Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Movie Review: Inside Out (2015)

Picture Retrieved 6/23/2015 from
Inside Out Official Website
Picture Retrieved 6/23/2015 from
Inside Out Official Website
Title:  Inside Out (2015)
Directors: Pete Doctor & Renaldo Del Carmen
Writers: Pete Doctor & Renaldo Del Carmen
Screenwriters: Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley & Pete Doctor

Release Date: June 19, 2015
Rated: PG 

Click on the link to find out more about Inside Out
Inside Out was a cute, funny and sometimes sad movie that will take you on an emotional roller coaster ride like never before; that is considering that this is a movie about emotions.  As Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) tries to make sense of her family's move and adjust to her new home, her emotions go awry. The journey inside Riley’s mind provides an insider’s view of what happens when an individual struggles with change. As such, Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) came into play. Things got slightly tumultuous as Joy was on a happy, happy, happy crusade and sadness seemed like extra weight to carry around. Fear brought some humor to the screen and Anger—well; there were just times when he was out of control. And Disgust—well just take a look at this trailer….


Yeah, she was a opinionated and added a touch of sass to the mix. Needless to say, Riley’s behavior was questionable at times. Much of the focus remained on the interworking of Riley’s mind, mainly Joy and Sadness. And although Joy initially had her head in the clouds (everything was happy) and seemed to think that the world revolved around her, I liked the important realization she made upon falling into a dark pit. As for the negative aspects of the film, there were some drawn-out scenes and watching it in 3D didn’t enhance the visual effects. Yet,  Inside Out remains an entertaining, family friendly movie.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Interview: Kimberly Karalius

Today I'm so excited to finally bring you my interview with Kimberly Karalius, the author of Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. (You can check out my review for the book HERE) But before I get to the interview check out the synopsis below to learn more about the book...

22718710Synopsis from Goodreads...

Love is real in the town of Grimbaud, and Fallon Dupree has dreamed of attending high school there for years. After all, generations of Duprees have successfully followed the (100% accurate!) love fortunes from Zita’s famous Love Charms Shop to happily marry their high school sweethearts. It’s a tradition. So she is both stunned and devastated when her fortune states that she will NEVER find love. Fortunately, Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible love fortune, and a rebellion is brewing. Fallon is determined to take control of her own fate—even if it means working with a notorious heartbreaker like Sebastian. Will Fallon and Sebastian be able to overthrow Zita’s tyranny and fall in love?


How did you come up with the idea for Love Fortunes and Other Disasters?

Love Fortunes started from a few conversations I had with my fellow English majors in college. We used to study together in the dorm lobby, and our texts usually sparked some interesting tangents. Girls severely outnumbered boys on campus; with such a lack of dating opportunities, we used to imagine ourselves becoming glamourous spinsters after graduation, with mansions, butlers, and rooms full of cats (or dogs for me. I’ll always be a dog person). I wanted to turn that idea into a YA novel, but I knew it would be a challenge since teens have their whole lives ahead of them – why should they be worried about not finding love? Then Zita’s 100% accurate love fortunes and the town of Grimbaud came to be.

What made you decide to submit your novel to Swoon Reads? Was there a particular reason why the platform appealed to you?


I knew I wanted to submit my novel to Swoon Reads because of its crowd-sourcing model. I was already comfortable with the model after sharing my work for years on Figment.com, a teen writing site, which uses a similar idea to boost popular stories on the site for more readers to see. I loved giving and receiving feedback with fellow writers and readers on Figment, and the sense of community that came with it, so I couldn’t wait to jump into Swoon Reads and see what it was like there (with the hope of having my book published too!).

Do you have a particular spot where you like to write (especially in the summer)?

I don’t have much tolerance for hot weather, and Florida gets extremely steamy during the summer months. So when I write, I like sitting on a comfy couch with my laptop in my lap, in direct contact with air conditioning. In fact, I love writing in sweaters and sweats, which is something I can get away with if I don’t go outside *laughs* That’s an ideal situation, though. I graduated a while ago, so I work at my fulltime job over the summer (writing time only happens at night now, when the temperature drops, hurrah!).

What was your reaction to learning that your novel had been selected to be published by Swoon Reads?


I was so excited I was shaking, but I had to suppress any further reactions until when I got home from work. I found out while I was working – I had a nice cubicle in the department I worked in at the time, but it was still exposed. So when I got the email and talked with Jean Feiwel and my future editor, Holly West, I was trying so hard to appear calm and collected in front of my coworkers. After all, as awesome as it was to get the good news, I had to keep it a secret until Swoon Reads officially announced it to the world. So… much shaking, and a LOT of internal screaming and dancing.

What’s your biggest source of inspiration?

Anything strange and vintage. I gravitate towards antique and gift shops for that reason. It’s fun to wander through the aisles and wonder who would buy certain items and why (customers… and future characters, perhaps). Recently, I saw bookends shaped like keys. I have no use for bookends since I had too many books (my books are bookends), but I could picture a lonely baron owning the pair in his dusty library overlooking the grey ocean below.

What’s next for you?

I’m happy to announce that my second book with Swoon Reads is a sequel to Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. The main character is someone you’ve already met in the previous book. That’s all I can say for now, but keep a lookout on the Swoon Reads site for more news soon!

And that's it. Thank you to Kimberly Karalius for doing the interview, and don’t forget to check out her book Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. Happy reading!
Kimberly Karalius
 About the Author...

If you gave her a wish bone, Kimberly would wish fervently for snow in Florida. Her love for 90s cartoons (or any cartoons, really) knows no bounds. She might be the only person you know who can be completely engrossed in watching silent films. Being in Florida certainly has one big perk: going to Disney World. Which she does. Frequently. Kimberly holds an MFA in fiction from the University of South Florida. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals such as Luna Station Quarterly, The Medulla Review, and Hogglepot. Her chapbook, Pocket Forest, was published by Deathless Press in August 2013. Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (Swoon Reads/Macmillan May 2015) is her debut novel

Places to find Kimberly Karalius online . . .

Goodreads     Website     Twitter     Instagram     Pinterest


Friday, June 19, 2015

The Friday 56 (29)

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

For my 56 this week I selected Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, a book I'm currently in the middle of reading. In the past I have read two books by Stiefvater, and it seems to be hit or miss with me. I either love them or I don't.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again. Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever...

Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1)"Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he punched a quick number and held the phone to his ear. His eyebrows made a straight, hard line, and after a second, he pulled the phone away and stared at the screen"--Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

What's on your page 56 this week? Or, is there a book you plan to read over the weekend?


Thursday, June 18, 2015

Review: Love Fortunes and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius

Love Fortunes and Other DisastersTitle:Love Fortunes and Other Disasters
Author: Kimberly Karalius
Source/Format: Won, Paperback
More Details: Young Adult
Publisher/Publication Date: Swoon Reads, May 12, 2015

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository 

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Love is real in the town of Grimbaud, and Fallon Dupree has dreamed of attending high school there for years. After all, generations of Duprees have successfully followed the (100% accurate!) love fortunes from Zita’s famous Love Charms Shop to happily marry their high school sweethearts. It’s a tradition. So she is both stunned and devastated when her fortune states that she will NEVER find love. Fortunately, Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible love fortune, and a rebellion is brewing. Fallon is determined to take control of her own fate—even if it means working with a notorious heartbreaker like Sebastian. Will Fallon and Sebastian be able to overthrow Zita’s tyranny and fall in love?
Literally as I was finishing my review for Save Me by Jenny Elliott, this book arrived in the mail. My last tango with a Swoon Reads novel left me a little disappointed; however, that wasn't the case this time. I read the prologue of this book and I was hooked. Thankfully, this time around it was better and I ended up loving Love Fortunes and Other Disasters by Kimberly Karalius.

Karalius' book presented the idea of what could happen if fortunes proven to be 100% accurate about love and relationships started to go horribly awry. The story basically follows Fallon Dupree after she goes to the town of Grimbaud for school and an almost mandatory visit to Zita’s Lovely Love Charms shop to have her fortune told. It was a tradition that had worked for her family, but sadly for Fallon things didn’t turn out the way she thought they would. And I enjoyed seeing her try to fight her fortune rather than give up and accept the fate that everyone was convinced would happen. The secondary characters in the story were just fantastic, and I enjoyed how everything worked together—and how the seemingly miscellaneous details ultimately played a role in what happens to the characters.

Romance was a big part of this novel and I have to say that it was cute. I liked the way Karalius handled the relationships in the novel, and developed the characters in a way that it felt natural instead of forced despite the circumstances that brought them together.

Another aspect of this novel that I enjoyed was the writing. There was never a moment that I felt like I couldn’t grasp what was happening, and there was a good flow to the story that kept me engaged. The concept was handled nicely—it seemed like a complete idea, and stuck to the point of the story rather than unraveling. The setting was more or less fitting and there was enough detail so I could easily picture where the characters were going and what was happening around them. I actually really enjoyed how whimsical the novel was.

I had plenty of questions regarding the town and why Zita’s fortunes and charms had such a hold over them. And despite the sunshine and rainbows that constantly hovered over the town of Grimbaud like a fluffy sparkly cloud, I always had that lingering feeling that there was something not right with the pristine, love obsessed town. And as the events gradually unfolded the details became clearer, and I liked the gradual build up to the end.

Basically I was pleasantly surprised by Love Fortunes and Other Disasters. This book is one of my new favorites, and I am looking forward to what Karalius writes next.

**Check back next week for my interview with Kimberly Karalius**

Monday, June 15, 2015

Musing Mondays (33)

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by Jenn at A Daily Rhythm, that asks you to muse about something book related each week.

My Musings for the Week...

Today, since I don't really have much to talk about, I decided that I'm just going to answer the random weekly question: Do you have a favorite book from childhood? What is it?

The Field Guide (The Spiderwick Chronicles, #1)I have a lot of favorite books from when I was younger, but the most notable ones that I remember were the Spiderwick Chronicles written by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. I remember reading the books and just loving the story, characters, setting, and the fairies and everything that happened because of them. The illustrations were also nice and the style always fit with the story. I believe this was the series that got me into fantasy novels to begin with.

The Ironwood Tree (The Spiderwick Chronicles, #4)I’m also pretty sure that I even got a copy of Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You and The Spiderwick Chronicles: Notebook for Fantastical Observations. Yeah, I was sort of building a collection of Spiderwick stuff, which was why I was a little disappointed in the movie which changed almost too many things. Anyway, after finishing the Spiderwick Chronicles, I kept reading, moving on to other series like Artemis Fowl by Eoin ColferThe Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley and Charlie Bone (The Children of the Red King) by Jenny Nimmo.

What are some of your favorite books from your childhood?
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