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Supernatural

***SPOLIER ALERT*** this post will contain some spoilers so beware.

I have resisted talking about my all time favorite TV show long enough! I started watching Supernatural back in 2005 back when the CW was still called the WB and Smallville (my other great TV love) was still airing. I was obsessed from the beginning. I tuned in every Tuesday at 9pm (till they moved it to Thursday halfway through the season which was awesome because then it was on after Smallville) and then rented the DVDs from the video store to binge watch and fill the void the season finale left me with. So this show is very near and dear to my heart.

The show centers around the Winchester family who at the beginning of the show live a normal life. Mary and John have two sons, Dean who is 4 and Sam (Sammy) who is 6 months. Tragedy strikes right away in this show as the Yellow Eyed Demon (Azazel) is in Sam's nursery and it kills Mary and burns the family home down, leaving John determined to find and kill the thing that murdered his wife. He raises Sam and Dean to be hunters. Flash forward 22 years Sam is at Stanford going to college living with his girlfriend Jessica (Jess) and attempting a normal life. But that all goes to hell in a handbasket when Dean shows up and informs Sam that their father is missing and he needs Sam to help him find him because he's worried something's happened to John. So Sam agrees to go on this one hunting trip with Dean and help him find their Dad. They successfully finish the hunt their Dad went AWOL on and afterwards Sam goes back to his apartment only to find Jess pinned to the ceiling on their bedroom with a bloody nightgown before bursting into flames and burning their apartment down. The same MO as the thing that killed his and Dean's mother. So now Sam joins Dean to find their Dad and this:

The show is set up with a "Villain-of-the-Week" style and has a bigger plot slowly unfolding in each episode but

Plus there's so many amazing characters to meet. There's Sam

Dean

Bobby Singer

John Winchester

Castiel

Crowley

Ruby

Meg

The Trickster God (AKA Gabriel)

Lucifer

Chuck

The sexiest car that ever exsisted, the Impala (AKA Baby)

Just to name a few (of my personal favorites).

Supernatural is well known on Tumblr for being a show with lots of "feels" and a bit eccentric fandom. And I'm positive everyone and their brother has heard of Destiel or Wincest by now. (Though Cas doesn't show up until season 4

and personally I'm a Wincest shipper and believe any long lasting canon relationship is doomed because this show is about the brothers and the giant clusterfuck that is their life. So all pairings are basically crack-shipping. Sorry I just have a lot of feeling about ships...)
Anyways like I said this is my all time favorite show. I got Caitie addicted to it and I don't think she has ever forgiven me for the emotional trauma I have put her through. Plus we have a gif for everything in this fandom. Seriously.
So if you ever have considered watching Supernatural. Run. Run very far. This show will ruin your life, take up all your free time, and you'll start writing and reading fanfiction at 2am and wonder why you can be a productive and functioning contributing member of society.

It's an all consuming addiction! So flee for your lives!
...unless you're into that sort of thing. Then definitely watch it!

Also this show gives you the best life advice I have every had

Which is the title of the list Caitie and I have of what we would do to survive a horror movie which was posted on May 7th, 2014.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments is another fantastic book by Rainbow Rowell (who I actually met and got her to sign my copy of Fangirl!) Attachments is about a twenty-something named Lincoln O'Neill who starts working as a Tech guy for a Newspaper and one of his jobs is to monitor the emails that employees send out. That's how he "meets" Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder, by reading their emails they send back and forth. So that's a little creepy, but it endears me to Lincoln because he really is just that awkward about people and he genuinely feels bad about reading their emails and invading their privacy.

Lincoln feels stuck in life. Stuck with where he is and has no room to grow and do something else which is really relatable to me at this juncture in life and he sees a bit of a kindred spirit in Beth who feels the same. She's stuck in a dead end relationship with a musician. (Rule #23 of Amanda's Rules for life: Don't date musicians.) Her boyfriend is also kind of a jerk (Rule #3: Don't date assholes or "fixer-uppers") but sometimes he's a bit endearing which makes it hard to decided if I want Lincoln and Beth together or if I want this tragic stalking to end with them never having met face-to-face.

As the story progresses we learn more about Beth and Jennifer. Like Jennifer is struggling in her marriage because she's afraid of taking the plunge and becoming a parent, though ultimately she does get pregnant and Beth is a bridesmaid in her sister's wedding which brings up a lot of conversation about how she isn't married and her relationship with the musician (whose name escapes me so we're going to call him Bill because I am unimaginative.) So Beth's sister's wedding put a lot of stress on Beth and Bill's relationship.

Meanwhile Lincoln starts to get the hang of adulthood (WHAT ARE THE SECRETS OF IT LINCOLN TELL ME!) He moves out of his parents house and quits his job to get one he actually wants to have and doesn't hate. But before he leaves he writes a note to Beth explaining that he has been reading their emails, that he's sorry and knows it was wrong but that they should probably stop sending emails to each other at work. The books starts to wind down and I'm fearful that my ship won't sail and it's just one of those bitter life lessons we learn about unrequited love and how to respect privacy in this modern age but then ships ahoy! Beth and Lincoln meet in real life when she's at a movie theatre to review a movie and he's there to watch the movie for funsies! So they have a pseudo date which leads to a real relationship!

I really enjoyed Attachments by Rainbow Rowell and I look forward to reading more of her books.

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

So I got this as a free ebook on my Nook. It said it was about aliens in high school and I thought eh why not? I read it and then I was hooked. The main character Katy is pretty realistic and although this book follows the "Twilight Trope" that has become so popular in YA Fiction I feel like this book has something to offer.

First off when main characters Katy and Daemon first meet there isn't any insta love(YAY!). Daemon actually pisses Katy off and they spend the majority of the book fighting and basically being assholes to each other. Which was awesome. Katy becomes best friends with Daemon's twin sister Dee and Katy starts to notice weird things about the Black family and their close friends the more time she spends with them.

She finds out that their aliens and that the government has been basically covering up the existence of two alien races that have come to earth. The Luxen who are light based beings and the Arum who are dark based beings. Daemon and Dee are Luxen and Katy slowly gets tangled up in their world and ongoing battles with the Arum.

What I liked most about this book was Katy's character. She's funny, intelligent, runs a book blog, and basically a well rounded teenage character. She feels realistic to me as a sixteen to seventeen year old girl. The next thing I loved about this book was that they did poke fun at the similarities between it and Twilight. Jennifer L. Armentrout knows her audience well. Plus Daemon is described a super-hot but he's basically an asshole the entire time which I liked. He's trying to keep Katy and human at a distance after the disappearance of his and Dee's other brother and his human girlfriend. But Daemon and Katy undergo some really great character growth.

I have to admit after reading this book I bought the rest in the series as ebooks and I loved it. Sure sometimes I caught myself rolling my eyes at the characters because of their plotting and their attempts at being adults but I do that with real teenagers. All in all I would 100% recommend this book it made me laugh, it surprised me, it was predictable in some cases, but it was a great read!

The 10th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley

After having just re-read this and watched the miniseries I feel that a review is in order!

The 10th Kingdom is a fantasy drama that incorporates the known and beloved Grimm's Fairy Tales along with modern New York. The story begins with two separate plot lines of Virginia and Tony in New York and Prince Wendell in the 4th Kingdom in a different (maybe parallel) universe which inevitably intertwine to tell the story of the 10th Kingdom.

The story opens with Virginia Lewis and her father, Tony who like on the edge of Central Park. Tony is a janitor in a nice apartment building and Virginia is a waitress who is jaded with life. She is convinced nothing exciting will ever happen to her. Meanwhile in another world where fairy tales aren't just stories, they're history, Prince Wendell the grandson of Snow White and heir to the 4th Kingdom is on his way to visit his evil stepmother in a maximum security prison because of reasons. The Queen, his stepmother, murdered his parents in her quest for power. At the prison Relish, the Troll King is busting his three children out of the jail when they encounter the Queen and her pet dog who they also release. The Queen has a plan to get back at Wendell for putting her in jail and to rule the 4th Kingdom.

She switched Wendell with her pet dog, so now the Prince is trapped in a dog's body and the poor dog is running around confused as Prince Wendell. The real Prince Wendell as a dog runs off and the Queen orders the three Troll children of Relish to capture him. Which causes the Queen to realize that they are a rather comical bunch and their bumbling antics will probably result in failure she looks for someone else to aid her in the prison. That's when she meets Wolf. A half-wolf, half-human inmate (only in for a bit of sheep worrying). She sends Wolf to capture the Prince who has lead the three trolls to the basement of the prison where when he knocks over this mirror it activates and reveals to be a magic portal to Manhattan.

The Prince goes through the mirror and Virginia accidentally crashes into him with her bike. Thinking he's just a stray dog she takes him with her to work and calls him "Prince". The trolls and Wolf also go through the mirror and try to track down Prince Wendell separately. Through a bunch of rather strange events Virginia and Tony end up going back through the mirror with Prince Wendell and embark on a journey to find the mirror and go back home and maybe save the 9 Kingdoms and return Prince Wendell to his throne and thwart the plan of the Queen.

I really love this miniseries and the book as well. It's kind of the same spirit as Once Upon a Time the TV series where fairy tales come to life. I would actually recommend watching it first and then reading it because it makes it a little easier to understand some things but the book follows the miniseries almost completely so you can read the book first and then watch the miniseries. Heads up though, depending on what version of the miniseries you get be prepared for 6-8 hours of watching time.

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Okay this was more of a guilty pleasure read than serious literature which is fine! This book mixed dystopian and the Bachelor in a fun way.

America Singer has been in love with Aspen for two years and they are secretly dating even though it's kind of taboo because they're from different castes. America is a 5 and Aspen is a 6. When it's announced that Prince Maxon has come of age to choose a bride. Girls everywhere are frantically signing up for the Selection for their chance to be chosen to marry the prince. All girls except America. She doesn't even want to bother with the Selection because she has Aspen and she wouldn't be picked anyways. But when Aspen and her mother convinced her to try she signs up. Soon after Aspen breaks up with her realizing he can never be good enough for her and that she deserves better. Hurt and heartbroken America is surprised when she is chosen for the Selection and sees it as a way to earn money for her family (the families of the girls chosen receive compensation)and as an escape from her life to mend her broken heart.

America goes to the palace and quickly makes it clear to the prince she has no interest in actually winning the competition but she will help him choose a good wife and be his friend with the condition he will keep her there as long as possible so her family won't have to struggle and can save up money.

It's obvious that even though America has made it explicitly clear to Maxon she's not an option that he has developed a crush on her and tried to win her over to see if she would even consider marrying him. But when America does start to fall for Maxon the complication of thirty-five other girls vying for his attention and the sudden appearance of Aspen in the Palace Guard complicate their budding relationship. Not to mention the rebel attacks on the palace that occur regularly and the strain of the entire nation watching with baited breath to see who will be their princess. Throw in the restrictive caste system that constantly chafes America and you have a recipie for disaster (and probably revolution).

Overall I enjoyed this book it was a quick read and I got to escape the monotony of everyday life. Like I said earlier this was a guilty pleasure read so don't expect anything groundbreaking or an intellectual commentary of society. It's a fun read where a girl gets a chance at being a princess and honestly after an entire childhood of Disney movies who didn't at least once dream of being a princess. Personally I wanted to be Belle because she got a prince and a stellar library! (Mostly though I wanted to be Kayley from Quest For Camelot). I will probably read the entire series.

Predictions for the series: America will struggle with her feelings for both Aspen and Maxon (can we stop with the love triangles for a while please?!). America will either be kidnapped by the rebels and learn that they want to rebuild the United States as they were and reinstate democracy and they want her to help by probably being the poster child. Her name is America so I really don't think that's too much of a stretch. Marlee is either a.) exponentially amazing at manipulation and intrigue and is playing nice to win over the prince, b.) a spy for the rebels, c.) option a AND b, or d.) dating a guard. I hope it's option c! Please? I have been really good this year!

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

This was one of the books on my Goodreads suggestions list. All it had to tell me was that it was dystopian, had polygamy, and dealt with kidnapping and stockholm syndrome and I was sold!

Rhine is a sixteen year old girl in Manhattan who lives in a world where science has screwed up and has made it so girls only live till they're twenty and boys until they are twenty-five. Rhine's parents were working on a cure when they were murdered in a terrorist attack and she was left alone with her twin brother Rowan. They take turns sleeping each night to protect their home and each other from thieves and the "Gatherers" who round up young girls to be sold into prostitution and sexual slavery as brides to rich men.

Rhine ends up getting "gathered" with a bunch of other girls and forced to marry Linden. a wealthy governor in Florida, along with two other girls. Far from everything she knows and love she decides that she must escape and return home to her brother. But escape seems futile because the brides are watched and restricted to certain areas of the mansion that is impossible to escape. Her only way out is to make Linden fall in love with her so he will make her the First Wife. First Wives are the favorites of their husbands and get more privileges and freedom than her sister wives. Rhine achieves this goal and attends parties and events with Linden all the while determined to escape with the servant Gabriel whom she has fallen in love with.

This book was good for the first book in the series. I enjoyed the feel of this decaying society clinging to the hope of a cure and the disenchanted older generation that due to science are near immortal and all major illnesses have been done away with. Rhine doesn't feel like a sixteen year old to me but that is easily explained by the world she lives in and the death of her parents. Her sister wives can get a little annoying (especially Cecily but she's like fourteen). That also bothered me a lot. Linden's underaged wife. She's fourteen! Hardly at an age where she can give consent and know the consequences of her actions. She feels like a kid playing house the entirety of the book.

All in all it was an enjoyable book I look forward to the rest of the series because this book has so much potential.

Predictions for the rest of the series: Because Rhine and Rowen have heterochromia (two different eye colors) and because their parents were some big wig scientists I think we're going to find out that Rhine and Rowan are the key to the cure (or are test tube babies/clones and will age and live normally). Rhine will end up with Gabriel (though I would not entirely mind if she ended up with Linden) and Linden's father will be killed by one of his horrible experiments.