Harry Potter Month: My HP Bucket List

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

While trying to come up with some Harry Potter Month post ideas because, as usual, I waited until HP Month actually started to begin thinking about HP Month, LOL, I realized that I actually have a few Harry Potter-related life goals. Some of these are pretty simple, while some need a bit more effort to achieve, but a Potterhead can dream, can't she?

1. Visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: OK, so in theory this one is pretty easy because I live about 45 minutes away from Universal Studios in Orlando. The main obstacle has been the cost; even with a Florida resident discount, tickets are not in my budget at the moment. Hopefully one day I'll save up enough to go.
2. Own a Harry Potter mug: I like collecting coffee/tea mugs, and somehow, I do not have an HP one in my small yet steadily growing collection.
3. Take the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in London: Visiting England is on my non-HP bucket list, and if I ever get to go, I'd love to bask in all of the Harry Potter awesomeness that this tour offers.
4. Attend a Harry Potter convention: I went to a local-ish comic con a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun. I can only imagine how amazing an all-HP con would be!
5. Marathon watch the films: I'm talking one after another after another, (almost) straight through to Deathly Hallows, Part 2, with bathroom/food breaks as needed. And maybe a nap or two. XD
6. Binge reread the books: Every year I tell myself that this is going to be the year that I read all seven books in a row, but sadly, it still hasn't happened. I can't even remember when I last read the series. It's been far too long, and out of all of the goals I've listed here, this is the one that I'm absolutely determined to reach!

Do you have any HP-related goals?

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (174)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme created by Uncorked Thoughts and hosted by Lunar Rainbows Reviews. 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:
What Books Would You Recommend to Lupin?

Books I would recommend to Remus Lupin:

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I think this Muggle novel would be quite an interesting read for Lupin. With the somewhat negative view the wizarding world has towards werewolves, I think the themes of monstrosity in Frankenstein would be particularly meaningful to Lupin.
2. The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater: I think the relationship between Blue, Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah is similar to the relationship between the Marauders, and I think Lupin would really enjoy that.
3. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey: I would recommend this series to pretty much everyone, but I think the idea of what makes a monster plays heavily into the series. I think that would be right up Lupin’s alley.
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: I really have no reasoning behind this one; I would just really like to see Lupin’s reaction to it.

My Wand Experience at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

Even though I’ve lived in Florida for nearly half my life, I am ashamed to say that I had not been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (let alone Universal) until last year. Boy, was it worth the wait! I can hardly put my amazement into cohesive phrases about what it feels like to actually step into the books. It was breathtaking to see that the abstract world I had grown up loving had become a physical place that was actually accessible to me. For any book lover, it was a dream come true. In those regards, the whole day is pretty much a happy blur to me that I really wished I remembered in greater detail. That being said, I will attempt to retell my wand experience.

If you’re not familiar with the park or its attractions, they have pretty much everything important that is mentioned in the books. You can actually go to Ollivander’s and they have this really cool interactive show where someone from the audience gets picked and they go through their wand ceremony. And by golly, I actually got picked! Now, before you all go: that lucky bastard, I have to admit that I am pretty much the unluckiest person ever when it comes to raffles, winning by chance, or any sort of fate induced contest. I was fully expecting some nice kid in the audience to get picked, but no, the lady picked me. And yes, I had the cliché awkward moment where I checked to see if she was pointing at the person behind me. So, that’s how I got suckered into buying a ridiculously expensive piece of plastic that I display quite proudly in my room.

Melissa's Comeback Post!

I have returned (as some of you might have guessed from our Harry Potter month announcement)! And by this point, I would not be surprised if no one remembers me. While I have written a handful of reviews and posts in the past couple of years, I have been unable to contribute regularly. Now that I have graduated college (woohoo!), I look forward to devoting some of my newfound free time to posting on a regular basis. I figured it was probably a good idea to reintroduce myself before I start posting so that you guys don’t think I’ve kidnapped Lee and sent her to Alaska to fight bears with her . . . bare hands. Bottom line: you’ll be seeing a lot more from me. Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions on what I should read, I would greatly appreciate it. It seems like an eternity since I’ve last read any YA books!

ARC Review: The Apprentice Witch by James Nicol

The Apprentice Witch
By James Nicol
Publisher: Chicken House
Format: Print ARC
Source: Publisher
Publication Date: July 25, 2017

To Sum It Up: After failing her evaluation to become a full-fledged witch, Arianwyn Gribble remains an apprentice. She is assigned to the town of Lull to assist the residents there with any magical needs. Lull isn’t as quiet as its name implies, though, as something dark seems to be lurking in the surrounding Great Wood. Not only does it appear more and more likely that Arianwyn will ultimately have to face whatever is out there, even as an apprentice, but she’s also troubled by a mysterious glyph that makes her spells go awry.

Review: It’s quite difficult for me not to compare every middle grade magic book I read to a certain series that turned 20 this year about a certain boy wizard, especially when it comes to its appeal to readers of all ages. I try to keep my mind as open as possible, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to pick up books about witches, wizards, and the like again, and there’s just something irresistible about the possibility that magic exists.

Poor Arianwyn Gribble flunks her evaluation exam to be recognized as a fully qualified witch and is stuck at the apprentice level. Although she receives an assignment to help the town of Lull with tasks like dealing with unfriendly magical creatures, it’s not much of a consolation to Arianwyn, especially since her grandmother is a very prominent witch. Arianwyn is a very relatable heroine; she tries so hard to prove that she’s ready for the next step up in rank, but fate just keeps seeming to throw a wrench in her efforts. Readers will quickly find themselves cheering her on to succeed.

One of my favorite aspects of The Apprentice Witch was its magical creatures, even the pesky ones like snotlings. The vivid descriptions of the creatures were also one of the novel’s strong points; they were what truly made me feel like I’d been whisked away to another world.

Unfortunately, another area of the world-building was not quite on the same level. There’s mention of a war going on and Arianwyn’s father is off fighting in it, but the book doesn’t go into further detail about it. Lull is the novel’s focal point, and that’s fine, but I couldn’t help being curious about what was happening outside of the town.

Something else that became a bit distracting was the book’s quite liberal use of exclamation points in the dialogue. After a while, they lost some of their effectiveness because they kept popping up.

The book’s plot is fairly straightforward and doesn’t deviate much from its projected path. There is a certain charm, however, in watching Arianwyn gradually settle into her new life in Lull and into her new duties as its apprentice witch. Anyone who’s ever searched for a sense of belonging is sure to find a kindred spirit here in Arianwyn.

All in All: Younger readers will likely find Arianwyn’s adventures thrilling, but for me as an adult reader, they were missing a little something to make them as compelling as some other middle grade books have been.