Book Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My favourite types of stories are the ones about magic: The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Harry Potter Series, and now I have another new favourite, but this particular book doesn't do magic in the same way as the ones mentioned.

The Night Circus portrays magic as being a talent practiced by a rare few, without needing spells and fantasy lands. It suggests that it is ingrained within the world, unnoticed by most people except for the ones in the know. In the novel, it is Prospero the Enchanter and the enigmatic Mr Alexander who are the rare exceptions, and they decide to play a dangerous game using Prospero's daughter Celia, and her opponent Marco, representing Mr Alexander, as the pawns. Their venue is the Night Circus, or Le Cirque du Reves, meaning the circus of dreams, a circus unlike any other built especially for the game, although few know this. Inevitably Celia and Marco fall in love, and since the loser of the game must endure severe consequences, this makes it all the more harder for them to try and win.

This novel is the type where you either love it or hate it, depending on what type of reader you are. If you are someone who is more enchanted by the exquisite imagery created by the detail in the descriptions like me, then you will absolutely love this book. The way all the tents in the circus are described and the focus on the senses is just amazing, and it enables you to imagine exactly what it would be like to step through the iron gates of the circus and see the performances. However, if you are more of a person who prefers their books to be less on the descriptive side and more plot driven, then this is probably not the right book for you. Personally I'm a bit of both, as after I finished reading the book I didn't feel like I'd read a story and I didn't feel like I'd taken anything from it away with me, instead it feels rather more like someone has written down your dreams for you to experience again, which is why even though it has a slow moving plot and there aren't solid explanations for how everything works, I still loved reading this.

Anyway I hope you enjoy if you decide to give this a go!

Yas xx

Song for the Week

Hey everyone, apologies for the radio (or I guess blogging) silence, but I've been awful busy lately! Anyway, here is the song for the week this week, been playing it a lot recently!

A-Punk- Vampire Weekend

Happy Tuesday!

Yas xx

(I'll make up for the lack of posts with a book review for this week!)

Song For The Week

Hey guys, so since Halloween is over, I think we're all now officially allowed to be excited about Christmas!! So I thought I'd pick an appropriate song, as I really wish Christmas would come a lot faster.

I Wish It Was Christmas Today- Julian Casablancas

The one xmas song that you can't actually listen to on Christmas day haha!
Happy Monday!

Yas xx

P.S. Music Monday post will either be up late tonight or tomorrow!

Music Monday: Jake Bugg's Secret Show

Hi everyone! So last Wednesday was a pretty exciting day for me, I went to Jake Bugg's secret location show in London!

 It was in a small upstairs room in a pub, the first venue that Jake had ever headlined in London before, so it was a pretty big deal. There weren't many people there so it was a very intimate gig, not one that you could really sing the lyrics to but I did anyway, and not surprisingly the crowd mostly consisted of teenage girls, but my brother spotted Jake's friends who were in the Two Fingers video which was cool. He let us request songs and played a few new ones from his next album that will be coming out soon, and he played everything on acoustic guitar with no band, which sounded great! Definitely made up for missing most of his set at Reading this year, and he played and sang really well. I'm really looking forward to his album coming out, the new songs that he played sounded amazing, so I'm thinking the rest will too. I was really lucky too as the tickets were free as my brother (who is the luckiest person when it comes to competitions) won them, and after the gig we got to meet Jake! Very shy and nice in person, and also surprisingly about the same height as me. Got a pic with him an all which was nice, he took the time to take pictures and chat with everyone there!

The new video for Slumville Sunrise is out now and is really weird, but funny, and it contains Elvis. What's not to like? The album "Shangri La", named after the space in which it was recorded, comes out on 18th November, so not too long a wait!

Yas xx

Song For the Week

Hey guys, sorry I wasn't posting last week but its been a very busy week for me! Anyway today's song for the week is...

Two Fingers- Jake Bugg

I've chosen this song as he's released his new video for Slumville Sunrise and also I went to his secret show in London last week! More on that in the Music Monday post.

Happy Monday!

Yas xx

Music Monday: Best All-round Albums

Hi guys, today I thought I'd share a few of the best all-round albums in my opinion, and by best all-round I mean the ones where you rarel skip songs, or don't skip at all! I'm not going to cover all of my favourite albums, just the ones that stand out to me the most. So, (*mario voice*) here we go!

1. Is This It?- The Strokes. This album is probably my favourite album of all time, and every song is just perfect. For me, the best albums are the ones where its incredibly hard to choose a favourite song from that particular album because there is not one bad song on it. And this is a definitive good album in that sense.

2. Origin of Symmetry- Muse. This album is just brilliant. Every song flows into one another perfectly. This is like my equivalent of The Strokes Is This It because I love every song and it's almost impossible to choose a favourite song. I would probably say that my favourite is "Citizen Erased", but as soon as I say that I immediately feel bad because I also love "New Born" and "Bliss" and "Plug In Baby" and "Hyper Music"... and I should stop or I'll end up naming every single song on the album. Side-note, recently I've been getting very into Muse's stuff, which is weird as I went through a phase of liking them as a kid but only knowing about 4 of their songs, then didn't like them for a while, and now they're my favourite band at the moment (emphasis on 'at the moment' as my all time favourite is still The Strokes).

3. Come of Age- The Vaccines. Not absolutely perfect as I'm not a huge fan of "Change of Heart pt 2", but its still pretty close to perfection. And also definitely an improvement on their first album, but I still absolutely love 'What Did You Expect'. I'm just wondering what The Vaccines will make in the future after hearing their EP.

4. Nevermind- Nirvana. Great album, I prefer it to In Utero, which a lot of people disagree with since they say Nevermind is commercialised and isn't the same as Bleach, but I just genuinely prefer Nevermind, because of songs like "Come As You Are", "In Bloom" and "Lithium" which I love listening to.

5. London Calling- The Clash. Now this was a hard one to decide where to put. It probably is at the same level as Nevermind in my head really, but for the sake of it being a 1-5 thing I just decided on a whim to put it here. Almost all the songs on this are some of my favourites, especially Death or Glory", "Clampdown" and loads of others. Out all of all their albums this is their most recognised, and my overall favourite (hence why it is on my list).






Its funny as my favourite songs from all these bands (or at least the ones I say are my favourites because I can't really choose actual favourites) are not on any of these albums, except for "Come As You Are", which is my favourite Nirvana song. But I guess that just shows that I pick overall favourites rather than albums with just a few stand out songs on them. Anyway if you haven't heard of some of these (you probably have but there's always going to be someone) then you should listen to them when you've got the time, I usually listen to new albums while I'm doing something else like my homework, so why not try something like if you don't have enough time?

Hope you enjoyed!

Yas xx

Song For The Week

Hey guys, again last week was a little barren when it came to posting here :/ But I'm back! Anyway today's song for the week is a nice calming one.

High And Dry- Radiohead

Happy Monday!

Yas xx