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theolsentimes · 3 years ago

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Mary-Kate Olsen's Singular Style

She came to fame as a twin, but the actress's cultish look is entirely her own. Here, with Lauren Hutton, she pays homage to another fashion inspiration, Grey Gardens. Written by Laura Brown, with photography by Peter Lindbergh (Harper's Bazaar, 2007)

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Mary-Kate Olsen may be the only young actress who breezes into her local Starbucks wearing towering, fashion-fierce Balenciaga boots, who arrives at her latest premiere (in Mary-Kate's case, for the new season of Showtime's Weeds, in which she plays a devout Christian with a pot fetish) sporting an oversize cross, and whose favorite band is Led Zeppelin. She may, in fact, be the only young actress who knows who Led Zeppelin is. MK, as she is known to her friends and family, is also a punctual and professional sort. She arrives for a poolside tea in Los Angeles 10 minutes early, ordering a hot chocolate while explaining her fetish for all things sweet — "I'm a candy girl, like Tootsie Rolls and Swedish Fish" — and objecting when the waiter tries to take the sugar bowl away. She is wearing a nautical striped T-shirt (her mom's, from the '70s), tucked into two black Wolford slips rolled down and turned into a tight, Robert-Palmer-video-style mini, and multicolored sparkly Christian Louboutin stilettos. She's just had her hair colored, returning to a sunnier shade after some experiments with both peroxide ("I woke up one morning and was like, I want white-trash hair today") and the dark side (an auburn-haired near-Goth moment last year). She's carrying a large black fringed leather Prada tote — she doesn't do small bags — and her fingers are covered with rings, most notably two vintage coiled gold snakes stacked on top of each other. ("They remind me of twins, sort of double headed.") Altogether, the effect is less her famed "bag-lady chic" than an edgy, body-conscious, and, yes, sexy silhouette. If she weren't 21, she could be 40. And French.

Few people need reminding that Mary-Kate — with her twin sister, Ashley — literally crawled into celebrity aged nine months (courtesy of Full House) and has not been out of the spotlight ever since. She has been a celebrity for more than two decades. Perhaps that's one reason she seems as if she came out of the womb worldly, the textbook old soul. "Yeah," she says with a small shrug. "I get that a lot." With all of that attention and all of the money (her and Ashley's company, Dualstar, has famously become a "billion-dollar business"), Mary-Kate could easily have ended up the type who wears pink terry cloth and carries a variety of small dogs. "Could you imagine?" she says with the politest version of a snort. "No way." She credits her exceptionally close-knit family (she has five siblings) and, interestingly, early stardom with helping her keep her perspective. "I think it helped that I started in front of the camera, so it didn't come as a shock. If I was a teenager and was thrown into the spotlight, I don't know how I would react, to be honest." Though the tabloids are all too keen to brand her a skinny, nervous deer in the headlights, in person Mary-Kate is easy in her skin, confident and surprisingly tactile, curling up in her seat and touching you on the arm to make a point. She laments the generic style of most actresses and cites only men as style inspirations: "Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp. Men, they just dress the way they want, and they don't think about Who Wore It Best." She doesn't much care for Who Wore It Best, noting she avoids those pages by "wearing vintage so often. I just dress the way I feel instead of looking for what's the new handbag." If Mary-Kate and Ashley have their way, more people will be wearing clothes and carrying bags the way they do. They have just shown the fifth collection of their ready-to-wear line, the Row, and recently launched a contemporary label, Elizabeth and James, named after a sister and a brother. The Row's holiday collection (in stores next month) is a slick mix of skinny leather pants, razor-cut blazers, butter-soft, slouchy tees, and a destined-to-be-cultish pullover fur. Lauren Hutton, who stars in the Row's Spring '08 look book, says, "The clothes are extraordinary. A man I was with just loved them. The pieces are just so genius, soft like a baby's skin. Simple minimalist stuff, but really spectacular." Mary-Kate, designer, faces an interesting challenge. She has to marry Dualstar — which has made its fortune selling tween-tastic DVDs and pastel Mary-Kate and Ashley T-shirts at Wal-Mart — with her increasingly edgy and subversive taste. Dualstar executives, some of whom have worked with her since she was a child, often nag her, mom-style, about pulling her hair back "or wearing a color," she says with a laugh. "I had this event recently, and I was like, They're going to be so happy that I'm wearing ... purple. I actually have to think about those things, though, you know, so I don't get trashed." Get trashed sometimes she does. Hutton says, "Once in a while, she'll wear something and I'll think, Oh, baby doll, take another look. But to have the bravery, to take the chance to do that, is pretty wonderful. She is making her own way, which is hardly ever done in Hollywood." Of Mary-Kate's penchant for gigantic Balenciaga heels, Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds, says, laughing, "I'd be like, 'It's Tuesday. Do you really want to be wearing those shoes?' But she pulls it off." Designer Giambattista Valli, a friend, says, "She likes to take risks, but because she has such strong personal style, she always manages to make it work. Even if she had nothing on, she'd have style." And MK chic is spreading. "Sometimes I'll look at people or at a magazine and I'll do a double take because I'm like, Oh, my God, that's my outfit, but that's not me," Mary-Kate says. Playing with her wire-rimmed aviators, she jokes wryly that she should have bought shares in Ray-Ban. (She and Chloë Sevigny pretty much brought back white '80s Wayfarers.) She tends to fall in love with a look, then wear it until she's done. "If I put together a good outfit, I'll wear it for three days and then switch it up with a blazer," she says. "I still love my vintage jeans, my tights, and my pants, though." She didn't start wearing heels, in fact, until a couple of years ago: "I kept watching Ashley walk around in them so gracefully, and I'm such a klutz. But I ended up loving heels, and I don't usually take them off." She wears precisely one pair of flat shoes: Chanel's knee-high patent-leather gladiator sandals. This season, it's Balenciaga's fall collection — all of it — that has Mary-Kate obsessed. She is close to designer Nicolas Ghesquière and says, "He is so talented, but he's the nicest, most down-to-earth guy, and that makes everything he does more brilliant. I bought everything, but I haven't got anything yet," she says like a girl impatiently waiting for Christmas. Will she wear the new pieces with her infamous clodhopper boots? "Uh-huh. Wore them the other day, actually." Mary-Kate always goes with her gut, even if some people (back to those tabloids) don't quite get it. "The tabloids say things about me? What do they say?" she asks archly. "People are going to write what they want, and everyone's going to have their own idea of who I am. But I'm not trying to be friends with the people who are reading them, really." After a rough couple of years filled with near-forensic scrutiny of her weight, she'll have you know that she does eat. "This is not going to sound good," she laughs, "but I like making crispy tofu sticks with peanut sauce. I love my sashimi and my salmon and my vegetables." She observes, "Stress plays a big role in how I look day-to-day. I've always been very active — Pilates, yoga. I grew up horseback riding every day for hours. I love dancing. I usually last longer than anyone on the dance floor." A common image of Mary-Kate has her emerging from a coffee joint with an oversize cup. "I always get creamed for having my Starbucks cup," she says, sighing. "But the only time people get photos of me is when I'm getting coffee, when I can't sneak away from the camera." She also resents the pictorial implication that she and Ashley are dilettantes. "They take photos of us going into our offices, and it's 'Mary-Kate and Ashley shopping again.' But I'm going to work for eight hours, and we're working so hard. ..." She trails off. "It just shows how people want to think of you." Mary-Kate is not above celeb watching herself, however. Newly obsessed with Victoria Beckham, she notes she avidly watched Beckham's Coming to America documentary: "She's running around in a bikini and heels, and I'm like, Oh, my God! I do that, too!" How positively Grey Gardens. "I run around my house naked with heels all the time. It's so funny. All my friends will tell you I love running around in kimonos and jewelry or naked with jewelry." More people will be watching Mary-Kate soon, thanks to her role in the Emmy-nominated Weeds. "I am a very good Christian girl," she says with a wink. "She has her moral beliefs — and she happens to smoke pot." Of her newest cast member, Kohan adds, "Mary-Kate is complicated. She's a big celebrity, a huge media icon, but you have to separate the media images from someone who has the same issues, the same desires, as anyone else." Of course, Mary-Kate's image, in all its incarnations — from high fashion to small screen — is her strongest asset. And she has yet to settle on one. "I feel like I've lived 10 different lives already and I'm only 21," she says, almost as a reminder to herself. "But I also feel like I'm entering a new chapter." One thing on which she is clear, though: She doesn't need to be looked at all the time. What would she do for a day if she were invisible? "I would probably go to a restaurant with my friends, who would be able to see me, of course," she adds pragmatically, "and I would sit outside and enjoy a nice lunch with them. Then I would walk down the street." The old soul takes a sip of her little-girl-sweet hot chocolate. "That's what I would do."

#Mary Kate Olsen #mary kate and ashley #Ashley Olsen #harper's bazaar #magazines #articles #photoshoot

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harris-coopers · 6 years ago

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‘Riverdale’ heartthrob Cole Sprouse goes for leading man status in ‘Five Feet Apart’

When Cole Sprouse left Hollywood, he didn’t think he’d ever come back. He was 18, and he’d been acting alongside his identical twin brother since they were in diapers. The choice to work as a kid had not been his own: His single mother wanted to be around for the boys and have a steady career, and putting her twins in the entertainment industry seemed like a “lucrative alternative,” he says now.

But then Sprouse and his brother, Dylan, landed their own Disney Channel show, “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” By 13 they’d signed a licensing agreement with Dualstar Entertainment Group, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s company, to develop their own quarterly lifestyle magazine, ringtones and cologne. They were full-blown teen heartthrobs.

And yet when it came time to apply for college, the twins decided — unlike fellow Disney stars Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez or the Jonas Brothers — that they wanted to pursue higher education and enrolled at NYU.

“My brother and I were getting recognized a lot. It became one of those things that we realized we had just sort of taken as gospel since we were little kids, and that there was another path through life,” Sprouse, now 26, recalls. “I was completely content, at the time, to let the Disney shows exist within this little nostalgic bubble and I was ready to move on.”

But somehow here he is now, sitting on the balcony of a ritzy hotel smoking Marlboros, promoting his first leading role in a movie, “Five Feet Apart.” And the film, a romantic drama about two young lovers with cystic fibrosis, is not the only project he’s taken on since graduating with honors from NYU in 2015. For the past two years he’s starred as Jughead on the CW series “Riverdale,” a teen drama based on the Archie comics.

The program, which has already been renewed for a fourth season, has reignited Sprouse’s popularity. On Instagram, he has nearly 24 million followers, many of whom are obsessed with tracking his real-life relationship with his on-screen love interest, Lili Reinhart.

“Riverdale” also rekindled Sprouse’s love for acting. During college he did none of it, opting to study something completely different: archaeology, geographic information systems and satellite imaging. He became interested in the field because his grandfather was a geologist and “it seemed like an academic discipline that was really competitive and challenging. I fancied testing if I could do something like that.”

He traveled to Germany, France and Bulgaria for excavations, and on one dig, after spending six weeks hunched over a 1-by-1-foot trench of dirt with a toothpick, he pulled a 35,000-year-old Aurignacian stone blade out of the ground. Following graduation, he began working in cultural resource management as an archaeological assistant in a Brooklyn artifact laboratory. He was thinking about going into academia: studying at graduate school, researching a specific time period or peoples and becoming a professor.

But then he heard from his acting manager, who, per Sprouse’s request, had left him alone during his four years at NYU.

“He asked me to come back for a single pilot season. I was on this path, but I said ‘OK, if I don’t book anything, I don’t think I want to do acting anymore,’” he says. He did book something — “Riverdale” — and soon began to realize it wasn’t acting itself he had an issue with.

“From a very young age, the industry had been defined as a business,” he continues, “and it took me going away to school for a while and redefining that to find [performing] as a passion again.”

On “Riverdale,” Sprouse’s Jughead is a something of an outsider — an artsy writer with a signature beanie and leather jacket. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the show’s creator, initially thought the actor might be a better fit for Archie, the lovable jock. But after reading the pilot script, Sprouse expressed interest in Jughead — even though the character only had one scene in the episode.

“It was already kind of a sign that he viewed himself differently,” says the showrunner. “I think Cole is an old soul. He’s done a lot, and he’s seen a lot, and I think that gives him a little bit of wisdom that other actors his age might not have. When he smiles, he looks like a true 15-year-old kid. But when he furrows his brow, he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

When it came to tackling his first adult movie part — he and his brother were in Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” as boys — Sprouse didn’t want to stray too far outside of his comfort zone. Recognizing the persona he’d established on “Riverdale,” he chose to play a similar archetype in “Five Feet Apart”: Will, a brooding teenager whose rebellious spirit attracts his romantic interest, played by Haley Lu Richardson of “Split” and “Support the Girls.”

“This role was interesting in a larger business sense, because a return to film also meant a question of how much of [the ‘Riverdale’] audience would turn out,” says Sprouse. “I didn’t want it to feel so incredibly distinct.”

The CBS Films production, out Friday, follows two CF patients as they fall in love but are unable to physically touch due to risk of cross infection. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic, progressive disease that affects lung function, making it difficult to breathe; the average life expectancy for the 30,000 afflicted in the U.S. is 37.5 years.

Justin Baldoni, who makes his directorial debut on “Five Feet Apart,” is also an actor on a CW series: “Jane the Virgin.” But he and Sprouse never crossed paths at network affairs. Instead, Baldoni began thinking of him for the role after catching some of his interviews on morning talk shows.

“Cole’s a great actor, but I was actually more interested in who he was off-screen,” explains Baldoni. “Cole had to grow up a lot faster than the normal kid. He was surrounded by adults: directors and producers and writers and people that were basically employing him. … When you grow up with cystic fibrosis, you grow up with doctors and nurses. Those are your friends. You learn medical terminology. You have to understand regimens and taking care of yourself in a way that regular kids don’t. You’re forced to grow up a lot faster. So there was an interesting parallel between Cole’s life and Will’s life.”

Baldoni came to “Five Feet Apart” having steeped himself in the world of CF. He had the idea for the film while working on a web series about those with terminal illnesses, “My Last Days.” One of the episodes focused on an 18-year-old girl named Claire Wineland, a CF patient whom Baldoni became so close to that he ultimately hired her to serve as a consultant on “Five Feet Apart.”

Sprouse spent a lot of time with Wineland, who died last September three months after filming was completed, talking about how CF affects both the mind and the body, including how the disease makes it difficult to gain or maintain weight. Together, he says, they came to the conclusion that it would be “a really powerful choice to embody that physicality,” and so with the aid of a nutritionist, Sprouse lost 25 pounds over the course of five weeks.

Sprouse initially told Baldoni he was somewhat hesitant to sign onto “Five Feet Apart” because he knows the scrutiny that films in this genre — “The Fault in Our Stars,” “A Walk to Remember,” “Me Before You” — can face for romanticizing illness.

“But I’m a believer that even if it might feel like the volume is a little bit too high within that genre, it still serves as an amazing platform to discuss something like cystic fibrosis,” says Sprouse. “And the star-crossed lover narrative — this is something that has existed before Shakespeare to Ovid and Pyramus and Thisbe. It’s part of our cultural memory bank. It’s one of those motifs that we just understand so well.”

Sprouse, who has the kind of poster-boy mane that’s perfect for brushing out of his eyes, frequently peppers his speech with these kind of literary references. He and his brother were the first ones on their father’s side of the family to go to college, which is “positive upward momentum” he’s proud of. Someday he hopes to spark a larger conversation about the California High School Proficiency Examination, a test that many young actors take at 16 so they can receive the legal equivalent of a high school diploma and no longer be considered minors.

“It basically cripples young academics who are working children from feeling capable to take the SAT and the ACT,” Sprouse says. “So many of us don’t go to college because our skill sets are not defined enough to be able to take those tests that would eventually allow us to apply. And kids are encouraged to do it because if you’re 18, you can work more hours and hypothetically make more money — and also because as a kid, you always want to sit back in your high chair and go ‘Yeah, I’m an adult.’”

On set, his collaborators have come to value his intelligence. Aguirre-Sacasa says that Sprouse “does a ton of work” on the “Riverdale” scripts, asking questions about the scenes and offering different points of view.

“A lot of times our episodes are homages to different films,” the executive says. “So Cole asked: ‘Can you send me a list of the movies you’re referencing in any given episode?’ And I’m that exact same way.”

While Sprouse no longer dreams of leading excavations in far-off lands, he’s found another non-acting passion that fulfills the “desire for learning and otherness” that archaeology did: photography. A few years ago, he walked into One World Trade Center in New York wearing a button-up T-shirt and asked the receptionist at Conde Nast Traveler magazine, “Hey, can anyone give me a job?”

He was pointed in the direction of former creative director Yolanda Edwards, who was willing to toss him a few unpaid assignments. Since then he’s landed a handful of high-profile gigs for Elle, W Magazine, Adidas and J Brand. He’s planning to spend the majority of his upcoming hiatus from “Riverdale” working as a fashion photographer.

Sprouse showcases some of his work on his Instagram account, which he admits is “very curated.” He’ll often delete old photos of himself, and he’s careful not to post too many photos of his girlfriend, Reinhart.

“I’ve girded my private life very intentionally,” he says. “It’s one of those things that I still sort of grapple with, and Lili and I grapple with.”

Asked if he thought about how much attention dating his costar might garner, he says he had no choice in the matter: “We legitimately could not stay away from one another.”

Beyond Reinhart, he and his cast mates — who film in Vancouver — are exceptionally close, especially of late, as they grapple with the loss of “Riverdale” costar Luke Perry.

“It’s been very, very hard this week,” he acknowledges, referring to juggling his film press responsibilities with his grief. “But the family has asked us all to keep it as private as possible, and I respect them tremendously through this time, so I continue to do so. We go back tomorrow, and it’ll be nice to be together. We all got together and talked it out a couple days ago, and then they gave us a couple of days off of production to acclimate, which was really wonderful.”

As for his future as an actor, Sprouse says he doesn’t expect to leave Hollywood again any time soon.

“It’s easy to forget, because this industry has so many different sides to it, that the act of acting is an incredibly enjoyable thing,” he says. “It’s a really empowering thing to do and it’s all the stuff on the outside of it — the publicity and the celebrity — which I actually had a problem with.”

Source: LA Times

#FUCK ME UP #SH #cs

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cielrouge · 6 years ago

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2018 YA Reads by Authors of Color

#PrettyBoy Must Die by Kimberly Reid - A CIA prodigy's cover is blown when he accidentally becomes an internet sensation, inspired by the #Alexfromtarget story.

500 Words or Less by Juleah del Rosario - To redefine her reputation senior year, Nic Chen begins writing their college admissions essays. But the more essays Nic writes for other people, the less sure she becomes of herself, and whether her moral compass even points north anymore.

After the Shot Drops by Randy Ribar - A powerful novel about friendship, basketball, and one teen's mission to create a better life for his family in the tradition of Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers.

A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena - When half-Hindu, half-Parsi school troublemaker Zarin Wadia dies in a car crash with a boy named Porus, no one in her South Asian community in Jeddah is surprised—what else would you expect from a girl like that?

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi - After their home in Syria is bombed, Tareq and family seek refuge, first with extended family in Raqqa, a stronghold for the militant group, Daesh, and then abroad.

A Reaper At the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes #3) by Sabaa Tahir - Within the Empire, the threat of war looms, putting Laia, Helene, and Elias at risk.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman - 15 bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.

All of This is True by Lygia Day Penaflor - Four privileged Long Island teens befriend their favorite YA author with disastrous results.

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell - A historical-fiction anthology shines the spotlight on queer teens, from as far back as the 1300s to the 21st century.

All That I Can Fix by Crystal Chan - Ronney kept believing his dad would snap out of it and shape up—until his hope turned into anger.

All the Stars Denied by Guadalupe Garcia McCall - In this companion novel to SHAME THE STARS, McCall covers the hidden history of the United States and its first mass deportation event that swept up hundreds of thousands of Mexican American citizens during the Great Depression.

Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman - Love, mystery, and tragedy unfold for Marsden and Jude in a small town with a haunted past.

American Panda by Gloria Chao - An incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen, Mei whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate.

American Road Trip by Patrick Flores-Scott - After Teodoro’s older brother, Manny, left for Iraq, the Avilas begin to fall apart. But in a desperate effort to save Manny from himself and pull their family back together, T's fiery sister Xochitl hoodwinks her brothers into a road trip with many stops along the road to visit loved ones from their past.

Americanized: Rebel Without a Greencard by Sara Saedi - Saedi recounts her teen years growing up and coming of age in 1990s California while fearing deportation for herself and her undocumented family.

Analee in Real Life by Janelle Milanes - A genuinely fresh spin on Pygmalion in high school, starring Cuban-American Analee Echevarria.

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro - Rooted in the working-class neighborhoods of Oakland, California, this is a tale of black teenager Moss Jeffries, diverse in sexuality and gender, organizing to challenge state-sanctioned violence.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan - Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird .Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents.

The Beauty that Remains by Ashley Woodfolk - Music brought Autumn, Shay, and Logan together. But when tragedy strikes each of them, somehow music is no longer enough. Now Logan can’t stop watching vlogs of his dead ex-boyfriend. Shay is a music blogger struggling to keep it together. And Autumn sends messages that she knows can never be answered. Despite the odds, one band's music will reunite them and prove that after grief, beauty thrives in the people left behind.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton - In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty. Camellia Beauregard wants to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land. But she soon finds that behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets. When the Queen of Orléans asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia faces an impossible decision.

Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria - In the city of Eldra, people are ruled by ancient prophecies. For centuries, the high council has stayed in power by virtue of the prophecies of the elder seers. In the present day, Cassa, the orphaned daughter of rebels, is determined to fight back against the high council. But by the time Cassa and her friends uncover the mystery of the final infallible prophecy, it may be too late to save the city — or themselves.

Between the Lines by Nikki Grimes - A new group of students join Mr. Ward’s poetry class in the companion novel to Bronx Masquerade

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney - The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she's trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland. But when Alice's handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before.

Blanca & Roja by Anne-Marie McLemore - The del Cisne girls, Blanca & Roja, have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals. Because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them.

Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2) by Rhoda Belleza - Separated, unaware of the others, Rhee, Aly, and Kara try to wrest control of the galaxy from an evil celebrity.

The Boyfriend Bracket by Kate Evangelista - Stella has had a hopeless crush on Will, her older brother's best friend FOREVER, but now that Cam and Will have graduated and are going off to college, this year is her chance to really strike out on her own. With the help of her best friend Franklin, she comes up with the perfect plan to have a boyfriend by Christmas: The Boyfriend Bracket. Or it seems like the perfect plan...right up until Will starts showing up again.

Broken Beautiful Hearts by Kami Garcia - Cuban-American Peyton Rios is a rising soccer star to discovers her boyfriend’s dark secret, and confronts him—and finds herself falling down a flight of stairs. Peyton’s knee—and maybe her dream of going pro—is shattered. With her future on the line, Peyton goes to stay with her uncle in a small Tennessee town to focus on her recovery. Dating is the last thing on her mind—until she meets sweet, sexy Owen Law.

Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2) by Zoraida Cordova - Teenage bruja Lula Mortiz tries to save her boyfriend, Maks, by cheating Death; however, Lady de la Muerte is not so easily bested.

Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani - The unnamed young Nigerian narrator of this novel, with a loving family and academic aspirations, is kidnapped by Boko Haram along with many other girls and women from her village.

Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina - Nothing's been the same for Beth Teller since she died. Her dad, a detective, is the only one who can see and hear her - and he's drowning in grief. But now they have a mystery to solve together. Who is Isobel Catching, and what's her connection to the fire that killed a man?

Chainbreaker (Timekeeper #2) by Tara Sim - In 1876, someone is destroying the clock towers that control India’s time. Teenage mechanics Danny Hart and half-white, half-Indian Daphne Richards as they travel to Agra to investigate a series of clock tower bombings.

Check Please! Book 1: Hockey by Nogzi Ukazu - A collection of the first half of the megapopular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: #Hockey is the first book of a hilarious coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi - 17-year-old Zélie and companions journey to a mythic island seeking a chance to bring back magic to the land of Orïsha, in a fantasy world infused with the textures of West Africa.

Crown of Thunder (Beasts Made of Night #2) by Tochi Onyebuchi - Taj has escaped Kos, but Queen Karima will go to any means necessary—including using the most deadly magic—to track him down.

Damselfly by Chandra Prasad- In the wake of crash-landing on a deserted tropical island, Samantha Mishra and her other private school classmates must rely on their wits and one another to survive.

Dear Heartbreak edited by Heather Denetrios - This is a book about the dark side of love: the way it kicks your ass, tears out your heart, and then forces you to eat it, bite by bloody bite. If you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone.

The Devil’s Thief (The Last Magician #2) by Lisa Maxwell - Esta and Harte set off on a cross-country chase through time to steal back the elemental stones they need to save the future of magic.

The Demon Race by Alexandria Warwick - When 17-year-old Namali learns of her arranged marriage, she flees home and enters the Demon Race for the chance to change her fate. But to compete, she must cross the Saraj on a daeva, a shadow demon that desires its own reward: to infect her soul with darkness. In this race of men and demons, only one can win. But the price of winning might be more than Namali is willing to pay.

Djinn by Sang Kromah - Bijou Fitzroy is strange. With the unwanted gift of being an empath, she has spent her entire life as a sheltered recluse. When Bijou and her grandmother move to Sykesville and she starts to attend the local high school, Bijou’s world begins to crumble. Town locals begin to disappear and the creatures from her nightmares begin to take shape in her reality. She finds herself at the center of a war she never knew was being fought all around her.

The Disturbed Girls’ Dictionary by NoNieqa Ramos - Officially classified as “disturbed,” Puerto Rican Macy vents her rage, frustrations, and fears in a dictionary-style journal.

Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi While his parents travel to Iran to visit his ailing grandfather, 16-year-old Iranian-American Scott Ferdowsi quits his boring summer lab internship in Philadelphia and secretly travels to D.C., seeking answers about his (in)ability to succeed.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland - The Civil War is over, but mostly because the dead rose at Gettysburg—and then started rising everywhere else. Fighting the undead is a breeze for Jane McKenne, an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. But the fight for freedom? That’s a different story.

Dream Country by Shannon Gibney - The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom.

Driving by Starlight by Anat Deracine - Two teenage girls in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, rebel against a patriarchal culture while struggling to navigate their complex family lives.

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi - A secret relationship conducted almost exclusively via text buoys Korean-American college freshman Penny Lee, slouching awkwardly toward adulthood and a 21-year-old cafe manager who is trying to clean up the mess his life has become.

Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean - Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace’s enchanted seasonal rooms. Marry the prince. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku.

The Fall of Innocence by Jenny Torres Sanchez - When she was 8 years old, half-Mexican, half-El Salvadoran Emilia DeJesus was brutally assaulted. But when a startling discovery about her attacker's identity comes to light, and the memories of that day break through the mental box in which she'd shut them away, Emilia is forced to confront her new reality and make sense of shifting truths about her past, her family, and herself.

Final Draft by Riley Redgate - 18-year-old high school senior Laila Piedra is determined to write the best sci-fi story ever. Dr. Nazarenko has led Laila to believe that she must choose between perfection and sanity—but rejecting her all-powerful mentor may be the only way for Laila to thrive.

The Final Six by Alexandra Monir - Italian-American Leo Danieli and Iranian-American Naomi Ardalan must become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.

Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert - Yvonne's longtime plans to play violin professionally seem to be falling apart as she nears graduation. Feeling unmoored, she begins seeing a street performer while also pondering her longtime relationship with her father's sous chef. Ultimately her unexpected pregnancy forces some hard talks and hard choices.

Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst - In Sky Hawkins's family, leading your first heist is a major milestone. Embarking on a life of crime is never easy, and Sky discovers secrets about her mother, who recently went missing, the real reason her boyfriend broke up with her, and a valuable jewel that could restore her family's wealth and rank in their community.

For A Muse of Fire by Heidi Heilig - 16-year-old shadow puppeteer Jetta Chantray performs with her family’s traveling troupe, the Ros Nai. Her skill and fame are her family’s way to earn a spot aboard the royal ship to Aquitan, where rumor has it the Mad King has a spring that cures his ills. But as rebellion seethes and as Jetta meets a young smuggler, she will face truths and decisions that she never imagined—and safety will never seem so far away.

Fresh Ink edited by Lamar Giles - 13 leading YA voices from diverse backgrounds lend their talents to this anthology of 12 fictional short stories.

From Twinkie, With Love by Sandhya Menon - Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy—a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan - Thrust into the beauty and horror of the Hidden Palace, will Paper Girl Lei survive?

Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu - A teen pregnancy puts two orphan girls in contemporary China on a collision course with factory bosses, family planning regulators, and a bride trafficker.

Give Me Some Truth by Eric Gansworth - In the 1980s, Carson Mastick’s Native American coming-of-age story grapples with the day-to-day details of teenagers’ lives on and off the reservation.

The Healer by Donna Freitas - Marlena Oliveira has—mysteriously, miraculously—been given the power to heal all kinds of ailments. But her power comes at a price: she can’t go to school, she can’t have friends her own age, and she certainly can’t date.Then she meets Finn, a boy who makes her want to fall in love. For the first time, she begins to doubt whether her gift is worth all that she must give up to keep it.

The Heartforger (Bone Witch #2) by Rin Chupeco - With a thirst for vengeance, a band of terrifying daeva at her command, and her resurrected lover Kalen by her side, dark asha Tea is ready to face her adversaries.

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith - A thoughtful story of Native American Louise Wolfe navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school — and first love.

Hide With Me by Sorboni Banerjee - A powerful story about the unbreakable bonds of friendship, the headiness of first love, and the courage to fight for a brighter future against all odds.

Home and Away by Candice Montgomery - Tasia Quirk is young, Black, and fabulous. But when she catches her mamma trying to stuff a mysterious box in the closet, her identity is suddenly called into question. Now Tasia’s determined to unravel the lies that have overtaken her life.

Hope is Our Only Wing by Rutendo Tavengerwei - In Zimbabwe, 15-year-old Shamiso, struggles with grief and bewilderment following her father's death. For Tanyaradzwa, whose life has been turned upside down by a cancer diagnosis, hope is the only reason to keep fighting. As the two of them form an unlikely friendship, Shamiso begins to confront her terrible fear of loss.

I Am Thunder by Muhammad Khan 15-year-old Muzna Saleem, who dreams of being a writer, struggles with controlling parents who only care about her studying to be a doctor. Forced to move to a new school in South London, Muzna realizes that the bullies will follow her wherever she goes. As her new freedom starts to disappear, Muzna is forced to question everything around her and make a terrible choice - keep quiet and betray herself, or speak out and betray her heart?

Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan - Criminal mastermind and unrivaled pilot, Ia Cocha has spent her life terrorizing the Olympus Commonwealth, the imperialist nation that destroyed her home. When she’s captured, Ia is trapped at the Commonwealth’s military academy, desperately plotting her escape. But new acquaintances—including Brinn and their charming Flight Master, Knives—cause Ia to question her own alliances. Can she find a way to escape the Commonwealth’s clutches before these bonds deepen?

Imagine Us Happy by Jennifer Yu - Stella lives with depression. But when she meets Kevin, she feels less lonely, listened to—and hopeful for the first time since ever…But to keep that feeling, Stella lets her grades go and her friendships slide. With her life spinning out of control, she’s got to figure out what she truly needs, what’s worth saving—and what to let go.

Inferno (Talon #5) by Julie Kagawa - Ember Hill has learned a shocking truth about herself: she is the blood of the Elder Wyrm, the ancient dragon who leads Talon and who is on the verge of world domination. With the stakes rising and the Elder Wyrm declaring war, time is running out for the rogues and any dragon not allied with Talon. The final battle approaches. And if Talon is victorious, the world will burn.

Into the Black (Beyond the Red #2) by Ava Jae - The revelation of Eros’ parentage leads to political intrigues and a change in his relationship with Kora.

Isan by Mary Ting - After meteors devastate the Earth, 17-year-old Ava struggles to survive and ends up in juvenile detention, until she is selected for a new life—with a catch. She must be injected with an experimental serum. To receive the serum Ava agrees to join a program controlled by ISAN, the International Sensory Assassin Network.While on a mission, she is abducted by a rebel group led by Rhett and told that not only does she have a history with him, but her entire past is a lie perpetuated by ISAN to ensure her compliance. Unsure of who to trust, Ava must decide if her strangely familiar and handsome captor is her enemy or her savior—and time is running out.

Isle of Blood and Stone by Makiia Lucier - Mysterious maps from opposite ends of the sea cast doubt on the whereabouts of two princes, presumed dead.

Jazz Owls by Margarita Engle - Against the backdrop of World War II, a patriotic Mexican-American family proudly contributes to the war effort despite pervasive racism.

Jinxed by Amy McCulloch - Lacey Chu has big dreams of becoming a companioneer for MONCHA, the largest tech firm in North America and the company behind the "baku" - a customisable smart pet that functions as a phone but makes the perfect companion too. One night, Lacey comes across the remains of an advanced, but broken baku. Days of work later when the baku opens its eyes, Lacey calls him Jinx. Slowly but surely, Jinx becomes more than just a baku to Lacey. But what is Jinx, really? He seems to be more than just a robotic pet. He seems...real.

Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix (Rise of the Empress #2) by Julie C. Dao - Princess Jade has grown up in exile, hidden away in a monastery while her stepmother, the ruthless Xifeng, rules as empress of Feng Lu. Ready to reclaim her place as rightful heir, Jade embarks on a quest to raise the Dragon Lords and defeat Xifeng and the Serpent God once and for all.

Learning to Breathe by Janice Lynn Mather - Sent away to live with relatives in Nassau, Bahamas, to escape her mother’s wild lifestyle, Indira’s new home is anything but a sanctuary.

Legacy of Light (The Effgies #3) by Sarah Raughley - After Saul’s strike on Oslo—one seemingly led by Maia herself—the Effigies’ reputation is in shambles. Belle has gone rogue, Chae Rin and Lake have disappeared, and the Sect is being dismantled and replaced by a terrifying new world order helmed by Blackwell. If the Effigies can’t put the pieces together soon, there may not be much left of the world they’ve fought so desperately to save.

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann - Alice has her blissful summer take an unexpected turn when she meets Takumi and can’t stop thinking about him. As they get closer, Alice, who is asexual, has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.

Live in Infamy by Caroline Tung Richmond - In an alternate world in which the Axis Powers won WWII, 16-year-old Chinese-American Ren Cabot grapples with the cost of revolution.

Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed - High school senior Maya Aziz works up the courage to tell her parents that she’s gotten into the film school of her dreams in New York City, but their expectations combined with anti-Muslim backlash from a terror attack threaten to derail her dream.

Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2) by Melissa de la Cruz - As the war for American Independence carries on, two newlyweds are settling into their new adventure: marriage. But the honeymoon's over, and Alexander Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler are learning firsthand just how tricky wedded life can be, tested by lingering jealousies and family drama.

Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Justina Chen - Biracial Viola Li has her future as a globe-trotting journalist all planned out, but everything comes into question when her body suddenly betrays her, after she develops an extreme case of photosensitivity, an inexplicable allergy to sunlight.

The Lost Kids (Never Ever #2) by Sara Saedi - Just a few weeks ago, Wylie Dalton was living on a magical island where nobody ages past 17. Now, her home is a creaky old boat where she's joined a ragtag group of cast-offs from the island. But when the Lost Kids invade Minor Island, they're shocked to find it totally deserted, except for one survivor who reveals the shocking news: adults have discovered the island.

Mariam Sharma Hits the Road by Sheba Karim - Three Pakistani-American teens, Mariam, Ghazala, and Umar, go on a cathartic summer road trip through the Deep South.

Meet-Cute edited by Jennifer L. Armetrout - Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere, an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today’s most popular YA authors.

Mem by Bethany C. Morrow - In alternate reality Montreal (1925), a young woman’s personality is the result of a startling experimental procedure, leaving her to struggle with the question of who she really is.

Mirage by Somaiya Daud - In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, 18-year-old Amani is a dreamer. But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and become the body double of the cruel Princess Maram. As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty—and her time with the princess’ fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear. If Amani ever wishes to see her family again, she must play the princess to perfection.

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson - Washington, D.C., eighth-graders Claudia Coleman and her best (and only) friend, Monday Charles, were inseparable, often mistaken for twins—until the day Monday disappeared.

Monk! by Youssef Daoudi - This vividly illustrated biography of jazz legend Thelonious Monk brings to life his relationship with the headstrong baroness who would become a life long friend and patron.

Monsters (The Reckoner #2) by David A. Robertson - Cole Harper is struggling to settle into life in Wounded Sky First Nation. He may have stopped a serial killer but the trouble is far from over. A creature lurks in the shadows of Blackwood Forest, the health clinic is on lockdown by a mysterious organization, and long-held secrets threaten to bubble to the surface. Can Cole learn the truth about his father's death?

My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma - A fresh, madcap rom-com in which a Princeton, New Jersey, high school senior, aspiring film school student, and Bollywood junkie Vaneeta “Winnie” Mehta navigates the dramas of real life.

Not the Girls You’re Looking For by Aminah Mae Safi - Iraqi-American Leila “Lulu” Saad is about to graduate from high school with her three best friends by her side, but things get messy and senior year becomes a little more complicated than expected.

Odd One Out by Nic Stone - Courtney Cooper is in love with his longtime female best friend, Jupiter Charity-Sanchez, who is an out-and-proud lesbian. But the arrival of a new friend, Rae Evelyn Chin, who is questioning her sexuality, complicates their relationship and inspires new questions and possibilities between the trio.

Out of Left Field by Kris Hui Lee - Marnie’s love of baseball—and the stalwart friends with whom she plays the game with such passion—has been the centerpiece of her life; but now she’s 17 and things are changing after she replaces Cody, the school’s star pitcher. With her own team against her, Marnie begins questioning her abilities. And when fate throws her a curveball, can she play without losing the game, Cody, and her belief in herself?

The Outcast (Summoner #4) by Taran Matharu - Arcturus is just an orphaned stable boy when he discovers he has the ability to summon demons from another world and sent to Vocans Academy. As the first commoner gifted with this ability, his discovery challenges the nobility and the powers that be and Arcturus soon makes enemies. With no one but his demon Sacharissa by his side, Arcturus must prove himself as a worthy Summoner...

Period: 12 Voices Tell the Bloody Truth edited by Kate Farrell - In this collection, writers of various ages and across racial, cultural, and gender identities share stories about the period. Each of twelve authors brings an individual perspective and sensibility. Told with warmth and humor, these essays celebrate all kinds of period experiences.

Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert - Chinese-American Danny Cheng has always known his parents have secrets. But when he discovers a taped-up box in his father's closet filled with old letters and a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family, he realizes there's much more to his family's past than he ever imagined.

Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda - Set against a future of marauding space scavengers and deadly aliens who kill with sound, Tuck and Laura must survive abroad the USS John Muir.

The Place Between Breaths by An Na - Walking away from those we love most may seem like the kindest thing we can do, but it’s a choice that will forever haunt those we leave behind: this holds true for 16-year-old Grace.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevdeo - In Harlem, NY, Dominican-American Xiomara Batista who dubs herself The Poet X, clashes with her strict, Catholic mother and runs up against her own self-doubt as she explores her doubts about religion, her fears of dating, and her budding talent for slam poetry.

Pride by Ibi Zoboi - 17-year-old Haitian-Domitian-American Zuri Benitez deals with gentrification in her Brooklyn Bushwick neighborhood and her own bias against Darius Darcy and his rich family in this Pride and Prejudice remix.

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang - Prince Sebastian has a secret: at night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia. Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend?

Reflection: A Twisted Fable by Elizabeth Lim - What if Mulan had to travel to the Underworld? When Captain Shang is mortally wounded by Shan Yu in battle, Mulan must travel to the Underworld, Diyu, in order to save him from certain death. Will Mulan be able to save Shang before it's too late? Will he ever be able to trust her again? Or will she lose him--and be lost in the Underworld--forever?

The Resolutions by Mia Garcia - From hiking trips, to four-person birthday parties, to never-ending group texts, Jess, Lee, Ryan, and Nora have always been inseparable—and unstoppable. But now, with senior year on the horizon, they’ve been splintering off and growing apart. And so, Jess makes a plan and adds a new twist: instead of making their own resolutions, the four friends assign them for each other—dares like kiss someone you know is wrong for you, show your paintings, learn Spanish, say yes to everything.

Restore Me (Shatter Me #4) by Tahereh Mafi - Juliette Ferrars thought she'd won. She took over Sector 45, was named the new Supreme Commander, and now has Warner by her side. But she's still the girl with the ability to kill with a single touch. When tragedy hits, who will she become?

Run, Riot by Nikesh Shukla - When teenagers Hari and Jamal film an unarmed youth from their estate being beaten by police, they find themselves hunted. But as they go on the run with Hari's twin sister, Taran, and Jamal's girlfriend, Anna, the four friends discover that the truth behind the shooting goes deeper.

Running with Lions by Julian Winters - A multiethnic group of Midwestern teenage boys contend with soccer and sexual identity.

The Season of Rebels and Roses by Virginia Sanchez-Korrol - Ranging from Puerto Rico to Cuba and the United States, this engaging novel set in the late 1880s, follows historical figures that were instrumental in the fight for self-determination in Puerto Rico.

Secrets of the Casa Rosada by Alex Temblador - 16-year-old Mexican-American Martha has to adjust to a new life with her maternal grandmother, a respected curanderaor healer in Laredo, Texas, after her reliably unreliable mother dumps her at the pink house filled with tokens of her mom's childhood that might, maybe, explain why she abandoned Martha, leaving her with a family she never knew existed.

The Secret Science of Magic by Melissa Keil - A quirky high school romance unfolds in the alternating voices of math whiz Sophia and aspiring magician Joshua. In life and love, timing is everything.

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa - Demons have burned the temple Yumeko was raised in to the ground, killing everyone within, including the master who trained her to both use and hide her kitsune shapeshifting powers. Yumeko escapes with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll. Fate thrusts her into the path of a mysterious samurai, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan. Yumeko knows he seeks what she has...and is under orders to kill anything and anyone who stands between him and the scroll.

Shadowsong (Wintersong #2) by S. Jae-Jones - Liesl is working toward furthering both her brother’s and her own musical careers. But when troubling signs arise that the barrier between worlds is crumbling, Liesl must return to the Underground to unravel the mystery of life, death, and the Goblin King—who he was, who he is, and who he will be.

Smoke in the Sun (A Flame in the Mist #2) by Renee Ahdieh - After Okami is captured in the Jukai forest, Mariko has no choice—to rescue him, she tricks her brother, Kenshin, and betrothed, Raiden, into thinking she was being held by the Black Clan against her will. But each secret Mariko unfurls gives way to the next, ensnaring her and Okami in a political scheme that threatens their honor, their love and very the safety of the empire.

Snow in Love: Four Stories by Aimee Friedman, Melissa de la Cruz, Nic Stone & Kasie West - Curl up in front of a crackling fire. Grab a mug of hot cocoa. And delve into this deliciously cozy and compelling YA collection of wintry love stories.

Someone to Love by Melissa de la Cruz - High school junior Olivia Blakely struggles with disordered eating and a life in the spotlight as her father’s political career starts to rise.

Sorry Not Sorry by Jamie Reed - Janelle and Alyssa used to be BFFs -- but not anymore. But, suddenly, Alyssa's diabetes becomes the talk of the school. It's turned life-threatening; without a kidney transplant, her chances are not good. Despite reservations, Janelle gets tested and finds that she's a rare, perfect match with Alyssa for a transplant. But organ donations aren't very common in her community, and she starts to feel pushback. When feuds and accusations push the girls further apart, Janelle doesn't know what to do. Will the match bring the girls back together, or drive them apart for good?

A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna - In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back. Raised alone and far away from her home on Kali, Esmae longs to return to her family. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable, sentient warship Titania to a warrior that can win his competition, she sees her way home: she’ll enter the competition, reveal her true identity to the world, and help her famous brother win back the crown of Kali.

Star-Touched Stories by Roshani Choski - Three lush and adventurous stories in the Star-Touched world.

Star-Crossed by Pintip Dunn - Princess Vela is tasked with choosing a boy fit to die for the king, which is impossible enough. But then Carr, the boy she's loved all her life, emerges as the best candidate in the Bittersweet Trials. Refusing to accept losing the boy she loves, Vela bends the rules and cheats. But when someone begins to sabotage the Trials, Vela must reevaluate her own integrity—and learn the true sacrifice of becoming a ruler.

The Storyteller (Sea of Ink and Gold #3) by Traci Chee - Sefia is determined to keep Archer out of the Guard's clutches and their plans for war between the Five Kingdoms. As Sefia and Archer watch Kelanna start to crumble to the Guard's will, they will have to choose between their love and joining a war that just might tear them apart.

This is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender - Nathan Bird doesn’t believe in happy endings. But his friend Florence, is set on making sure Nate finds someone else. And in a rom-com-worthy twist, someone does come along: Oliver James Hernández, his childhood best friend. After a painful mix-up when they were little, Nate finally has the chance to tell Ollie the truth about his feelings. But can Nate find the courage to pursue his own happily ever after?

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman - Music helps a Washington state teenager Rumi Seto overcome guilt and grief after the death of her beloved younger sister, Lea.

This is What It Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow - It used to be the three of them, Dia, Jules, and Hanna, messing around and making music and planning for the future. But like the lyrics of a song you used to play on repeat, there’s no forgetting a best friend. And for Dia, Jules, and Hanna, this impossible challenge — to ignore the past, in order to jumpstart the future — will only become possible if they finally make peace with the girls they once were, and the girls they are finally letting themselves be.

Thunderhead (Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman - Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds.

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis - At 16-years-old, African-American Tiffany Sly suddenly lands on a different planet: Simi Valley, California to live with the biological dad she’s never known. But Tiffany has a secret. Another man claims he’s Tiffany’s real dad—and she only has seven days before he shows up to demand a paternity test and the truth comes out.

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotwood & Tess Sharpe - A short story collection that illustrates the multitudes of girlhood, womanhood, and magic.

Toxic by Lydia Kang - Hana, a secretly created teen girl, abandoned aboard the sentient biological spaceship Cyclo, which is dying, encounters a mercenary boy doomed, Fennec "Fenn" Actias, to perish on the ship for his last job.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse - After the Big Water, Maggie Hoskie’s monster-slaying clan powers have woken up. She’s going to need them on a journey culminating in the kind of battle fantasy readers will relish.

Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3) by Kendare Blake - A victorious Katharine sits on the throne, Mirabella and Arsinoe are in hiding, and an unexpected renegade is about to wage a war of her own. The crown has been won, but these queens are far from done.

Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles - When Marvin's twin brother, Tyler, is found dead by police violence, Marvin falls deep into grief. But with the help of friends and family he finds the strength to confront what happened and fight the forces that took his brother's life.

Umbertouched (Rosemarked #2) by Livia Blackburne - As Shidadi and Dara alike prepare for war, Zivah and Dineas grapple with the toll of their time in the capital. Time is running out for all of them, but especially Zivah whose plague symptoms surface once again. Now, she must decide how she’ll define the life she has left.

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson - When Fairmount Academy is rocked by three apparent suicides in the span of a week, it is up to Mexican-American Wiccan Mila Flores to conjure up the truth.

Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens edited by Marieke Nijkamp - A YA Anthology of short stories featuring disabled teens, written by #OwnVoices disabled authors.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi - It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a 16-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her—they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds—and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.

The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo - Korean-American Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet Wong crushing on her is pretty cute. Still, what if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

Welcome Home edited by Eric Smith - A collection of adoption-themed fictional short stories, and brings them together in one anthology from a diverse range of celebrated YA authors.

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera - Ben and Arthur meet cute but lose touch, then have a series of near misses and first date re-dos before finally settling into a relationship. But Arthur's impending departure for the summer and both guys' own insecurities threaten to end something new that's only just begun.

Wildcard (Warcross #2) by Marie Lu - Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Determined to put a stop to Hideo's grim plans, Emika and the Phoenix Riders band together, but her sole chance for survival lies with Zero and the Blackcoats, his ruthless crew. Caught in a web of betrayal, with the future of free will at risk, just how far will Emika go to take down Hideo?

Wrong in All the Right Ways by Tiffany Brownlee - Everything in Emma's life has always gone according to her very careful plans. But things take a turn toward the unexpected when she falls in love for the first time with the one person in the world who’s off-limits–her new foster brother, the gorgeous and tormented Dylan McAndrews.

#authors of color #book recommendations #yalit #women of color authors #woc authors #poc authors #diverse ya #awww yisss #it's that time of the year again!#a bit later than I planned #but better late that never I suppose lol #feel free to drop me an ask for additional recs!

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cliffgrove · 5 years ago

Photo

Hello All! A pretentious tradition - huzzah! - my annual "Best Of" lists!!! Hopefully, you will use these lists as a way to discover new artists or authors - that's the main point. I rank because it's interesting to try and think through why I like certain songs, albums, books and shows more than others; not because I'm claiming that these are the BEST OF THE YEAR! and there is no argument about it. (I'm well aware that it's nearly impossible to accurately rank artists when they are all so different for so many reasons.) The photos above are my favorites that I've posted throughout the year; they are favorites for wildly different, personal reasons so I thought I'd compile them together to form an accurate version of my artistic endeavors. Also, it was a particularly insane year of books for me; the top 10 could easily up for my favorite of the year and the top 5 are some of the best books that I’ve ever read. As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for taking the time.

BEST OF 2019

Best Songs of the Year (Spotify Playlist Link Here)

50. Shana Cleveland - Face of the Sun

49. Bill Callahan - Angela

48. Majjin Boo - Mom's Marines

47. Great Grandpa - Mono no Aware

46. Tim Heidecker - Illegal

45. Sampa The Great - Final Form

44. Bad Books - I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Help Me, Thank You

43. Mannequin Pussy - F.U.C.A.W.

42. Boy Scouts - Get Well Soon

41. Fontaines D.C. - Hurricane Laughter

40. Deerhunter - What Happens To People?

39. Oso Oso .- Priority Change

38. Helado Negro - Fantasma Vaga

37. Sampa The Great - OMG

36. (Sandy) Alex G - Southern Sky

35. Carly Rae Jepsen - Too Much

34. Bill Callahan - Writing

33. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Bright Horses

32. Fontaines D.C. - Sha Sha Sha

31. Better Oblivion Community Center - Service Road

30. Vampire Weekend - Jerusalem, New York, Berlin

29. Big Thief - Forgotten Eyes

28. The Tallest Man on Earth - I'm A Stranger Now

27. DIIV - Skin Game

26. PUP - See You At Your Funeral

25. Pile - On A Bigger Screen

24. Charly Bliss - Chatroom

23. Bad Books - I Wrote It Down For You

22. Bon Iver - Naeem

21. Burna Boy - Anybody

20. Great Grandpa - Digger

19. Charly Bliss - Capacity

18. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Waiting For You

17. Vampire Weekend - This Life

16. Purple Mountains - Snow If Falling In Manhattan

15. Pile - Firewood

14. DIIV - Blankenship

13. Purple Mountains - Margaritas at the Mall

12. Jenny Lewis - Red Bull and Hennessy

11. PUP - Scorpion Hill

10. Big Thief - Not

9. Vampire Weekend - Sunflower

8. Mannequin Pussy - Drunk II

7. Better Oblivion Community Center - Chesapeake

6. Sharon Van Etten - Comeback Kid

5. Bon Iver - Hey, Ma

4. Carly Rae Jepsen - Happy Not Knowing

3. Corridor - Domino

2. PUP - Bloody Mary, Kate and Ashley

1. Sharon Van Etten - Seventeen

Albums of the Year

Honorable Mentions: Charly Bliss - Young Enough; Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest; Sampa the Great - The Return

20. Helado Negro - This is How You Smile

19. Burna Boy - African Giant

18. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen

17. Deerhunter - Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?

16. Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel

15. (Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar

14. Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

13. Tim Heidecker - What The Brokenhearted Do

12. Pile - Green and Gray

11. Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center

10. Corridor - Junior

9. DIIV - Deceiver

8. Mannequin Pussy - Patience

7. Carly Rae Jepsen - Dedicated

6. Bon Iver - i,i

5. Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains

4. Big Thief - Two Hands

3. Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

2. Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

1. PUP - Morbid Stuff

Best Shows of the Year

15. Kurt Vile - The Fillmore

14. Chvrches - Greek Theatre

13. Hop Along - The Independent

12. Real Estate - The Chapel

11. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Great American Music Hall

10. (Sandy) Alex G at Great American Music Hall

9. Pile - The New Parish

8. Adrienne Lenker and Luke Temple - Swedish American Music Hall

7. 1975 - Bill Graham Civic Center

6. Explosions in the Sky - The Fox Theatre

5. Sharon Van Etten - The Fillmore

4. Carly Rae Jepsen - Bill Graham Civic Center

3. Sleater-Kinney - The Fox Theatre

2. Corridor - Milk Bar

1. PUP - The Fillmore

Best Books of the Year

15. Upheaval by Jared Diamond

14. Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

13. A Song For The River by Phillip Connors

12. One More Thing by B.J. Novak

11. Young Men and Fire by Norman MacLean

10. The Siege of Mecca by Yarolsav Trofimov

9. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson

8. Down From The Mountain by Bryce Andrews

7. The Library Book by Susan Orlean

6. Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison

5. Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

4. The Only Plane In The Sky by Garrett M. Graff

3. Into The Raging Sea by Rachel Spade

2. The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax

1. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

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ofjuliette · 5 years ago

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[ brittany snow, thirty-two, cisfemale, she/her ] ━ did y'all see [ juliette “jules” hammond ] walkin’ into [ frostford public library? ] they’ve lived in frostford for [ sixteen years, ] and you can catch ‘em around town working as a [ librarian/author ]. I reckon they’re pretty [ effervescent & charismatic ] but I hear they can also be kinda [ garrulous & uncoordinated. ] if ya see ‘em around, be sure to say hi. ━ [ teenage pregnancy? ]

hey hi hello i’m hope and i’m watching scooby doo rn. juliette’s intro is kind of long and i wasn’t sure if teenage pregnancy was technically a trigger or not so i just put it there just in case. jules’ intro is kind of long but ??? she’s my baby. there’s some wc at the bottom of the post but they’re p basic bc i’m trash™️

CHILDHOOD years --

juliette is the only daughter of marjorie and elias hammond. she was born in greenwich, connecticut and lived in a big mansion. juliette’s father is of old money and her mother is a former model turned socialite and housewife once juliette was born.

juliette was born on november 19th, 1986 which was during the first big snowstorm of the year. in fact, she was almost born in the car on the way to the hospital because of the snow.

marjorie and elias never planned to have more kids, so they were happy with juliette and spoiled her with everything she could have ever wanted.

in her childhood juliette spent a lot of time doing modeling ads for baby clothes. marjorie was very much a “pageant mom” for the first five years of her daughter’s life until elias convinced marjorie to let juliette pick her own passions.

juliette picked the arts and took piano and vocal lessons, when she got older she also learned other instruments such as the guitar, violin, and flute. but her favorite would always be piano.

she went to private school in greenwich, where she had to wear a uniform and the school was all grades.

juliette was one of the smartest in her school, and wound up skipping two grades in elementary school because she wasn’t being challenged enough.

during her early years there were many vacations that her parents would take her on and she often went into the city to visit her father at work or catch a broadway show with her mother.

her father worked long exhausting hours and her mother often filled her time with chairing certain social events and causes.

jules was often left alone after school in the care of their maid/nanny/chef winifried. winnie is the adult who gave juliette the nickname of jules first, and winnie was with her all her life until she turned thirteen and her parents decided they didn’t need a nanny anymore. winnie was also older at that point, so they hired someone new to help around the house for a couple of months until winnie retired.

juliette was always outgoing as a kid, loved talking to new people and making friends. she was the kind of kid who wanted to make sure everyone felt included. and she was popular, if not just for her parents money and connections, but also for her own charismatic and charming personality.

as a child she often entertained the idea of becoming a singer or somethin in the spotlight like her mom, but as the years went on it was harder and harder to hold onto a dream like that.

TEENAGE years --

juliette was never a rebellious type, as she was content with how her life was. sure, if she had things entirely her way she would have spent more time with her parents but otherwise juliette was a happy girl.

she was still in touch with her old nanny once winnie left the household, often writing her letters and calling the woman whenever she felt she needed someone to talk to.

in her early teen years juliette decided she wanted to go back into acting in commercials and such. this led to a couple of claire’s commercials and even a guest spot in a mary kate and ashley olsen film ( winning london, if you want to know ).

acting and singing were a big thing during her schooling. she was always involved in the drama department in some form if it wasn’t on stage it was backstage helping out.

she got to be good with a needle and thread, sewing a couple of mishaps in her high school productions to save money on sending them out.

juliette was in a couple of local competitions for singing, but never anything big. she did sing the national anthem at her high schools games though.

juliette was in a pretty serious relationship at the age of fifteen-sixteen with someone in her high school. they were two years older than her, since she had skipped a couple of grades, and she sincerely thought she was going to wind up marrying him after graduation.

except at the end of september juliette was going to her doctor for a check up when she found out she was pregnant. of course, her mother and father were shocked. and her then-boyfriend left juliette once he found out. juliette’s parents moved the teen into their apartment in the city with her father and she transferred to a different school for the rest of the year.

juliette gave birth to a baby girl on april 29th, 2002. her daughter, francesca winifred hammond was 7lbs and 4 ounces and 19 inches tall.

juliette had always known she was going to keep her daughter, but still holding her baby in her arms after she was born was a whole other experience and it really was like wow i’m a mother. she cried.

juliette wasn’t at her high school graduation, but if she had been she may have been the valedictorian. she still graduated in the top of her class.

originally, juliette had been planning on going to columbia for their english program.

but she decided instead to take a gap year and focus on being a mom.

during this time she worked at a bookstore and had begun writing her own stories.

she published her first book--a children’s “novel” just before her seventeenth birthday ( more like september of 2003 ). it’s dedicated to her daughter.

juliette soon realized that she wanted to move away from home. it was too much of a reminder of what she could have been doing and what her parents wanted for her, and what she had thought she wanted. she needed to find herself and figure out her life on her own.

so juliette quite literally picked up a map and got in the car she’d gotten for her sweet sixteen and started driving down the highway with her daughter.

of course, she’d told her parents beforehand. she’d had a whole sit down conversation about moving out and on her own. her parents were hesitant, since she was only seventeen at the time. but they eventually agreed so long as juliette stayed in touch with them. which she did.

she happened upon frostford when she got a flat tire just outside of city limits.

and frostford was everything that her hometown was not, so she wound up moving here at the age of seventeen, just before christmas time.

her parents obviously paid for the house she lives in still. it’s not like the mansion or even the city apartment she was used to when she was running around growing up but it has a porch and a yard and enough room for her and frannie, which was all jules wanted.

for the first couple of years i’d imagine it was hard for her to fit in. since she was seventeen and graduated high school prior, so most people her age were still in school. and i’m sure more of the town busybody gossips would have been talking about how she’s seventeen with a baby. so that wasn’t easy.

but even with that, juliette did her best to get to know people and figure out a place for herself among the town.

TWENTIES to NOW --

juliette had worked as a waitress for a couple of years while she was going to school. despite coming from money ( and having her parents send her money every month to help out ) juliette was always determined to both pay her parents back for the house they bought her and make her own money.

by the time frannie was in kindergarten jules was working at the diner during the day and going to college classes on her days off and taking some night classes.

juliette graduated from college with a degree in library sciences and english literature.

throughout frannie’s childhood, juliette worked on other books for kids. she wanted the types of books she had read when she was a kid but something that her own daughter would love. and frannie did love every book that juliette wrote.

for a good six or seven years ( from the time juliette was nineteen until she was twenty-five ) juliette was known mostly as one of the more prolific children’s authors under 30. she’d written well over 40 books since her first published children’s novel. many of the novels are following one single story/character, but each novel is part of a whole universe where characters from one side story do pop up in others as well.

juliette then graduated to young adult fiction, where she’s pretty much stayed since. she writes mainly mysteries and historical projects. she likes to balance her novels with a bit of different time periods. and yes, she does in fact know that joseph turner the main character of her first original novel appears as a side mentioned character in her latest work.

juliette has worked at the frostford public library since she graduated from college. she’s always loved to be around books.

like i said back then, she often loved to daydream of being someone in the limelight when she was growing up. you can still catch her singing a few tunes or hear the piano playing a melody from her house if she leaves the windows open, but otherwise she’s really given up on that part of her life.

spends a lot of time with her daughter. i imagine she’s had no contact with frannie’s father since everything that happened between them in high school.

sometimes she wonders what it would have been like to go for singing, but make no mistake that she is in fact blissfully happy with how her life turned out. she’s got her daughter, a blossoming career, and a happy home. maybe the only thing she sometimes really wishes for that’s realistic is somebody to share it with?

PERSONALITY AND MORE --

juliette is still as kind as ever. she’s very charismatic and effervescent. she doesn’t like to let anyone see her down ( even if she definitely has her moments of not being so well ).

you wouldn’t know if she’s down unless you know her well enough. but the signs are usually that she’s playing the piano a lot, she’s wearing a lot of loose fitting long sleeved things ( she likes to tug on the sleeves as a habit ), and her house smells like she’s been baking.

jules often calls frostford her home and refers to greenwich/manhattan as the place where she was raised.

juliette has a mix of a new york accent and a southern drawl from all the time she’s lived down south. it’s definitely not so pronounced. but when she’s angry ( which is rare, she’s not the type to raise her voice usually ) you can hear the northern accent come out.

she will never be found without a pen ( colored ink, usually purple ), a notebook, and a reading book. as she’s ready for any kind of situation or inspiration to strike her.

her favorite candies include milk duds and twizzlers, and she’s a sucker for a home made pie ( she can make a good apple pie and a nice lemon meringue herself ).

she absolutely loves when it rains, definitely the kind of person you’d find running out in the rain and dancing in it.

quite clumsy. she’s not a ballerina ( no matter how many lessons she had as a kid ) as her balance is always off.

she’s talkative as hell when she needs to be and can tend to ramble on if you don’t

is 100% a mom friend, is always there for her friends and anybody who she considers a friend.

loves scooby doo and nancy drew. kind of likes those simple mysteries that you could read over and over again. one of her favorite books of all time is that was then, this is now by s.e. hinton. also loves a northern light by jennifer donnely and the luxe series by anna godbersen.

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS --

first friends in town

neighbors

“enemies” who became friends

frenemies

people who know her writing

co-workers

for some reason i cannot think of any more connections but these were p basic anyway?? so uh come and plot with me and we can figure stuff out lol.

@frostfordstart

#frostfordintro #☾ ━━━ out of char ❞#teen pregnancy tw #pregnancy tw

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 5 years ago

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Press: Elizabeth Olsen on Grief, the Scarlet Witch and Her Next Life

The actress talks about juggling “Sorry For Your Loss” with the Marvel juggernaut, while dreaming up her next great adventures.

NY Times – One weekend about four years ago, Elizabeth Olsen found herself in the enviable position of having a pile of scripts to read. Just barely into her career — not counting childhood cameos alongside her older sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley — she’d already raked in indie accolades for “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and ascended into the Marvel universe as Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch.

But something about Kit Steinkellner’s pilot for “Sorry for Your Loss,” and the role of Leigh Shaw, a young widow mourning the death of her husband, who either fell off a cliff or jumped, captivated her.

“I was doing a bunch of stuff that felt outside of myself, and I really wanted to be a part of something that’s a little bit more close to home,” Olsen said. Better yet, it came with an offer to be an executive producer.

“Sorry for Your Loss” quickly evolved into a critical darling, with James Poniewozik of The New York Times calling it a “quiet gem.” Season 2, now on Facebook Watch, picks up six months after the death of her husband (Mamoudou Athie, still present in flashbacks) as Leigh moves forward with baby steps: getting his comic book published posthumously, skipping grief group to have sex with her Postmates delivery guy. Then there’s the disconcerting fact that her husband’s brother (Jovan Adepo) has fallen in love with her.

Perhaps because of her paparazzi-hounded siblings, celebrity has never been a pursuit for Olsen, 30, who muses about the children she hopes to have with her fiancé, Robbie Arnett of the band Milo Greene.

“I never wanted to have a certain amount of power in the industry,” she said. “I really do love my job, and I’m happy doing just that and the charity I do, and being as private as possible.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Grief isn’t something most of us long to confront. So why can’t we turn away from Leigh and her story?

I think going through grief, whether it’s losing a parent or a spouse or a best friend, is a really isolating experience. And I feel like we try and be as authentic to the truth as possible. We also try to handle mental illness and addiction the same way. For a show like ours to hopefully make people not feel alone and to feel seen, that’s a special experience. And the thing that’s been interesting with Facebook is that there’s a built-in community for people, if they want it.

Is there any particular experience you find yourself drawing on to tap into her grief?

Yeah. But those are the private world of the worst thing, so you just kind of keep them to yourself and recycle them and use them. I forget who it is — I think it’s Al Pacino who says that every scene he does is with his mother. It’s like some version of that. [Laughs]

And now you’re getting your own Marvel show, “WandaVision,” on Disney Plus alongside Paul Bettany as Vision. What can you divulge?

“WandaVision” is such an incredible concept. It’s the first time we get to understand her as the Scarlet Witch that she is in the comics, and that’s exciting for me, because I haven’t yet been able to give her that time onscreen. So that’s going to be fun. She’s always been a representation of mental health and illness in the comic book series, and her major role is handling that stigma within Marvel.

I have to admit that I’m sort of a Marvel illiterate. Where does Vision come into all this?

That I can’t answer, because he died in the last movie. I’m sorry. [Laughs] I know you wouldn’t care. I tell my friends, but I can’t tell you. They’re like you — they know nothing, so I just tell them everything because it doesn’t matter. I know it will go nowhere.

“WandaVision” is also a tie-in to the next “Doctor Strange,” in which you’ll star with Benedict Cumberbatch. Can you explain? “Doctor Strange” I don’t know too much about, because it’s still kind of early. And then after that I would really love to do a five- or six-week independent film, with a beginning and an end.

When you sign on as a Marvel character, do they monitor the kind of shape you’re in?

The thing that’s amazing about Marvel is that they never as producers tell anyone to get into any kind of physical shape. They don’t have expectations of you being thin or strong. They just assume that if you think your character needs that, that you will do that. It’s not something that they hold over you. I literally asked [Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios] at one point, “So when can I have kids? When can I be pregnant?” And he goes, “Live your life, and we’ll work around it.” I don’t think it’s happening within the next five years, but it’s something I’m really excited for.

In “Ingrid Goes West,” you played an influencer before that even seemed to be a thing. Do you ever feel like you paved the way?

Yeah, it was really weird — like six months later. It was all just happening so fast. The funniest thing for my friends with that movie was that I am social-media illiterate. I now have an Instagram because I saw it as a business opportunity and leaned into it. And I’m so ready to get rid of it when I’m allowed to in my contract [as an ambassador for Bobbi Brown]. But for right now it’s fine. It was really that movie where I was like, Huh, I guess I could see this as a business opportunity. I didn’t understand it at all, and now it’s a legitimate career, I guess.

You have six million followers on Instagram, but follow no one. Who influences you?

I was following interior designers and I got into pottery people from all over the world, and it was amazing to watch their videos and their techniques. I got a lot of good tips, and I started to like it too much, so I actually unfollowed everybody, including my friends. I just thought that if I unfollowed, I’d have to be more conscious of the content I want to take in.

What’s it like toggling between indie films and Marvel?

I really love working for Marvel. But the time part of it requires you to not be available for certain things, and that’s been heartbreaking. I think work is exciting as I get older. I’ve never really felt like a 20-year-old onscreen, and I’ve always felt excited to age. But when it comes to a career trajectory, I also really admire people who have lived many different lives in a lifetime, and I do want to play around with that. I have a lot of things I would like to do in my life, and it’s not just based in acting.

So what would your next life look like?

I would love to get into more design things. I would love to go to school for architecture. I would love to flip homes. I would love to be a store owner. I’d love to live in a small town. It’s all based off people I’ve met, and I’m like, If you did that, I can do that. I just think about creating as healthy of a life as possible, and about kids and where should they grow up. I love thinking about all of that.

Press: Elizabeth Olsen on Grief, the Scarlet Witch and Her Next Life was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Kodachrome #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Sorry For Your loss

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deanpinterester · 7 years ago

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1-20 :o

book you’ve reread the most times?

the underland chronicles

top 5 books of all time?

ALL FIVE UNDERLAND CHRONICLES BOOKS

but also legend (marie lu), warcross (marie lu), the foxhole court (nora sakavic), and six of crows (leigh bardugo)

what is your favourite genre?

sci-fi / fantasy

what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

young adult and graphic novels

where do you buy books?

mostly in thrift stores. i have like....5 copies of the da vinci code now lmao

what books have you read in the last month?

love simon, and i reread eve: the awakening

is there a series/book that got you into reading?

the magic tree house were the first english books i read when i moved to canada and i literally refused to read anything else lmao

what is the first book you remember reading yourself?

i dont remember so im just gonna go w magic tree house again

when do you tend to read most?

waiting at bus stops and train stations

do you have a guilty fav?

listen..my heckn dude.....the da vinci code books (i havent read the new one tho)

what non-fiction books do you like if any?

i dont tend to read non-fiction but i got this manga abt a swedish paralympic athelete / singer once.

did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings?

the lovely bones, the kite runner, the joy luck club (aka the only ones i could actually understand and analyze lmao)

do you have a goodreads?

i do but i dont use it a lot

do you ever mark/dog ear books you own?

recommend and review a book.

goooo read the underland chronicles its better than the hunger games and its by the same author but nobody fuckn knows abt it

how many books have you read this year?

like........three

top 5 children’s books?

i keep saying underland chronicles but..the underland chronicles

i dont rly read childrens books anymore but i distinctly remember loving those kid nancy drew books, the mary-kate and ashley books, and ABC mysteries books (i really wanted to be a detective adsjhfja)

do you like historical books? which time period?

most disliked popular books?

wow thats..a lot of them but its [whispers] the hanger games

what are things you look for in a book?

good characters, love interests that aren’t actually absolute creeps, good execution. i also rly like anti-heroes. diversity and canon lgbt characters are a +

#answered #uhhhh me #Anonymous

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agirlnamedally · 8 years ago

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I just LOVE how passionate you are about traveling! I love it too but sometimes I kinda forget about it in between uni stress & so on. So every time you answer an ask about traveling I could almost cry because I am so excited to travel again soon! I know you were young at that time - but will you tell us a little bit more about the time you and your Family roadtripped the USA? This is my ultimate dream. Love you!!

This makes me super happy :) :) :) I love how passionate it makes me feel! It’s probably what makes me feel most connected to my family (even if it often takes me far away from them) because it’s connected to my happiest memories growing up and the thing they have most impacted in who I am.

I’ve been fortunate enough to do a few US road trips with them actually, the last one being in mid-2015, but the longest being when I was about 9 years old, for four months. This likely had a huge impact on the person I have become, one because it meant I missed half a year of schooling after already being younger than most of my classmates and probably contributed to why I can’t do maths lol, but also because of the love for aspects of American culture I hold so dearly. Things like camping, national parks, quirky roadside stores, learning the history of the civil war and civil rights movement after visiting lots of the monuments (admittedly, i became more interested when i was old enough to these things understand better, but at the time Mount Rushmore and Abe Lincoln’s statue certainly impressed me).

At this time I was obsessively reading the Babysitters Club series as well as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin, and most of all, Two of a Kind with Mary-Kate and Ashley. Every time we stopped at a new Wal-Mart (we would often use the parking lot of their 24 hour super-centres for free accommodation in our RV, running in to buy more Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and Hershey’s Kisses), I’d purchase another book to continue the series. This, in addition to the fact that I was writing for hours every single day, probably helped develop my love for reading and writing more than being at school during those 4 months ever could have. I filled entire journals in a week because my imagination and vocabulary were growing stronger with each new day I got to experience.

The funniest memory from this time was definitely when we were in New York and I got lost for a day. We had taken the ferry over to Staten Island, and I was wondering around the ship (eating a bag of goldfish crackers, I remember this detail vividly) when we reached the destination. I was separated from my parents, so I figured we’d all disembark and I’d wait on the dock to meet up with them. Well, I got off the boat, right in the throws of a crowd, waiting for all the people to pass. When everyone had finally passed me, I was left looking out at the boat as it moved further and further away, back to Manhattan.

I get scared to this day as an adult when I’m lost in a New City, but for some reason nine year old me managed to survive that day all alone, I was able to make contact with my parents, have one of the best adventures of my life, an safely make it back home again with stories, new friends and an unlikely souvenir to remember this day by.

But that’s a story for another time ;)

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pourlesarbres · 8 years ago

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Thanks for the tag @aspoonfuloflanguage ! :)

1. When did you realise you had fallen in love with your target language? For French, honestly it’s just been something that I always wished I could speak fluently, growing up in a bilingual town where a lot of people I went to school with spoke French at home, I was always jealous of that! I’ve loved Swedish since the first time I picked up a book written in Swedish, I just felt captivated, it looked so fascinating and I just knew I had to learn it. I’ve loved ASL since my mom started taking ASL courses for her work. The idea of a language and culture that doesn’t need sound?! A language that you speak with your hands instead of your mouth! There’s something magical about that, and the more I learn about Deaf culture the more I love it. Mandarin I didn’t love until I was starting to learn it, and suddenly realized that I was actually starting to understand things… I don’t know it felt so satisfying!

2. If you could choose to have any animal for a pet, which one would you pick? I would love to have a cat right now, I know I could choose a million adorable things but all I really want is a cuddly cat!

3. What is a grammatical concept you found/ find difficult to understand? Still having a hard time with random things like lequel or dont… Like I use them but I don’t necessarily know why or if I’m using them right.

4. At what time during the day do you feel the most productive? Ridiculously early: like 4am-9am is prime time for me.

5. Describe your hometown using one sentence. Bilingual mining town with a ton of lakes.

6. Have you ever felt at home abroad? I’ve never been abroad long enough to feel like I am at home. I’ve only travelled a few times, but it was when I was much younger and it was always for family holidays, and places like Universal Studios don’t exactly scream “home” lol

7. What is a habit of yours you find annoying? Keeping everything inside. Feels like I’m going to explode one day. I’m working on it, but old habits die hard.

8. What do you consider to be your best trait? My compassion.

9. Is there a song/ movie/ animation that you can’t help but associate with your childhood? If so, which one(s)? Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Harry Potter (all of them), You’re Invited To Mary Kate & Ashley’s Sleepover Party, Anastasia, Beauty and the Beast...

10. You get to tell your favourite celebrity a single sentence. What will it be? (and who would you tell it to) Emma Watson - I would want to say something intelligent and meaningful but tbh I’d probably just stand there like an idiot.

11. What is the first thing you notice about a person you meet? Definitely their smile/lips

12. What was the last language you started learning? I think Mandarin is the latest, and it’s also the one I am the least focused on right now. Trying to get into a routine with two before I try to add more into my schedule.

13. Do you play an instrument? I used to play piano, violin, bass guitar, flute, and even the trumpet for a while, and then more casually I have attempted to play ukulele and acoustic guitar, but honestly I haven’t picked up any instrument in like three years.

14. Where in the world would you be most happy? Somewhere with my girlfriend, ideally some of my family as well. I don’t know of a exact place because I haven’t really been anywhere.

15. Do you think that your TL will help you get a good job? Or do you prefer them to be a by-side thing? It’d be ideal if the languages I’m learning helped me in a job setting, but I’d be fine with only doing it for personal uses.

16. If you ever have children, will you teach them your target languages? I really want to raise my kids bilingual, the second language will probably depend on where we live and what language I can convince my girlfriend to learn!

17. Did you grow up as monolingual or bilingual? Do you wish that it had been different? I grew up monolingual. I took French all through elementary and high school, and even a bit in university, but still can’t speak it even though I grew up in a pretty bilingual town. I really wish I’d gone to French immersion when I was young.

18. What’s the last book you read and what language was it in? The last book I finished was The Paris Wife by Paula McClain (in English), and the book I’m working on right now is Moi, Malala (French).

19. Do you have friends near you who speak more than one language? I have a few friends who are bilingual, but no one that I speak to regularly since many of my friends live far away from me now (yay adulthood)

20. What is/are the official language/s of your country? Official languages here are English and French

21. Have you ever been to a city where they speak one of your TL? My hometown - like 30% of people speak French as their first language. Also I went to Montreal once but I was only there for two days and that was a long time ago.

22. Have you ever tried to teach your native language or one of your TLs to another person? When I was dorky youngster (like 10 or 11?) I tried to make my family learn Spanish with me - I made lesson plans and duotangs and everything. It didn’t last very long though lol I tag @ashlearnslanguages, @learninglanguagestothrive, @theunderagelawyer, @accomplishblr, @caffeinatedvirgo and @averagestudyblr

#langblr #studyspo #mine

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reyavd-blog · 4 years ago

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03.06.2000

Jun 3

The night before dad went to work overnight and I had to go to sleep while alone in the house. I am starting to like this.

Got the latest exam results back. I had 11th place! Not fair! That's out of close to 200 (Japanese) students, based on the total score for all subjects by the way. I actually expected something like this but don't you find it strange? When I had 434 points, that was 4th, 450 - 3rd, 442 - 13th place! Then 438 - 4th and 12th. As you can see, very spread out numbers. I did study. Although this time I did pretty poorly at maths. I carefully read each question and double checked. But careless mistakes were worth almost 20% at the end. Why?

Dad took me shopping. I thought we got lost but we made it. I was very happy. It's a massive and very nice shop. Yuki and Karen had recommended it to me. I bought a lot. New runners, a blue skirt, orange culotte, a matching vest. I loved them. Also I chose a new diary book. Australia had very pretty notebooks suitable for a diary. Japan doesn't have ones like that. Such a pity. And you know, I want one where you can write a title on the front cover yourself. I would have called it "The diary of a young girl". Get it? Same as Anne's book. So it looks like a real book. When I got home, Yuki called and invited me over for the night. Of course I was keen to go! And dad is not mum!

We had so much fun at Yuki's! First we watched Passport to Paris with Mary-Kate and Ashley. I liked it. While watching it we kept arguing who is who. That was fun. After that finished we went to her room. I had brought the glow-in-the-dark stars and we stuck them to the ceiling by jumping off the bed. So much fun! Then we turned the light off and played some music while recording our voices. Like a story. It was funny but when we tried to sing along that was silly! But never mind. Then we just lied down and chatted. I remembered again that Yuki's been wearing a bra and how disgusting that is. On a whim I finally asked her about it. She said she was not embarrassed because everyone else was wearing one too. Especially all the tall girls. She also mentioned how she hated being tall. You, Ellie, would probably think that we are perverted talking about such things. But no, it was actually kind of nice, that we are so close. I doubt others would not be talking about things like this. Still, I do not understand how she can actually like it (bra). How does she, for instance, feel about her parents knowing? The worst thing about it is the shape and that you can see it through the clothes. If not that, I could perhaps live with it.

Jun 5

In the evening me and dad ordered a pizza and watched a TV show about orangutans Discovery channel documentary or something it was... It was so interesting I want to write about it. It starts with a mum orangutan playing with its babies. The narrator tells the story about the orangutan's family. A little orangutan is growing up. Once on a walk with mum they meet another mum with a child. the children play together for a bit but the mums walk off and they follow. Later there is fire in the jungle and the orangutan gets lost. He is found by humans and they take him into care. After some time, that baby orangutan he has met before is brought in too, as his mother has died. They become friends. When they were released back in the nature they were together. But after a few years they fall apart. The first orangutan grows up smart and he is ready to find a mate and leave offspring. The other did not manage to become independent. He still hangs out around the reserve where humans had raised him...

Interesting isn't it? And it's a real story! Just like with people. By the way, I have never mentioned what I want to be in the future. I think more than anything I want to either be a kindergarten teacher or a person who cares for animals or poor and sick people.

Jun 10

Dad let me use the internet at work again. I met a girl from Australia who was 13. She asked something about period and whether I wear a bra. I could not understand why. But apart from that chatting was fun. She likes Britney Spears and S Club 7. Her nickname was Cutie. But then she left. I cleaned up when back home and moved the couch in my room. I watched the Anne Frank movie a little but again. Then I went to take a bath and there I read while thinking about how I want to pierce my ears and about Anne. I can't put it into words but I felt good. Like there is nothing else that I need and nothing but now exists.

P.S. I think I got it! It's the feeling of being carefree and like there is nothing I have to be thinking about it. Such an interesting feeling. At the same time there is some sadness too. Anne Frank has some magical powers! I so should go to Amsterdam when I grow up! The hiding place where the diary was written is located there.

Jun 12

After school and homework I decided to stick up some curtains over my couch that I sleep on. I found a heap of old sheets and chose some. Looks gorgeous!

At night I watched the movie called Basketball Diaries until 12. About bad boys. Who steal and do drugs and dirty stuff. Some bits were too scary or disgusting to watch. But overall I liked the movie. I think it's because I liked the boys' friendship. Thy were such good friends! I am a little jealous. I do write that I don't need friends but I mean that I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have a lot of friends. If I could start everything from scratch, it would have been nice to have friends.

#friends #sleepover #girls #friendship #shopping #teenage #teenagers #teenage memories #teenage life #fun #me #personal

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ginnyzero · 5 years ago

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The Cult of Celebrity and Fashion Design

(I touched on this on my twitter @ginnyzero.) If there are two things that I’ve noticed writing and fashion design have in common is that everyone thinks they can do them. It can’t be all that hard to write a book or come up with a bunch of clothes in the same design and theme. I mean, anyone can write a fiction book, you don’t need to go to school for that. (It doesn’t mean that everyone has the talent or stamina to do it!) There are famous designers that didn’t go to school, that means it can’t be all that difficult.

And so enter the celebrities who are looking to increase their name awareness and expand their brand into the world of fashion design and fiction book writing. Kanye West, Heidi Klum, Kelly Osbourne, Tyra Banks, Amber Benson, Nicole Ricci, Gwen Stefani, that female country singer I can’t remember the name of. Hell, even companies like Kohl’s get into it having lines in their store designed by celebrities like Avril Lavigne. Now, some designers like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen seem to have turned their brand into a real business. Nicole Ricci is more serious. Amber Benson has an entire series of books. (I barely got through book one despite the cool premise. Take from that what you will.)

Now, I’m glad of these celebrities success! I wish them all the best in the world. I’m happy they have their fame and their fortune from acting, singing and so on. That’s great.

I find their forays into fashion and make-up and book writing to be suspect. I can’t speak of their motivations. I don’t know if their passion truly lies in fashion versus music. (Though I doubt it in some cases.) I have to question why they decide to enter another creative field when it feels like it is supposed to fuel or be fueled by their other creative field.

Look, I’m a writer and a fashion designer. I’ve been doing both for about the same amount of time. I’m going to tell you right now that my writing and my designing have very little to do with each other. People find descriptions of clothes in books to be boring and they don’t go to clothing stores to buy books! (And I do notice that GRRM and JK Rowling aren’t creating fashion labels. Hmmm.)

The fashion field is similar to the corporate field. You have to work your way up a ladder. Most designers don’t jump out of fashion school straight into the design business of their own label. For one, they don’t have the money. And for two, they tend not to have the business skills. (Design and fashion business are two different majors, go figure. In fact, most schools don’t offer fashion business. They offer fashion merchandising, but not fashion business.)

Fashion designers that are starting out tend to spend at least ten years working for other people. In these ten years a lot of them burn out and decide to leave the field for the next crop of fashion hopefuls to find out how unglamorous working in fashion really is. They pay is low. The cost of living in a city is high. There is very little room for advancement.

And in book publishing, traditional publishers only put out so many books in a year. Hundreds and hundreds of hopefuls query agents putting their hopes and dreams and magnum opus works into a slush pile on the dream that they’re good enough to get a publishing contract. Most of them never get more than a rejection notice that gives no reason other than “I’m not feeling it at this time.” Your book, no matter how good it is, is not what the agent is looking for right that second because it might be the wrong age category or have a spelling mistake or they’ve seen too many vampires today. (The main problem with this being is that you don’t know what is wrong with the book or if it “Just isn’t the right time to try and sell this book” because they don’t tell you.)

Fashion isn’t a zero sum game. Business isn’t a zero sum game. (Book publishing in the traditional manner seems to be closest.) Just because a celebrity like Kanye starts a fashion label and does a show doesn’t mean that an up and coming designer can’t do the same thing. Kanye has two things over a designer that’s not a celebrity, money and a brand name.

Now a celebrity that writes a book and there are so many slots that a publisher is willing to print in a year and they have the choice between the celebrity and another author and they choose the celebrity, then yes, that other author loses their publishing chance because next year may not be a good time for their book. So, it becomes more of a zero sum game. Sure, the author can go indie and publish themselves but take it from an indie author it is a lot of work and it is not the same.

Celebrities, to an extent, skip ahead of the line both in fashion and in publishing. Celebrities have a name. They have a brand. They have power and money to invest. They don’t go to school to learn to design a collection. They pull swipes from magazines and hire others to do it for them most the time. There are exceptions to this rule of course. I’ve mentioned them, like the Olsen twins. They’re exceptions. Just like Tom Ford not going to school for fashion and Vera Wang being unable to drape and draw are also exceptions to most of the fashion industry.

Because celebrities have a name, investors and magazine editors and publishing houses are much more willing to go with someone that the common person is going to recognize and has a huge marketing machine in place than a young and upcoming designer with fresh in the moment ideas or a book writer that no one has heard of. The up and coming designer, the unknown book writer, they are too much of a risk. The publisher, the investor would have to put more money into setting up a marketing machine for them. They’d have to do more advertise. It’s more money out with less guarantee of money coming back in!

The celebrity is just good business.

So, in order to even get a deal, many writers and yes, fashion designers, feel they have to create a social media following and a brand before they finish or query their book to try and prove they have people following them. (And I’m going to tell you right now that follows and likes do not equal sales of original works.) Fashion designers try out for reality shows like Project Runway to get a chance to put their face out there and get some recognition. $125,000 goes really fast in the fashion world and that is the high end of a reality show cash payout.

There aren’t a lot of Christian Siriano’s for a reason. Christian Siriano had savvy and chutzpah after the show and delivered. His success was less on Project Runway and more on using Project Runway as a launching pad to get what he wanted and being able to follow through! (I mean, good on him.)

To me, having 35,000 people follow you on Instagram because they like the pictures of the books you’re reading doesn’t mean to me that those same 35,000 people are going to buy the books you’re writing. And if an agent and publisher falls for that, that’s on them. (To me that says you’ve spent way, way too much time on Instagram and other people’s books rather than writing.)

Fashion designers that go to school and writers no matter what university track they went through, fanfiction or traditional, work really hard because they had passion for what they do, learned the skills and struggled one way or the other in very competitive industries now have to face off against a celebrity that are most likely only trying to increase their brand awareness to have their name on more things and have the money to make it happen.

Then fashion designers also have to face the competition of the big established brand houses that are owned by huge corporations. Most of the large fashion brands are owned by LVMH or by Fendi. The same is in traditional publishing, there are six major publishing houses and all other publishing houses are owned by them. Television is just as bad! These big companies buy their advertising in blocks in the major magazines essentially. Runway shows cost at least 100,000 dollars per season. Fashion weeks tend to have corporate sponsors for very good reasons.

In this world, it’s hard for the small designer, the unknown writer, to get their little voice to be heard against the loud yelling of big corporations, celebrities and social media.

I wish celebrities all the success.

They also frustrate me. These people are also creatives. Some of them were poor and barely making it before being “discovered.” In order to be successful, they had to be creative and good in the fields that first launched them into fame! And instead of using their fame and fortune to help people in other creative fields, they barge into those creative fields and try to use their name to style themselves as experts. Because yes, to design a collection, there is expertise involved. I wrote an entire seven post series on what it takes to simply design a collection and that didn’t cover the sample making and the model fittings and the actual manufacturing process!

Writers also go through long processes to write books with the world building and the character making and creating this thing called plot and having the characters talk to each other and have emotional and personal growth arcs. Then they get nitpicky about sentence structure and repeated phrases and did I use that word too many times?

As a fashion designer and a little known writer, if you’re a celebrity and you want to dabble in fashion design or your agent things you should write a book, turn around and pay it forward by sponsoring someone in that field already instead.

As I said on twitter, celebrities can treat a little known fashion designer as a business investment instead of treating the field of fashion like an extension of their branding and marketing. Sponsorship and investments by celebrities of the day and by nobles and major businessmen were how many of the major older fashion houses started.

The payoff will be different. The byline won’t be as big. Sure, there will be money because of course they’ll want a return on their investment. But there is also the emotional payout. “I helped someone else achieve my dreams the way someone else helped me achieve mine.” “I helped start that brand. I helped build it.” Be the positive change you needed back when you were struggling. Sponsor a designer, any ethnicity, any gender. Invest in their talent.

There’s a reason why I’m more willing to support someone like Vin Diesel, than I’m willing to support someone like Kanye. Vin’s not only using his money to help people, he’s focusing on what he’s good at making movies, so he can make more money to help more people.

I feel like a lot of this can be laid at the feet of the 80s when shoe designers started having sports celebrities “design” and endorse their shoes. By the time I hit college, celebrities had already entered the designing landscape and they haven’t left, picking up and dropping projects and slapping their name on things for a couple seasons before chasing something else. None of the students and indeed very few if any of the teachers talked about this in a positive light. They didn’t see how having celebrities as designers helped the fashion community or helped the rest of the world take fashion more seriously.

(Despite the fact everyone has to wear clothes, most the world finds the world of fashion ridiculous. Things like the Devil wears Prada and actual true stories from the fashion world and people in the fashion world don’t help.)

Celebrities were seen as road blocks and rivals that hadn’t earned their title as rivals. They were taking jobs from us. The students and teachers didn’t see them as job creators, especially since the celebrities were sending their manufacturing overseas like everyone else. If celebrities could step into the fashion world without an education and try to fake it and make it instead of employing actual designers, why were we even at school? What as the point? We felt doomed before we even graduated.

Think of a world where instead of starting his own fashion line (that no one takes seriously other than Kanye) if Kanye had sponsored someone like Edmund or Anthony or any of the male black fashion designers from Project Runway and launched them into success. What happens when a celebrity other than Oprah says “I read this obscure book by little known author and loved it?”

What happens when creatives in different fields get behind each other instead of putting themselves into competition with each other?

If I was a famous fashion designer, I wouldn’t go and lay down a music track and think that means I should be successful in music or that it should enhance my brand to have music as well as clothes. It’s not that I don’t have a decent voice, because I do. It’s because my passion isn’t music. My passion is fashion. My passion is writing. So, I wish that these musicians and actors would have the same respect for my field(s) as I have for theirs.

Right now this feels really important to me as I finish up my branding portfolio and try to think ahead about where I can get a creative job in fashion or branding or any creative consulting/interior design, hell, I'll be a wedding shop consultant at this point. It's an issue that hasn't gone away. I don't foresee it doing so in the near future either.

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whatanerdgirlsays · 6 years ago

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Exactly six years ago today, I started What A Nerd Girl Says. After many other names, I settled on that one and its been my moniker for exactly six years. What started off as a way for me to share my love of all things fandom, and started as an angry girl rant to shout at the internet haters who would put down young adult literature, became something so much more. It seems insanely to me that I, Sara, Nerd Girl, am still here after all these years.

I am so insanely grateful for everything that has happened because of this blog. I may not be hugely popular. I may not have a million followers and I may not get recognized at all the book events. I may not post pretty pictures on instagram or post fun videos on YouTube. But I’ve been here for six years, sharing my passion, sticking with what I love and what is important to me and supporting the book community and the YA community in the best way that I can, in the only way that I know how to: writing.

Book blogging itself has definitely lost its popularity in the most recent years, with Bookstagrammers and BookTubers taking the forefront in popularity. And while I’ve dabbled in YouTube and I am dedicated to my Instagram, but this blog is my love and the bloggers that I started with years ago are some of my best bookish friends and we’ll stick together, for sure 🙂

Besides, I can’t even begin to explain how this blog changed my life in the past six years. It gave me a world that I finally felt like I belonged to. Even though there are days when I struggle with that, because the community has changed over the years, the fact still remains true and it came at a time when I desperately needed it. While it took longer than I wished it had, it gave me independence, confidence, ambition, determination. It helped me to become my own person and to realize my worth. What this did for me…is beyond words. It helped me make my own friends. It helped me to set my goals, fight for them and reach them. It helped me leave an unhealthy relationship. It helped me to cut out unhealthy friendships and form better, stronger ones.

I’ve also earned a place in an amazing community, becoming friends with authors and publicists and librarians and bloggers and publishers and agents and so many more. These people have helped in me, not only in my blog, but in my writing career and in my life. I will always be so insanely grateful to them and I am even more so grateful that they are helping to celebrate this awesome achievement by donating signed books and swag and exclusive interviews that you’ll get to read in the next week or so!

I’ve gotten to do so many amazing things and meet people I never thought I would meet. I’ve been on the barricades at red carpet events for movies like Star Trek, The Hobbit, The Hunger Games movies, Divergent and so many more. I’ve met celebrities like Carrie Fisher, Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis, Kate Winslet, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Jennifer Lawrence, Zoe Kravitz, Orlando Bloom, Chloe Grace Moretz, Elizabeth Banks, and so many more. I’ve met so many authors, it would be crazy to begin to name them all. I’ve gone to all sorts of event and conventions as a member of the press and as a creative professional, events I may have never had the chance to attend before that.

I met authors that showed me that becoming a published author was possible, authors that showed me how to do it, how to believe in myself and how to navigate myself in this crazy publishing world. They showed me the way, they believed in me and supported me and so many of them stood by my side and supported me when I published The Awakened back in 2015. They were there with me when I struggled through the writing, editing and publishing of its sequel in 2017.

I even went through a moment about a year ago when I told myself that I was done, that I was sick of the favoritism and competition that can occur in this community and that I couldn’t do it anymore and that I was ready to shut the door on the five years I had given to the book community. It took a lot of self-reflection and a big break from writing for the blog to see if I could keep doing it and I am grateful and happy that I did so because when I did decide to come back, I came back of my own accord, and the passion and the love I have for it was real and not forced, as it had been for a very long time.

So here is to six years of book blogging, of so many books read, of a few books written, here are to bookish friends, author friends, librarian friends…so many friends, here’s to the many celebrities and authors met. Here’s to the many reviews written and to the ups and downs. Here’s to every single person who supported me and helped and yes, here’s to the people who tried to pull me and tear me down.

Here’s to six years and here’s to many more after that.

Now, of course…let’s get to the important part…the giveaway!

THE GIVEAWAY

Seriously, there are NO words to explain how excited I am for this giveaway. Most of what is included in this giveaway was donated by the authors themselves and I am so insanely grateful for them, their donation, their time in doing interviews for me and for their friendship.

Here we go!

Prize Pack #1

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-Ahsoka signed by author EK Johnston and Ahsoka voice actress, Ashley Eckstein -Light Years signed and donated by author Emily Ziff Griffin -Brightly Burning ARC signed and donated by author Alexa Donne -#MurderTrending ARC signed and donated by author Gretchen McNeil -The Authentics signed and donated by author Abdi Nazemian -Brightly Burning tote bag and buttons donated by author Alexa Donne

Prize Pack #2

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-Always Never Yours ARC donated by authors Austin Siegemund-Broka and Emily Wibberley -Symptoms of Being Human signed and donated by author Jeff Garvin -Three Day Summer signed and donated by author Sarvenaz Tash -Just a Normal Tuesday signed and donated by author Kim Turrisi -What They Don’t Know ARC signed and donated by author Nicole Maggi -Always Never Yours swag donated by authors Austin and Emily -Riveted Tote Bag

Prize Pack #3

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-Leah on the Offbeat signed by author Becky Albertalli -Easy signed and donated by author Tammara Webber -Breakable signed and donated by author Tammara Webber -The Best Possible Answer donated by E. Katherine Kottaras -Going Geek signed and donated by author Charlotte Huang

Prize Pack #4

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-Flamecaster signed and donated by author Cinda Williams Chima -Language of Thorns signed and donated by author Leigh Bardugo -The Awakened signed and donated by me! -The Authentics signed and donated by author Abdi Nazemian -I, Claudia ARC donated by author Mary McCoy -Renegades poster signed by author Marissa Meyer

Giveaway Rules and How to Enter

-The giveaway will run from today, May 23rd to June 4th. The giveaway IS open internationally!

-Winners will be chosen randomly through the rafflecopter. The winner will be contacted within 72 hours of contest end. If winner(s) do not respond within a 48 hour period of contact, their prize will be forfeited and a new winner will be chosen.

-There will be an option below to choose which prize pack you’d like to win the most, but there is no guarantee you will get the one you want the most!

-Prizes will be shipped out within a month of the giveaway month. Please keep in mind that all of the costs come out of my own personal pocket and these prize packs are expensive to send. Please be patient.

-What A Nerd Girl Says is not responsible for lost, stolen or damaged prizes.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Support us on Patreon for only $1 a month to gain access to monthly exclusive interviews, ARC and signed book giveaways, reviews for books I DIDN’T like and more by following the link here.

What A Nerd Girl Says Turns 6 Today! PLUS HUGE GIVEAWAY! Exactly six years ago today, I started What A Nerd Girl Says. After many other names, I settled on that one and its been my moniker for exactly six years.

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lazyupdates · 6 years ago

Link

Manny & Lo (Sony Pictures Classics) / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Once upon a time, Scarlet Johansson was a child actress, Samuel L. Jackson was bullied and Jeremy Renner was broke. I don’t think any of those actors could have ever known what the future held for them. Some of Marvel’s cast members came from rough times of poverty and broken families. Others had their start in acting before they were even old enough to begin school.

It certainly didn’t happen overnight, but the following actors have signed themselves up to be a part of the largest grossing franchise in history, according to Forbes. From the yet to be fully introduced, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, all the way to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, this cast makes up the globally-popular Marvel Avengers.

Take a look at some of the Avengers cast members when they were just little ones. Before the fame, before the fortune and before landing roles in record-breaking blockbuster films.

Brie Larson/Captain Marvel: This award-winning actress got her start as a Disney star. She played Courtney Enders in the 2003 Disney Channel Original Movie, Right on Track. She had her major breakthrough role in 2015’s Room which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Today, she’s gearing up for the release of her first Marvel film, Captain Marvel, which is set to be released in 2019.

Disney Wikia / Shutterstock

Samuel L. Jackson/Nick Fury: Samuel L. Jackson grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee during the 1950’s. In an interview on Live! With Kelly and Michael, Jackson revealed he learned to read by the age of two. He used to get beat up at school for being so smart. Today, he has the last laugh by being one of the most celebrated actors of all time. He plays Marvel character Nick Fury.

Twitter:@SamuelLJackson / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Chris Pratt/Star-Lord: Upon the release of Avengers: Infinity War, Chris Pratt tweeted out an interesting story from his childhood proving just how crazy things can work out. He told his followers that when he was 12, he bought $300 worth of baseball cards and comic books. He’d hoped they might be worth more one day. In a stack of his old comics, he found “The Infinity Gauntlet.” “Little did I know … baseball cards would end up being pretty worthless, and [the] same with comics. If I were to buy an island, it would have to be the old-fashioned way. (Like playing a character that existed in the comics),” his hilarious tweet read.

Instagram: @PrattPrattPratt / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Zoe Saldana/Gamora: In an interview with Ocean Drive magazine, Zoe Saldana revealed she was bullied as a child. She insisted the struggles she went through made her fearless. “I’ve been called everything, I’ve been told everything. And yet, the moment you realize [bullies are] coming from a place of complete fear because they knew that you were the one who was going to get away, you’re free,” she said. “Get away” is right. Today, Saldana plays Gamora in one of the highest grossing franchises of all time.

Instagram: @ZoeSaldana / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Elizabeth Olsen/Scarlet Witch: You’ve been living under a rock if you don’t know how Elizabeth Olsen got her start. She’s the little sister of the famous Olsen twins actresses, Mary Kate and Ashley. While she did live in her sisters’ shadows for quite some time, Elizabeth eventually got her own start in acting. She landing her first major role in 2011’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene”. She got the role of Marvel’s Scarlet Witch in 2014 and it looks like her career is going nowhere but up from here.

Instagram: @ElizabethOlsenOfficial / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Mark Ruffalo/The Hulk: Mark Ruffalo didn’t just fall into acting. It took a lot of hard work for him to make a name for himself. In an interview with Moviemaker magazine, Ruffalo revealed he had attended over 800 auditions before landing a big role. Today, that’s all in the past. He’s been in major films such as Shutter Island and Spotlight. And, he’s been playing the major role of The Hulk since 2012.

Instagram: @MarkRuffalo / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Scarlet Johannson/Black Widow: Scarlet Johannson had her first movie role in the film North at the young age of nine. In an interview with James Lipton, Johannson said her childhood was no walk in the park. Her parents had four children to take care of living in Manhattan, New York. They had to rely on welfare and food stamps. Today, that’s all changed, “ScarJo” is an A-list actress and plays the wicked Black Widow.

North Castle Rock Entertainment, New Line Cinema) / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Tom Hiddleston/Loki: It’s hard to believe the Tom Hiddleston on the left could ever play a villain looking that cute. Growing up in England, his mom instilled a love of film in him at a young age, according to Biography. He started out acting in theatre and slowly transitioned into film, eventually making a name for himself. Today, he plays Thor’s villainous brother Loki.

Twitter: @TwHiddleston / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Chris Hemsworth/Thor: Arguably the biggest heartthrob of all Marvel movies, Chris Hemsworth grew up in a farmland in Australia with his parents and two (also incredibly good-looking) brothers. According to E! News, he had his small screen start on an Australian soap opera. He got big enough down under to appear on Dancing With The Stars Australia. He eventually made the move to the silver screen and today he charms audiences as the hunky Thor.

Instagram: @ChrisHemsworth / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Chris Evans/Captain America: Chris Evans had his start in show business in the early 2000’s, landing roles in films like Not Another Teen Movie and Cellular. However, his big break came in 2011 when he got the leading role in Captain America: The First Avenger. He’s since gone on to play Captain America in seven other films along with Avengers 4 coming out in 2019.

Twitter: @ChrisEvans / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Tom Holland/Spider-Man: Tom Holland, only 21-years-old, can still be considered a little one. He told PEOPLE about his rough start in the acting world. At the age of 12, he starred in a London run musical of Billy Elliot. “There were times when I was bullied about dancing and stuff,” he said. “But you couldn’t hit me hard enough to stop me from doing it.” On he pushed, on the left we see him in the 2011 film, The Impossible. On the right, he’s Spider-Man, starring in biggest reboot ever according to Forbes. The film grossed an estimated $870 million worldwide.

The Impossible (Summit Entertainment) / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Robert Downey Jr./Iron Man: On the left, we have a five-year-old RDJ with a small role in the film Pound, which was directed by his father. On the right, we have one of the highest paid actors in the world. With a father in the film industry, it’s no wonder he became an actor. Following years of controversy in the media and addiction issues, RDJ made a major comeback. He took on the role of Iron Man in 2008 and has continued living a sober, stable life.

Pound (United Artists) / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Jeremy Renner/Hawkeye: Like most actors trying to make it in the industry, Renner started out his career completely broke. He told Business Insider that he and a friend would actually buy, live in and renovate homes in Los Angeles to keep a roof over their heads. In 1995, he made his debut in National Lampoon’s Senior Trip at the tender age of 24. Fast forward to 2018, he plays Hawkeye in one of the most successful movie franchises ever.

National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (New Line Cinema) / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Chadwick Boseman/Black Panther: Chadwick Boseman made history when he became the titular hero in Marvel’s Black Panther. The gravity of his role had special meaning to him. During press for the film, he revealed he was the victim of racism as a child growing up in South Carolina. Today, Black Panther has gone on to break records, it became the third film ever to earn more at the North American box office than Titanic, according to Forbes.

Anderson Independent Mail / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Dave Bautista/Drax The Destroyer: Though the photo Dave Bautista tweeted is a little blurry, no amount of blur will hide those rock hard muscles. The photo on the left is him during a bodybuilding competition at the age of 18. Bautista had his start in the mixed martial arts world. He’s a six-time world wrestling champion who went on to pursue acting. It’s no wonder he landed the role of Drax the Destroyer, who else could fit that massive (in more ways than one) role?

Twitter: @DaveBautista / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

Baby Raccoon/Rocket Raccoon: Now we had to throw this one in just for fun. How cute are baby raccoons! The adorable (yet pesky) critters found in dumpsters at night has been recreated into the genetically enhanced Rocket Racoon for “Guardians Of The Galaxy.”

Wikimedia Commons / Marvel Cinematic Universe Wikia

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