Whoa—is one month of 2015 already gone?! Yikes.
I looked back at the recap for last January, and I feel I'm off to a much better start this year. I read some really great books this month and have been sticking to a pretty steady blogging schedule. I can't say how long both of those things are going to last, lol, but I hope to keep the momentum rolling.
Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.
This week's topic is:
Best Joke from the Series
The Harry Potter series is filled with many funny jokes and moments. My favorite joke, although I’m not sure if it is necessarily considered a joke or if it’s more of a funny moment, is during Prisoner of Azkaban when Snape catches Harry with the Marauder’s Map and attempts to read it. Obviously, the map is warded against Snape, seeing that the creators and original owners were the Four Maruaders, and instead of the map itself being revealed, mean comments from “Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail” are directed at Snape instead, lol. I was quite young when I first read PoA, but I vividly remember the moment when I read this scene; I could not stop laughing. For some reason, I just found the whole situation hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder at any other moment in the series.
To Sum It Up: Just when Alexia may finally be getting a break from all of the attempts on her life, a ghost warns her of a threat against Queen Victoria. Naturally, Alexia must look into the matter, even if she finds her mobility quite limited at the moment. The course of the investigation turns up some rather surprising information, as well as the alarming realization that the would-be assassin may be an all too familiar figure.
Review: I’m running out of words to laud the Parasol Protectorate series with—and I still have one book to go. So that review may consist of a sentence or two because I’ve spent everything in my vocabulary bank on Heartless. But we’ll worry about that at a later date.
While the second and third books in the series, Changeless and Blameless, respectively, were both highly enjoyable reads, they were a notch off from the spectacular series opener, Soulless. Heartless, I feel, is a return to what made the first book perfect—plenty of shared scenes between Lady and Lord Maccon.
Alexia and Conall didn’t have all that much page time together in Changeless and especially in Blameless, and that was the missing element. Those two kids—I love them individually, but together, they’re phenomenal and just ignite the page. They squabble constantly, but that’s been the foundation of their relationship since Soulless. Without that tension, which produces so many hilarious quotes, they wouldn’t be Alexia and Conall. Even though the earl behaved like a certifiable dunderhead at the very end of Changless and throughout most of Blameless, my resolve to stay mad at him was weak. He makes me swoon too much. Everything about Lord and Lady Maccon’s relationship makes me swoon, even when the romance is teeming with sarcasm. In fact, I couldn’t envision it any other way.
I was also happy to see Lord Akeldama (and his drones) put in plenty of appearances. The series would not be the same without his lordship’s italics. Professor Lyall and Floote are their usual reliable selves, trying to keep life from becoming too insane for Lord and Lady Maccon. Ivy gets a chance to prove herself as a secret agent of sorts when Alexia formally inducts her into the Parasol Protectorate and dispatches her on her first official mission (sensible hat choices apparently not being a requirement for membership in the organization). As intriguing an addition as Madame Lefoux has been to the series, I can’t help feeling extra fond of the original core group of characters. They all shine in Heartless, which was yet another reason why I loved this book so much.
Quite a lot of craziness takes place toward the end of Heartless, setting up some extremely interesting story lines for the series finale. Alexia and her logic can always be counted on to solve the most difficult problems, though, so I have complete confidence that she’ll handle anything that heads her way, especially if that something is trouble.
All in All: Nothing but love for this one!
You have no idea how much I wanted to make a rock, paper, scissors joke out of the post title. I thought better of it, however, and spared you all from the wrath of my horrible humor.
This past Friday was National Handwriting Day, which I think is really neat. I still love writing with good old-fashioned pen and paper. There's just something gratifying about writing things out by hand that can't be replaced by typing on a keyboard, at least for me. Even back in school, penmanship lessons were never tedious.
Most of the time, I hand write blog posts first. It started back when I sometimes picked up Ally and Melissa from school or band practice. For those of you who've experienced the (non) joy of waiting in the student car rider line, you're familiar with having time to kill. Lots of time to kill. So I'd whip out a notebook and pencil and work on writing reviews and other posts in the car until the line began moving. And I'm really glad that I did. Writing everything down first does create double work of sorts, in that I still have to type a post up. That doesn't bother me, though, and I get a much needed break from staring at the screen of an electronic device. I would miss writing everything by hand first, too, because it's become an integral part of my blogging routine.
In addition to my notebook of blog posts, I keep a separate notebook of my favorite book quotes. I know a lot of other bloggers do as well. For me, a quote book is like a scrapbook; it reminds me of the books I've read, the awesome characters I've met, and the fantastic fictional worlds I've visited.
As much as I enjoy putting pen/pencil to paper, something that I've never been very good at is keeping a journal. I've started and stopped a number of times through the years and have failed at maintaining a journal on a consistent basis. Often I'd sit down to write . . . and find I had nothing to say. I know the point of journals is to be able to write about whatever you feel like writing about, but I guess I fare better with structure, like when I set out to write a book review. I think I'd like to give journaling another go in the future, this time without putting so much pressure on myself to make it perfect.
I feel especially old school with hand writing because I write in cursive/script almost exclusively. Scripting has always just been a lot faster for me than printing, plus I've always found script cool. When I was a kid and could just about manage printing my name, I begged my mom to teach me how to write in script like she did because I thought script looked way better than print. When I started third grade and we were expected to use cursive all the time, well, I couldn't have been happier!
Are any of you old school pen and paper peeps like me? Do you ever use cursive/script?
Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.
This week's topic is:
Best Spot to Chill at Hogwarts
Ooh, this is a bit of a toughie. I think I'd be extremely happy just hanging out in the Hogwarts library for the rest of my life. I mean, all those magical books! I'd also love spending time in the Gryffindor Common Room. It just always sounded so cozy in the books.
