Dear New Readers

I doubt I have new readers. I don't even think I have readers at all, at this point. My posts only get about 11 views per post, but that happens almost instantly so I question whether those are even real people or just automatic computer monitoring or something? Occasionally I'll get a comment or a share and that inspires me to keep writing but I love writing so I'm sure I'd find something else to motivate me. I'm trying to write something in here everyday, however brief.

So, for new readers, I've decided to do an about me question-and-answer post. I have yet to update the tabs above this post that have an about me section on there but I'm sure by the time you get to this (if anyone ever does), then they will be updated. I used to run this blog with my then boyfriend, Austin, who I was in a serious relationship with. We broke up over a year ago now, but it still says "About Us" on it even though I have since then updated what is inside the tab. It used to be more of a book review and discussion type of blog and although I still do those from time to time it's more like a whatever I want to post type of blog. I don't think I need to add a genre although doing that would probably bring a target audience along if this blog has a specific topic or even purpose.

Anyway, before I ramble anymore and I'm not even being humorous let's get into this: (these were random questions taken from online and have no real order or anything, but that's a pretty good representation of me I think).

What is my Full Name?

Lorna Amranwen Parsons but I prefer to go by the nickname Loz and use my mothers last name, so Lorna Amranwen O'Connor. I think it not only sounds better but makes me somewhat make a statement that I'm more my mother than my dad.

What is Your Favourite Drink?

Coke or Tea (90% hot water, 10% milk in that order and obviously the teabag and the two and a half sugars go in first). I also really like smoothies and sometimes lemonade or Mountain Dew.

What is Your Favourite Song at the Moment?

"Can't Help Falling in Love With You" by Elvis, but really anyone who sings it well is a winner in my eyes.

What is Your Favourite Food?

Hmm...ooh, I don't know. I like food but I can't say I love it, I mostly just snack nowadays. I think probably Hunter's chicken (chicken wrapped in bacon and cheese and topped with BBQ sauce, usually served with fries or potato wedges or just a salad).

What is the Last Thing you Bought?

A Simpsons comic at my local charity shop. The excitement I felt when I saw them there on the shelf. There was also some Beano comics and my sister got one because my mother found one of her birth year and thought my sister would like it. Not sure if she does, I haven't yet asked!

Favourite Book of All Time?

I really don't have a favourite book. I love all books!

Favourite Colour?

Black, red, pink, blue.

Pets?

An almost 13yr old black feline named Tessa and I used to have a one year old called Boo, but she has since been...removed.

Foxy Tessa 

Favourite Perfume?

I never wear purfume although sometimes I do wear my mum's which comes in like a red apple bottle and I like it a lot.

Favourite Holiday?

Halloween and Christmas, I like to merge the two. Thank you, The Nightmare Before Christmas!

Are You Married?

I'm only twenty and I'm in a relationship but it's only been almost four weeks! I do hope to be married someday though.

How Many Siblings Do You Have?

My half-brother, Liam, 6. My sister, Catherine, 18.

Favourite Shop?

A really nice place called Vincent Davies and any charity stores, really.

Favourite Restaurant?

Weatherspoon's! Or Pizza Hut, maybe

When Was the Last Time You Cried?

Last night. Me and my now ex-best friend had a massive argument and I ended up having to block her and I'm still a bit upset about it, all a misunderstanding but she won't really listen and it was pointless waiting for her to calm down because I know her and her temper. She wasn't calming anytime soon.

Favourite Movie?

Anything Disney or Pixar, I probably love. Well, not too fond of The Little Mermaid but everything else I adore.

TV Show?

Once Upon A Time, Doctor Who, American Horror Story, Black Mirror, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad...I love them all.

PC or Mac?

Never used an Apple computer so I'm going to go with PC.

What Phone Do You Have?

An IPhone 5S, I think it is?

How Tall Are You?

A short five foot seven!

Thank you for taking the time out of your life to read through this. It was very brief and quick, I know, but I want to answer more common and personal things in the About Me section of the tabs on this blog. I'll be updating it either later on tonight or I'll do it tomorrow morning before I head off to my college work experience! 

Books I Brought With Me To England!

Hey!

If you didn't know, I'm currently in England to visit my grandparents' and my father (hopefully not his girlfriend, too) and I packed very last minute so I'm sort of regretting the books I brought with me. Not too much, though, because they are books I really want to get read. I might only be here for a week, or a week and a half, I just wanted a wide variety of choice rather then being like "You're going to get all these read!". I'm rambling, let me just show you what books I got: 

"Horrorstor" by Grady Hendrix. 

A parody on the famous furniture store, Ikea, that is basically about strange happenings at night when the store has been shut down. Employees have been sent to stay overnight to investigate what has been going on, and they're met with a nasty surprise. 

One of my birthday presents from Austin that I once saw on a YouTube video and thought it looked kind of interesting, so I thought "hey, why not give it a shot!". I can't say I'm really that exited to read it, purely because I've heard a lot of things behind said on it that the writing just isn't that great, but still. I did bring it with me just because I wanted to get through it more then actual want to read it. It seems more like a decoration book then anything,  but it might pleasantly surprise me, who knows. 

"The Alchemyst" by Michael Scott. 

I think everyone and their dog knows what this is about, but I don't. I think it's about twins in a fantasy realm? I don't really know...I got this as a birthday present from my mother and sister, which is weird because they never get me books! Especially books that have been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time. 

"Alice in Zombieland" by Gene Showalter. 

I've heard so many negatives thinks about this, so this on top of it being a YA dystopia romance makes me hesitant to read it, but the trilogy is based from one of my favourite books and even if it has little resemblance, I can at least try to like it because of that. This book is also a useful contribution towards something I am working on for later this year, stick around for that!

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J.K.Rowling. 

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K.Rowling. 

I should hope I don't need to say what these are, but these are for my Harry Potter Read-A-Thon books, that's more of a re-read at this point seeing as I finished the first one like a week ago and haven't even made a move yet on starting the second one. Oops?

"Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell. 

A twin called Cathy (have to say, not a fan of Rowell's choice of names) decides she doesn't want to be tied up to her sister anymore when she joins university and wants to be a free bird, and meets someone called Levi. Everyone else loves him, but they're also the same people who love Will Herondale, so we'll see if I like him too. 

"Hens Reunited" by Lucy Diamond. 

A book I am currently reading about three women whos lives have fallen apart, and they reunite in their unique 'failures' as they try to rebuild what they have left. It's quite different from Lucy's (AKA, Sue's) usually writing structure, as are all her books I'm noticing so far - I love this book more then the others, but at the same time I'm disappointed in it. Probably for a lot of reasons - it might not have been the right time to read a book like this, or it was something I have been anticipating for so long that I made it into something more then it would ever live up to, I don't know. I may have to re-read in the future to really make my mind up about it. 

So, I might be buying some more books in the future while I am here as I realize I did not bring the most varied of choices as I would like, but it'll do, thank you ever so much for reading and I'll see you all next time! 

- Loz x

My 100th Post!

*blows those things that make a lot of noise and sprinkle out confetti*

Hey! So, I made it to 100 posts and didn't delete anything, yeah! I guess blogging everyday for August has really helped speed that along, huh? I'm actually doing a pretty good job of it, if I do say so myself, just two weeks left! 

Anyway, I thought I would give you a small, brief background to the birth of AGiantLeapForLozKind, as a sort of celebration for this minor achievement for me. 

Austin, the co-owner of the blog and also my bae, has been a big fan of Star Wars since he was a little-un. I've never really been a Star Wars fan (though, soon, I'm about to read my first Star Wars book) simply because I've never watched the movies and I know little about it apart from all the basic stuff. However, I really love space. Like, really love space. I love learning about it and watching the sky and I'm very into star signs (even if I don't very much believe in it). As you might have noticed from the tabs above, the theme is space but also spaceships, Each tab is named after, with the help of Austin, areas on a spaceship that suit the topic of that tab.

But, I can't really remember the day I started blogging. I do remember that the idea had never really occured to me. I wish I didn't delete, swap and change my blogs so often so I could go back and see what my first ever post was. I've always loved to write from a very young age, even if I lost the drive somewhere in my high school years and went a long time without writing so now the talent I had has drifted away and I'm keen to get it back - it greatly upset me when I failed all three years of my English Literature A Levels and AS Levels. It was like I swallowed pins. I was clearly not meant to be a writer if I was bad at basic English Literature studies? But, I can't let grades stop me. I can't give up without never trying - so AGreatLeapforLozKind was born, and shall live on, even if I ever achieve that dream to publish a book!

And for Austin, he joined because he enjoys to write too. Being a part of a blog or making his own has never really occurred to him before. He will probably never make his own, as if you've noticed, he doesn't post very often at all. I'm going to get him there, though.

I hope this blog can grow into something bigger and better in the future, I look foward to when the blog turns into exactly what I wanted it to be and I've achieved most of my goals.

Thank you for reading, until next time, Loz x 

Book Review: "It's not me, it's you" by Mhairi McFarlane (spoilers)

How do you start again when everything falls apart?

When Delia's life is turned inside out - from a disastrous proposal to resignation-worthy team-building exercises - moving to a new city looks like the answer. But this has its own measure of problems, and Delia finds herself in a distinctly shady job where telling the truth seems to be entirely optional. As an investigative journalist starts digging, Delia must ask herself where her loyalties lie - and if this life is truly better than the one she left behind. 

A moving, hilarious and insightful tale that questions what you do when your life is broken: do you try to put the pieces back where they were, or build something new? 

The first thing I have to say about this book is that it's a romantic comedy - something that I don't usually go for. This book reminded me why, but not entirely in a bad way. You see, I always see romantic comedy's that are just one giant cliche. They're usually about a woman (sometimes attractive, usually they're typically not) in her thirties, mid-thirties, going through some life crisis and talking about how their biological clock is ticking and how they just want to jump right in with someone and make a family - something, of which, I would never relate to so that's one downside. Delia was no exception. It related to Bridget Jones so, so much - they met someone they hated but grew to love, they first had a relationship with an asshole so they could compare the asshole to the nice guy, they for some reason kept going back to said asshole as if nice guy was naturally repelling (as a feminist, this sentence would never usually leave my mouth apart from in this occasion, only because this time, he was actually a nice guy) and that frequent feel of messing up a lot and wanting to have babies before "time went out". 

Also, despite this being listed under "feminist" in the Goodreads section, it didn't have many ideals of feminism in there. The again, I'm eighteen, never had a proper job, and the idea of being a housewife makes me want to run to the nearest, deepest cave and never emerge again - so the connection I will have to a thirty year old woman who is quite the opposite to me was simply not there. 

The relationship between Adam and Delia was not believable to me ... to begin with. It started of as anger, and only when Emma commented on the "sexual tension" that was in the air did I feel like that was what I was supposed to be reading from the pages. It wasn't until the ending that I really loved their relationship, but that connection I didn't feel from them and I don't think they'll last - have a couple kids by accident, marry because of said kids, then divorce because they're not right for each other. Although, of course this is just my personal opinion on that subject. I would comment about her running back to Paul three different occasions but, I mean...I feel there's no need. She was highly stupid at the end but I'm glad she made the right decision eventually. 

Even though in this review I have done nothing but criticize, I actually quite liked the book - Naan (Joe) being my favorite character of all of them. It was funny, and entertaining, and I found myself wanting to pick the book back up in the middle of my English lessons at school to read it some more - it got more gripping the more the book went on (even though it was a really long book) and I think, despite my original rating for this book, I will give it a 3.5 stars.

A little about me!

I realize I have never actually introduced myself, and I suppose it doesn't really matter because profiles exist, but it would be polite to do so, anyway, right? Okay. 

My name is Loz, I'm from Wales, UK, and I'm eighteen years old. I have high-functioning autism, and I have pretty bad hearing (although not bad enough for a hearing aid...yet). I obviously really enjoy reading - I quite like books that are pretty creepy, but not quite horror/thrillers (although I enjoy them, too, they're just not my preference). I like them most from a female perspective, I don't really mind in what person. I don't really like books about romance/sex and I guess I am a bit of a prude when it comes to book, movies and TV shows. I'm actually pretty picky about the books I read, so it would take me forever to explain every little detail that I like and don't like in my books. If you want to know something specific, you can ask me. 

When I was little, I lived in Germany, then we moved to Manchester in England, until eventually we settled in Wales when I was eleven. I live with my mother, my sister (she's seventeen), and my half-brother (he's four, almost five in about two months though). Pets wise, a black short-haired cat named Tessa (she's nine), a Syrian hamster named Hamsterdam, and a goldfish named Swim Shady.

I take English Literature in sixth form right now, my final year (and I hate it, seeing the back of my school will be a bittersweet moment...mostly happy, though, to be honest).

So yes, if anybody was curious...now you know!