Review: Hopeless

Posted in Entertainment by

I’m not trying to sound like a broken record a la the last book review I did, but I finally got around to finishing this wonderful novel that I had been in the middle of for a good month. Now that this novel is finished, I’ve realised that I need to do some serious book shopping!

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Hopeless by Colleen Hoover details the life of 17-year-old Sky, an extremely sheltered young girl whose life is turned upside down when she meets Dean Holder, the resident bad boy with a bad reputation to match her, to be frank, slutty reputation… despite not being a slut.

This novel starts out pretty cruisy, until you get to the middle-ish of the novel where:

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Never in my 21 years of reading novels have I read a book that escalated as quickly as Hopeless. What seemingly starts off as a typical teenage romance novel turned upside down on its head and did a Booker T spinaroonie because the drama that followed was so… dramatic. Without revealing too much, the drama was so good.

The storyline was so predictable that it was unpredictable, if that makes sense. I read it thinking “Oh yeah, and now this is going to happen and this is going to happen” and while some of my predictions were correct, most of them were so wrong that I felt the need to say sorry to Colleen Hoover. Colleen, if you’re reading this, please forgive me for doubting your excellent storyline abilities. The characters personalities were expressed well in the novel through the use of descriptive writing and the image of Dean Holder was clear in my head. COUGH Steve Grand.

The relationship between Sky and Dean was cute, albeit a bit clichè. Two unusually attractive teenagers with troubled pasts fall for each other and are completely in love after a month or two of being completely inseparable. Sky was a hit-or-miss with me; she was either really annoying and “Wah feel sorry for me” one minute and next, she was this funny, sassy spitfire who I found myself to really like. Dean Holder was perfect… almost too perfect. He was so swoon-worthy that I didn’t feel the need to swoon. He had his shining moments just like Sky, though, so I will praise him as a character.

Colleen Hoover’s use of language in this book was almost flawless. The action in the novel was impeccable and the use of imagery and other descriptions painted a clear picture in my head as I read this novel. I can no doubt see why this novel is so acclaimed and why it’s a New York Times bestseller – the author is great and the story is even better. The fact that nearly all the loose ends in this novel were tied together in a nifty little bow by the end of the story demands a round of applause for Hoover who really, in my sweet and humble opinion, knocked this one out of the park.

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Storyline: 9.0/10
Style of writing: 8.6/10
Overall: 8.8/10

I can guarantee you, whether you’re a romance reader or not, that this is definitely a must read. I was so wowed with the entire novel as a whole that I don’t know what to do with my life now that I’ve finished it. I can also guarantee you that you will not want to put this book back down once you’ve gotten into it. It is that damn good.

– by The Black Widow

Bucking the Block

Posted in Lifestyle by

It’s finally time for me to admit it- Guys, I have Writer’s Block, an illness that is easily as serious and debilitating as the Man Flu or the Clone-Killing Nanovirus. Scratch that. This is way more serious.

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In an effort to cure myself of this crippling ailment, I’ve spent the last month trawling the internet, reading as much as possible; everything from books and newspapers to the ingredients on the back of shampoo bottles in my shower (I don’t know what Methylisothiazolinone or chloromethylisothiazolinone are exactly, but apparently they’re bad for skin, or the ozone layer or something). I also spent a disgusting amount of time reading other people’s blogs, obnoxiously long Facebook statuses and tweets and in doing that discovered something: Writing is a lot like running.

The Tweeters of the world are sprinters: they cover a very short distance in a really quick time. Unlike those of us who tend to ramble on a bit, they have to get their point across in just 140 characters, including beginning, middle and end.

Then  there are the Facebook Fanatics who answer ‘What’s on your mind?’ with not just one, but every single thought they had that day. These are the literary hurdlers – longer distances, more of a challenge and more pressure to make their words interesting without being boring or repetitive.

Then there’s us, the bloggers who devote entire days to writing lengthy, somewhat sassy posts about everything from split-legged jeans to the state of Australian politics. We are the marathon runners. The mentally-fit and fabulous distance writers who take a while to get to the finish line, but make the read worth-while (if I may say so myself).

And these people are the triathletes that make the rest of us look lazy…

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I am hoping now that, having spent January wallowing in self pity, I am fully recovered and back in the writing game. Keep your fingers crossed for me though, guys. The last thing any of us want is a relapse!

– by Blaire Gillies (God it’s good to be writing that again. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of crossing the finish line!)

Happy Straya Day mate!

Posted in Lifestyle by

I know our beloved country day is wrapping up but I still thought I’d get in and wish everyone on behalf of Solstice Satisfaction a solid Australia Day, even if you live in another country.

As SolSat is based in Australia and the team are located in different cities, I can happily say that we are the fortunate ones who get to live in this wonderful country where you can say what you want, believe what you want and so on and so forth. Unless you’re calling a cop “a pig”. That is an arrestable offence.

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I sincerely hope you all had a beer or two, put on your best green and gold outfits – or red, white and blue outfits, as it were – and spent the day with loved ones. Just as a quick reminder to some who may have forgotten, here are some of the best things about being Australian:

What are some of the best things about being Australian…

[x] We are generally stereotyped as one of the most calm, collected and laidback cultures in the world. Why? Because we’re awesome, obviously.
[x] We have our own cool way of speaking English, called speaking “Strayan”. If you need a refresher on how to speak Strayan, we’ve got you covered.
[x] In Australia, we call mates “c-word that rhymes with punt” and we call c-word that rhymes with punts “mate”. Who else is cool enough to do that?
[x] Sprinting in thongs. If you can’t do it, you’re not Australian.
[x] We know that you do not actually cook shrimp on the barbie.
[x] Going to the shops in a daggy tank top, footy shorts and thongs, and it is completely socially acceptable.

Now to end this quick post, here are some of the few awesome Australia Day pictures I found on my Facebook timeline.

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Happy Straya Day!

– by The Black Widow

What I Miss About You, Bebo

Posted in Lifestyle by

I don’t know about you, but as a young youth growing up in Sydney (say between the ages of 13 and 16), the go to social networking site was Bebo. Sure, MySpace and Hi-5 were around back then, but Bebo was the one that all the cool kids went on.

Share the luv!

Share the luv!

Now, we have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and all of the above, and pretty much no one uses Bebo anymore. Why? Because Bebo simply became outdated. It’s the unfortunate truth with trends – they all go out of fashion eventually. Regardless of this – and my love for Facebook – there are several things that I miss about that good ol’ red B.

What I miss about you…

[x] Share the luv. How grand was it pestering people to give you “luv” so your little love heart count could top that of your high school rivals. I specifically remember having a pretty damn high luv count compared to those of my high school classmates and I always felt the need to brag about it. How did I get such a high number of luv? Via pestering, of course. And “luv for luv”.

[x] Flash boxes. Remember how you could have a video or some other form of “flash box” play on your Bebo profile? Wasn’t that the coolest thing ever? I remember my first flash box was Control Myself by LL Cool J ft. Jennifer Lopez. I don’t even know why; I didn’t even like that song that much. After, however, I managed to get Pacman into my flash box and became the coolest kid on the block. Subtle JLo reference. It just added that extra zing to your profile to establish just who the hell you were in the land of Bebo.

[x] Top 16. You knew your relationship was real when you were in each others top 16. It was cool but also quite pressuring to establish your top 16 because if someone had you in their top 16 and the feelings weren’t reciprocated, well, that just made it awkward for everyone. Of course, to make sure this didn’t happen, there were always “I’ll put you in my top 16 if you put me in yours” conversations. Problem solved.

[x] Other halves. Aww. You had your friends, you had your top 16 friends, and then you had your other half. This person would get their own little space on your profile with a cute little message attached to them. The twelvies would always have their flavours of the week with “luv u bbygurl s2” which was awkward because they always broke up like five minutes after. I can happily say I had under five other halves and they were never romantic counterparts.

[x] Photo stealing. How annoying is it if you want to steal someone else’s picture on Facebook and then re-upload it onto your own profile? That’s a long tedious procedure if you ask me. Back on Bebo, all you had to do was select the picture you wanted to steal, click “Copy”, pick an album to put it in, and voila – it’s there. No bruises or scratches.

[x] Custom skins. What was originally made famous on MySpace became a big thing on Bebo. While we’ve become accustomed to the Facebook blue default skin and probably couldn’t care less about it, the cool thing about Bebo was the option to pick a cool profile skin and jazz it up a bit. I once dabbled in creating my own Bebo skins and came up with cool WWE Diva skins, like Mickie James and Torrie Wilson. Complete with “Made by Noah La’ulu” tag, of course.

With news that Bebo is making a comeback and will be better than before, may we see the return of luv sharing, flash boxes and other halves? Hopefully. However, I will give my honest journo’s opinion – I don’t see Bebo toppling Facebook at this point in time. It’ll be nice to see them try, though.

Much luv to all of you SolSatters!

– by The Black Widow