TFW: Books I Love That Everyone Else Hates

Welcome to another Top Five Wednesday! Fun fact, I was having difficulty thinking up things to write about for top five and turns out, Goodreads has a whole group dedicated to this. I knew it was quite a popular thing in the booktube community, but I didn't know it was by that much. 

Anyway, the one that stood out to be the most (mostly because there's so many options to choose from) was the top five books I really liked or loved that everyone else didn't like so much or straight up hated. Let's get started!

(in no particular order)

One. 

It's not a book but a 'series'/trilogy that a lot lot LOT of people really didn't like, and even though I read this when I was about sixteen years old, my memory can't pick up anything I would dislike if I had read it freshly today and that is "The Maze Runner"/"The Scorch Trials"/"The Death Cure" and of course "Kill Order" (even though that is the prequel and technically not part of the trilogy, but I count it because it includes important information on how the Flare virus had come about). It was fast paced, action-packed, little romance, great characters - and the women were portrayed as strong people, even if they didn't show Lana (I think was her name) very much. It was a great series/trilogy from what I can remember, and I wish everyone felt the same way about it as I did. 

Two. 

This wasn't really a hated or strongly disliked book, but the mutual rating among most people for this novel was three stars, and I think I gave it four (the highest rating I could give it, five is reserved for books that really did something for me) , and that is "The Twins" by Saskia Sarginson. This book is about two twins, obviously, one who has anorexia and the other is a successful business woman.  They grew up in the woods with their mother who didn't believe in discipline, but one day something awful happens that they still can't shake of and they want to go back to the past to try and make peace within themselves and to help one of the twins with anorexia. It's kind of slow in parts, but please don't let that put you off!

Three. 

Another series I'm going to go with here. I'm finding more and more people who are a fan of this series by the day who were ashamed of it because of the 'controlling boyfriend' aspect throughout it but I think well, he's a vampire, so the rules are going to be different for him although I can completely see why a teenager would read it and think that was acceptable behaviour for a human boyfriend (it isn't). You've probably already guessed what that series is, and that is indeed the "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer. I read them as a kid, loved them. Watched the movies, loved them. They have great memories in them with some old friends I don't talk to anymore. It was just a really good series. 

Four. 

This one only counts for the first book, as the other two books in the series I did not enjoy very well - actually, I didn't even bother trying to get through the last book, I got halfway and DNF'd, but the first book was entertaining and I liked it, I liked it a lot, and that is "Divergent" by Veronica Roth. I found Tris to be the kind of person who would make the decisions I would make in her situation (apart from her acknowledging the people who bully her are in the next room but she walked in their in a towel anyway, now that was stupid, she should have just waited). A lot of teenagers don't make smart decisions. Not a huge fan of Roth's writing style, but I did really enjoy this book at least - I think Veronica Roth is more suited to standalones then she is to series and trilogys, if I'm being honest here.

Five. 

I guess I'm going to pick "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult for this, even though I didn't really love it, I just like it a lot more then most people seem to do (and I can completely understand why, honestly). I don't know, I just really like Anna, I think she's a really cool character.

Thank you ever so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed. what are your top five books? See you tomorrow, Loz x 

Dating a Person with (High Functioning) Autism

For Autism Awareness day, I would like to take this time to talk about something a little more personal to me, the idea itself was given to me by Loz, and I agreed that it'd be a great idea and a chance to talk about something a little more serious than my personality usually allows me. Now, starting off with how we met, she always seemed a little different to me, but it was just perfectly part of her charm. It was several months I believe, before she told be she had Aspergers. My reaction? Something along the lines of "Oh, well I guess that'd make sense, alright then". And she told me that had been the best response that she'd gotten from having told someone.

Why, why is that the best response? It's because I didn't make such a big deal about it, because that's all people want. To not have their differences highlighted. Do you like it when someone points out a mark on your face? No? Then why would an autistic person like it when you point out things about them? Don't do it. Just do. Not. They aren't wild beasts, they're people. You don't need to make them feel like they'll never be relateable, or that they HAVE to do something great to be important to someone. Why is it when someone is autistic, people only care when they do something great? Why can't we just appreciate people as people?

Now, dating a person with autism has it's challenges, and do you know why? That's because DATING has it challenges. Dating a person with autism just has DIFFERENT challenges. And in retrospect, it is no different than dating a person you just random met in a mall. I love Loz every bit in the wide open space, and no, it isn't any harder just because she has differences. And honestly, it's most likely harder for her having to deal with my odd likes of things such as planes and tanks. Those are her challenges though. ;)

Sorry I have to cut this one short, I have work shortly though, but I may add an edit later on! Thank you for reading.

Throwback Thursday: Love Lessons by Jacqueline Wilson.

Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're different from 'normal' girls - but when dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. 

Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in. The only person she can talk to is her kindly, young - and handsome -art teacher, Rax. They quickly bond, and Prue feels more and more drawn to him. As her feelings grow stronger, she begins to realize that he might feel the same way about her. But nothing could ever happen between them - could it?

I used to be friends with a thirteen-year-old girl, and for the purpose of privacy, we can name her Sam. She was not in the situation of Prue and Grace, she had been attending public school all her life, and even though she has her own personal problems, she was a pretty normal girl. She went on a school trip to Disneyland, Paris, about a year ago and went to Barcelona with the same group of people earlier last year, too. On these trips was a man, a youth worker I believe, who Sam gained this huge crush on and had convinced herself that he had a crush on her, too. He wasn't stupid, luckily, and had to report her to the school's safety workers just so that they could make sure she understood that her behavior towards the male teachers of the school was unacceptable - it wasn't just a crush with her, she flirted and gained attachments to them, too. 

As a child, I loved this book. The romantic aspect is really what I was attracted towards, and although I don't have much memory from my childhood, I'm sure I must have had plenty of teacher crushes, at least when I was Sam's age. Saying this, now that I am eighteen and no longer a thirteen year old so I have somewhat matured since then, I am seeing this book from a different perspective, and what I see is disturbing. 

Rax's behavior throughout the book was occasionally not right, but for the most part, I'm glad to see he had his head screwed on properly. He was so torn between doing what's right and what he wanted that he often ended up making the wrong decision. 

I feel like Prue was a girl many teenagers could relate to, despite the fact she was clearly not your normal teenager, which perhaps was not only added in for entertainment and to have more plot then a teacher-student romance, but also added in just so that there's an excuse or a reason as to why a grown man would be attracted to a teenage girl.

In case you are reading this without having read the book, or you need a reminder, Rax had a family at home. A wife, two young children. Prue became obsessive and decided to be Rax's babysitter, also using the money she earned to buy things her parents never allowed, such as sexy underwear and teenage magazines. She stupidly bought her younger, unable-to-keep-a-secret Grace some treats, too, and that was pretty much how that secret was revealed. I know Prue was isolated, and therefore naive because her parents restricted the information that she was learning, but she reads a lot - you'd think she'd have learnt something about how relationships between big age differences is strongly frowned upon and that when it's underage it's illegal, and even when she was living with her younger sister and acknowledging she can't be quiet, Prue made the mistake in trusting her. Prue really isn't as smart as we're led to believe. 

Even though this book was meant for teenagers (it's a YA, I believe), the wording of the book was patronizing and more meant for the eyes of someone younger. I wouldn't really let anyone younger then about sixteen/seventeen read this, though, because I believe that young people are very easily influenced and learn quickly from their surroundings and mostly the media. This book was pretty much saying that a student-teacher relationship is fine if you're different and the word 'love' is mentioned at some point, which it is not. I'm glad the book ended as badly for Prue as it did, hopefully sending them the message that "This is what will happen if you continue your feelings", but I'm a bit disappointing that Rax never received any serious punishment for what he had done, when if that kind of thing happened in real life, he would have probably had some serious charges.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first Throwback Thursday post, next week is going to be be either another book by Jacqueline Wilson (most likely Kiss), or a book by Cathy Cassidy (I have different options for this, I kind of want to talk about Angel Cake just to bring up the topic of foreigners in your country and just to try to make people a lot less judgmental about that subject hopefully and other topics, or one of my favorites Dizzy/Lucky Star, I'm not really sure what one I'm going to pick if I choose Cathy Cassidy). Other writers I have in mind are J.K.Rowling, Michael Murpurgo, etc, so I think I can continue this for a while! Have a nice day.