Reading Challenge 2015 - The Scorch Trails + The Death Cure

The Scorch Trails + The Death Cure by James Dashner

I finally finished this series! I read the last instalment whilst on holiday in France about 2 weeks ago so I'm a little fuzzy on the details of The Scorch Trails. Overall I thought the series was great, though at points a little heartbreaking. Chapter 55 of The Death Cure, anyone? I was a mess.

The whole story was really fast paced, I couldn't put it down. I was also satisfied with the ending. There's always a risk with ending a series. As a reader there's always an ending you predict in your head and the strong likelihood that it just won't happen that way. I'm not sure how I wanted it to end, but I guess I was okay with all that happened.

Now I guess I'll just wait until the next film is out and wonder how the hell they're going to translate it all into something!

So that's me ticking off the trilogy on the reading list which I posted here. I'm already halfway through my next book! This one's a play.

Reading Challenge 2015 - The Maze Runner

WARNING - Will probably contain some spoilers.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

First book of the year completed! I read this whilst in Inverness last week and couldn't put it down. I must admit that I only wanted to read this series because I watched the movie. Although I greatly enjoyed the film version, as always the book was far better.
I don't want to write a comparison of the book to film, but I will say that it lacked a lot of the tension that I felt the book had. Whilst reading I was constantly fearing for Thomas's well being. The other characters have such aggression towards each other and are unpredictable in their actions, as apposed to the somewhat quick acceptance that seems to happen in the film. I understand that films have to condense what is days of character development in a book, down to an hours worth of something in a movie, but I still felt it all came a bit too easy.
There were also a few major changes that I didn't understand. The main one being the lack of telepathic communication between Thomas and Teresa. Why did they leave that out?!
I actually really enjoyed that secret bond that they had in the book and I think it helped flesh out her character a lot more. In the end I really liked Teresa.
Movie now aside what I most enjoyed about this book was, like always with me, the characters. What really draws me into a story is the characters and The Maze Runner did a good job of making me both hate and love certain people. Every moment with Gally had me wanting to slap him silly, and every time Newt panicked, or Minho spoke up I was instantly interested. The final scene with Chuck made me an emotional mess.
The story overall was pretty interesting. I'm really intrigued to know the full extent of what is going on outside the maze. It must be pretty tragic that it can force humanity to have to experiment on children in order to make a change. Even at worst I'm not sure such an act could be the best solution. The mental strain these children go through is horrific. However, as with all good stories it ends with you understanding less about whats going on and curious about what could possibly come next after such a roller coaster of a story.
Although I thought this book would most probably be aimed towards a teenage audience, and don't get me wrong it kind of is, I still really enjoyed it. I've started on the second already and was a bit disturbed by whats happened within the first few chapters of that!
Everybody's opinion is obviously different dependant on what you like to read. If you like a bit of sci-fi, and a bit of action and intrigue then this is probably the book for you. Is pretty easy to read as well.

Review over. I could say so much more but I'm not great at reviewing literature, being a pretty bad writer myself. Grammar? Pah.

I'm including this in my challenge under the trilogy, so I still have the other two to read before I can safely tick that off. I'm aware this series has a prequel book, but for the sake of this challenge I'm only going to count The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trails and The Death Cure.

Wales - Nadolig Llawen!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry it's so late, I've been wandering from Wales to Edinburgh and finally Inverness over the holidays. It feels so good to finally have a weekend where I do absolutely nothing and get the chance to be in my own head for a bit. I don't know about anyone else, but I need an occasional day where I talk to no one. 

I always feel most at home at Christmas when I'm in Wales. Which makes no sense really as it isn't my home. Hazel and G's little house fully packed with family, squishing up together to watch the TV, the single bed I get assigned with an electric blanket, G and I sitting in silence reading our books and crowding round the dining table to eat. Hazel always over buys food and we're offered something to eat every hour. It's probably very similar to most peoples Christmas, but non the less I love all those little things that make the day. 

We are now well on our way into 2015 so talking about Christmas is now a bit outdated I suppose, but I never got a chance to post some of my favourite moments of Christmas 2014. So here I go! 

We left at 4am in the morning of the 24th, arriving at about lunch in Carmarthen. I went to visit some friends in the pub the night before in my home town so I hadn't slept much. I went for a much needed nap as soon as we arrived, waking up fresh as a daisy at about three for a shower and some food. Anyways, I won't go into an hour by hour recount of the day. 

Needless to say, everyone woke up on the day bright and early and some went for a walk. Presents were given, and we had some tea and toast whilst the dinner was made. 

We were down until the 28th, so Christmas day aside there were a few walks, a trip to the pub to see friends and a bit of shopping on Saturday. It was on Saturday that I purchased my yellow Seasalt wellies. I am in love with these wellies. (photos in next post) 

We also visited a gorgeous little vintage shop that sells everything. It's when I'm in shops like that, that I wish I owned my own house and had the money to buy furniture and decorate. Such beautiful things. 

Anyways, time for a few photos, most of which were from that little shop. 

 

We drove back early in the morning again. It was a lovely cold misty day and I took a few photos from the car window.
All in all, a very enjoyable Christmas.

2015 Reading Challenge.

I've never done a reading challenge before. I read a lot already so I've never needed the encouragement really. However, at the moment I'm struggling to try new things and instead keep going back to my old favourites.
So next year I'm going to be trying out Popsugar's 2015 Reading Challenge. I saw this online and after reading through the list decided it seems pretty exciting.
I'll tick them off as I go and post a small review on here!

I already have my trilogy sorted. I recently bought the Maze Runner series to read after watching the movie. 

If you want to keep up with what I'm reading I've just joined Goodreads! Feel free to add me on there! 

See you in the New Year!

Simple Sundays - Early Mornings, Baking and a Bike Ride.

My parents left this morning! Bright and early at 9am.
This of course meant I myself was up at eight and I'm paying for it this evening. I was so close to having an afternoon nap but managed to pull through. Life is so hard, right? ha.

I bought a bike a while ago so that travelling to and from work at night became less of a scary-wander -down-back-alleys-waiting-for-something-to-jump-out-at-me ordeal. Today I eventually got round to getting a helmet and light so I'm safe and visible whilst out. Don't want any stray cars hitting me as I'm riding about!
I did a practice run to and from work this morning. I have a route I'm used to already, but that path isn't very accessible via bike. Most of it was downhill on the way TO the office. The way back is as you would imagine, very uphill. I struggled.

I always love days when I actually wake up early and get out of the house to do something, but those don't seem to happen very often when it's not a week day. I feel like I've gotten so much done and it's only 6pm. I'll be ready for bed in a bit!
After fighting the urge to sleep I made some puff pastry bites with my own tomato relish, avocado, bacon and mozzarella. They were actually fab and I'll post a recipe up at some point. Such an easy snack to make.
And because I'm prone to something sweet along with my savoury, I made cupcakes. They look at bit grey in the photos but they're actually a lovely shade of pastel purple. They taste pretty fab too.

Now what do I do with my Sunday evening? I'm tired but not ready for bed. I'm not hungry but I have a mound of cupcakes to eat. And for the first time in forever I'm pretty much all caught up on my tv!
Might be best to just call it a day and watch a movie in bed.

Hope y'all have had a nice pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Mitchell, St Andrews - The Parentals are visiting!

My stepfather has never been to my flat before, and I've been in the same place for over a year now. They both drove up in the morning, had a cup of tea and then we jetted of for a walk around St Andrews.
I think overall St Andrews is a nicer place to stroll through compared to Dundee. It's a much more quaint town and it doesn't seem to be overrun with huge chain shops yet, which is a nice change to the city centre here.
We stopped for lunch at a place called Mitchell. This place just screams comfort from the outside. They had bags of fresh veg sitting outside and a deli up front with cheese, wine, meat, jams, chutneys, you name it! That's my personal idea of heaven. Inside had a rustic vibe with good basic food that was more about the produce than the complexity. Think anti pasti and big sandwiches.
I ordered a typical ploughman's with smoked ham, cheese and chutney. My mum had a classic breaded fish and chips and Steve pesto chicken. He had to avoid the gluten.
Afterwards we had a massive binge in the deli. I bought some pate, turkish delight, christmas coffee and stroopwaffels. My mum bought similar, but with a mulled cider spices for next weekend.

 I also had a hot chocolate as thats my go to drink when out for lunch. Mitchell luxury hot chocolate does not disappoint. I nearly died.

My 'haul' :

We headed back to the flat in the afternoon to watch the rugby, then went back out again for some dinner at Rishi's.
Rishi's is a new indian restaurant that has opened near me quite recently. They served the best pakora I've ever tried. Apart from that I spent the majority of the meal trying to work out what kind of fish was in my curry. Turns out it was kingfish so that was a new one for me!

Hope everyone else had a foodtastic weekend. I'm off to bake!

Simple Sundays - Puddings, Sorting and Furry Knuckles.

Don't you just love productive days?
I woke up with every intention of having a lazy day. I wanted to lie on the sofa, maybe play Mario and catch up with some TV. In the end I sorted out my entire wardrobe. I've found that most of my clothes are sitting untouched now because it's been too cold, so it was nice to swap out all my flouncy shirts for cosy jumpers. Bring on the maroons, navy blues, mustard yellows and evergreens.

I also made a Jossy's Lemon Pudding Delicious from the Leon Baking & Puddings book. This recipe is beyond tasty. I cannot put into words how tasty this recipe is. Light and airy but soft and sticky underneath. The recipe calls to put the soufflé dish in a tray of water whilst in the oven. I've never tried a recipe that does that before, so I was a bit wary. I found it hard to stop eating it though, so I think it turned out great!

This weeks purchase included jewellery. For anyone that knows me well, I don't wear jewellery.  That's not to say I don't like it, just that I get fed up of wearing it very easily. I really loved this though after seeing it on Etsy. Also, how weird does my hand and arms look in that photo?

And that's all for this Sunday. It's been a fairly uneventful week, but I suppose that happens every now and again.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend!