Book Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places is about a woman, Libby Day, whose mom and two sisters were murdered when she was seven. She famously testified that her older brother, Benjamin, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Libby is running out of money from the trust fund created for her by the donations to sympathetic strangers. She meets a group of people, members of The Kill Club, who are unconvinced that Ben was the killer. They pay her to talk to the people involved that night and find out the truth of what happened the night of the murders.

Cover: The original cover (from Gillian Flynn's website) shows two wooden panels locked by a padlock. After Gone Girl was published, new covers for both her previous books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places, were released. I got the newer version which I much prefer over the original. I also like how it matches somewhat with Gone Girl since I got that book first.

Characters: The book switches has a different point of view for every chapter but Libby is the main character.  I love that Gillian Flynn wrote characters are that deeply flawed. I neither loved them nor hated them, but I did understand their choices (even if I didn't agree with them). They are realistic, although I felt that Libby's kleptomania was unneeded. Then again, I don't know the statistics on the relationship of childhood trauma and kleptomania.

Plot: I enjoyed the plot overall, as well as how she switched the time periods for certain point of views. I was very happy that there was not an extra romantic relationship even though I was expecting it. It was definitely unneeded and would have taken away from the main themes of the book.

My biggest problem with this book was that the summary gives away too much information. We're told that Libby finds herself running from the killer again, so we're made to assume that Ben wasn't the killer. However, Libby still believes that Ben is the killer for a good portion of the book. I guess it could be argued that Ben was still guilty but I did not see it that way when I read the summary. Also,  the part where she's actually in danger is near the end of the book and it lasts for barely a chapter. The summary built it up too much so I was expecting a lot more than what was written.

Other Notes I normally have a hard time rereading books, even ones that I loved. For some, I go back and read certain parts immediately after I finish the book. This didn't happen with Dark Places. There was no particular chapter, event, or conversation that really stood out to me. So the chances of me reading Dark Places again is really low. That doesn't mean that it wasn't a good book though. I would definitely recommend it for people who enjoy darker works of mystery and suspense.

Rating: 3/5

This was actually the very first book that I read in 2014. It has taken me a long time to get this review up, mainly because it's the very first book review that I've ever written. Hopefully book reviews will start getting easier as I do more.

Post A Day April

I am going to attempt to publish one blog post for everyday in April. It's going to be a challenge because, let's be honest, having more than 3 posts in one month would be an achievement for me. Perhaps I am being a bit too ambitious and should just stick to posting once a week. I'm still going to try it though. I think it could be a good challenge to keep me motivated to actually post on this blog.

Originally, I found a website that had 30 writing prompts for their monthly challenge. But they either deleted it or changed the link to it because I can no longer find it. I'm in the process of finding another one that I like but if I can't, I might just find random prompts to use on days when I don't have any ideas for what to write about.

The hardest part for me besides choosing a topic is the revision process. Even though editing blog posts is easier and faster than editing essays or novels, I still have a very hard time with it. I hate reading things that I've written because that means I have to admit that my first draft isn't perfect. I also tend to have a fair amount of mistakes because I think a million miles per hour but my fingers can't type that fast. Well, we'll see what happens. Wish me luck!

Have you done any type of monthly challenges before? If so, how did it go?

March 2014 Las Vegas Trip

I went for a 3.5 day (Thursday through Sunday) tri to Las Vegas for my boyfriend's spring break. It probably seems like the only thing I do is go on trips but I promise that it's not. His sister turned 21 so it was to celebrate her birthday. My boyfriend and I also celebrated our 5 year anniversary during the trip.

We only went to one buffet, which was The Buffet at The Wynn. It was pretty good, definitely better than my experience at Wicked Spoon in the Cosmopolitan in August. We also went to Tacos El Gordo (the one on the strip) twice. The first time we simply wanted to try it because it's pretty popular. The second time was because my boyfriend read the address to another restaurant wrong so we just went to Tacos El Gordo because it was close.

On Saturday, we watched the Cirque du Soleil show Mystère. It was a decent show but I was somewhat disappointed. I prefer shows that actually have a story line. I watched Le Rêve in August and KÀ in October and I enjoyed both of them more than Mystère. The best part of the show was actually the live music. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I haven't seen those types of circus acts before. Watching rhythmic gymnastics has also given me very high expectations on flexibility/contortion acts.

I really enjoyed my trip overall. Unfortunately, it flew by way too quickly. We actually spent a lot of time in the casinos. I'm not a big gambler but everyone else likes to gamble. I did find an Alice in Wonderland slot machine that I really enjoyed. There were also Family Guy ones that were fun but t's hard to win money from them.

One of my friends actually invited me to go to Vegas with her sometime in April or May. Since I'm still waiting for my DI results, I couldn't give her a definite answer yet. If I do go, it'll be my 4th time in a year even though I'm not big into gambling, clubbing, or drinking. It will still be fun if I end up going though.

Weekly Recap 3/09 to 3/16

Hello Everyone.

Sorry I kind of disappeared for two weeks. Not that I actually have any readers right now but I have to start somewhere. I'm just going to do a short recap on the past two weeks instead of doing individual day posts for my trip.

On Sunday the 9th, we went hiking with some of my boyfriend's friends. It was a decent hike, only about 2 hours total with some moderate incline. One of his friends brought their dog and it was a lot of fun just watching her run around. It made me really want to bring my dogs on a hike. Then we went to Dirty Birds for wings, took a 2 hour nap, shopped at Daiso and this korean supermarket, and had mexican food for dinner.

On Monday, my boyfriend had to do homework with his friends so I walked to the mall and spent a couple of hours there. We were planning to go to D Bar, which is one of my favorite restaurants in SD, but then we found out that they're not open on Mondays. So we ended up going to this seafood place and then trying a new dessert place called Extraordinary Desserts.

On Tuesday, my boyfriend had classes so I just stayed home, did laundry, and packed. I was experiencing mild nausea from anxiety for pretty much the whole day. I was the same way on the last day of my visit in October. I went to pick him up from school but I was late because of the dryer. We went to D Bar but only got dessert since I needed to catch my flight. My nausea didn't fully go away until  we were up in the air.

On Wednesday I had food poisoning and just felt horrible. I spent most of my day either in the bathroom or laying down. I had to go run errands, which took a long time. I had to rest a little bit everytime I parked or got back in the car. Thursday was a lot better but I still had some mild nausea.

On Friday, I still wasn't 100% better. Luckily, I was feeling pretty good by dinner. I went out for a friend's birthday dinner at a seafood restaurant. Definitely not an ideal meal so soon after food poisoning but oh well. I had a lot of fun and got to talk to an old friend whom I hadn't seen in 4+ years.

Saturday was pretty typical. We had dim sum, my brother went to basketball while my mom and I shopped, and then we went to a curry house for dinner. I still haven't found a restaurant for curry that's as good as one that I tried in Osaka. My brother really likes this one though.

On Sunday, I went rock climbing with some friends. It was so much fun and my arms are still sore from it. I think its actually called bouldering since there's no harness but everyone else just refers to it as rock climbing. I'm going again this Friday and I'm planning on bringing my boyfriend next week.

I was thinking about including this Monday through Wednesday but this post is already really long. I'm considering doing weekly recaps every Sunday but I haven't decided yet. I still don't have a strong idea on the direction I want to take this blog. I'll continue to work on it though.

March 2014 San Diego Trip Day 2

(I forgot to proofread my Day 1 post so I apologize for any grammer or spelling mistakes. I'm on the Blogger mobile app so I'm worried that it might delete the whole post if I try to edit it.)

Today was pretty eventful but I barely took any pictures. I need to remember to take more for the rest of my trip.

We started out at one of the farmers' markets today. San Diego has maybe 10 or more different ones but we went to the largest one that's open on Saturdays. Parking was a bit of a hassle but it was worth it. There was a large variety of booths and we got to sample a good amount of food. We only bought lunch to eat because we're not planning on cooking during the time that I'm here.

After lunch, we went to Seaport village, walked along the coast line, and did some shopping. The weather was absolutely gorgeous today.

This was the only picture I took there. We went into this soap store and I bought 2 mini squares of soap. I'm not using them until I get home but I'm super excited. I'm almost always excited for my purchases. Haha.

Then we went to watch the sunset on a cliff. We had to climb down a bit, which was scary since I was wearing sandals that barely had any grip. It was worth it though, because the view was beautiful. Not breathtaking but still beautiful. 

Then we went to the beach and walked around until it was too dark to really see anything.

Afterwards, we went to get Chicago style pizza and met up with some of my boyfriend's friends at a microbrewery. It was my first time at any type of brewery. It wasn't bad but I'm not a big fan of beer. I just wanted to go for the experience. Have you been to any type of brewery?

It's daylight savings today so we're losing one extra hour of sleep. I'll be heading off to bed soon. Good night!

March 2014 San Diego Trip Day 1

I flew down to San Diego last night in order to visit my boyfriend. I'm staying until Tuesday so it's only going to be a 5 day visit.

Normally on Fridays, my boyfriend doesn't have class but one of his professors scheduled an extra lecture. So  while he was in class, I explored a small part of the UCSD campus. Here are a few pictures I took: 

After lunch, we decided to go watch the Lego movie since I had 2 free AMC tickets that my mom gave me. While we were waiting for the showing, we stopped by Marshalls. I picked up a cute date stamp from Studio Calico that was on sale for only $2.99. I'm excited to get home and start using it.

The movie itself was really good. I enjoyed the storyline and it had some funny lines. The theatre itself was newly removed and had these amazing reclining chairs. I would definitely go back if I lived nearby.

Before we went home, we stopped by a restaurant to get carne asada fries. I've only had them twice before in NorCal but they weren't that great. I had pretty high expectations so when I finally got to try them, it was kind of a disappointment. They were decent but not amazing. My boyfriend really likes them so that's good enough for me.

That's all for my first full day in San Diego. I'll see you all again here soon.

Small Jo-Ann's Haul

I have a haul today from Jo-Ann's. I didn't find out about my local Jo-Ann's until yesterday. There had been one location that closed down maybe 2-3 years ago and I thought that was it. But apparently they simply moved to a much bigger location. I was also very lucky because they were having a one day sale for a lot of items. I originally went in for adhesive tape but ended up getting:

Tombow Adhesive Runner ($5.99)

Tombow Mono Multi Glue ($2.99)

3D Foam Squares ($2.99)

2 Rolls of Washi Tape (49¢ and 97¢)

Everything I bought was on sale plus I got an extra 50% off on one item. Unfortunately, that discount was for the cheapest item. That ended up being one of the washi tapes but that's okay.

Here's a closer look at the washi tape:

I'm super excited for the hearts & clouds one because I've been wanting it for almost a year. I saw it on Etsy first but it was a little over $3 before shipping. That isn't very expensive but I didn't love it enough to justify the purchase. When I saw it for $1.99 at Jo-Ann's, I knew I had to buy it. There was no sign but their washi tapes were on sale for 97¢. It also ended up being the roll that received the extra discount.

I'm super happy with my purchase so far. I haven't tried any of the adhesives but I've already used the washi tapes multiple times. Hopefully this will be my only haul for a long time because I have way too many craft supplies for the amount of crafting I do.

Hope you had a wonderful week and I'll post again soon.

Innisfree It's Real Sheet Masks Review

One of my aunts in Hong Kong is really into skin care. She has friends that really like the Innisfree It's Real line of sheet masks that are supposed to be similar to the My Beauty Diary ones. I really enjoy My Beauty Diary so she sent me a few of the Innisfree masks to try. So far I've tried the Manuka Honey, Gold Kiwi, Pomengranate, Acai Berry, and two other ones which I think were Cucumber and Bamboo. Sorry, no pictures today. I still haven't figured out why Blogger keeps changing the quality of my pictures.

Packaging: I only have the individual sheets so I don't know if they come in box form. I have not seen pictures of any box packaging though. The design is nice and clean with a picture of what the scent is on the front. The actual sheet itself is pretty thin but rougher than My Beauty Diary. After I take the sheet off, I like to rub it over my face to get the excess serum. Because of this, the difference in texture was pretty noticeable. However, if you don't normally do this, I don't think you would notice.

Scent: The scents are pretty light and fade pretty quickly. The manuka honey smells really bad though. Inside the package, it just smells faintly of honey. But once you take it out, it has a chemically, melted plastic type of smell that was terrible. Luckily, it faded away before it started making me sick.

Serum: Each sheet mask comes with 20mL of serum. The serum is more watery and less moisturizing than My Beauty Diary. I heard someone compare it to toner but to me, toner is a bit more watery. The serum gets completely evaporated or absorbed in about 45 minutes. The gold kiwi mask had less serum that the other scents. Based on the date printed on the packaging, it was not an older sheet. However, I don't have more gold kiwi masks to compare. It lasted 34 minutes, which is still longer than the 10-20 minute recommended use time.

Comments: I am not a fan of this line of masks. Maybe it's because I use these masks for longer than 10-20 minutes but after each use, I get a deep pimple 1-2 days afterwards. I've used six of these masks without changing anything else in my skin routine, diet, or sleep pattern but it always ends up with the same result. It's not even the small type of pimples that go away in a few days, it's the type that won't go away for 1+ weeks and tends to leave a mark on my skin. I normally rinse my face before putting on my nighttime moisturizer but that didn't help. The first 2 that I tried were used about a month apart with a pimple resulting each time. Then a few months later, I used 3 masks in a row which resulted in 3 deep pimples. It was extremely frustrating because my skin had been pretty nice before the masks. I should probably try using it only for the recommended 10-20 minutes but I'm not really willing to risk it. I still have the rose and aloe masks left but I'll probably just give them to my mom. 

Rating: 1/5

You can buy them from Amazon, Yes Style, Sasa, and Ebay.

Selling My Books

Earlier this month, I moved back home with my parents. During my four years of college, I obtained a lot of new possessions. I have been a huge fan of books my whole life but I only have one bookshelf in my room and no space for another one. This meant that I had to rearrange my bookshelf and either find a new place for my old books or get rid of them. I decided to get rid of my books simply because there wasn't really anywhere else to put them.

At first, I considered donating them to the library but then I decided that I wanted to sell them. I have never sold a book before so I had to do some Googling. I felt that Ebay would have been a lot of work, especially for the amount of money books were selling for. Then I remembered that there was a Half Price Books in my town that I still haven't visited yet. So I put all the books that I wanted to sell in a box and headed over to their store. When I got there, another lady had just recently dropped off her stuff and I was told that it would take longer than usual to get a price estimate on my books. I browsed the store while I waited, which ended up being around 45 minutes. For all 44 of my books, I only got a mere $12.25 back. That's not even 28 cents back per book, which is ridiculously little. I think I would have been more more satisfied if I had donated them instead. I definitely won't be going back to Half Price Books.

It's been almost a week since I've sold my books and I still haven't stopped regretting my choice. Especially since I've been watching bookshelf tour videos on YouTube because now I wish I had kept all my books for my collection. Oh well, the only thing I can do is learn from this experience.

Happy 2014!

Happy New Year's everyone! 2014 is kind of scary for me because there is a lot of uncertainty regarding my career and just life in general. But despite all that, I am looking forward to what this year is going to bring.

Last year, I made a list of 6 New Year's resolutions that I posted on my old blog. I didn't achieve any of them and had probably already forgotten what they were by February or March. So instead of making a bunch of resolutions again, I think I'll have just 1 goal for the entire year.

For 2014, my goal is to stop multitasking as much. I have a really bad habit of 'watching' YouTube videos while I do things, like check my email, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. I even tried writing this blog post while watching a video. It decreases my productivity as well as the quality of whatever else I'm trying to do. The only problem with this goal is that it isn't very straightforward to measure. Oh well.

It is currently 6 minutes to 3am so I'm heading to bed. I'll have another blog post up soon.