Fangirling for Fangirl

This month I've reread Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell for a twitter book group I joined. While I thought about re-reviewing it as I have a lot more to say about it, in the end I decided it would be more fun to pick out some of the most awesome related products I'd love to own and showcase them here!

First up I love this card from mimiboo on Etsy! 

Then there's this Watford School of Magicks T shirt from Society6

This charm bracelet really features all of Rainbow's books, but since they're all fantastic and it's beautiful, why not? 

I'm always on the lookout for ways to take tea with my places, so this travel mug would be perfect!

I think I want this throw pillow more than anything else. I LOVE it!

And this tote bag. Amazing.

Vinyl sticker with this brilliant quote. I also love the iPhone case but don't have an iPhone...

So many other things in the same prints e.g cards, postcards, posters of the throw pillow design, cards, t shirts of the travel mug design. I could go on, but I won't. 

I don't get enough time to browse the internet for bookish related ephemera anymore. I might make this a semi regular thing, anytime I really love a book and want things to remind me of how awesome it is. 

If you'd like to check out my Fangirl review you can do that here. I stand by everything I said except that I like it less than Attachments. I'm sure this will change once I finish my reread of Attachments, but at the moment it's right up there behind Eleanor & Park. Rainbow Rowell can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes, and her books just get better on rereading. Keep it up please, Rainbow!

Check out the discussion on twitter by searching #IftheShelfFits. 

Some Thoughts about Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Ok so to be honest my thoughts about Attachments are basically that I love it and it's the most awesome thing ever and I want to be all the characters.

So review done, that was easy!

In case any of you haven't read this awesomeness yet, here's the Goodreads synopsis:
"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

I really don't know what to say about Attachments. It was lovely and so so sweet and uplifting and it's staying in my house forever, possibly right next to You've Got Mail and the Ben & Jerry's ice cream (which obviously don't actually all live together, but do on my imaginary 'happy shelf' in my mind). I think this post is going to have to go to bullet points before it completely drifts off into the realms of fantasy. 

• Even though it was told mostly in email/instant messaging format, which is a format which has annoyed me since adolescence, I still was instantly engaged in the story between Jennifer and Beth. Their friendship felt really real to me, like I know I've had friends like that in the past. 
• In the beginning I had a certain impression of Lincoln, but throughout the novel I changed my image of him several times, which was really great actually. He had a brilliant character evolution and I was really hoping everything would work out in his favour. 
• Nobody was perfect. Everybody was a little bit quirky and a little bit weird and it made them so much more likeable. 
• I don't want to ruin anything for anybody, but there is a discussion of how people feel about having children and I just loved the whole storyline relating to that. It was so real. 
• Although the ending was kind of exactly what I expected it was also not at all what I expected and that was my favourite, I think. 

I am immediately writing my name in the front cover of this and it is never leaving the house again just in case I need it!

Best Books of 2013

I have a slight problem with doing a 'Best Books of 2013' because I really don't believe that what Goodreads thinks I've read this year is the full total of everything I've actually read. As you may have noticed, my internet presence this year has been somewhat... sporadic this year and so I've only listed things as 'currently reading' on Goodreads when I remember to, thus I'm pretty sure some important stuff has been overlooked!

However, ignoring that I do just so happen to have exactly ten books on my Five Star list for 2013, and they are as follows (in kind of the order I read them):

1. Maus by Art Spiegelman (review) - Brilliant, quirky and very important. Awesome graphic novel which I should have read sooner. 
2. Wild by Cheryl Strayed (review) - The best memoir I've read in a while. Totally inspiring and beautifully written. I need to buy myself a copy so I can read it again. 
3. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (review) - This was a re-read of a series that I thought was great as a child, and it really stood up to re-reading. Not easy reading because it's about difficult issues, but very well written and really well told. 
4. Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (review) - Lots of people kind of hated this book, and I think having read their thoughts that it's probably worth a re-read because I tend to get carried away with people making points that are brilliant and which I agree with and gloss over the other stuff. That said, this book does make many brilliant and important points and has a lot of great reasons why feminism should be important to everyone. 
5. Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales edited by Melissa Marr & Tim Pratt (review) - This was a brilliantly timed arrival, as it turned up the day before we went to see Neil Gaiman, whose publicist is responsible for sending this collection to me, as he had written one of the stories in it, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty which was, of course, brilliant. There were a lot of stories in it which were particularly great and it was nice to read something which had some fairytales but also some other classic tales as well as some lesser known ones. 
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I never got around to reviewing this for some reason, I think because I loved it so much it was difficult to talk about it, and also probably because I watched (and also loved) the film at around the same time so it was a bit of an overload. I wish I had written about the book now because to be honest, the film is kind of overriding it in my head. All I really remember is that I prefered the ending of the film, which is totally ok to say when the director of the film is the guy who wrote the book, right? 
7. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan (review) - I only read this a couple of weeks ago after picking it up on our epic book buying spree in Leeds, and it really didn't disappoint. It was full of awesome characters and didn't play out at all the way I thought it was going to. 
8. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - Also didn't get around to writing about this, again because I was overwhelmed by the awesome. Eleanor and Park were both awesome, and it was so well written and beautiful and the ending was totally not what I expected. Loved it. 
9. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (review) - If I had to pick a favourite book of the year, just one, this would be it. It's my favourite of his books as well I think, and basically it's just beautiful and brilliant and you should all read it. 
10. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell - Yes I did just put The Ocean at the End of the Lane in the middle so you wouldn't notice there are two Rainbow Rowell books on this list, but I just finished Attachments and I adored it. Such awesome, gorgeous, quirky characters who I totally love now, and such a lovely, romantic, unusual plot. Rowell for the win. 

An an honourable mention needs to go to This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, which has to be the cleverest and most beautiful collection of short stories I've read this year. 

So there's that. This post took me a looooong time to write as I've been totally flat out with a horrendous cold/flu type thing and unable to take anything for congestion or do much about my horrible cough except drink honey and lemon :-( Once I've recovered I hope to be back to blogging more regularly!