Love, Listen, Watch, Read: September

I am currently planning a blog post on what my life has been like lately (a life update, if you will), which I think will go up at some point next week, so we'll just leave my monthly highlights for that one. Not that anyone cares that much anyway, but the other day I was just thinking about how last year, when things started going wrong and I wasn't 100% me, I blogged about it. I wasn't even blogging regularly at the time, but I still decided to write about how I wasn't feeling my best. Why not let you all know when I'm feeling amazing and things are going great too?

As you may know, my summer spending ban finally came to an end this month, so I've been loving quite a few new (and old) beauty products. I fell in love with Revolution's G i r l s  O n  F i l m palette as soon as I opened the package. It is so pretty. I have only tried a few of the matte shades so far and the colour payoff and staying power is unbelievable, especially for the price. Makeup Revolution is one of the brand that proves that affordable does not equal bad quality. Now, I may be a bit late to the party, but I've also been loving the Electro Baby Lips. Initially I got B e r r y  B o m b (can't beat a purple lip) and a few days later I came back for P i n k  S h o c k, but while my sister did buy that one, I ended up getting O h !  O r a n g e  ! instead. I thought it would look too orange and so that it would be more suitable for the summer months, but it is the perfect nude lip for me. I always feel like I'm way too tanned to pull off nude lipsticks and I have finally found something that does the job for me. You go, Maybelline!

As for entertainment, there really hasn't been much variety. For some reason I haven't been reading much, but I am finally finishing T h e  Q u e e n  O f  T h e  T e a r l i n g, which I loved, so that's my book of the month. In fact, I've spent this month doing three things: going to university, working and watching C r i m i n a l  M i n d s. It has been on tv every weekend for the past few months and every Saturday and Sunday morning you can find me and my sister sitting in front of the tv like nothing else matters. We got so much into it that we decided to start watching the show from the beginning. And now I'm obsessed. It's such a smart show. I've said it before and I'll say it again, big up to whoever comes up with those storylines. I highly recommend it - it will blow your own mind!

September Playlist

Fireproof - One Direction

Steal My Girl - One Direction

Keep It To Yourself - Kacey Musgraves

Blowin' Smoke - Kacey Musgraves

Greenlight - 5 Seconds Of Summer

Still Fallin - Hunter Hayes

Nina - Ed Sheeran

The Man - Ed Sheeran

Nervous Girls - Lucy Hale

Ego - The Saturdays

What have you been loving this month?

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"You're The One That I Want" by Giovanna Fletcher

Originally from Pinterest as I don't own a physical copy.

In a nutshell

Maddy, dressed in white, stands at the back of the church. At the end of the aisle is Rob - the man she's about to marry. Next to Rob is Ben - best man and the best friend any two people ever had. And that's the problem. Because if it wasn't Rob waiting for her at the altar, there's a strong chance it would be Ben. Loyal and sensitive Ben has always kept his feelings to himself, but if he turned round and told Maddy she was making a mistake, would she listen? And would he be right? 

Best friends since childhood, Maddy, Ben and Rob thought their bond was unbreakable. But love changes everything. Maddy has a choice to make but will she choose wisely? Her heart, and the hearts of the two best men she knows, depend on it...

Thoughts

While I love chick-lit, I was a bit hesitant about giving this one a go. I read Giovanna's debut novel, Billy & Me, a couple of months ago and it really wasn't my cup of tea, so I wasn't sure I would like this one. My love for weddings, though, (and characters named Ben - I can't explain!) led me to give it a try and I'm so glad I did.

Exploring the trouble of a love triangle is no easy task. We have all read books or watched movies/TV shows where they have failed miserably at doing so, making them fight over the girl, who will eventually leave with the bad boy who's deep down a softie, and causing you, as a reader or viewer, to shake your head and even dislike those characters. I'm so pleased to say that's not the case with You're The One That I Want. In my opinion, the situation is handled very realistically, like something you'd imagine happening in real life. (Well, I do wish I had a couple of men as wonderful as Robert and Ben for me in real life. Sad times.)

Apart from being a love triangle, there's the added challenge of the three main characters being best friends. You can't just turn two characters who are practically like brothers into enemies who act careless towards one another - and I'm glad Giovanna didn't do that. These characters are realistic, human. They're not perfect, they have all made mistakes at some point and they're aware that they have to live with them. They know when they're being selfish and when they're being unfair and they also know that they can't help it. Because that's what the matters of the heart are all about. It's not always rainbows and butterflies and you don't always make the most rational choices, but that's what makes you human. And that's what makes these characters human as well. The heart of the novel lies on them and their "realness".

If you're like me and you're having doubts about giving You're The One That I Want a go, stop hesitating and start reading it now. It is a complex topic to write about successfully, but Giovanna handled it in a beautiful way. I promise you won't end up shaking your head or hating any of the characters, as you will definitely sympathize with Robert, Maddy and Ben. I know I did - and I look forward to reading Giovanna's upcoming novels in the future.

Are you a bookworm as well?

Come say hi on Goodreads!

Tania x

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"Love Letters to the Dead" by Ava Dellaira

 

In a nutshell

After losing her older sister May, Laurel transfers to another high school so that nobody knows her story. She's asked to write a letter to a dead person as an assignment for her English class, for which she chooses Kurt Cobain as it's someone she and her sister both loved. She never turns her letter in, though, but soon enough she's got a notebook full of them. This amazing novel is made up of little letters to the dead people that are listening to Laurel's story: from her first love -and heartbreak- and the struggles that come with being a teenager to her messed up family and how the person she looked up to the most may not have been living the perfect life she thought she was.

Thoughts (5/5*)

Touching. Brilliant. Wonderful. A "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" kind of wonderful, which I loved as a freshman myself at university. If you're a Young Adult reader you will know how frustrating it is to come across a good story with frustrating, childish characters as protagonists. I think it's so easy to cross that line when you're writing from the perspective of a teenager when you're no longer one yourself, but our protagonist, Laurel, is so smart and so interesting. She's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, dealing with her sister's death, a messed up family and her own thoughts and memories while living life as a young teen who's just starting high school and all that comes with that, which is not easy to begin with.

The main topic, dealing with grief, is a tricky one. I recently read a book with very similar starting points (little sister trying to be like her passed older sister) and it failed completely at making me feel sorry or sad or even understanding the protagonist's actions. It's the complete opposite with Love Letters. In the end I couldn't dislike any of the characters even if, I admit, I kind of wanted to. I truly loved it - and it made me tear up on a crowded bus!

For more literature related adventures, follow me on Goodreads!

Tania x

Daisies & Lipsticks - The Beginning

Hello to you reading this and welcome to my blog!

A few weeks ago I realized I was wasting way too much free time procrastinating instead of doing something useful with my life. Then I thought, what do you like to do the most? And the answer is: writing, English, makeup, fashion and so on. Which is the best way to let all this creativity out? That's it! A blog!

The truth is that talking about and wanting to do is much easier than actually doing it. It's taken me weeks to come up with a name I liked and to be honest, I'm still not sure of what this blog is going to be about! How unprofessional of me! To begin with, as I said, the content of this blog will include all things makeup and fashion. News I find interesting, reviews, things I enjoy or dislike. But in all honesty, I will probably end up talking about my two other great passions too, music and literature, because somehow I always end up rambling on. ;)

So basically, that's me. A girl with a lot of things to talk about and who's just found a creative getaway. I am no expert in any of these things but I'm already enjoying this, so hopefully if anyone reads this blog they'll enjoy it too.

Love,

-T-

PS. Pardon my English. I am not a native English speaker, so I'm very likely to make some mistakes!