It’s raining right now, and rain and books have infamously gone perfectly together, which leads me to say that I started reading The Great Gatsby last night. Three chapters in and I’m already loving it.

His descriptions. He described the celing as a cake. Who does that? And he describes the
stars as a “silver pepper across the sky” (major paraphrase, but hopefully you know what I mean). That’s just beautiful, my gosh.

It’s masterfully written and I can picture it perfectly. I can’t say how much I enjoy being swept away to Staten Island during the roaring twenties, a place with big mansions and lavish parties and hot summers. (Summer is beginning in real life, which makes this book even better.) I don’t think I realized books could be this vivid. Or at least, it's been a long time that I read one as vivid and easy-to-picture as this.

I don’t normally like most classics, but this is one I’m beginning to fall in love with. Have you read it?

P.S. - my copy has a picture of F. Scott Fitzgerald on the back. When I first saw it, I freaked out because it looked so much like Tom Hiddleston. True story. (I see why he played Fitzgerald in Midnight to Paris now! Although, I haven't seen the movie. But Tumblr and gifsets can tell a girl everything.)

Thanks to everyone who entered The New Recruit giveaway on my blog! I’m here to announce who won. I tallied up all the entries and then, using random.org, discovered the winner…

I'm guest posting today over at Muse, a blog by fellow teen writer Seth Skoegerboe. I'd love it if you'd stop by and check it out.


I’m a reader, and I’m a writer. Sometimes I wonder if those things aren’t intertwined. I started reading when I was three years-old and I’ve had an irrevocable love of words ever since. I wrote my first “book” when I was very young, after being steeped in the classics like Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

It’s funny how words work and how potent stories are. It’s funny how they seep into our subconscious and remain with us forever. It’s funny how, by reading stories, we are inspired to write our own.

As an aspiring teen author, I was quite impressed to hear of Rachel Coker's accomplishments in the publishing world. At the age of 16, she's already a published author, and that itself is inspiring to me.

So it was that I picked up Interrupted. I'd heard about the book after hearing about the Go Teen Writers blog (which is a fantastic resource, by the way—go check it out ASAP). And I was really intrigued, especially by the cover. (Isn't it beautiful?) I wanted to know whether Interrupted was as good as it sounded.

It is. It's a fantastic book. And while it's not perfect, it is enjoyable. The story of Allie Everly kept me hooked, and I did relate to a lot of her adolescent struggles. (By the way, her full name is Alycone—how cool is that?) While I didn't connect with Allie in terms of having similar personalities or circumstances, I did love her, and that's what counts. I can usually overlook minor flaws if I love the characters. And that's how it was for Interrupted. (Sam Carroll was a complete sweetheart, too! I'm sure many of you can agree.)

As for what the flaws were, I don't even remember most of them now. The characters and plot could have been developed a bit more (but isn't it that way for all books)? The book does seem like a first novel and there are parts that could have been polished more... but that's okay. It was a good story. It was a story I enjoyed. The characters were ones I loved. And that's what counts.

The thing is, Interrupted inspires me because of the fact that it wasn't perfect. For once, I didn't feel inadequate while reading a published author—I felt uplifted. I felt like I wasn't alone in my journeys and struggles as a teenage writer. Reading Interrupted reminded me that my novels are good stories, too, even with their imperfections.


Rachel Coker inspires me because of the way she's managed to navigate the publishing industry with a professionalism and maturity far beyond her years. It is possible to write good & enjoyable fiction even at a young(er) age.

Thanks, Rachel Coker. And thanks, Interrupted. You both have shown me that writing & my dreams aren't impossible. Because of Interrupted, I feel like I can do this journey, too.

And that, my friends, is exciting beyond words.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been very busy working on KOF!

Anyway, here's a tag that Bluejane tagged me with quite a while ago.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they have printed.

I know I'm not an adult, but let's see how I do!

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - I do not want to read these.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Withering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ~ I have to agree with Bluejane ~ I will not be reading any Philip Pullman books!
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Works of Shakespeare - A few plays here and there
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (working on reading it right now!)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

8 book are bolded, 17 are italicized. In spite of this tag, I assure you, I am not illiterate! I love to read... just not all of the books on here! Anyway, I guess it is a good thing I am not an adult yet! ;o)

I would like to thank you all for awarding me. I am very sorry I haven't gotten around to doing a post with them, but as I've said, it's been very hectic. If I don't get around to it, I apologize profusely, but I assure you I appreciate them very much. =)

In His Love,
~Kylie