FOUR: A DIVERGENT COLLECTION || Review

Title: Four: A Divergent Collection

Author: Veronica Roth

Rating: 7/10

I'm a massive fan of the Divergent trilogy (I am so hyped for seeing the Insurgent movie this month) so buying this book after reading Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant was a definite must for me. Whereas the trilogy is all from the female protagonist's, Tris, point of view, this collection of short stories is all from the point of view of Four (or Tobias). It also includes three exclusive scenes set during Divergent which really were a treat to read.

The first three stories - The Transfer, The Initiate and The Son - are all about Four pre-Divergent and pre-Tris, so it's really interesting yet entertaining to get a grasp on his personality and actions before he became under the influence of Tris. The Transfer details Four's movement from Abnegation to Dauntless; The Initiate while enduring his training to vie for a high position in Dauntless and The Son his first few months in Dauntless whilst forging contact with his mother, Evelyn, after years apart. All three of these stories are great in their own right - credit to Veronica Roth - but my favourite has to be The Transfer, as it makes you understand why Four is the way he is and why he makes his decision to leave his faction behind and join Dauntless, despite the result of his Aptitude test. The first story is essentially Tobias choosing to free himself from the bounds Abnegation has set from him as well as his cruel father, Marcus. You sympathise for him yet condemn him at the same time. It really made me question the Four I was introduced to in my first reading of Divergent and how his love and trust in Tris is ultimately what frees him, not the choices he has made in the past.

This leads me on to the fourth story, The Traitor, set during Tris's initiation into Dauntless: around the time of the second stage of training (the fear simulations). It was refreshing to see Tobias falling in love with Tris and not the other way round, especially with the knowledge given during the first three stories and how hard it was for Tobias to learn to trust and care for people. The scene where Tobias invites Tris into his own fear landscape is especially refreshing seen from Tobias's point of view. It gives more depth to Tobias and his motives - we know Tris enough already, so it's great to see Tobias face his fears directly.

This collection of stories also explores other characters in more depth: Eric, who is just as much a dickhead during initiation as he is during the rest of the books; Max's arrogance and willingness to change Dauntless values from courageousness to brutality, and Shauna and Zeke. Eric's bitterness and cruelty seems more justified through this book, yet he's still a despicable human being. However, Eric's brutal tendencies only do more to highlight how, even though damaged and broken, Tobias is the true hero of the book. He does stupid things and lashes out, but he's kindhearted and strong-willed despite all the shit Marcus put him through.

Plus, the three extra scenes at the end provide a much needed closure after reading Allegiant. Especially 'First jumper--Tris!', as all I've wanted to know was what Four first thought when he saw Tris land in the net. If you've read Divergent I can guess that's probably been on your mind too. Who doesn't like a dystopian love story. It definitely reminded me of the story I've been so loyal to for over a year now and, trust me, you need that reminder. You'll know what I mean if you've read Allegiant.

Even though this is just a selection of shorts, which isn't as outrightly exciting and adrenaline-pumping as the Divergent trilogy - there isn't as much action, more just questions brought up in the trilogy that need answering - I still really enjoyed it, and it reminded me how much I just love this collection of books. Tobias and Tris's love story has captivated me from the beginning as well as the faction system and the universe the stories are set in. If you've read Divergent - I don't think it's necessary to have read Insurgent or Allegiant to read this, although you might want to - this is a definite must. If you love the story as much as I do, I'll guarantee you'll love this.

If you haven't already, give it a try. If you have, do message me and tell me your thoughts. It would be interesting to hear what anyone else has to say about it.

For the Love of Cupcakes - Prologue

For the Love of Cupcakes: Prologue

(I’m so happy to share this. This is the first “chapter” of my new novel, For the Love of Cupcakes. Hope you enjoy.)

Polyvore collage: [x]

                                                               PROLOGUE

       Cake Batter

For as long as I could remember, I’d always believed there wasn’t a problem a good, proper cupcake couldn’t fix. This ridiculous ideology was all my mum’s fault, of course: when I was younger and I’d come home from school with tears in my eyes over some petty thing like a stolen pencil or Kirsty McGregor’s new sparkly shoes (which I was sure violated the school uniform code) my mum would give me a chocolate-chip muffin with a swirl of buttercream on the top and suddenly things would be okay again. As my teeth sank into the soft sponge and vanilla icing engulfed my taste buds, Kirsty McGregor’s stupid flashy shoes would be a distant memory and my favourite spotty pencil forgotten. This cake orientated attitude continued right through my teenage years—fallouts with supposed ‘friends’, secondary school related humiliation, finding out the boy a year above you’ve had a crush on for like, two weeks, is dating some older and prettier girl. My mum would justknow and suddenly, out of nowhere, a strawberry shortcake cupcake would appear on my desk and it was like the totally gorgeous potential soul-mate boy in the year above never existed at all.

It wasn’t until about nine months ago that I realised that some problems couldn’t be fixed with rainbow sprinkles and caramel swirls. I suppose I’d never experienced true heartbreak and pain until that day: suddenly cake didn’t seem like the solution to what I was feeling anymore. I couldn’t just forget and move on; it was a constant, consuming numbness in the pit of my stomach that refused to be shaken off like fake friends and embarrassing moments. Cupcakes became a reminder rather than a cure.

However, nine months on—cupcakes kind of became a legacy.

All mum ever wanted to do was open a cupcake shop. Just a small, cosy place in the centre of town littered with odd tables and chairs and, of course, a massive counter that stretched across the back wall overflowing with her homemade bakes. It was the subject of my bedtime stories when I was little: how she’d work behind the counter, greeting the customers, while I’d apply swirly icing and edible petals and frosting figurines to the orders and pack them away in little white boxes. Dad would be in charge of the ovens (we’d giggle over how he’d have to wear a bright pink apron—the uniform had to be pink, of course) and how my older brother Johnny would wait on the tables, imagining the flush on his cheeks as a pretty girl walked by the massive glass windows at the front. If all the cakes weren’t sold by the end of the day we’d be able to take all of them back home with us and have them for supper, with massive scoops of ice cream and frosted strawberries until all of them were gone and not a crumb remained. It was an idea that fuelled my childhood, but of course stupid reality and school and my parents actual jobs got in the way, leaving my mum’s cupcakes as just a hobby with no way forwards. That was okay, back then, because we had days and weeks and months and years to think about it and say maybe one day. It was when the possibility of years turned into nothing that my whole family was slapped painfully, harshly and abruptly with the knowledge that life can be tragically cut short with your dreams yet to be fulfilled. It was cruel and it was unfair and it’s something I’ll never forgive the vastness of the universe for but it was my first experience of the harshness of reality which, maybe, I’ll learn to accept one day.

I don’t think I’d ever learn to forgive and accept myself for it, though.

It may have been out of guilt, or even regret, more likely love—but it took my mother’s death to finally make her dream a reality. Even though my outlook on reality was a lot more bitter and unforgiving than it was before, I could tell that dad sort of hoped that the sugariness of my all-time favourite dessert would sweeten my perception of the world. Maybe it would, maybe the pastel colours of the walls and the heavenly smell of cake batter would banish my new found cynicism; or maybe they would just be a constant reminder of what I’d lost and never forget. A constant jab poking away in the back of my brain saying this all happened because of you. I was counting on the latter: things were too different now to ever go back to the way things were. I was a completely altered person.

Despite what I thought about my dad’s new business venture, though, I had no choice but to move away from my home of Hampstead to the coastal town of Whitley Bay where Cherry on Top café stood between a vintage jewellery shop and a newsagents, making all other shops in the street look demure in comparison. It was sickening, how similar it looked to my mum’s heavily annotated blueprints, with its big glass windows jutting out into the street and newly panelled wood floor and massive Perspex counter swallowing the back wall. The first time I saw it properly I didn’t leave the house again for four days because it all felt too real. The only reason I came out again was because I couldn’t stand hearing my dad crying about my attitude.

And, now, my dad had somehow forced me into a sickly pale pink apron, and I’d become an employee at the shop I could hardly bare glancing at. It would be good for my confidence, he’d said, like actually interacting with people I had no interest in actually talking to would make me feel less like sitting in the dark with my headphones on, blasting myself to oblivion for a few hours. I had no desire to talk to anybody ever, not anymore. But I accepted the job in the hope it would stop my dad from crying over me.

The job was the least of my problems, in the end. I could cope making idle, meaningless small talk with the customers who I barely needed to make eye contact with for more than two seconds. I couldn’t cope with the addition of Matthew Fitzpatrick into my life; who changed, improved and ruined my existence all at the same time.

I was broken before I met Matt, like the shattered glass in his beat-up telescope and snapped G string on his acoustic guitar. But I was even more broken after he left. Turns out I’m the one problem not even a sticky-toffee cupcake could fix.

Maybe.

BEGIN AGAIN || Review

Begin Again Review: By Hannah

image source: [x]

Film: Begin Again

Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, James Corden, Hailee Steinfield, Adam Levine

Directed and Written: John Carney

Imdb synopsis: A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.

My rating: 8/10

This review is not 100% spoiler free. 

I’d been looking forward to seeing this film for a very long time and I am very, very glad that I finally got round to it. I knew from the premise (and the fact it’s directed by John Carney, who directed Once, probably my favourite musical ever) that this film would be something that I’d like. Incidentally, I wasn’t wrong. It was kind of beautiful, even if I am still left questioning if Keira Knightley can actually sing or not. 

The movie follows a drunken, messed-up music exec Dan (Ruffalo) and feisty, heart-broken songwriter Gretta (Knightley) and how they both use their talents to produce an album, using the streets of New York as their recording studio. Dan is divorced and constantly wandering the streets in various states of drunkenness with no money like that I’m having an alcohol-fuelled breakdown cliché we all know so well. He’s also got a daughter Violet (Steinfield) who he’s inadvertently fucked up because of his drinking, causing her to dress like she’s easy and become slightly sociopathic. Gretta, on the other hand, is fresh out of a relationship (by fresh, I mean when the film starts, she’s literally just got out of it) after her bastard singer boyfriend Dave (Levine – who I do not find sexy at all, despite what anyone says) plays her a song which she knows is for someone else. It’s on one night at some dingy bar in New York City that Dan and Gretta meet, and Dan has some “drunk magic powers” which means he can make arrangements in his head and Gretta is the next sensation he’s been looking for his whole career.

There are some stunning scenes in the movie – like when Dan and Gretta wander New York City listening to the same iPod, and you can tell they’re falling in love with the way they make each other feel. How the homeless vibe coming off Dan is actually kind of endearing: how you’re seeing a man falling apart and slowly piecing himself back together again because of music (and Gretta). It’s a film about beginning again, wiping the slate clean. And you definitely get that message by the end of the movie.

But for me, it’s the music that makes the movie. Even though the storyline is funny and absorbing and heartbreaking and beautiful, the music is what brings all the scenes together and forges and breaks relationships. Knightley’s voice is what you could call an “acquired taste” that not everyone will like – it’s raspy and sweet, but questionable – yet it undeniably fits the songs. Gretta and Dave’s breakdown is shown completely through music, him selling himself out with poppy tunes that have lost their meanings while she stays loyal to original lyrics (and, thank God, stays loyal to herself). The soundtrack is definitely worth a download.

I think I would watch Begin Again more than once and still enjoy the story. I’m a romantic at heart, therefore the ending doesn’t quite match with what I wanted out the film, but it still seems fitting. The story is unique (despite the wandering drunk stereotype) and the tender moments between Dan and Gretta give you goose-bumps. I’d say it’s a story about unconditional love, music, family and never selling yourself short. And, of course, it’s about the endless possibilities that only New York can offer and how it can bring people together.

Watch this film. Please? I can guarantee you’ll enjoy it.