Female Role Models in Fiction: Are They Lacking?

As a lot of you may know, I’m active in the world of social media. I have a Twitter, Facebook, and an Instagram. I love YouTube. Another thing I love is politics. So it’s only natural that I use social media to get involved in politics. For better or worse.

One trend that I’ve been noticing is that people are saying they grew up without female characters in TV, literature, or movies that they could look up to. My question to these people, what exactly were you watching? Because I have never had a shortage of amazing female characters to look up to.

When I was little, Inez and Jackie from Cyberchase were super cool female characters. I always thought they were amazing! I loved Kim Possible and Shego. Princess Leia from Star Wars was another amazing female character in my life. I devoured all of the American Girl books, each one with loads of smart and strong female characters. Another incredible show I watched when I was little was Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. The cat Blossom was always one of my favorites. She was smart and funny and she had a way of speaking without ever saying a word.

When I got a little older, seven or eight, I was introduced to the world of Harry Potter. Out of this came Hermione Granger, a girl who showed me that being super nerdy and clever wasn’t such a bad thing. Being smart and studious was cool! Luna Lovegood showed me that it was okay to embrace your quirks, and to not let anyone’s opinions change who you are. I still admire Luna to this day. She’s shown me so much.

Entering my teenage years, I found Tris Prior from the book Divergent. She was my role model, and got me through some seriously difficult times. When I wanted to give up, I remembered her strength, and how she was both vulnerable and strong at the same time. I love her so much. The lessons I learned through her are invaluable.

But now, I am finding a lack of female representation. And not because there aren’t enough girl characters, there are plenty, but because all of them seem forced. People have become so obsessed with the idea of ‘strong female representation’ that female characters have basically become boys. ‘Strong’ females characters have become defined by their muscle, and how many bad guys they can take down at once. Feminists call it empowering, but I don’t need politically correct female power force fed to me to make me aware of my own strength. I’ve always had that. The characters I grew up with taught me that. They were raw, emotional, and strong. And sure, some of them helped around the house, did chores, cooked meals, helped take care of their siblings, and had crushes on boys but it’s okay for some woman to want that. Everyone, man and woman, should aspire to be helpful, responsible, and willing to do their part. The world would be so much better if we all helped and loved each other more. We need to break down this new idea of woman like men: more stubborn, brutal, emotionless, vulgar, and crude. I feel like this is what modern day woman aspire to be, at least a lot of the feminists I see on social media. I think more woman should aspire to be like the characters I grew up with. Smart, studious, helpful, kind, empathetic, and loyal. Of course we should stand our ground, not as woman, but as people. There is a time and place to fight and take down bad guys, but it shouldn’t be the base of who we are as people. We were created to balance out our opposite gender, and they were created to balance us. And no, I’m not saying girls can’t enjoy ‘boy things’ and boys can’t enjoy ‘girl things’. I’m only saying that there is a balance between the two genders, and modern day feminism is taking a gigantic step across that line.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children- My Thoughts on the Series and Library of Souls Review

A few minutes ago I finally finished the last book in the Miss Peregrine’s series. Before we get into the review, I want to explain why this series means so much to me, and why it’s been a favorite of mine for awhile.

I’ve never really felt like I belong for one reason or another. People have always looked at me and thought I was weird or strange or just not something people normally are. It’s been isolating and it’s made me feel like I don’t fit in or belong at times. These books came to me at a time when I really needed them. They made me realize just how important being different was, that it was a blessing, not a curse. I remember one night I was feeling particularly upset about what people thought of me, when I reached for Hollow City and read this segment.

“Are you all really so desperate that you’d stake everything on him? Why, he’s just a boy-a soft-bellied normal who knows next to nothing of our world!”

“He’s isn’t normal,” Emma gasped, grimacing as if this were the direct insult. “He’s one of us!”

I couldn’t help but smile when I read this segment. I remember a calming sense of control coming over me as I realized how much of an insult it was to be called normal when you can be so much more. I think that was a stepping stone to fully embracing who I am and stopping caring what other people thought of me. Mind you, it hasn’t completely gone away, but these books really helped me to embrace and accept my peculiarities. When I was reading this series, I felt at home.

Now for the review of Library of Souls. I’m hoping sometime in the future I’ll be able to do a full series review but it’s been awhile since I read the other two books, and I should probably reread them before I review them. Warning, there are spoilers for Library of Souls ahead.

While I thoroughly enjoyed Library of Souls, and would rate it 4 or 4 1/2 stars, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other ones. I think that was due in part to the fact that Jacob and Emma had never been my favorite characters, and none of the other peculiar children were in the book until the very end. That being said, adding Sharon and Bentham into the mix added greatly to my enjoyment of the book. They were both wonderfully complex and fun characters, and I was always waiting to see what they’d do next.

I also loved Caul as a villain. He was creepy, violent but not in a gory way that ever appeared on page, and out of his mind. There was a certain unpredictability to his character, which made him even more terrifying because I never really knew what he was going to do next. He was cunning. sly and knew what he wanted, and he wasn’t afraid to do whatever was necessary to achieve his goals.

The setting was immaculate. Devil’s Acre was the perfect place for all the shenanigans to go down in. It was filthy and suspicious and I never knew who to trust. The whole ambrosia thing was super interesting as well, and it was horrifying to find out that the drug was made out of peculiar’s souls!

The descriptions were spot on, not too lengthy, not too short, and worded just right that I had a very vivid image of everything that was happening. The pace was quick were it needed to be, and pulled me excitingly forward through the action scenes. It dragged only in one spot, when Jacob was first waking up from his injuries after being attacked by ambro addicts.

I loved seeing Jacob break out of his shell. It was interesting to see his back and forth dialogue between himself with what he called, ‘old Jacob’, and ‘new Jacob’. It was satisfying to see him finally conquer the Hollowghast, and to overcome some of his fears.

The Library of Souls was eerie and spooky, as a place with a name like that would be expected to be. Traversing into it’s depths with Caul in the lead was even more terrifying. When he nearly shot Jacob in the knee I freaked out a little. Overall, the entire segment in the Library was brilliantly written and had me pulled in from the second they crossed into Abaton, to the second they ran out.

Bentham’s betrayal was not something I saw coming. He had gained my trust through his actions but his betrayal was somehow not surprising. I definitely hadn’t expected it, but when I took a step back and looked at who he was, it made sense. I guess it was necessary for him to die in the end, but it was a vague death. Everyone just assumed he had perished either at Caul’s hand or by the loop’s collapse. I really hope Bentham’s bear, PT, will find another owner to care for him. That bear was amazing and a character all by himself, and he was abandoned when his master died. It was one loose end I would’ve really liked to have tied up. Maybe in one of Emma’s letter she could’ve mentioned how the bear was doing so we had some clue as to what happened to him.

All in all it was an amazing book! The ending was one of the best I’ve read in a long time, and left me feeling satisfied and highly content. It was sad when Emma and Jacob decided to just be friends, but when they came together in the end my heart soared. The only thing that made this book less enjoyable from first two, was the lack of the other peculiar children. Although their absence was necessary and I completely understand why they weren’t there.

I highly, highly recommend this series! It’s inspiring and fast paced. It pulls you in and never lets go. Just when you think you’ve fallen in love with every character, you fall in love with one more. I adored every second of it!

Thank you Ransom Riggs for these books! They taught me about self acceptance even when the world doesn’t understand. Your characters were geniusly crafted and brilliantly executed. I loved all of them, but especially Enoch, Milliard, Hugh, and Addison. Thank you for the adventure! I’ll never forget it.

Stay peculiar!

Snippets From My Book

I recently started working on the sixth draft of my dystopian novel. This time through, I’m focusing on line edits, which has been very tedious and frustrating at times. Over the past few days I’ve only managed to finish four pages.

I’ve been working on this book for about two and a half years now. It began in 2014 as my first ever NaNoWriMo project. After finishing the first book, I realized that there was more to the story. It was a daunting prospect, but I came to accept that it wasn’t just going to be a duology, but a trilogy and, in January of 2015 I began the sequel. After completing the three books, I have now dedicated the past year or so of my life to editing the first one. Here’s hoping it’ll be published one day!

The book is set in futuristic Russia, and deals with a race of super-humans who are being hunted and killed off by the government. It’s comparable to X-Men, but not exactly the same.

Along with the sentences, I’ll also be sharing some visuals. And so, without further ado, here are a few snippets from my book.

Snow wandered to the ground as he scanned the street for a car to steal. As he continued into a neighborhood, he couldn’t get his mind off the poster.

She laughed and laid back as flowers and plants grew around her body.

“Tell me where they went.” He knew she would never betray her people. Not for anything.

“I’d rather die,” she growled, her voice sharp as needles.

The place had an air of creepiness and misery. It was all too easy to imagine a monster walking out from one of the rooms.

Red and purple lights reflected on her skin as they came to a stop, and her breath fogged the glass as she leaned forward to look.

Her feet kicked the air as she looked from side to side, taking in everything with wide eyes. The curious joy on her face was the most heartwarming thing he had ever seen.

Broken twigs crunched underfoot and he paused, realizing just how alone he was out here. The ground was dimly lit by the milky glow of the moon, and his senses were good enough to alert him of a person coming but still, he felt vulnerable.

The impact was enough to throw him aside, but not enough to knock him unconscious. He was all too aware as hot pain seared his arm, ripping its way through his shoulder and into his brain.

Hope you enjoyed! I’d love to know which snippet was your favorite! 🙂

Keep creating!

Summer Plans!

Summer is almost here and can I just say how excited I am? Going through the past month and a half has reaffirmed my hatred of spring. It’s a pretty season with all the new growth but the allergies are too much! I was walking around feeling like I had a cold for weeks with no relief. I still have a bad cough but for the most part everything else has gone away. The only downfall that comes with summer is the heat. Even today it was hot and kinda uncomfortable. Why can’t every season be fall? That would be perfect.

But anyway, here are some of my goals for the summer. 🙂

1. My family and I usually go to the beach two to three times a summer but I’d love to extend that! Walking around and shopping in the quaint little town is one of my favorite things to do.
2. Spend more time with my best friend Alexa. I’m an extrovert with introverted tendencies, so socialization is important to me but can be hard at times. It’s the most frustrating thing ever. But I’ve known Alexa since we were little and she’s such a kind hearted and special person. We understand each other and I want to strengthen our friendship. She’s so amazing and I love spending time with her. 🙂
3. If I could even finish one book this summer that would be incredible. I’ve been having serious writing doubts and lack of motivation recently so my projects have all come to a halt.
4. Volunteer at an animal shelter. I’ve always known I love animals but recently I’ve been discovering just how much. I’d like to work with them and my local shelter is looking for volunteers. Hopefully I’ll have the courage to do that sometime this summer.
5. Take tumblry artistic photos with friends. I love photography and figuring out different ways to take pictures. I can’t wait to do some poses with my friends that look like they came straight off of Tumblr or Pinterest.
6. Get a henna tattoo. I’m not sure if I want to do a picture or words but I think it’d be really cool to get one. Especially if I could convince one of my friends to do it as well so we could match.
7. Write more on my blog. 🙂
8. Attend as many book signings as possible.
9. Read at least five books. I’m an incredibly slow reader and I get distracted easily so I think I’ll be lucky to get five but we’ll see.
10. Redecorate my room.

So there’s the beginning of my summer bucket list! What are some of the things on your summer bucket list? I’d love to hear about your plans.

Keep creating!

 

Writing Updates!

Hello everyone! When I last talked to you I told you that my first beta reader was reading my book. Since then, she has finished it and left hundreds of comments on it. I’ve gone through all her critiques and fixed things that I agreed with and things that I disagreed with but decided were probably a good change anyway. It was a difficult process but one that I feel has improved my book by leaps and bounds. After finishing with her suggestions, I went through and edited the entire thing again. It has now been sent back to her for a second read through and set the project aside for awhile in an attempt to distance myself from it. Hopefully that’ll make it easier to be more objective in my seventh draft.

Since putting it aside, I’ve been working on the second draft of my 2015 NaNoWriMo novel and writing the first draft of a cool new book that came into my mind sometime last month while re-watching Firefly. I decided that I wanted to create something that was like Firefly but with less sexual elements in it. The show would be 1,000,000x better without them in my opinion. And thus my #SpacePiratesStory (as I’ve been calling it on Twitter) was born! It has spaceships, bounty hunters, strange planets, and a bunch of amazingly cool explorers. Eeeeee! This project is so exciting! 😀

On top of all that, I will also be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this April! I’m really stressed out that it’s only two days away but I have an amazing cabin of nineteen members in total (including myself) so I’m sure I’ll be fine. I have so many incredible people supporting me this year. 🙂

Well, I think that’s all that’s been going on in my writing life of late. Are any of you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this April? Let me know in the comments section if you are! I’d love to talk about it. 🙂

Keep creating!

It’s Okay To Be Scared

I have some exciting news! I gave my book to someone for feedback. Before her, only my family and three of my closest friends had ever seen it. I have been working on the series for two years and have written three drafts of the first book. It had gotten to the point where I wasn’t sure how much more I could do without an outside opinion. So it basically came down to two options for me and the book: Let someone critique it or drop the project. And after two years I had become far too attached to the series to just give it up. So I decided to let someone read it. And I think the decision is going to better my book by leaps and bounds. It’s only been three days, and the amount of critique I’ve gotten already is way more than anyone has ever given me previously and it’s opened my eyes to a lot of mistakes that I hadn’t noticed before.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is to not let your fears get in the way of progress. Even if it’s just a couple baby steps at a time, keep moving forward. There was a point in time where I couldn’t even share a vague sentence from my book without panicking. But very slowly, I’ve been able to overcome my fears. I know I still have a long way to go, and that it’s taken me three years to get to this point but I did get here. And so can you. Just take it one step at a time. And remember, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to stumble. Just don’t let fear stop you from doing what you love most. Take a deep breath, get back up, and keep pushing through. 🙂

Because Feelings Matter Book Tag

I’ve been thinking about which topic I could talk about to ease myself back into this blogging thing and decided that a tag would be best. They’re so much fun! Hopefully you guys enjoy and can relate to some of my answers. 🙂

1. What book made you feel confident, either about yourself or your life

Definitely Divergent by Veronica Roth. This book guys… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say enough about it. It’s high time for a re-read because I haven’t read it in soooo long. But anyway! This book came to me at a difficult time in my life. It taught me how to be brave and how to fight, but also showed me that a person can be vulnerable and weak at the same time as being strong. It showed me that strength, bravery, and vulnerability go hand in hand. Out of all the books I’ve ever read (besides the Bible of course) Divergent has probably left the biggest impact on my life. It’s been an inspiration to me ever since I read it.

2. What book made you feel sympathetic or sympathize greatly with the characters

I would probably have to choose We Were Liars by e. Lockhart. I related to and felt for the main character Cadie. She was going through some difficult stuff and her feelings for Gat were incredibly relatable at the time. The summer I read that book was also the one where I developed one of my first real life crushes. Before that I had had crushes on celebrities and fictional characters but I hadn’t really had a real crush on someone I knew in real life. So I related a lot with Cadie’s feelings for Gat.

3. What book made you feel anxious

Probably Shatter Me by Taherah Mafi. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was brilliant and the characters were amazing but there were just a few content issues that made me feel uncomfortable and anxious while reading. I ended up putting it down before finishing because I couldn’t take the anxiety and discomfort it brought anymore.

4. What book made you feel annoyed

Does this mean annoyed with the book or annoyed with the characters in the book? Because The Fever Code had some really annoying villains that I wanted to punch in the face but I LOVE that book as a whole. And the villains weren’t annoying in a bad way, just in a ‘How could you do that?! You’re a terrible person and I hate you.’ kind of way. I can’t think of any books as a whole that annoyed me so I might have to take a raincheck on this question.

5. What was a book that made you feel disappointed

Okay, before I say this title please know that I absolutely LOVE this series and really liked this book. It was just the ending that was disappointing when I read it. And this book is The Death Cure by James Dashner. Without giving too much away, it introduced us to something new at the very end and then stopped. I mean, it was an okay ending but I wanted more. If a book is going to introduce a completely new element at the last minute they should explain more. It left me feeling kinda confused and in need of an explanation. But I guess that does capture the nature of the book. Everyone is always confused.

6. What book made you feel confused

Hahaha! I was just talking about confusion in the previous question! Yup, The Maze Runner. Because everyone’s always confused about everything in that book.

 

7. What book made you feel satisfied

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. That book is the cutest, lightest, most adorable piece of happiness that was ever published in the contemporary YA genre. It made me feel good the whole way through. It’s one of those books that makes you smile and sigh in contentment as you read the last line and close it gently. Maybe you’ll also do a little happy dance and give a squeal of excitement and pleasure as you do so.

8. What book made you feel like you could really relate to the main character

I said this earlier but I really related with Cadie from We Were Liars and I also related with Tris from Divergent. Tris has always been a kind of role model to me and I related with her and the things she was going through. I always felt a connection to her and Cadie’s character.

And now comes the time where I tag people! I tag:

Ana from Inkspot

Zac from Of Bleeding Pens & Pages

Angie from The Randomness of a Teenage Writer

EC from E.C. Reads

Jeneca from Jeneca Writes

Jameson from Lovely Whatsoevers

Libbey from The Comet, The Cosmos, and How to Survive It All

Nichole from The Jumping Bean

K.T. from K.T. Ivanrest

Olivia from Inkspots

Gabriela from A Heart Redeemed

Phew! I just realized how many of my friends have blogs! Of course, you guys don’t have to do this tag if it’s not something you’re interested in. I just thought I’d tag you in case you wanted to try it out as well! I’d love to see your posts! 😀

Hopefully I’ll be talking to you all again soon. Feel free to comment and let me know what your answers would be! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Keep creating!