A Book Review: It By Alexa Chung

Wow it’s been a while since I wrote my first and last book review. To be honest it’s not that surprising as I haven’t really finished reading a new book in a few months. I appear to go through periods of time where I find loads of books which I can then get through in a few days. Whereas I sometimes have months where I can’t find any books that I am interested in.

Also I’m one of those people who when I have some time to read but have nothing to actually read, I will go and flip through books that I’ve read in the past. My mum still doesn’t understand how I can read a book ten times in three months.

As well as reading a book over and over, I read books in hours, not weeks. But to do so, I actually need to enjoy that book. If I’m not enjoying the book I won’t even carry on reading it to see if half way through it gets exciting. So I either read a book in a day or I don’t read it at all. Of course there are exceptions to that though like when we are forced to read a book for our English class but I guess that is out of force not choice.

Anyway I have somehow written three paragraphs without even writing about what I set out to write about in the first place. Sorry.

For some time now I have really wanted to read 'It' by Alexa Chung. The name ‘Alexa Chung’ has been spoken here and there in my life but I wasn’t aware that she had a book until a few months ago.

It’s an autobiography. Until I received this book I had never completely finished reading an autobiography. All the autobiographies which I had been handed in my life, not many however, have never really captured my attention. For some reason though I was just interested in reading ‘It’.

I didn’t really have any expectations before I read it but when I pulled away some Christmas wrapping paper to reveal the book, I just really liked the size and layout of the book before I had even opened page one.

After I read it in a few hours (I know I should go slower, I’ve been told but it’s hard to break habits) after receiving it, I discovered it wasn’t like all the other autobiographies I have been handed in my life. It was something different.

It felt like I was seeing into someone else’s life. I know the word ‘autobiography’ suggests that it will be similar to that but I’ve found in the past that they’ve been about big things that that certain person has done in their life and I’ve been unable to understand or relate to any of their experiences. Alexa Chung talked about her childhood and the many people who have influenced her life. In some way I also began to think of who had influenced my life so far.

But overall I would say I enjoyed it. It was something different. If you aren’t into reading pages and pages of just words, it’s a book for you. Just about every two pages at least one photo is included.

I woke up this morning to a fine coat of snow covering everything. Unfortunately not enough to build a snowman but there was still snow! Wherever you are, have you had any snow in the last week?

A Week In January

 

It feels like it was Christmas a year ago. All the Christmas lights and tree decorations are long packed away. Shops are already getting out chocolate eggs on the shelves for Easter.

The day I came back to school I was thrown into a sea of revision. Luckily I was not thrown into the deep end. That's to come next year.

The day I finished my last GCSE mock this month I came home and watched Gilmore Girls on repeat with ice cream by my side. I was so knocked out that I didn't move for hours. I can't imagine how tired I am going to be when I do all my GCSEs next year. But this time was good practise.

I thought I would share with you what I have been up to in the last week as I haven't really uploaded anything like this before and as a reminder to myself that I haven't only been revising and doing homework in the last week.

So things from the last week:  

• If you've been around for a while then you will have noticed that in the last month I've been gradually changing my blog header. This week I finally found our watercolours and sat down to paint the last part of my header. I hope you like it! 
• During the coldest day this week, I was just in the mood for a costa creamy cooler. I did start to regret choosing it over a hot chocolate as it made me slightly colder but I did enjoy it.
• Snow fell for the first time in a very long time in my town which got everyone excited, including myself. But unfortunately it only lasted for a few hours.
• One of the day’s it was my Dad’s birthday and we decided to visit a local pub for lunch. Luckily they served my favourite pub meal, eggs, ham and chips!
• My close friend and I possibly ordered too much dominos but who can say no to such a good deal.

I hope you had a great week and next week is even better!

A Winter Walk

A few weeks ago one morning I woke up pretty early for me in my Winter Holidays: I think it was around ten o’clock… So early I know. For some reason the Christmas period made me really tired and I spent most of my time asleep wrapped up in blankets.

Anyway my Dad and I drove down to this river as he needed to collect something and I went as an excuse to take some photos of the frost. I don’t think I had seen the river as beautiful as it was then for a while.

The weather may have been below 0°C but it was worth it. I hope you enjoy the photos and don’t mind that this blogpost is more of a photo one rather than a wordy one. 

Another 365 Days

The numbers have changed again. Every year the digits change. Some feel the change. Some don’t. Some believe it to be a new start. Some carry on as normal. How do you feel?

I know I'm very late for this type of post. In the last two weeks my bloglovin feed has been full of posts about the new year. I felt that I had already done my bit for posts in terms of a new year as I uploaded The Last Six Months  and New Year Resolutions  in the week leading up to Christmas. But as I was reading everyone's posts I just felt like writing. It may not be much but here it is.

I started this year with a few of my closest friends and I never want to forget it. Just about every year since I was born I’ve done the same thing at New Year with family friends of mine. I’m not complaining, this year was just something different. A pretty good something different.

Unfortunately some of our closest friends weren’t able to make it but thanks to technology we were able to contact them. Hopefully next year we will be able to be all together.

I could keep going on and on but I should probably stop.

2014 has brought late nights flicking through revision textbooks, weekends catching up on sleep, closer friendships and more. There’s the good and the bad. And the bad makes you really appreciate the good. I don’t know about you but I think I need both the good and the bad in my life. I may not agree with that during the bad but after the bad it’s normally pretty good.

Thank you for reading this.