5 Reads Currently On My Nighstand [Migrated Post]

If you’re an avid reader yourself, I’m sure you’re currently reading multiple books at once. Admit it – times have changed. Our attention spans have gotten a lot shorter, but hey, it doesn’t stop us from loving good stories, right? Here’s the stuff I’m digesting right now:

1. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

A new adventure begins. 📖 #whatimreading #instabooks #bookstagram #bookcover #anabundanceofkatherines #johngreen #penguinclassics #nytimesbestseller #boymeetsgirl #ya #fiction #love #instagood #comingofage #thetheoremofunderlyingkatherinepredictability #funny #relationships #blankstacebookstore

A post shared by Stace | @blankstacebookstore (@blankstace) on Jul 27, 2014 at 9:41am PDT

Maybe I’m the only one here who hasn’t read #TFIOS (though I’ve seen the movie and it was sweeeet), but I’ve finished the best-selling YA author’s debut, Looking For Alaska, which won the Michael L. Printz Award in 2006. I loved Green’s unembellished style and simple storytelling, and after subscribing to vlogbrothers and learning that he used to work for Mental Floss, I was piqued. An Abundance of Katherines instantly went into my to-read list after I learned about the simple, straightforward, yet unique plot, and that it’s something of nerdom. So far I found the protagonist Colin Singleton really endearing, sarcastic at times, sensitive and naive, yet fun to follow around. He’s a 17-year-old child prodigy who just got dumped by the 19th girl he’s dated named Katherine, and his goal in life is to become a genius by means of a Eureka moment. How cool is that.

2. The Giver by Lois Lowry

I’ve actually been wanting to read this ever since I was a kid back in the days I was studying in Singapore. I’ve seen this cover so many times before whenever I’m in the bookstores. Very often, I find The Giver under the classics section, right next to L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time, but I’ve never picked it up to see what’s it about. Now that I’ve learned it’s going to be made into a major motion picture (featuring Taylor Swift, people) this summer, I finally stopped hesitating and started venturing out to Lowry’s dystopian world. She’s the mother of the genre after all, and I’m sure the recent popularity of it is sure going to bring a huge success for the movie this August. So far I’m loving how she’s conveying so much with such concise sentences. I’m sure this is going to be a fast read so I’ll quickly follow the rest of the books in the quartet: Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

3. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Finally got my hands on Susan Cain's masterpiece #books #quiet #instareads #introvert #infj #psychology #personality #instantfavorite #penguinclassics #blankstacebookstore

A post shared by Stace | @blankstacebookstore (@blankstace) on Jun 12, 2014 at 11:32pm PDT

Like I said, my family is a bunch of introverts, so it comes naturally that I want to know how our minds work in order to foster better communication and keep our relationships strong. Although I’ve seen this book about a million times in bookstores, reckoned it’s been on the top spots of major bestsellers lists, and watched Susan Cain’s talks and interviews on the topic across all media, I wasn’t planning on reading the book because I already know that the thesis for Quiet is basically stating that introverts, unlike previously thought, actually possess more favorable traits than extroverts for them to thrive in the modern-day world (the title says it all). Then I found this book lying on my brother’s bed while I was visiting him in June. He told me to read it, as it’s helped him a lot in both his personal and professional lives. So here I am reading it now, finding it extremely insightful so far. Now I can see what’s the hype …

4. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

I still consider myself a newly baptized even if it’s only last year that I accepted Jesus as my Savior. It seems that the more I get to know him, the more I want to understand him. By understand, I mean his speech, his demeanor, his deeds, and all of his practical and human ways that I can follow. This book provides the historical perspective of scholars with a blend of the mythical and enigmatic Jesus as told across cultures. They all piece together beautifully under the backbone of the author’s matured faith and understanding of the Jesus of the Gospels, so you can expect to witness the raw conviction and passion Jesus had during his time on earth.

5. BBC Knowledge Asia Edition Vol. 6 Issue 7

Brain #candy 🍬 #bbc #knowledge #travelreads #instareads #mindbites #magazine #science #instantfavorite #blankstacebookstore

A post shared by Stace | @blankstacebookstore (@blankstace) on Jul 22, 2014 at 11:58pm PDT

So this is my latest discovery while I was making a transit in Singapore. It’s a relatively new magazine by Regent Media Pte Ltd, and it’s quickly become an instant favorite for me. Unlike most science magazines out there, BBC Knowledge has practically all fields of science (physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, astronomy, you name it) as well as their relating departments (namely history, anthropology, zoology, engineering, and more) condensed into one tight magazine. I can understand if you think the magazine covers one broad and dangerous arena, but I assure you, they’ve really gone in-depth across every topic. I think if I leave this magazine lying around the living room when I have a kid later on, he or she will outsmart the science teacher at school and then go score all tests with flying colors.

Now it’s your turn to share: What are you reading these days?



Love, Stace

My Thoughts On "About A Girl" by Lindsey Kelk [Migrated Post]

“This will not be the first time anyone’s said this to you, but there isn’t enough time to waste in this life. So don’t.”

Blurb: Tess Brookes has always been a Girl with a Plan. But when the Plan goes belly up, she’s forced to reconsider. After accidently answering her flatmate Vanessa’s phone, she decides that since being Tess isn’t going so well, she might try being Vanessa. With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa’s photography assignment to Hawaii – she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right? But Tess is soon in big trouble. And the gorgeous journalist on the shoot with her, who is making it very clear he’d like to get into her pants, is an egotistical monster. Far from home and in someone else’s shoes, Tess must decide whether to fight on through, or ‘fess up and run …

I first picked up this book for the two things I’m always looking for in a chick lit: 1) A light read that’s easy to get lost into, and 2) how relatable the protagonist seems to me. Post-reading About A Girl, I can testify that I’ve found a new friend on print.

Meet Tess Brookes, otherwise known as a deeply troubled control freak. The 25-year-old spends too much time trying to get ahead in her career, and she’s been suffocating for the past decade secretly loving her best friend. At the turn of events, she loses all control, faces an existential crisis, and has no choice but to avail herself to the myriad of possibilities life offers beyond her fishbowl world, which later led her to a self-discovery journey, specifically by stealing someone else’s identity (the last thing someone like her would do) and fly off to Hawaii (away from her tiny apartment in London). Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

I know the plot sounds formulaic, and yes, there are already plenty of other midlife-crisis-driven chick lits out there since Bridget Jones, but admit it: It’s why you buy the novel in the first place. You want a familiar adventure that takes you to places with the comfort of knowing everything will be alright in the end, just like in life. No matter how deep a sh*t you’re in, you can be reminded that we are all in the same boat out of a well-written book.

Now let’s get on with the review.

This is the first book I’ve read of the popular author of the ‘I Heart’ series and beauty blogger Lindsey Kelk, so I’ve got next to nothing to compare this book with in terms of its plot, characters, storytelling and other writing technicalities. But Kelk definitely has a way with words; I’ve got a massive list of highlighted phrases I love in this book, such as her vivid description of a “bright, Pepto-Bismol pink”, some funny choices of swear words like “F*** a duck, he was so handsome,” and a fresh simile she employed to exemplify a goofy dance: “… [it was] very Tom Cruise on the Oprah sofa”.

I especially love how straightforward her tone is and how natural her humor comes off. Kelk’s also maintained a good pace throughout the book and really made Tess a voice that speaks like a best friend to the reader. It didn’t take long before I was hooked, as I felt an affinity with her character and her struggles.

It was all well and good if you were one of those girls who slinks around starkers after sexytimes, but I wasn’t really a naked person. I was very much an ‘always sleep in a nightie in case the house burns down’ person.

It was clever for Kelk to throw in plenty of ‘you’s in the narrative to achieve this effect, whether it was a conscious decision or not. For example, Tess describing a rich and famous male celebrity in the book: “… he was clearly not a man who usually had his photo taken by a girl whose most recently photography experiment ran to Facebooking her dinner every night for a week and downloading apps that showed you what you‘d look like if you were morbidly obese.” The ‘you’s in most every clause, saturated by Kelk’s smart interjections of pop culture references, have clearly won my heart over, and together they’ve successfully made Tess so easy to empathize with.

I also didn’t see the twist at Chapter 20 coming, even though most readers have said it’s not that all surprising. I mean, for me, if you’re already losing yourself into the character you can relate with so much, it’s difficult to take a step back and look at the grand scheme of things. This may be a spoiler-free review, but the only thing I’d say I’ve learned out of this twist is this: Every character, no matter how minor they seem, still plays a role to support the protagonist’s advancements in the story. Trying thinking about the friends and acquaintances in your life who’s exerted differing levels of influence on life decisions.

Aside from Tess, the leading characters in the book are pretty 3-dimensional. Paige is easily the Serena van der Woodsen in your life, Charlie is the guy who doesn’t know what he wants, and Nick is the guy who needs you in his life in order to love again (don’t we all love feeling wanted and needed?). My only complaint is Amy and her lack of depth. It was blatant that her sole existence was for Tess to be able to cope with her secret love for Charlie in the last 10 years, which plays a big role in the plot, as well as for Tess to put up with the immense life pressures in her family. Our heroine is someone who places higher importance on people and things other than herself, so Amy’s unstable lifestyle was easily necessitated by Tess’s workaholic nature. Other than that, and this is just personal, I imagine the upcoming sequel can do just fine without Amy (yes I’m mean that way), unless Tess and Paige is about to get into some crazy b*tch fight.

It sucks right now that I still have to wait until July 17 to get my hands on What A Girl Wants. More than the romance she’s about to embark upon at the end of About A Girl, I’m more interested about how Tess would eventually resolve the rough patch with her family. It’s probably going to be tough for her overbearing mother to learn that the new Tess is less than the perfect girl she used to throw her implicit demands at, and I can’t wait to see if Tess is going to retreat from her newfound courage or to stand up even taller for who she really is.



Love, Stace