Top Ten Tuesday - Fictional Crushes

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Here at We Live and Breathe Books, the bloggers rotate so that two of us choose five books each week. Since this week's topic is a freebie, we chose to do the topic...

Fictional crushes!

Marlon's Picks

1. LEO VALDEZ -- The Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan-- If I were sent to an abandoned, uncharted island (COUGH MOTHERFLIPPING COUGH COUGH, CALYPSO), I would take Leo Valdez with me and life would more or less be perfectly fine. Leo is funny and sassy and a bit timid but driven and caring and ugh I would marry the man for just his puns alone. It wasn't easy falling in love with Leo Valdez because at some point, I began to worry the character would be the goofy character trope, mauled and turned into some mature, tight, broken adult. I worried this mainly because the cast of HoO was getting pretty huge around Mark of Athena. But I was wrong. Leo's dynamic throughout the books, blossoming in his calm but passionate fire in the last book, is pretty swell.
2. Josephine Montiliyet -- Dragon Age: Inquisition -- I fell in love with the Dragon Age writing team the moment I stepped foot into their world, Thedas. Though Thedas is abundant in wonderful characters, there are few as just plain damn good as Josie. Whether she's telling you about her family's dark past or she's gossiping about the rest of your team, she's always respectful, always kind, and very easy to fall in love with over a longish period of time. Thing is, it's very easy to miss how much depth Josie has -- if you're not thorough, she's just the cool-sounding dude who tries to get people to not kill you as often as they want to and also dresses well. Thankfully, you can actually romance her in the game, and get to know the awesomeness. 
3. William Herondale -- The Infernal Devices Series by Cassandra Clare-- Will breaks my fragile little heart into pieces and then eats those pieces. He's broken and unhappy but fiercely loyal and protective of those he loves, though for most of his life (for spoilery reasons) he is unable to be around anyone he loves but his parabatai. HE'S HOT, TOO. Or at least, literally all the fan art tells me he's hot. What's not to love? Will destroyed me the first time I read The Infernal Devices. Totally wrecked me. But not in a bad way. Like with Josephine, I just wanted him to have a good life so godamn much because the world is falling apart and he is good. In addition, he loves A Tale of Two Cities. This is my favorite piece of literature. Also his mouth is my favorite piece of literature. He's hilarious. Rest in beautiful hell, Will.
4. TOPH BEI FONG -- Avatar: The Last Airbender -- TOPH FOREVER. Okay so when I was like 13, Toph was my frigging hero. I looked up to her and in that process of watching her grow from the angry little girl trying to get away from her parents to the grumpy earthbending master, I fell in love. Toph is not easy to love, as I'm sure her (probably) many lovers found out, because she will eat you up and spit you out and then earthbend you to the moon and maybe blow it up. She'll do that. Toph is great. I love Toph. Nothing needs to be said.
5. Avatar Korra -- The Legend of Korra -- On the topic of awesome Avatar girls (every Avatar girl, obviously), there's Korra. My god. Watching Korra grow as a person throughout the four chapters of life tore me up. She begins just monstrously energetic and fascinated with the world and afraid of nothing and she is the bomb. Literally. She is a firebender at heart -- whenever she feels any emotions, any at all, she explodes. But Korra grows as the world teaches her fear and she is slowly broken by it. However, Korra's willingness to never let herself down completely and to seek help wherever she goes, even from those who have harmed her. . . that won me over. Also she's a cute little baby in the spirit world and yes. Also she's super strong and my god that bod hello. 

Amrutha's Picks

1. William freakin' Darcy -- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen -- THIS WAS THE FIRST (well, most important first) FICTIONAL LOVE OF MY LIFE -- Ever since I read the baby version of Pride and Prejudice, I have been in love with Darcy's pride, personal growth, and genuine care for others. It was Darcy that opened me up to the possibility of falling in love with a fictional character. 
2. James Potter -- The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling -- First of all, I understand James was made for Lily. Second of all, I know that there isn't that much information provided about him in the series. But in a way, the description of him making fun of some guy and then maturing into an adult and all the fanfiction about how him and Lily got together just prompted me to believe that James was the true love of my life. I mean, Ron and Draco both get their love from me too, but James is incredibly idealized to me.
3. Iggy (James Griffiths) -- The Maximum Ride Series by James Patterson -- While Iggy wasn't dark and brooding and in need of help, he provided a lovely sense of light to a series that once soared and then fell into an abyss of terrible. He is adorable and sturdy and can cook and has a hilarious sense of humor. Also he can fly and that's pretty damn rad. 
4. Gilbert Blythe -- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery -- Good god this man is perfect. He literally would have the ability to sweep a wall of it's feet. He's smart and charming and caring and kind and also really handsome and dashing and think of any positive word and it probably applies to this man. Yes on every level.
5. Jack Connelly -- Shug by Jenny Han -- This kid is 12, but that being said, when I was 12, and the 12 year old me that exists within me and in a parallel universe all love Jack. He's the boy that made fun of you or pulled your hair but had your back when you need it, and I really wish there would be a sequel to Shug just for Jack. 

Who are your fictional crushes?

Let us know in the comments!

Bollywood Blitz + Giveaway: Third Daughter - Susan Kaye Quinn + A Bollywood Affair - Sonali Dev

Romance and Intrigue: Bollywood Style Giveaway

Something Bollywood Going On Here

Sonali Dev and Susan Kaye Quinn met in a most unusual place: Library Journal's Top 10 E-Romance List for 2014. Sonali's A Bollywood Affair and Susan's Third Daughter both made the list with their Bollywood-themed romances - something that was so cool, it cried out to be celebrated!

Scroll down to win some great Bollywood-themed prizes!

Contemporary and Steampunk Bollywood Romance

A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev

Mili Rathod hasn't seen her husband in twenty years, not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be, if her husband would just come and claim her.

Bollywood's favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naive village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir's tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she's trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Miliís life, cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate's elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie.

Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs #1) by Susan Kaye Quinn

The Third Daughter of the Queen wants to her birthday to arrive so she'll be free to marry for love, but rumors of a new flying weapon may force her to accept a barbarian prince's proposal for a peace-brokering marriage. Desperate to marry the charming courtesan she loves, Aniri agrees to the prince's proposal as a subterfuge in order to spy on him, find the weapon, and hopefully avoid both war and an arranged marriage to a man she does not love.

Third Daughter is the first book in the Dharian Affairs Trilogy (Third Daughter, Second Daughter, First Daughter). This steampunk-goes-to-Bollywood (Bollypunk!) romance takes place in an east-indian-flavored alternate world filled with skyships, saber duels, and lots of royal intrigue. And, of course, kissing.

~*~

Romance and Intrigue: Bollywood Style

This short Q&A with Sonali and Susan talks about marrying for love and writing romance!


Q: Marrying for love is a modern, and in some ways Western, concept, but arranged marriages have a long and complicated history. How does your novel tackle the subject of arranged marriage?
Sue: Third Daughter is set in a fantasy world, but itís a blend of cultures in the real one, including being an analog to India (both current day and some of the past). In the Dharian Affairs world, royal marriages have a history of being arranged for political purposes, but the general population of the countries marry for love. This leaves the titular Daughters with varying conflicts between marrying for duty and marrying for love - some embracing their arranged marriages, some fighting against it. The marriage dynamics of the three daughters in the trilogy (Third Daughter, Second Daughter, First Daughter) drive much of the story - along with political intrigue and skyships, of course!
Sonali: In India where I grew up arranged marriages are still very much a part of the fabric of the culture. Having said that, one of the most interesting and unique things about Indian society is how diverse it is within itself. While you still have communities and families who will give the marrying person absolutely no say in whom they marry there are those who don't believe their parents and families have any say when it comes to whom they choose to marry or live with, and then there is the rest of the sizable population who falls somewhere between those two belief systems. In A Bollywood Affair, Mili is from a tiny village from a very orthodox family and it is perfectly natural that her family would arrange her marriage. She would expect that. It wouldn't even strike a girl from her background that she could choose for herself. The age at which she was married isn't usual, though, but there is a reason why her grandmother gets her married that young. As for her being in love with her husband, again, the conditioning to be devoted to your husband is so ingrained in the culture that it would be strange if someone like Mili didn't love someone she believed was her husband.

Q: Whether set in a fantasy world or the modern one, romance is romance! There are many romance tropes - star-crossed lovers, lovers thrown together by circumstance, enemies turned lovers - what kind(s) of romance tropes does your novel contain?
Sue: My books are really a blend of romance and adventure, although the first book is a classic lovers thrown together by circumstance as Aniri (the Third Daughter) goes undercover in accepting a marriage proposal from the barbarian prince in the north in order to spy on him and determine if his country truly has the rumored flying machine that would upend the political dynamics in both their countries.
Sonali: Although I didn't set out to write it that way, several readers have pointed out that A Bollywood Affair is a Worldly Rake and an Ingenue Virgin trope. And now that I think about it, there's truth to that.

Q: Are you planning on writing more romances in this story-world? If so, tell us about it!
Sue: The Dharian Affairs trilogy is complete, but I've enjoyed writing in this east-Indian steampunk fantasy romance world so much, I've decided to do a follow-on trilogy from the point of view of a new character, a female tinker who has a grand invention that may change the world, but also is caught between the spy she might love and the spy she can't resist. Those books likely won't be written for a year or two, but I will cycle back to writing in this world in the future!
Sonali: The Bollywood Bride comes out next year and it's the story of a Bollywood star who comes home to Chicago after ten years to escape a scandal in Mumbai and comes face to face with the man she betrayed for stardom. And then there are two more stories I'm working on in the same series. Which isn't a series in terms of continuity or overlapping characters but because the stories are set in the same world and either the hero or the heroine work in Bollywood.

~*~

WIN BOLLYWOOD PRIZES

Paperback of Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs #1)

The Dharian Affairs Trilogy in Ebook

2 Paperback copies of A Bollywood Affair 

Handwoven Pashmina shawl from India

Sticker Henna Tattoos

Indian bangles (bracelets)

(all physical prizes are US ONLY; ebook is INTERNATIONAL)

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Review: Stitching Snow - R.C. Lewis

Stitching Snow
R.C. Lewis 
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance, Retelling, Dystopian
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Thanks to Disney-Hyperion for the eARC I received via Netgalley!

Stitching Snow was a very slow start for me. At the beginning of the story, Essie lives in a mining settlement where she cage fights for money and tinkers away at her robot friends in her spare time. Everything changes when a mysterious ship crashes near the settlement and she meets Dane, helping him to repair his ship. There's nothing inherently wrong with the beginning of the story; however, I felt as though too much emphasis was placed on Essie fixing things (stitching, as she calls it). So Essie stitched this bot, then Essie stitched the ship, then Essie stitched this other part of the ship, and so on. Meanwhile, I felt little to no attachment to any of these characters and I had no idea how this was a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Fortunately, once the plot progresses past all this stitching, some more exciting and interesting plot things happen, bringing us to different places with different characters and a few things start to look like Snow White. There was still a lot of talk about stitching but she does a lot of stitching so it's not like it could be omitted entirely. At this point, I still really wanted more character development. In fact, up until about 80% through the book, I wasn't attached to the characters. One thing I really look for in a book is characters I care about so that definitely took away from my overall enjoyment. There were a lot of things happening to these characters throughout the entire book but a lot of their actions seemed rather flat an unmotivated.

With that being said, I did enjoy the last 20-25% of the book. Once I started caring about these characters and seeing a more interesting (in my opinion) plot unravel, I really started getting into it. Even though the characters were a bit mundane, I was invested in what they were doing and the outcome of the story.

R.C. Lewis clearly has potential and I think that her future work, based on the end of this book, could be really great and exciting. Unfortunately, with only about a quarter of this book being great, it earns 2.5 stars from me. The plot of Stitching Snow was interesting enough, with a very different twist on Snow White, but I wanted more in terms of character development. Overall, it was a decent story and I hope to see more from R.C. Lewis in the future.

- Kiersten

Do you like fairy tale retellings?
Let us know in the comments!

Life of a Blogger - Bad Habits

Life of a Blogger is a weekly meme hosted by Novel Heartbeat. This feature is designed to let readers and other bloggers get to know us on a more personal level by discussing non-bookish topics. This week's topic is...

Bad habits!

 Kiersten

I feel like I have a lot of bad habits that technically aren't that bad but are still pretty bad in some ways (although they can sometimes be infrequent and erratic).

One bad habit I started a few years ago and now only relapse into every once in a while is cracking my knuckles. Knuckle cracking is SO BAD for your joints! I used to do this regularly but now I only find myself doing it randomly every once in a while. Arthritis sucks so I'm trying to avoid that.

A bad habit I've recently picked up, somewhat out of stress, is biting my nails. Oh, my poor nails. The problem with my nails is that they always get snagged on something then start to break. I always get irritated when my nails are uneven because then they just keep getting stuck on everything! I always try to combat that by biting them even but it only seems to make the matter worse. Maybe someday I'll learn to carry a nail care kit with me.

This is a life long bad habit: pressing snooze on the alarm clock. I simply do not want to get out of bed at my first alarm. I actually start my alarm earlier so that I still get up when I need to because I know I'll want to snooze. That is honestly just sad and probably worse for your sleep cycle. I have been trying to actually wake up on my first alarm but since I'm usually sleep deprived at school, it's hard to break the habit.

By far my worse habit is my procrastinating. I like to sit around and read or scroll through the same posts on Facebook for hours. I also like to sleep. Sometimes I've found that I spend more time putting things off than it actually takes to do them. I'd like to say I'll stop procrastinating but I kind of feel like it's part of my personality and would be very painful to stop. I am trying to procrastinate less though!

 Marlon

*Cracks knuckles*
Ahem.

I'll start at the top: I procrastinate to absurd levels. For everything. Is a paper due in three months? I know I could do it now . . . or . . . I could wait until the night before, research it, and then write it the morning of. It has gotten to the point that I sometimes procrastinate reading books or watching TV shows by reading less stressful books or watching less stressful TV shows. I.E., when the new season of Game of Thrones comes on I will probably be watching some trashy Big Bang Theory episodes to cope.

I pretty much don't sleep. Case in point: it's 4am right now. Except this is a lie. I do sleep . . . but I sleep like all college kids. Sometimes, for twelve hours, sometimes for three.

Sometimes I will eat upwards of five thousand calories a day, sometimes I will drink a glass of water. It all depends on if I have remembered to eat.

I don't know what inside voices, pants, cleaning my room, or "going to bed" have to do with being a respectable person.

I make jokes out of bad situations because I am bad with bad situations.

I leave my toothbrush on the bathroom counter.

I'm exceptionally lazy. Beyond lazy. Very lazy. Can't finish this sentence lazy . . .can't finish this list lazy . . .

 Noor

Most of the habits I have are bad. I'm sorry. I never said I was a decent person.

One of my worst habits is my sleeping pattern, or lack thereof. It's winter break and my friends are making statements like "Wow it's going to be rough transitioning back to school after staying up until 2/3 every night." and "I cant believe I slept until noon." Meanwhile, I'm averaging a 7 AM to 3PM sleep schedule. And on the days I have plans (which for some reason ends up being a lot of them even though I don't even have friends??????) I don't even get to sleep until 3 because my friends want me to meet up at like, 2. Which means getting getting ready at 1. Which means setting an alarm for 12 to mentally prepare myself to wake up at my 12:30 alarm and shower. And also a 12:15 and 12:45 and 1:00 and 1:15 alarm just in case. And then imagine when my friends want to hang out at 1. I have to shift the process back an hour. Life is so rough, man. And when I'm in school, I sleep at 5 instead of 7. Which was fine when I had 11 AM classes every day (lol as if I slept better in high school when I had to wake up early) but now that I have a 9:30 AM twice a week and a 9:00 AM it'll be slightly worse. I might just forgo sleep and do it when I come back from class. We'll see.

Another really bad habit I have is not eating regularly. I don't do it on purpose but sometimes I'll just be chilling and look at the time and oops I haven't eaten in 30 hours. Once upon a recent times it was pretty bad, but recently it's been better, so I won't go more than a whole day without eating usually and it'll be around one or two meals a day (I mean, I don't consider two meals a day irregular, like I don't think the day is long enough to fit three entire meals in so if I eat two then it's all good, but a lot of the time I'll just eat one which is probably not good or I'll just drink something in the afternoon/eat something very small which isn't a full meal). But yeah I think a lot of it is that I live at school and so I have to physically go to the dining hall to eat and it's not even about laziness but about the fact that I'm not thinking about it so like since the food isn't in front of me I won't think about it and even though my friends usually do send the "food?" group text, usually there a bunch of those periodically since everyone has different class times and hunger times so I'm usually like "I'll eat later" (or in class) and then I just don't. I don't know, it happens. I guess the eating once a day thing isn't really the healthiest and I'm trying to stick to two food things a day so my metabolism doesn't slow down and I don't gain weight but I'm home for winter break and I wake up so late that it's dinner time so I'll see how that goes.

A habit I've carried with me throughout my school years that's gotten waaaay worse in college that Kiersten also had on her list is procrastination. In high school I'd just put things off until the night before. Senior year of high school, I started putting them off until the morning of. In college though, my procrastination game is off the charts. I've started just not starting things and not giving a glying fladoodle about the fact, not even pretending to open a word document. 1500 word paper due at 11:00 AM? Ill just start it at 9:00 AM, it'll be totally fine. Or 9:30. Maybe 10:00. Professors need to stop giving me good grades on these assignments so I'll start doing them earlier and my writing will be...writier. Wow I'm totally a Journalism major with total great command of the English language. My efforts to avoid doing assignments have reached such great heights that to even write of them gives me anxiety remembering the situations. Just ask anyone that's spent any time in my vicinity though and they'll tell you of how much of my own worst enemy I am, though.

Kiersten also mentioned this one (as will Amrutha) and it's nail biting! I bite my nails without realizing it and the most annoying part for me is that when they grow out, the grow out unevenly so my nail shape is just ugly and then I don't like the way they look so I cut them and I never have long nails but I never have long nails anyway because I bite them so it's a vicious cycle. I doubt I'll ever stop to be honest.

I feel like my section is getting really long but I just have so many things wrong with me. I also never wear my glasses. To be fair, my vision isn't actually that bad. I think my prescription is a -1.25 in one eye and a -1.00 in the other. So I can totally see fine. I mean, I also think my prescription isn't entirely accurate and might need to be stronger but I also think whatever it is still isn't that bad anyway. And I really don't like the way I look in glasses and before you mention contacts, I tried those when I was 14 and while they were fine, it was too much hassle for someone whose eyes aren't that bad and doesn't wear glasses all the time anyway. Even though I'm supposed to wear them all the time, which is why it counts as a bad habit. I used to keep them in the car when I could drive because on my license it says I have to wear them while driving (I don't) so I figured if I ever got pulled over I'd put them on, but now I'm epileptic and can't drive so that's not an issue for me. I wear them occasionally in classes or while watching movies or very seldom TV, if I have a headache, but other than that I try not to let them harsh my vibes.

Okay, this is going to be my last one, even though I could probably go on forever, and props to you if you've read all of these because I ramble a lot. This last bad habit is being inconsistent with my medication and is probably the worst technically speaking. I take epilepsy medication and I'm supposed to take it at 11:00 PM every night but a lot of the time I'm just not in my room or not home or I just forget so I end up taking it really late so the times I take it will be inconsistent and there have definitely been a few times I've forgotten to take it altogether, usually after a very tiring night. This contributes to migraines and seizures and also various other things I won't get into right now because my section is already way too long but it's generally not a fun time so it's important I'm on track with the medication. Usually I'm alright with it, but I just have to work on making sure I take everything on time and on a daily basis, which I'm trying to be better with!

 Amrutha

Do I have any habits that are even a little okay?

One of my worst habits is biting my nails, which I have been doing since I've had teeth. For some reason, I've never been able to break it, and I've tried everything. Because its a nervous habit, I never notice when I'm doing it, unless someone points it out to me. It's really sad that I bite my nails so often especially because I have literally the shortest nails out of anyone I know.

Another bad habit I have is that I have a terrible sleeping pattern, in that sometimes I'll sleep late and wake up early and sometimes I'll just sleep for like 14 hours and there really is no solid in between. Another problem is that I wake up every couple of hours and go back to sleep instinctively and I can't seem to break it.

What are some of your bad habits?

Let us know in the comments!

Waiting on Wednesday: Vanishing Girls - Lauren Oliver

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver!

Vanishing Girls 
Lauren Oliver
Release Date: March 10th, 2015
Publisher: HarperCollins
Waited on by: Noor

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident. 

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late. 

In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

I really enjoy Lauren Oliver and I've read her Delirium trilogy as well as Before I Fall and while on occasion I have had a few bones to pick with the works (which I won't mention here,  you can find those in the full length reviews) I generally love her ingenuity as an author and with her plots and I think her books are worth reading so I am very excited for Vanishing Girls and I know she has something very exciting up her sleeves!

- Noor

What are YOU waiting on?

Let us know in the comments!