Well, 2016 sucked

Okay, just to clarify, I have a lot of brain fog. Being able to speak and write sentences that actually make sense haven't been my forte as of late and for that I apologize and although this may make sense to me, it probably won't make much sense to other people. The grammar/punctuation/spelling may infuriate. It's just one of the many side effects of being mentally ill, I'm afraid. 

We lost a lot of people this year. The Orlando gay-club shooting. Christina Grimmie. Syria. Carrie Fisher. Alan Rickman. David Bowie. In no order, and just to name a few. It was an absolutely devastating year. To top it of, Brexit and Trump are in our future so even that looks dim and we all just have to hold on to hope and our own optimism to make the next few years great for us despite outside sources. 

For me, personally, I started off the year on a high note. I remember that I was visiting my grandparents' house. I was looking out of the window in awe at the fireworks, smiling into the moonlight and the beautiful bright stars thinking about the wonderful year I was about to have because hell, I was going to make it happen...wasn't I?

Nope. 

What happened instead was, basically, a series of unfortunate events and stupid mistakes that I take most of the blame for. 

I did some pretty amazing things during these mistakes, though. I can't just ignore those. I made three coach journeys this year via National Express. All of them were for about fourteen hours each. I left my home town, made several stops before I reached the destination. On those stops, the longest was for about two hours in a very busy city. This is quite a challenge for someone who is autistic/has social anxiety. 

I had my first kiss, my first sexual/romantic experiences in person and I lost my virginity (although I didn't really lose anything). Shortly after that, I am now in my first "proper" relationship with someone who I adore - even if he is a bit of an idiot. 

I finished my first year at college and went into my second year, and I am struggling quite a lot mentally with it but I have high hopes I'll get out alive. I return to college Tuesday of next week and I intend to hand in a form that requests to join Level 3 but this time, instead of Animal Care, it's for Animal Management. I am both dreading it and I am excited for it (and nervous that I won't get accepted at all). I feel a bit insecure that I'm 20 and still in education, and not university either.

I cut off toxic relationships completely. I'm endlessly happy they are not in my life anymore even though at the time I thought I couldn't be without them. I am fine without them. Much better, even. 

I finally got contraception, and the implant which is the one I wanted the most. I was meant to write some posts updating you the affects it has on me and how it feels and what it did to my periods but I've just fallen a bit behind on that, as I have with most things really. 

I now have some mental health appointments I attend. My next one isn't until the 12th and I have been holding things back but I think I can't get proper help without being completely honest so I'll have to try that. I'm grateful I finally receive some form of help as it's been a long time coming. 

I read about thirty-odd books this year. The rest, which added up to about seventy I believed, were comic books which is a recent interest of mine that I picked up this year and I am in love with them. They are perfect for when I want to read and want to admire art without taking too much energy from me that I do not have to give out. I have been in a reading slump since early summer, so I might ease myself into it via comic books!

I lost a close relationship I made in Febuary but gained some balls and contacted him. I contacted a few friends I had lost and only two, this one included, accepted my apology and I'm so happy that I made that challenging leap. 

Bad things happened, too, of course. You can't live a whole 12 months without that happening! 

I went through a break-up and it dragged out for months because I was unable to cut him out of my life. I managed to end our "friendship" the day after my 20th birthday in August and I was absolutely heartbroken for a few hours as he admitted in the argument that he had fallen in love with another girl and the reason we ended was because "he wasn't ready for a relationship". The lies hurt, too. I slept, woke up and was fine! The next month, my first month back at college, I met my current boyfriend through a mutual friend (his cousin) so it all ended up okay - we got together at the end of October. 

I lost my two best friends I had met in my first year of college, my first real life friends and the first friends I had a mutual connection with. It was entirely my fault, a mean joke that I never intended to be mean and they got upset and it turned into a nasty argument that we haven't been able to recover from.  I miss seeing messages from them. I miss spending time with them during our breaks and messing about during our classes like we're school children. I miss our heart to hearts. I miss our memories, the time we spent together, and how we can't make more. Most of all, it hurts seeing their life go on and I am not a part of it anymore. I hope one day they can come back, and I hate how they have cut themselves out of my boyfriends' life too (as he was part of it), it hurts us both. I can have hope. 

My mental health took a dark turn. I self-harmed. I cried and lost my shit in college and I never break in front of other people even though I am open about my struggles. 

I lost an awful lot of people this year, most of them just some good online friends. Some of it was via arguments and some of it was just because we didn't speak anymore. I miss seeing their names pop up on my phone screen. 

I went through an awful lot of men/half-assed "relationships" this year that took a massive toll on me and even though I'm in a happy relationship now I'm constantly on edge it won't last long! 

I did not spend much, if any, time on my blog. The aesthetic hasn't improved and nor has my content. I don't want it to get super successful. but I do want to develop a small community just to converse back and forth. I would love some feedback on my posts and I never get any. I don't market, I don't try to promote my blog at all, because I have no faith in myself and what I write and my style of writing. It needs improving and that's another reason why I want feedback.

I went through some tough times concerning my body image and I'm still struggling with that massively (no pun intended). I intend to be healthier in the new year, you'll see any goals I'm planning to make in my 2016 goals/resolutions post which should (should) be up on the first of January. 

There's probably a whole bunch I am forgetting here but this is the basic run-down. I want to put more effort into my blog is what the outcome of 2017 should be, one of the most important projects I want to work on, but juggling that with my relationship and college I have been finding difficult and sometimes you have to pick and choose what you should prioritize in order to make things mentally easier on yourself! 

I've also done something pretty big that should pop up in about two months? Maybe earlier/later. Big for me, anyway. I am super nervous about it. It is a way to promote by blog, spread awareness of female autism and take advantage of an opportunity that I know I can do - even if I don't believe in myself. If I remember to (which I probably will this time), I will post the thingy here when it happens and explain it in a bit more detail although it is pretty detailed in itself. I just didn't add everything I wanted to talk about. There was a limited amount of space and I can write and write and write. Too much, sometimes. 

That's my basic run down of 2016. I hope yours went better. See you in a couple of days!

Book Review || The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge

- MIDDLE GRADE SCIENCE-FICTION - 

When Albie's mum dies, it's natural he should ask where she's gone. His parents are scientists and they usually have all the answers. Dad mutters something about quantum physics and parallel universes, so Albie gets a box, a laptop and a rotting banana, and sends himself through time and space in search of his mum. 

What he finds may or may not be what he's looking for, but he does learn the answers to some big questions. 

This book has a really close resemblance for me to A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, which as you should know by now is one of my favourite books of all time - they are both middle grade and both have a focus around a young boy who's mother is sick with cancer. In Albie's case, this mother has already died and he wants to invent a Quantum Banana Theory to visit parallel universes so he can find one where his mother is alive, with the help of a slightly insane cat called Dylan. 

This book caught me by surprise. When I saw it in store, I automatically had high expectations not just because of the beautiful book cover but because it's science-fiction and middle grade. Any chance I can to read about quantum physics, I will take, even if I don't know that much about it. I just find it really interesting, and I'm beyond happy that Mr. Edge could write something like this to help teach the younger generation about science.

It takes you on an adorable little adventure through parallel universes of what could have happened with hilarious little scenes here and there, and the adorable is too much, okay, it's just too much. But in a great way.

I'm honestly surprised this book doesn't have more recognition because it honestly, hand on heart, deserves it. Thank you, Edge, for giving me this delightful thing.

(Go on, it's only 180 pages - you know you want to!) 

The Ruler of Books Tag!

Finally, a book tag I'm doing that is actually even in the same year as it was created (and it was created by Ariel Bissett).

If you were the Ruler of Books…

1) What book would you make everyone read?

I recently read "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini - and although mine, like April's, response to this question would vary month to month if I was to answer this question today (which I am...obviously), this would be my answer. I think it would make every racist little shit change their mind about accepting refugees into your country, the opinion on Afghanistan and Muslims in general and also shares an awful lot of wisdom about undying loyalty and friendship (and how being a coward is a real shitty character trait). 

2) What would you abolish in book construction?

I completely understand the point in them, I understand that they'd help highten book sales somewhat and I like how it encourages people to read the book just because the cover is one of their favourite movies (or just a movie they really liked) - and that's the movie covers, or the stickers you can't remove that say "Now a major motion picture", I'm not a person (I consider, anyway) who's particularly vain about their books - I break the spine, I fold the pages, but something about these just bother me immensely. In the same way people on covers bothers me, I suppose. 

3) What author would you commission to write you any book?

J.K.Rowing - I want her to write me a beautiful little story about a group of witches who are all female in a male-dominated, modern world but not in an alternative universe like the Harry Potter world was - hiding among society, a lot like AHS: Coven but without the horror aspect. I think it would be wonderful. 

4) What book would you demote to the library basement to make room for new books?

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned sofwggvarsh. I don't like the sexism. I didn't like the satire. I though the plot was boring. I know it kind of...sucks to say this about someone who killed themselves, and I'm really sorry (and maybe that's why all the people who didn't like this book are hiding) but if you want this book, you'll have to really want it to get it because no. Just no. 

5.  What cover artist would you commission to make a mural?

JIMKAYJIMKAYJIMKAY. 

6.  What characters face would you put on a coin?

I love so many characters but maybe Luna from the first three "Gone" books by Michael Grant, I adore her for being a badass and knowing her own worth. She wasn't a memorable character to a lot of people, but she's the one who I think of first. 

7.  What book would you award the “Ruler of Books” 2016 Prize to?

I can't really say Kite Runner again, and I don't think I've read any books this year that were published this year (I tend to read used books from charity shops).  Probably Spiderwick - or The Long Earth. I don't knooooow. 

Thank you for reading! if you want to do this book tag, I'll have the clean copy underneath this sentence so you can have a try :)

If you were the Ruler of Books…
1/ What book would you make everyone read?
2/ What would you abolish in book construction?
3/ What author would you commission to write you any book?
4/ What book would you demote to the library basement to make room for new books?
5/ What cover artist would you commission to make a mural?
6/ What characters face would you put on a coin?
7/ What book would you award the “Ruler of Books” 2016 Prize to?

Personal || A Letter of Absence.

It's been a while, hasn't it? I feel like I owe you an update, so here that update is. As you know, I started community college but right now I'm just on an Engagement course. Level 1 doesn't start until January. It's called Animal Care. The reason why this impacted my ability to thing of ideas and to write them down was, well...I don't think there is much reason, but since starting college I haven't been reading either. My everyday sort of thing is that on Monday's, Tuesdays, and Fridays I walk two miles there and two miles back (and I usually don't eat till around 5pm, which I am changing because I need the energy). I'm in Wednesday too, except it's not 9am - 4pm, it's 9am - 12:15pm.

As you could probably tell from the last post, Austin and I broke up and he "ran" this with me. We had been together for two years, although it didn't come as a shock it was still a lot to take and still is. I'm coping fine, though. 

I was also having confidence problems in my writing skills (and again, I still am) so I'm probably going to turn this blog into more than what it is - much more than just books. I want to reach topics and talk about them (feminism, deforestation, that general road) to improve myself. It's going to be more like a blog of self-discovery, and I'll write on here when I want to more than scheduled. I think.

As you can probably tell, I'm still exhausted, I've been sick and feel pretty drained. Thank you for reading, I'll see you at...some point. 

- Loz.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets #2 - Squibs and Ginny.

This book is the first time I have ever actually felt sorry for Filch. He has to deal with not being magic surrounded by people who are, including the greatest wizards and witches like Dumbledore and Hermione Granger. I don't know if it's possible for a squid to advance to basic magic, I'm a fan of Harry Potter but I'm not educated on all of it. Part of me hopes that he does find a way to become magic somehow. 

There's also writing on the wall in blood and in the movies, of course, it was easily wiped off but in the books it's half impossible to remove. Of course we know it was Ginny, but did she really do it without magic then if she can't remove it? I don't know, it always amazes me how much the movies left out.

How did you like these parts of the book?

See you next time

- Loz x

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets #1 - Dobby the House-Elf.

Hi, I'm finally back with another Harry Potter book and update posts! This time, I will really need to update every few chapters to keep my thoughts on the book written down. I kept forgetting to do it what with all the other posts I was trying to get done, but what with my posting-everyday-in-August coming to an end really soon, I think I'll try to be posting one of these every few days! And it's not really much of a marathon, is it? 

Anyway, I'm up to chapter four, I believe, and we have just been introduced to Dobby. I want to say what my first impressions of him are, and I would love to know what you thought about him. I actually didn't really like him. I felt pity for him, what with the description of him being ugly and in dirty clothes and having a horrible family to keep him, but I mostly just felt mad at him for doing that to Harry. On the assumption that he is an eavesdropping type of Elf (otherwise how would he have known Harry would be in danger that year?), he must have known all about Harry's situation, too? At least once he did find out, he should have put a stop to it. I mean, he seems to really care about Harry's safety so what he did with the cake and the making noise seemed a dumb thing to do on his part in terms of keeping Harry safe. 

He also seemed very invasive of Harry's life, like he had a right to keep hold of Harry's letters and make him stay away from Hogwarts.

Of course, my fondness for him grew over time but I can't remember if that happened in this book or the later books. We'll soon find out!

What was your first impression of Dobby?

- Loz x

Science-Fiction || "Darth Bane: Path of Destruction" by Drew Karpyshyn.

Date Published: June 6th 2007.
Publishers: Del Rey Books.

Book #1 in the "Star Wars: Darth Bane" trilogy. 

"Path of Destruction" is the first novel in the Darth Bane trilogy, from the perspective of the Dark Side. It follows a man named Dessel ('Del') who brings trouble in the small mining planet he is stuck on, paying off the debt his father left him. One day, that trouble causes him to flee...and he joins the Sith. Although warned that the Dark Side will influence him, and he mustn't get caught up in it, the warning is somewhere lost in battle.

Please keep in mind that this is my very first introduction to Star Wars, I have not seen any of the Star Wars movies, so my review on this book will not have any background information and will just be based purely on how I enjoyed this book.

It was written, same as most trilogies, like the introduction to the upcoming two books. It was basically about Darth Bane's rise to power and an opening to the world of the Sith, their rules and their ways of life. Which, by the way, was pretty useful for someone like me who knows next to nothing about the Star Wars world. The most important about this was how it left me dying to read the next book. Seriously, I've been pestering my boyfriend to lend me the next two books for a while now!

The characters were amazing. Even the characters I didn't like, like Sex-Object-Githany, ended up being likeable (as she managed to manipulate and trick multiple Lord's minds), If you want a good example of what I mean when I say good character development, this book is right up there. It ended on a cliffhanger, which is so annoying if you know how much I don't like cliffhangers. But, I think this is a good thing, as I rarely leave the first book of a series on the cusp of my seat waiting until I can get my next fix. That cliffhanger introduced a new character, a female in a high-power position (for once!). I'm dying to read it.

It was really slow in parts, but the fast-paced parts and their brutality really made up for that. One of the reasons I love science-fiction so much is their ability to make brutal scenes really brutal. 

There isn't much I can say about it without giving too much away, so if you enjoyed these, I will see you next time!

- Loz x

The Life of the Autistic - Depression, Anxiety and Stress.

Really stupid things bother and stress me out, make me anxious and depress me. Although I am aware of this, it doesn't make it go away, it doesn't change anything. There's only a few things right now that are bothering me, on top of the normal teenage hormones that every teenager has.

I have huge anxiety problems, one of the biggest is change in routine and being unable to build a routine. As I have mentioned several times, I'm going to England to see my family on Tuesday/Wednesday. That right there is one thing that stresses me out, not knowing whether we are going on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. My mother has already come to explain to me that she can't give me the exact day and has told me the reasons why that is, but it doesn't change anything. I feel extremely nauseated over this, I haven't been breathing properly over the past few days, anxiety attacks are going back to being common and boy...the chest pain is probably the worst right now. 

I can't pack everything right now and yes, I am fully aware it's a week away and packing right now isn't needed but I like to be ready for things, I like to know what's happening. It seems simple but all the clothes need washing and I need some clothes to wear for this week and it's bringing on so much anxiety, and I just want to go to a corner, shut the door and scream while pulling my hair out (yes, caused by the autism) which I have a feeling might happen sooner rather then later at a really bad time, as usual. 

My phone bill isn't paid and if we don't have the money to pay it by the time England comes around, it's going to make things so much harder - my boyfriend Austin lives in Ohio, quite the while away from the UK and if there's anything wrong with the Internet and something happens, I always use my phone and will go to Austin to help myself calm down because he always knows exactly what to say and gives the most useful advice for how I can fix what's wrong or how I can make things better and without having that little safety net, it's a huge anxiety trigger for me. I know, I know, another teenager obsessed with her phone but honestly, I don't care what other people think about that (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be making this post), it's something that I need to help me. 

Along with the above, I am not in the best home situation. To put it nicely, I have a very bratty younger sister who likes to make things harder on all of us. She's putting a lot of pressure and worry and anxiety on top of me, and all of the anxiety I already had is just making me super depressed. I am not diagnosed with severe depression, so just putting it out there that my main problem is and always has been anxiety, especially socially. My mother is also very very busy and most of my life, I am not ashamed to admit that I have relied on her for most things so during times like this when I need her to be consistent and to know things, she can't do that for me and it's probably driving her as well as me crazy.

My exam is in a month and as you probably already know, autistic kids have a lot of problems with revision/studying and everytime I try to do it, I can't remember anything and I freak out and get too anxious and angry to continue - then the fact I will probably fail the exam if this continues just makes me want to cry because if I try to tell anyone about this, they tell me things like "All you have to do is work hard. You get what you deserve!" but I am trying hard, I really am. I'm not getting anywhere. 

There's also a few personal problems going on with me, too, that I haven't even told Austin about so I'm obviously going to leave that out of here...

Basically, I won't be blogging for a little bit. I might be a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, I don't know. It won't be until I have a steady routine going on, and I'm in a situation where I can come up with ideas. I will still be writing a lot of drafts on here as I always do because I do love writing, but they have bad spelling and they're not structured, I just don't have the energy to fix them so they're worthy of being published. I hope you can understand. I will see you when I can.

Book Review: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding

 The wilderness years are over!

But for how long?

Bridget's second diary takes us through a year that begins with man-of-her-dreams Mark Darcy (who never does the washing up) and lurches onwards through a sea of self-help books and lunatic advice from her mad friends. Struggling with the challenges of a boyfriend-stealing beauty, an eight-foot hole in the wall and a builder obsessed with large reservoir fish, Bridget decides it's time for a spiritual epiphany. And so she departs Notting Hill for the sparkling shores of Thailand...

Bridget is back. V.g. 

A little 'disclaimer' before I get into it, you can skip this section - I realize that reading this book straight after reading the previous one in the series might have been a bad idea (and I'm currently reading the third book in the series, too, and that was an even worse idea) simply because the diary-talk and the writing style and the comedy etc. gets really, really boring and annoying to read. I also forgot entirely that I'm one of those people who just can't read a book right after another book that's too similar, so reading a book by the same writer in the same series falls in that category...which may mean this review is a little off and may need a tinkering with if I decide to read it again in the future. I'm also writing this quite a while after I had actually finished the book. I procrastinate even in my hobbies! 

With that being said, I want to start with the issue about this book that has been bothering me the most, and that's feminism. The whole tone of that topic within both the previous book and this book is mocking and is pretty difficult to take seriously. If is serious, it's a huge misconception on what feminism really is. I have a feeling the mocking tone might have been done just for the sake of humor, and in some cases it worked (barely, but it did). Don't even get me started on Sharon-the-man-hating-feminist. I still love her, I think she's feisty and badass and her rants are funny, but they would have been funny without the man-hating. 

Also, the relationship between her and Mark is very childish from my point of view. They broke up because of Bridget having a misunderstanding about Rebecca, also caused by gossip and bad advice from her friends, and Mark's inability to communicate what he's thinking and being able to fight for something...in real life, there was a pretty high chance Bridget could have been gone forever over a misunderstanding and if he really did love and want her as much as we were told we should believe, why didn't he fight for her. Well, I suppose he did...way way later in the book, and maybe because I'm only an eighteen year old girl, I don't really understand adult relationships and maybe that's why I believe this to be immature. Maybe it was just portrayed badly and it was just trying to show how Mark made her feel like a teenager again, and that's why she was acting like one. I'll try to remember to re-read this when I'm single in my thirties. 

This is just me being kinda picky with the way it's setup, I suppose, but why is she writing in her diary during situations an ordinary person wouldn't even be on their phone in, and how is she writing in it. My memory is bad and it's been a while since I read it, so I can't really give you an example from this copy but there is just a lot of situations where she picks up the diary and writes full paragraphs and I have no idea how. 

Also, the plot line. I have no idea how the book got to be as big as it did. Most of it must have been a filler. The actual excitement didn't happen until much, much later. Even then, it wasn't that exiting, it was also kinda confusing. Did they let her keep her diary and her pen but they took everything else from her, and didn't let her have it until the day afterwards? Why was everyone else in the cell not allowed a bra, but she was? How did they get their hands on cigarettes? I'm sure she did plenty of research about this before she wrote it, I'm just in-educated on how Thailand jail cells work. It's a shame the writer didn't use that as an opportunity to teach people about it. 

Sorry, sorry...this book review has turned into a rant about it, rather than the actual book itself. I did actually enjoy this book, and I would recommend it as a light read just for it's comedy value but I just don't think any of it's filling is outstanding. Thanks for reading!