So, I found out about this feature from The Red Bookmark blog, and it’s originally hosted by Novel Heartbeat. I’ve been meaning to get involved and try out more features, so I’m going to jump in and try this occasionally! The feature takes place on a Thursday and discusses what us book bloggy peoples do, outside of bookishness. This week’s theme is music- so here are the top ten albums I’m listening to at the moment (:

Strange mixture of rock-y things and folk-y things and soundtracks and Hank Green. :3 I’ve been writing to the Pacific Rim soundtrack. It’s just too cool. And I’ve been blogging to Paramore. 😀

Alsooooo what should be up there is Fall Out Boy’s Save Rock and Roll, because I’ve been obsessing over that too much and it somehow slipped my mind but Charli reminded me ;D

Check out Novel Heartbeat’s post for this week here.

Published 1st May 2014 by Orchard Books.

Goodreads Synopsis: This is the story of how we became freaks. It’s how a group of I’s became a we.
When Class 10B got their flu shots, they expected some side effects. Maybe a sore arm. Maybe a headache. They definitely didn’t expect to get telepathy. But suddenly they could hear what everyone was thinking. Their friends. Their teachers. Their parents. Now they all know that Tess has a crush on her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. Some of them will thrive. Some of them will break. None of them will ever be the same.
A smart and funny story about friendship, first love and surviving high school from the bestselling author of Ten Things We Shouldn’t Have Done.

My Review: I’ve read books about telepathy before, but none have been like this. The idea behind the story is original and it’s pretty funny too. I did enjoy the book, but after thinking abut it for a while…. there are a few things that did annoy me… 😦

This book, despite being about telepathy and things, is largely just a contemporary romance. I was looking forward to some Sci-Fi details and awesomeness from the book- but really, I think the supernatural powers were just… thrown in? to enable all of the romance and drama to work, if that makes sense. It makes the story really interesting, because a form class keeping a shedload of secrets from each other can suddenly see who’s cheated on who amongst other things. But, I did want more insight into the origin of the telepathy powers. How did the flu jab cause it? It’s never fully explained!

The narration is quite clever. It’s a collective voice, of the whole form class- using We instead of I, and occasionally arguing against itself when recapping details about events. It sounds a little confusing, and it did confuse me a bit at first, but then I found it did work quite well with the story.

I did find the characters really hard to work out, though. The story starts focusing on not too many characters, but then suddenly, it’s about the entire, roughly 30 kid form class. It was so hard to keep track of all of the names, made even trickier because the love stories woven in are pretty complex (at least, to me they were :P). Don’t Even Think About It is one of those books that will make sense if you read it in a short amount of sittings, I think. I read it in-between books, and that definitely added to the confusion.

Overall, I think Don’t Think About It will be loved by fans of funny teen romances and contemporaries. I read it, despite the cover which doesn’t suggest it, hoping for a fun Sci-Fi book… but as I said, I think the telepathy is just the method the author used to add some drama! I found it hard to keep track of the characters, but after a while I did get the hang of some and liked a few of the students. Though this review’s largely pointed out things that I disliked… Don’t Even Think about It is definitely worth picking up if you’re a fan of high school dramas and funny reads!Because of that, I’ve given this 3 hearts. 🙂

My Rating:

I received a copy of Don’t Even Think About It from the publisher, in exchange for a review. In no way at all did this affect my thoughts.

This was meant to go up next week but a few people seemed quite interested when I tweeted about it- so I’m posting it early! 🙂 Click on it for a bigger version, if it’s hard to read.

I’m really excited about participating in the blog tour for Allan Gibbons’ new title! HATE is based on a true story and is unforgettable. I’m so excited to have Alan on my blog today, with a guest post about five contemporary modern classics that have inspired him…

Alan gibbons: Five Contemporary Young Adult Classics

The commonest question young people ask a writer visiting their school is, “Where do you get your ideas?” I give lots of answers from: “I haven’t got a clue. They just come to me” to “I steal them.” The latter answer isn’t a joke. No author writes in a vacuum. When I start on a new book I am aware there are bound to be other novels, screenplays and dramas that have dealt with the same issues. This is not to defend plagiarism. It is a simple statement that authors learn from other authors. So which contemporary Young Adult classics do I learn from?

My first contemporary classic is Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. Published in 1974, it has to be one of the founding texts of modern teenage fiction. Dealing with a menacing secret society in a Catholic High School in the US, the novel upset many because of its use of ‘bad’ language, its treatment of sexuality and violence. Some schools actually banned it from library shelves. Cormier always writes with a kind of dark lyricism. He deserves to be considered a founding father of Young Adult literature and a master of his trade.

Anyone looking for an English equivalent to Cormier need go no further than Robert Swindells. One of his most inspirational novels is the Carnegie Medal-winning Stone Cold, published in 1993. Swindells plays with genre in this book. Is it a realistic social commentary on the blight of youth homelessness or a sinister horror story? In fact, it is both, brilliantly synthesising the tales of a young man surviving on the streets and a monstrous serial killer.

My third choice has to be Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. By inverting the kind of racial oppression seen in apartheid South Africa, with a white underclass ruled by a black elite, Malorie leads the reader to reconsider the nature of racism. In other hands the novel could have been didactic. When Malorie writes it is the characters and their relationships that drive the narrative.

My fourth choice is the story Anne Cassidy begins in Looking for JJ and ends in Finding Jennifer Jones. A writer who takes on the subject of a child who kills another child has to be clear-sighted and brave. Anne Cassidy is both.

My final novel is Bali Rai’s City of Ghosts. I usually shy away from any mention of magical realism, but this tale of conflict, war and love set at the end of the First World War and ranging from the Amritsar Massacre to a soldier’s convalescent home in Brighton is ambitious, engaging and moving.

I hope you enjoyed the guest post! On the right is the blog tour banner so you can catch up on all of the posts that have already gone up, on other blogs. Look out for HATE in stores- and there are also ways to tweet about the book and the charity set up in memory of Sophie, at the top of the banner:

Okay. A bit of a random post here, about lots of random things! I’ve been to a few events over the past week or so, so this is like a wrap up post of various cool things.

Awesomeness #1 and #2: Friday, 4th April

We had a half day at school for the end of term- so luckily, I was able to get up to London easier in the afternoon, for two events! The first one: A late lunch/ afternoon tea with some lovely bookish people, and Emily Murdoch- author of If You Find Me. I love, love, loved, If You Find Me when I read it last year, and so I jumped at the chance to be able to meet Emily on her first trip over to the UK! She came to the country to attend the awards ceremony because her début novel was short-listed for the Waterstones Children’s Fiction Prize, which is amazing. At the tea, I didn’t know many people, but I did get to meet Alix from Delightful Book Reviews. She’s really lovely! Then, lastly, I had the chance to have a little one-one-one talk with Emily about If You Find Me, and its inspirations, and more. I have the recorded interview ready and I’n currently in the middle of writing it up- so watch out for an interview post soon! Thank you to Orion/Indigo for the event.

Me and my brother hung around the same Waterstones the tea was held at for an event later in the day, which was a talk with three children’s illustrators- Nick Sharratt, Alex T Smith, and Chris Haughton. We were lucky enough to be able to sit in as there were few seats left- I think there were cancellations of reservations and things. The talk was really, really fun, and I enjoyed hearing about the careers and inspirations from three fantastic illustrators. I also got a book illustrated by Nick and the first Claude book by Alex T Smith signed. Thanks, to the illustrators, and to Waterstones for the events! (:

Awesomeness #3: Monday, 7th April

Dawn O’Porter recently had her UK tour for her new book, the sequel to Paper Aeroplanes (review here!) – GOOSE (Review here!). I was so excited about getting to meet her after reading and loving both of her YA books. The event I went to was at Waterstones Piccadilly and it was a conversation between Dawn and editor of Glamour mag, Jo Elvin- plus a signing afterwards. the talk was really great, with a lot of laughs too. Dawn is such a brilliant person, she’s hilarious and also gave some really great answers to lots of things. My mum emailed hot key books before the event to ask if Dawn could wish me a happy birthday *dies* *omgwhat* and so Dawn singed my book with a happy birthday message. That was very awesome. It was also nice to chat briefly to some of the lovely Hot Key people- especially Sarah Benton. I was sad to hear abut her leaving. wishing her luck in her new job! ❤

Awesomeness #3: Tuesday, 8th April

I turned fourteen Yay and stuff. My brother made me an epic card photoshopping my face onto Katniss‘ so that makes my birthday worthy of a mention on this random awesomeness post. Also, a Loki themed cake, because my obsession has reached a new level 😀

Awesomeness #5 and #6: Thursday, 10th April

I went on another trip to London to go and see an exhibition at the Museum of Childhood! When Nick Sharratt was signing my book the Friday before, he let me know about the exhibition, as it opened this week. I haven’t read Jacqueline’s most recent books, but that’s not saying I wasn’t an obsessive. I still am, really… I grew up with Jacqueline Wilson’s books so an exhibition talking about them, and her life, sounded awesome! The place is really worth going to; the museum itself is small but really cool and full of various cool things. The exhibition, titled Daydreams and Diaries, is really great. There are loads of interactive things, and what I got really excited about was all of the original artwork by Nick Sharratt! Photos weren’t permitted but seriously, if you’re a fan of Jacqueline or Nick or both, it’s definitely worth going to (:

I HIGH FIVED ANDREW GARFIELD. Yup. Omg. Yes. I ALSO SCREAMED A LOT. 😀 ME, my brother and cousin went along to Leicester Square to see if we’d be able to see any actors for the Amazing Spiderman 2 World Premiere. Somehow, we managed to get seriously near to the front of a barrier just off the red carpet, so the main actors all walked straight past us. It was so cool. I made a Tumblr post with pictures and things, which you can see here!

So, the last week or so was pretty cool and resulted in signed books and things and a hand that’s been touched by Andrew Garfield which I’m STILL obsessing over. 😀 Thanks to everyone who organised the bookish events. I loved them!