Review | It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Goodreads Summary

Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life - which means getting into the right high school to get into the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.

Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness.

So I've picked this book up on a whim, I was feeling incredibly sad and unproductive that I needed somebody to be going through the same thing that I was going through and what better way to share an experience than with a book?
First off, this book was on my TBR for SOOO long and I couldn't find it anywhere where I lived. My bf knew that and he was amazing enough to get it for me as soon as he found it. (thank you♥, even though I know you aren't reading this). Anyways, so after months of having it on my shelves, I finally picked it up. 

I must say I would've enjoyed this book much more if I read it in 3 or 4 sittings, but it took me a month to finish it. I was extremely busy during the month April with finals and I had so little time for reading. Although it took me a long time, I felt the urge to sit down and read and not put it down, but I had to. So, it's not the book's fault at all.

This book deals with depression in a very clear and realistic way. It doesn't sugar-coat the experience nor exaggerate it. It's a depiction of a real life experience and that is what the book says at the back of it. As you might know, Ned Vizzini himself spent 5 days in an adult psychiatric ward before committing suicide. 

I loved the writing and I loved that the book was pretty much character driven. It was simple and easy to read and I found myself being completely indulged in the story. I loved the character development that Craig went through from start to finish. It shows how much a person can evolve and how somebody with so much issues resolves the situation and gets through the tough times, because life doesn't stop there.

At first, I was unsure about this, because it was just sad and it made me shed some tears, but the ending was very redeeming. I have to mention that in the beginning, it was much more interesting, but I couldn't stop smiling in the end. This is a book about depression that makes you happy. I loved that this was a guide on how to deal with depression and how you should take action in case you're suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts. 

Lastly, I admire the cover of this book and how it correlates with the story. When I found out the meaning of the cover, my smile grew bigger and I grew fonder of this book. Also, the color yellow resembles the walls and pretty much everything at the ward and I loved that they chose the color yellow, because it's just a very happy color.

If you have read this book, please tell me in the comments below! Or if it's on your TBR :)

Have an amazing day everybody♥

10 Books I Procrastinate Reading

Hello bookworms! 

I know, I haven't been posting for the most of this month.. It was my birthday on the 21st (I turned eighteen), and I was at my grandma's, therefore no internet. Sorry about that lovies! 

I was inspired to write this post by Cait @ Paper Fury, check her out! She's one of my favorites <3 
These books I've been meaning to read for the longest time and I KNOW I'll love them, but I have been pushing them off .. I just get distracted, but it will happen soon. I promise. 

1. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

2. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin (# 1) 

Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can. 

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. 
There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. 
She's wrong.





3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (HP #6)

I won't write a synposis for this one so I don't spoil it since it isn't the first in the series, but I'm probably the only one who isn't done with this series yet. SOON though! 
















4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer 

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. 


Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future. 





5. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson #1)

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends -- one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena -- Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.


6. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom. 

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. 

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. 


Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined. 

7. A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Grey

Every Day meets Cloud Atlas in this heart-racing, space- and time-bending, epic new trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray.

Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.

Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.

A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure. 

8. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called "Le Cirque des Reves," and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway--a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per-formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. 

9. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doehrr 

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.


In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. 

10. Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover 

When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.

Love gets ugly. 


Those are all the books! If you have read any of them (I'm sure you have) leave your opinions down below, I'd love to read through them :) 

Update: I have read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and currently reading Ugly Love. 

Have an amazing day everybody! 

Book Review: Falling into Place by Amy Zhang

Goodreads synopsis: 

On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. 

Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect? Amy Zhang’s haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.

I plainly state that this book will probably be one of my favorites of 2015. Maybe because it reminds me (somehow) of Looking for Alaska by John Green which is one of my favorite books? Maybe.  

I have picked this book out on a whim, I was in the mood for something sad and something that I will cherish forever and I thought, hey, I've just bought this book today and it fits my needs and maybe I'll just read it right away. And here I am, 24 hours later, done with it and in tears. AMAZING. 

This was one heck of an eye-opener. Falling into Place dealt with mental illness, family issues, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, eating disorders, etc. This book made me see behind the popularity, behind the facade that people put on and it makes me devastated that there are people out there who are suffering from so much and carrying the burden of depression and refusing to seek help or do not know how. It breaks my heart in every way possible that human beings believe what they see. Human beings do not dig deeper, they do not judge a person upon personality anymore. A person is nothing but what his outer appearance indicates and what he chooses to portray to others.. it surprises me how shallow, cruel and merciless us human beings have become. 

All the sadness and rawness of this book aside, I loved loved the characters. I related to most of them and I grew a strange connection to each and every one. Liz, Julia, Kennie and Liam; each carry a load that drowns ME in sorrow. This book had me in tears just because all the characters were so REAL. This is a perfect portrayal of life in general, as a teenager or even as an adult.

Can I mention that Amy Zhang, the author, is actually sixteen? She is two years younger than I am and she managed to write something so beautiful that had me experience the awesomeness of simply falling in love with a book and it captivating your whole being. Yes, that's how I feel towards Falling into Place. The plot twists, the serious issues addressed, and the characters added to the stunning cover and design of this book. Amy's writing is simple and captivating; you can't help but love it.

Throughout this book, I didn't quite understand who the mysterious narrator is. It is told from a perspective of an outsider and not Liz's. I finally pieced the bits and pieces together at the end and it made me fall in love with this book again and again. 

I flew through this; it was really fast-paced. The characters intrigued me and their stories were exciting to read. It is my most marked book and here is a quote that I really liked and memorized: 

"He believed in broken things."

It may not hit you as much as it hit me, but you'll understand me more if you read this book (which you totally should).

I will NOT include spoilers in this one, because I'm too heartbroken and engulfed in misery to even talk about it, but I'd love to discuss it with you if you have read it! Comment down below your thoughts or tweet me @BooksByJayy so we can cry together, haha. 

Have a great day or night! :)