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Book Logs: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

(Careful: Spoilers)

Author: Lewis Carroll

Dates of reading: 30.07./13.-15.08.

Year published: 1865

Genre: Children’s literature, fantasy, fiction (, hahaha, I just found out it’s also part of a genre called “the literary nonsense genre”, seems about right!)

Sequel: Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

Page count: 136 pages

Rating: 5/5

How I felt while reading: I really enjoyed reading about Alice’s shenanigans. It was the first time in ages that I was actually reading again, and I loved it. It was great to start with a short book with such low stakes/a plot that doesn’t require your full attention at all times, It feels like being a child again. Nothing makes sense and yet the not making sense of it makes total sense somehow.

How I felt after reading: Melancholy (because of the theme of growing up). It’s a tough theme, as I am currently doing my gap year, actively taking a step to gain independence and “grow up”. It feels scary knowing my childhood is considered over even though I still consider myself a child.

Short summary: Young Alice falls into a rabbit hole leading to the strange world of Wonderland, where anything, other than the expected, can happen. On her way, she meets curious characters and gets herself into as much trouble as possible.

First sentence: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?

Last sentence: And how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Favourite quote(s):

“This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—’”

“There goes Bill!”

“It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged: the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it;”

“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

Themes & tropes: growing up/childhood, dreams/imagination, sense of self

Setting: Wonderland

Main characters: Alice (other characters pop up every now and then but since each has about a chapter or less dedicated to them, none particularly stand out as more or less important. To name a few: White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat, Griffin, Caterpillar, Mock Turtle)

Favourite character: Bill

Memorable events: Alice falls down the rabbit hole, Alice’s growing and shrinking, Alice joins a Caucus-race to get dry, Alice gets stuck in the White Rabbit’s house, Mad Tea Party, croquet with the Queen of Hearts, trial, Alice wakes up

General notes/thoughts: After months, this book still jumps into my mind every once in a while.

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Hi :) uh- it’s been a while (though it honestly did feel like longer-)

I don’t really assume anyone is following me because they want to keep up specifically with me (I assume most of my followers are just people who like book blogs in general)

But if you are, then I am very grateful to have you!

Anyway, I will not being doing in depth book reviews anymore. At least not for every book I read. Unfortunately, writing book reviews, though I had a lot of fun with it, also made reading like a chore. Like something to check off my to do list, rather than because I want to. It put on too much pressure for what it was.

My main goal with my reviews was to keep a personal book log, to look back on and remember how I felt while reading something.

And it is that specific aspect that I want to continue to a smaller scale.

Instead of writing full texts about the books I’ve read, I will be giving myself some questions to answer for each book. Over the course of time I may add or omit some of the questions. But here is the template I plan on using for now:

Title:

Author:

Dates of reading:

Year published:

Genre:

(Series:)

Page count:

Rating:

How I felt while reading:

How I felt after reading:

Short summary:

First sentence:

Last sentence:

Favourite quote(s):

Themes & tropes:

Setting:

Main characters:

Favourite character:

Memorable events:

I would (not) recommend this book, because…

General notes/thoughts:

Other books by the same author:

My next book log will be about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland :D

Have a lovely day, and happy reading/writing!

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Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth Book Review

Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth Book Review

“You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze […] The dead, the traitor and the lost one raise. […] You shall rise or fall by the ghost king‘s hand, the child of Athena‘s final stand. […]”The Battle of the Labyrinth Disclaimer: Everything written in this review is my personal opinion. This review is spoiler-free in regards to Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth but there are…

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TTT - Books I Had to Get for My Personal Library

TTT – Books I Had to Get for My Personal Library

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” Today’s prompt is “Books I Loved So Much I Had to Get a Copy for My Personal Library“. Unfortunately, I only have three books for this list, so this post will be a…

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TTT - Comfort Reads

TTT – Comfort Reads

Full disclosure, I wrote this months ago for the May 31st prompt “Comfort Reads” and then fully procrastinated on editing and publishing, but hey, three months later, here it is:  “Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish…

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Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse Book Review

Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse Book Review

“Five shall go west to the goddess in chains,One shall be lost in the land without rain,The bane of Olympus shows the trail,Campers and Hunters combined prevail,The Titan’s curse must one withstand,And one shall perish by a parent’s hand.” Disclaimer: Everything written in this review is my personal opinion. This review is spoiler-free in regards to Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse but there…

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TTT - Book Series I Have Yet to Finish

TTT – Book Series I Have Yet to Finish

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” Today’s prompt would be “Completed Series I Wish Had More Books”, but for this post, I changed the prompt to “Completed Book Series That I’ve Started But Not…

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TTT - Books I love that were written over ten years ago

I’ve been wanting to take part in TTT for a while now, so I’m glad to finally be doing so!

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” I’ve been wanting to take part in TTT for a while now, so I’m glad to finally be doing so! One thing that you will find with my Top Ten Tuesday posts is that I will…

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Sorry, but if it’s like a merperson, with a fishtail and stuff (assuming they don’t change it to human legs or sum-)

I imagine it going down one of two ways

1. The merperson hired a taxi driver to also wheel them around in a wheelbarrow. And the taxi driver just stands at the door too, holding the wheelbarrow. The merperson said they’d tip well.

Or 2. The merperson is flopped on the floor, out of breath from dragging themselves all the way here. Laying on their back, upside down from protag.’s perspective, pointing up and gasping: “you… me… marry… betrothed.”

And then maybe they just sit down on the sofa or bathtub and explain once they’ve caught their breath

Or better yet! Protag. doesn’t have a bath, so merperson just has to uncomfortably squeeze into the shower and yell because it’s on and it’s hard to hear over the water.

When you were a child you had an imaginary friend who lived in the sea and went on adventures with. The last time you saw them, you shared in a strange personal ceremony where you joined hands. Now, after all these years, a hooded merfolk arrives on your doorstep claiming to be your betrothed.

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If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

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i love pitting classically trained magic users against self-taught magic users in sci-fi/fantasy but it shouldn’t be snobbish disdain for them it should be terror

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Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters Book vs. Movie

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters Book vs. Movie

“Why are you in a dress?” “I’m having a really bad day.” Disclaimer: This post is not meant to judge whether the book or movie is better. It is merely meant to compare the two for entertainment purposes.  Everything in this post is merely my observations and opinions, and they are bound to differ from others’. If you’d like to read my book review of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters first,…

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Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters Book Review

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters Book Review

“The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? […]  Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which […] carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. […] Europa fell off and died along the way, but that’s not important.” “It was probably important to her.” Disclaimer: everything written in this review is my personal…

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Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Book vs. Movie - Part 2

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Book vs. Movie – Part 2

CONTAINS SPOILER You can find part 1 here. If there is one thing that readers can agree on, it’s that book to movie adaptations are seldom entirely accurate to the book they claim to be based on. One prime example of that is Percy Jackson. Disclaimer: This post is not meant to judge whether the book or the movie is better. It is meant to compare the two (admittedly in a bit of a nitpicky…

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Ok, so… Artbreeder is great and all

I’m trying to get into using it to make my characters

But the absolute monstrosities you get when accidentally going overboard on a gene are just… something else…

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Dorky but very fun things to do to fall back in love with your writing/story:

Create a mood board of how you think your characters would dress. Bonus points if it's the opposite style of how you usually do.

Put your characters into Artflow and see them come to life through AI!

Make a playlist for the movie adaption of your book from the opening sequence to the end credits.

Write a letter between two characters (if you handwrite it, try to come up with unique handwriting for each character)

Create a manifestation book! I have a ring-bound book in which I write all my writing goals and record any milestones. Feel free to go wild with this and dream big as no one has to see it! Buy washi tape that fits your book's theme.

Go to a pizza store or Starbucks and order using your character's name. I like seeing how close they are to the spelling on the receipt, or hearing them call out the name across the store!

Pretend that there's such a thing as the Book Oscars and pick out what you would wear to it and practice your acceptance speech as the best book of the year in your genre.

Create an Instagram for your characters and post photos you think they would post. (Hint: use Unsplash to find aesthetic royalty free photos)

Play Akinator (basically a 20 questions game) and find out which existing character is most like yours.

Splurge on your birthday and commission an artist to draw your characters. It's amazing to see them come to life!

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Writing Websites

1. a website with a list of superpowers and what they are

2. a website that generates random au ideas

3. a website that generates names, basic info and futures in a bunch of languages

4. a website that checks your grammar

5. website that lists types of execution in the states

6. a website with info on death certificates

7. a website with info on the four manners of death

8. a website with info on the black plague

9. website with information on depression

10. a website with info on the four types of suicide

11. website that lists famous quotes

12. website with different kinds of quotes

13. a website with info on food in every country

14. a website with a list of different colors

15. website with a list of medieval jobs

16. website with a list of fabrics

17. website with a list of flowers and pictures

18. website with a list of flowers and no pictures

19. website with a list of poisonous plants

20. website with a list of poisonous and non-poisonous plants

21. website with a list of things not to feed your animals

22. website with a list of poisons that can be used to kill people

23. website with info on the international date line

24. website with a list of food allergies

25. website with a list of climates

26. website with info on allergic reactions

27. website with info on fahrenheit and celsius 

28. website with info on color blindness

29. website with a list of medical equipment

30. website with a list of bugs

31. website with an alphabetic list of bugs and their scientific name

32. website with a list of eye colors

33. website (wikipedia sorry) with list of drinks

34. website with a list of religions

35. website with a list of different types of doctors and what they do

36. website (wikipedia again sorry) with a list of hair colors

37. website that generates fantasy names

38. website with a list of body language

39. website with a list of disabilities

40. website with an alphabetic list of disabilities