly, I hated it. I tried, I’m sorry. I disliked Paige, I hate the romance, I didn’t understand the world building & all the fancy terms, and the only thing I liked was the Seven Seals. Safe to say I wouldn’t read the sequels. Full review.
The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
I wasn’t so surprised to know I disliked this book. I’ve seen negative reviews from bloggers I trust and insta love is a red flag for me. But since a lot of people praised this book, I had a little hope that maaaaybe I’d love it. Well, I didn’t. I didn’t like the insta love, it was so unrealistic even if it didn’t feel like an insta love :( Full review.
By Your Side by Kasie West
No one feels more sad than I do to see this book on a disappointment list. I’m a die hard fan of Kasie West. I’ve read and loved all her books, except this one. The premise says locked in a library. I was so excited and Kasie’s writing gets better each book, so naturally I had high hopes for this one. It’s the worst of all her books. The characters have boring to basically no personality and the romance was cold. I really wish her next book will be better.
Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven
It’s basically the same case as Gemina and The Winner’s Kiss. I still liked it but less than I hoped I would. I enjoyed All the Bright Places so much and this one fell flat compared to it. It’s less emotional and honestly, kind of boring. Sorry! But I’ll still read anything Jennifer Niven writes ♥ Full review.
Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter
Remember when I said The Bone Season was the disappointment of the year a few paragraphs ago? Well, I lied. This one is. It’s my first 1-star rating in a long time. I had high hopes for this book because Russian fairy tale? Count me in. Sadly there was so many plot holes, but not enough Russian vibes. There’s basically no world building and the plot was just as vague. I wanted to DNF it so much, and I wish I had. Full review.
Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
Now I feel a bit scared for putting this book on my list because every single person I know who reads this book, loves it. I had no idea why. It was boring and there was no chemistry between Amy and Roger. And to be honest, I didn’t connect with Amy at all. No, I disliked her. I… you know, I’ll just move on to next book before you all get mad at me :P
The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
I was so intrigued by this book because the premise + cover = to die for, not to mention a lot of bloggers seemed to love it. However, I feel like this book was a ball of beautiful prose with no actual plot nor character development. I’m sorry but Maya was such a weak protagonist. The romance between her and Amar was also so insta-lovey, even if I knew they go way back. I’m still gonna read A Crown of Wished though, because I’m sure Gauri would be a more interesting main character. Full review.
Well, I feel like this list has turned into a rant and my tone is getting more and more bitter. Not my intention, but kind of inevitable when talking about books I dislike :P to brighten up the mood, here are some books that I love MORE than I expected! It’s my good surprise list ♥
The Crown’s Game • I’ll Meet You There • Six of Crows • Illuminae
Alright everyone, those are 12 books I loved LESS than I hoped I would (plus 4 books I loved more than I expected). Do you see any of your favorites on the list? Or do you not like them as well? What books do you love less than you expected? Don’t forget to link me to your TTT so I could check it out! ♥
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My List of Disappointment : Books I Love LESS Than I Hoped I Would Hello everyone! ♥ It's been a while since the last time I did a Top Ten Tuesday…
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Hello everyone! ♥
Today we’ll be talking about something that’s been on my mind for quite a while : girls representation in books. Now you may be wondering what I’m talking about because don’t we get so many representation already? Well, we do. After all, most book covers are photos of girls. But are they positive? Well, we’ll see in a bit :P what pushed me to actually write this post was seeing some of my twitter friends talked about the same thing. It made me realize that my opinion was valid and not just my own… you know, that other people share the same opinion with me.
But before we talk about WHY we need more positive portrayal, let me talk about the negative portrayal first.
One dimensional character
If you read regularly, I’m sure you must have noticed the following characters : the calm and quiet main character who prefers her own company, the bubbly best friend who keeps trying to ‘drag her out of her shell’, and the evil, mean cheerleader who’s out there to make the protagonist life a living hell. Let me tell you something, those characters are cliche. Especially the mean girls.
I’m not saying there are no mean girls in real life because the truth is, there are. They exist. But in all my years of going to school and university, I haven’t come across a truly stereotypical mean girl who’s a tall blonde, a cheerleader, dates high school quarterback, and only cares about makeup, party, and boys.
The ‘not like other girls’ trope
Honestly, we should’ve left this trope in 2016 because it’s problematic! Not like other girls is usually used to describe a main character who’s again calm, quiet, nice, and doesn’t realize she’s pretty. She’s not like other girls because other girls care about their looks, wear make up, talk a lot, and flirt with boys. It’s like a girl has to be ‘less girly’ to be special and that’s like??? I mean… what’s wrong with other girls?
A male character saying a girl is not like other girls mean that he doesn’t think other girls are worth it. It’s like saying a girl who, I don’t know, acts girly, doesn’t deserve his attention because he wants someone special? On the other hand, a female character saying “I’m not like other girls’ is condescending. It’s like saying she’s above the other girls and by all means, better than them. It also says that other girls are shallow and she’s not. It’s not uncommon for me to read a book where the female characters slut shame other girls who aren’t friends with them.
Girl hate
I don’t understand why a lot of authors have this trope in their books. In books, girl hate may take a lot of form but they exist. There’s the hate between the captain of the cheerleading team and the main character. There are girl bullies. There’s also this kind of hate where the characters seem to be friends but secretly hate each others, leading to back handed compliment or any other offensive comments.
Do you notice all the things I pointed out above? If you don’t it’s either you don’t read that much or I’ve been reading the wrong books all this time 😂
These tropes might be common, but that doesn’t mean they’re not wrong because to be perfectly honest, they are. They’re harmful. I’m not saying every girls are best friends with each others because we don’t. Girl fight exists, bullying exists, but are they as common as books portray them to be? I don’t think so. That’s why we need more positive portrayal of girls in books.
Now that we’ve talked about the negative portrayals, it’s time I tell you my reasons why we don’t need them and we need a more positive one instead.
Girls are not monolith
Just like people in general. Quiet girls aren’t always nerdy and nerdy girls aren’t always quiet. Girls who love makeup and flirt with boys aren’t always mean or shallow. Girls who like sport aren’t always tomboy. A member of cheerleading team could be socially awkward, a girl who loves reading could also like to gossip, a sweet girl could be secretly mean, and so on. My point is, girls aren’t cut out from paper, we’re multi dimensional characters who love many things. The ‘not like other girls’ trope basically saying that the other girls are just the same, which is not true at all.
Take me for example. I’m a huge nerd who prefers reading to every other activities but I also love wearing makeup and dressing up. I’d rather stay home than go to a party but I also like to gossip and talk about boys with my friends. I could be friends with both girls and boys. I’m not one dimensional, and neither are my other girl friends. Back in high school, one of my best friend was a cheerleader. She likes to sing, gossip, flirt with boys, and she’s so nice we used to share a lot of secrets. She’s not mean.
That being said, everyone has their own personality and it’s complex. Girls might have some similarities in common but each of them has their own personality. There are so many ways to be a girl and there’s no right or wrong among them :)
Girl friendships are amazing
This. This is why I don’t get the girl hate trope because the truth is, girls don’t hate other girls. Okay, not entirely true. I’ve hated other girls and stopped being friends with some of them but it doesn’t happen that often. Even if it does, there’s always a reason. A real one. We don’t go around hating other girls just because. Of course there are girls who bully other girls, but in my experience, they don’t go around bullying nice, quiet girls just because they exist.
Most of my best friends are girls and they are amazing. My first real friendship was formed on my first year of high school. It’s a group of 4 girls. We talked a lot about clothes, boys, other people, our problems, our family, our pasts, and basically everything. They’re my closest confidante and we still keep in touch until now, almost 8 years after we met. We were separated on our second year. We didn’t share the same class, so I formed a new friendship with some new girls. It was a big group, I’m not even sure how many of us was in that group but we were all close and we didn’t secretly hate each others.
During my time in university, I met 4 more amazing girls whom I immediately became best friend with. They’re my rock. Living away from home, from your parents, means that the only family you have is your friends and that’s what they are to me, family. I went to them with every one of my problems and they’re always there for me. I’m also friends with almost all the girls on my year. We might not be besties but we get along fine.
My point is girl friendship is amazing and we should have more of that in books!
Girl readers need positive examples
A lot of teenage girls read books, especially YA. A lot of them look up to book characters and set them as their role models. Imagine if books only portray negative stereotypes. Those young readers might use them as examples and that’s why we need positive portrayals for them.
As usual, I’m ending my discussion with some book recommendations so today’s recs is supposed to be about positive girls portrayal. However, I’m kind of drawing blank because it’s such a broad and vague term and not a lot of books came to my mind. So, this recs is gonna be about fantastic female friendship :P even then, thinking up books with truly great friendship still turned out to be difficult. I mean, how sad is that?
Here are some that I managed to recall ♥
I’LL MEET YOU THERE BY HEATHER DEMETRIOS
You know I love this book so, so much and one of my favorite element is the friendship between Sky, Dylan, and Chris. Okay it’s not exactly a female friendship because Chris is a guy, but let’s just talk about Sky and Dylan here. Their friendship is amazing! Dylan always has Sky’s back and ready to defend her and from what I gathered from the story, Sky also had Dylan’s back when she went through some tough stuffs.
PS. I LIKE YOU BY KASIE WEST
Lily and Isabel are definitely my friendship goal! They just get each other and I love how they handled their conflict. Dating your best friend’s ex could go wrong on so many level, but it could also be alright. I know this, I’ve seen in twice in real life, so I was happy to see how things turned out between Lily and Iz.
CROOKED KINGDOM BY LEIGH BARDUGO
There are tons of reasons why Six of Crows duology is absolutely amazing and one of them is because the fantastic friendship between Inej and Nina! ♥ At first I was worried they were gonna be some kind of frenemies but turned out their friendship was so, so genuine and fun and full of talk about foods! :P
EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU BY NINA LACOUR
The award of the best book best friend is definitely going to Charlotte, Emi’s best friend! She’s amazing, fun, smart, and she gets Emi. She knows when to talk to her and she knows when to give her space. I also love the friendship between Emi, Charlotte, and Ava. It’s adorable ♥
For more recommendations about female friendship, head straight to CW’s blog! She wrote a recommendation post a few months back and it was amazing! ♣
Alright everyone, those are my reasons of why we need more positive girls portrayal in books because the portrayals we do have are so stereotypical and well… not true! What do you think about it? Are you tired of seeing the ‘not like other girls’ and ‘girl hate’ tropes over and over again? What are your favorite books featuring positive female portrayals? I’d love to hear your thoughts! ♥
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Why We Need More Positive Girls Portrayal in Books Hello everyone! ♥ Today we'll be talking about something that's been on my mind for quite a while : …
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Review : The Girl from Everywhere & The Ship Beyond Time // Maps, Ship, Diverse Characters, and Time Travel
Review : The Girl from Everywhere & The Ship Beyond Time // Maps, Ship, Diverse Characters, and Time Travel
Hello everyone, it’s review time! ♥ As you probably remember, I won a giveaway hosted by Heidi Helig in December. The prize is seven diverse books that arrived last month and two of them are Heidi’s own books : the UK edition of The Girl from Everywhere and the ARC of The Ship Beyond Time. Thank you Heidi! :D Since it was Heidi who gave me the books, of course I read her books first. Not to…
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I think it’s saying that we’re all born with seeds in us. And if we let them see sunlight and air, they’ll grow through us and break us. Like a tree growing up through a sidewalk.
READ IN 2016 » the serpent king, jeff zentner
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it was beautiful here, and gansey loved it. it had taken a long time, but he’d ended up where he wanted after all.
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Gryffindor Aesthetic
{Hufflepuff} {Ravenclaw}
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HP Aesthetic - Hogwarts Houses
↳ Ravenclaw
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ya lit meme: [5/10 books or series]
↳ I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
please do not remove the caption
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ya lit meme: [1/10 books or series]
↳ The Wrath and The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
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“When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that one of the best things in life is the knowledge that our story isn’t over yet. Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told.
Make it a story worthy of you”
the wrath and the dawn by renee ahdieh (insp)
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Books Read in 2016:
The Rose & The Dagger / Renee Ahdieh
It was because they were two parts of a whole. He did not belong to her. And she did not belong to him. It was never about belonging to someone. It was about belonging together
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Lila Bard + Kell Maresh (from V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic series)
“I do not know why you two are circling each other like stars. It is not my cosmic dance. But I do know that you come asking after one another, when only a few strides and a handful of stars divide you.” (x)
OTP (1/?)
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Lit Aesthetics: A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab
“There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London.”
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