Dusty Reads: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Dusty Reads is a weekly post featuring a book that has been sitting unread on my home shelf for some time.

Title: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Pages: 416
Publication: September 1, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Summary taken from goodreads:

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her. 

His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. 

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little. 

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

I just realized that I haven't done one of these since last year... Maybe that's why I haven't remembered to read much this year. -__-" 

Ironically, I think I bought this book last year? I've been meaning to read this book because I generally like Maggie Stiefvater's books, and I've been hearing endless praise for this series since day one. It's kind of ridiculous the extent of praise I've read about this series. Even people I follow on Tumblr talk about it!

But yeah, the last book is coming out next year, so that should give me enough time to read the first three books as soon as I have time to read anything. Unfortunately, that won't be until this semester ends. :/

Thanksgiving Break Goals

My Thanksgiving Break officially starts today, but because I convinced my art teacher to turn yesterday into a work day and because my other teacher canceled class for the break, I actually had yesterday off. Did I do anything productive with it? Not academically.

I cleaned my room and vacuumed my sis's room, but any chance of doing homework was pointless after my parents came home since we had some errands to do. We ended up spending around five hours at Best Buy upgrading new phones and transferring info over to our new phones, so it was already nine at night by the time we got home. By then, I was just tired and knew I wouldn't focus on writing any paper.

So, here are all of the things I need to do over this break in order to catch up with school.

• Finish Assessments 1-7
• Write Leadership paper 
• Write Multimedia draft 
• Finish reading Romans
• Finish reading CC chapter 18
• Read Colossians
• Read Ephesians
• Read Timothy
• Read CC chapter 20 
• Read Hebrews 
• Read CC pages 441-48 
• Read James 
• Read CC chapter 22 
• Read 2 Peter 
• Read Jude 
• Read CC chapter 23 
• Read 1 John 
• Read 2 John 
• Read 3 John

It really sucks because my sis and her fiance are coming down on Friday night, so I know that the rest of the weekend is gonna be full of distractions. Plus, my bro wants to go Black Friday shopping, while my parents have items that they want me to buy for them since they'll be too busy to do it themselves.

Ugh, there's always too much to do and not enough time. :/ I really shouldn't have slacked off on the reading assignments for New Testament last week. But then again, there really wasn't much time to do them because of everything else.

Friday's busy!

There's so much stuff happening this Friday, the 20th, that it's crazy!

The most obvious is that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 premieres, but Netflix's original series, Jessica Jones, also comes out as well, and I'm super excited for both. I can't wait to see how the movie will depict the fighting scenes and ending, even though I don't really remember the second half of the book that well, since I pulled an all-nighter to finish it, lol. And I'm so excited to watch Jessica Jones because Daredevil blew me away, and it's taking place in the same city: Hell's Kitchen. That, and because I actually read up on her backstory, which is super twisted and sad, so I can't wait to see her portrayal on screen.

In addition, We the King's new album, Strange Love, is also coming out on the 20th! They've been releasing teasers on their YouTube channel for the past few days and will continue to reveal a new song each day until their album release date, and I've been loving them. My favorite is "From Here to Mars" with "Jenny's Song" as a close second. Check out the teaser!



For more local news, Mercer is also throwing its quarterly Midnight Movie on this Friday, most likely in anticipation for Mockingjay's release, but there's been some changes so that now non-Mercer students can also attend the event. This could mean that they'll run out of seats quicker, which'll suck. However, the movie theater's already announced that they'll have multiple theaters playing Mockingjay, so I guess seating won't be too difficult if I actually end up going.

Lastly, we have initiation on Friday! My little will become a brother! :D I feel bad for not talking and hanging out as much as I could have, but this semester was busier than I expected. D:

Hanging Out, Hooters, Laser Tag, & Fiction

This past week has been crazy busy, lol. I definitely did not focus on schoolwork and homework as much as I should have. I ended up socializing instead. -__-"

On Wednesday, I hung out with Lauren, since we haven't seen each other since AWA and because she wanted to give me my birthday present. We went to go eat at McAlister's, and ended up staying there for around three hours just catching up, talking about classes, anime, and our favorite ships. Lol, it was good to see her.

Afterwards, I went to my friend's car club event to get a quick checkup on my car and learn how to check my tire's air pressure and oil and stuff. Hopefully I will remember how to do all of that when I really need to do it, lol. I signed up for a raffle and recently found out that I got second place! Lol, I haven't had a chance to stop by and retrieve my prize, so I don't even know what I won. XD

I met up with Jessica there, and we went to go kidnap Safa after we were done checking our cars. We promised to take her out to Hooters during LEAD since she had never been there before, so that was what we did. I'm so glad that all of us liked spicy things, or else we would have had to choose the boring flavors, lol. Instead, we tried out a bunch of different spicy flavors since we chose the all-you-can-eat wingless option that's available on Wednesdays.

Then, on Friday, Quadworks had set up laser tag on Cruz from 5-7, so David and I ended up playing multiple rounds with strangers at first, and then with our friends later on at night. Oh my god. I was so sore over the weekend because of all of the squatting I did playing laser tag. David and I were dying walking anywhere. XD (I'm still a little sore...)

Afterwards, we went to go watch our school theater's production of "Fiction" with Jenny and Carina, since Carina and I got free tickets for designing the posters (and she got another one for designing the book cover). It was really good! And I recognized all of the actors (lol, there were only three) from the previous play, "A Flea in Her Ear," that we went to for free for also designing the poster and banners for, lol.

So yeah, it was a very eventful week.

Books I Want to Read This Month

I have three days off for Thanksgiving Break, but I also have two or three papers due when I come back the following week, so who knows if I'll actually have a chance to read anything. Lol, I'll probably end up reading a book just to procrastinate. :P

1. Homeland by Cory Doctorow
2. Never Fade by Alexandria Bracken
3. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
4. Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols
5. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
6. Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro
7. Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova
8. Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter
9. The Geography of Me and You by Jennifer E. Smith
10. Insignia by S.J. Kincaid
11. The Girl of Fire and Thornes by Rae Carson
12. I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
13. The Young World by Chris Weitz
14. Nevermore by James Patterson
15. Divergent by Veronica Roth

October in Retrospect

I can't believe how busy and forgetful I've been that I completely forgot to post this until now! D: I've been swamped with school, so I haven't had much of a chance to read or review anything, which sucks. I really feel like I should review the latest stuff that I watch, but I keep on forgetting to do it. :/

I watched:
Daredevil Season 1 (2015)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)