Top Ten Kick-Ass Heroines

If you haven't already, you need to watch the BAMF Girls Club




1. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games trilogy. If you looked up kick-ass in the dictionary, there'd be a picture of Katniss.

2. Lisbeth Salander from the Millenium trilogy. She may be socially inept, but she's intelligent, feisty and sure knows how to get revenge.

3. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.

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Mag Monday: Cleo November 2012

Cleo, November 2012




Hello, are we in 1995? Also: I can't stand Lara Bingle. Surprisingly I actually kinda like the cover.
I love the six-page feature on body image and Photoshop. It's a hot-button issue and magazines cop a lot of flak about it - in some cases, it's justified, but in many it's not. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what Photoshop is used for, especially here in

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Review: The Jelly Bean Crisis by Jolene Stockman

Story time! When I was at uni, I did a buttload of work experience to try and figure out what I wanted to do. The first time I stepped into a magazine office, it felt right. No, it felt amazing. You know what I did all week? Photocopied. Filed. Did some more photocopying. Transcribed an interview. More photocopying. More filing. When Friday came 'round and my week was over, the editorial

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Review: Preloved by Shirley Marr

 
First things first, I have to get some disclaimery stuff out of the way: I received a copy of Preloved from the author, because I won a competition to have a cameo in the book. BAM that's right I'm like totes famous.




The reason I'm mentioning this is not to brag (much), but so that I won't be accused of sekrit bias. Well, maybe I still will be, minus the sekrit part. But I promise I

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Bookish Buys: Halloween Puppehs

I was going to make this post about literary costumes in honour of Halloween, but then I thought - you know what would be more awesome/hilarious? DOGS IN COSTUMES. And here we are. The poor dogs - some of them look like they need a pint of dog beer after the trauma and humiliation of being forced to wear these things...



Harry Pawter from Gypsy Eyes Clothing



Thing One/Two from Little Dog

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Friday Link Dump: Mad Hatters, Fairy Tales and Ryan Gosling

This real-life Mad Hatter's tea party looks crazy fun. Hats! Stilts! Masks! Facepaint! TEA!

The Real Housewives of Westeros. YES.

A possible Twilight TV series? NO!

This is what would happen if fairy tale characters lived now... and were 20-something. Hilarious.

This girl has some of the most amazing (if completely impractical) pop culture-inspired nail art I've ever seen. I can't even

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Review: Forgotten by Cat Patrick

I've been wanting to read Forgotten for awhile. The idea of a girl whose memory reset every night so that she had no recollection of the past, yet could see the future, sounded kinda like 50 First Dates awesome. If I had've read it a year ago I might have really liked it. A year ago, I was much less jaded and much more forgiving of things like, say, love triangles and insta-love. But now? Now

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Top Ten Books To Get In The Halloween Spirit

We don't really celebrate Halloween here in Australia, but man I wish we did. It seems like such an AWESOME holiday. Dressing up and eating junk food? That's like the best combination ever. Still, there's no reason why I can't get into the spirit at home by dressing up and eating lollies watching scary movies (or just Hocus Pocus), and reading some Halloween-worthy books...




1. Carrie by

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Mag Monday: Cosmo and Frankie

Cosmopolitan, November 2012









I'm not a massive fan of Kim Kardashian, but I love this cover. Her face looks a bit weird but her body looks beautiful and I adore the swimsuit she's wearing. I also love the colour combination, it's fresh and fun. 
There's a timely, in-depth and sensitive feature on rape that reinforces the important truth that it's never the victim's fault, even though we

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Review: Pale by Chris Wooding

In Pale, people have the ability to come back from the dead using a special formula known as the Lazarus Serum. Problem is, it turns you into a "Pale" - your skin, hair and eyes go white, and you're shunned by society to the point that you're driven to slums on the edge of the city, unable to get or keep a job. It's even difficult for the kids to attend school, because bullies like our

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Review: Carrie by Stephen King

Carrie is an iconic horror story that just about everybody knows the ending to. I think even before I saw the movie as a teenager, I knew what happened - that image of a blood-drenched Sissy Spacek framed against a wall of fire is so pervasive in pop culture it's hard to escape that knowledge. So it's to Stephen King's credit that, even for a reader armed with an awareness of exactly what's

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Friday Link Dump: Game of Thrones Art, Literary Foods and Awkward Moments

 
This typographical Game of Thrones fan art is pretty awesomesauce. Speaking of Game of Thrones... can season three come out already?! I need me some Jon Snow action.

I don't know about you, but whenever I watch or read about a character eating something, it totally makes me want to eat it too (what, just me?). Luckily Quirk Books has compiled a list of some literary foods you can try in

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Bookish Buys: Out Of Print Clothing

I'm kind of in love with all of the products at Out of Print. They use iconic book covers to make really cool tees and stationery. PLUS for every product purchased, they donate a book to a community in need through their partnership with Books for Africa. Amazing! These are some of my fave items (a.k.a. WANTS!):



Pride and Prejudice journal




The Great Gatsby fleece




Jane Eyre tee

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Top Ten Contemporary YA Authors

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is a toughie for me because I'm not a big genre reader, but I have been gravitating towards contemporary YA a lot lately so I thought I'd list some of the awesome authors I've come across...



Sure, it may look completely random and irrelevant, but contemporary YA makes me happy and so does this gif. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.


1. Stephanie Perkins.

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Note-Worthy: The Silvey Experience

Warning: Excessive and incoherent fangirling ahead.




You guys, you guys. You guys. This week I met Craig Silvey. The person who created one of my favourite books of the year - nay, of all time.

When the lovely Eleanor Rigby alerted me to the fact that Craig Silvey would be in Sydney promoting his new novella The Amber Amulet this week, I literally squeeed out loud (squee-ed? Squeed? Whatever

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Review: The Boy Who Made It Rain By Brian Conaghan

The Boy Who Made It Rain begins in the aftermath of an unspecified tragedy at a school in Glasgow. As a number of students and teachers recount the events that led up to the incident, one student is revealed to be at the centre of the action: Clem, a transfer student from the South of England. He remains a mysterious and somewhat menacing figure as we get differing interpretations of his

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Friday Link Dump: Books About Books, Baby Animals and Judy Blume

Love books about books? Check out Flavorwire's recs.

Attention speshul snowflakes who can't handle a less than three star review: even the best get burned.

Want to know how to delight J.K. Rowling in a review and which book she keeps in her bathroom "for a giggle"? Read this awesome interview.

This bibliography-off between Judy Blume and Patton Oswalt is the reason why Twitter was invented.

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Bookish Buys: Nail Decals

I'm a bit obsessed with nail art lately. I've been collecting supplies like nuts - now I just have to actually, you know, do my nails...



Alphabet nail decals from Nail Days





Sweet Valley High decals from I Heart Nail Art





Frankenstein decals from Cha Cha Covers





Sherlock Holmes decals from Inspired Nails





Typography decals from Inspired Nails





Jane Austen decals from

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Top Ten Book Quotes

1. “I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories

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Mag Monday: Cleo and Vogue October Editions

Cleo, October 2012




I really don't like the cover. It looks like a pap shot, and Miranda isn't even looking at the camera. I also have zero interest in "friendship secrets from The Shire" and rolled my eyes at the "Fifty Shades of Grey sex challenge". Ugh.
I was surprised to see the 50 Shades feature on page 26 - the sexy stuff is usually towards the middle of the mag. Then I realised it

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Friday Link Dump: Banned Books, Cute Animals and Zac Efron

 
A very talented teenager created these cool covers for Hogwarts textbooks. Kids these days...

This collection of photographs of the real-life people who inspired famous literary characters is fascinating. My favourite is the "real" Dorian Gray. He is very pretty.

Read famous authors' responses to their books being banned. It will make you smile and/or clap.

Did you know you can get Game

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Bookish Buys: Happy Banned Books Week!

Tote from Ban Book Banners



Button from Point Blank Progressive



Tee from Bookmans



Tote from Bibliogifts



Tee from Admin



Tee from Stupid Lamb Designs 



Bracelet from ALA



Earrings from The Book Life



Earrings from Designs by Annette



Magnets by Tippy Tumble

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Top Ten: Books You Shouldn't Forget About

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, the topic is: Top Ten "Older" Books You Don't Want People To Forget About (you can define older however you wish. Basically just backlisted books you think are great. Basically the point is to share books that could be forgotten about in the midst of all the new releases).

This was a toughie, because I wasn't sure where to

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