My top 7 (+1) Eurovision songs 2015.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed that I've been pretty enthusiastic about watching the Eurovision semi-finals this week. Last year I blogged about my five favourite Eurovision acts the day after the grand final but this year I thought I'd share my faves before the grand final because honestly, doesn't that feel a little bit more professional for some reason? IDK.

Why are there 7 (+1) faves this year instead of 5? Look, if we can let Australia compete in a Europe based singing contest then I can let me have 7 (+1) faves instead of 5 this year.

Let's deal with the pesky +1 first because you're probably wondering what on earth it's doing there.

Special mention goes to I Want Your Love by Eduard Romanyuta for Moldova!

Moldova isn't in my actual top 7 because it isn't actually going to be in the grand final tomorrow night. EUROPE DID NOT VOTE THIS THROUGH TO THE GRAND FINAL. I'm really mad about it and I loved Moldova's song too much to not include it in this list so it gets a special mention instead. I would have voted you through to the grand final, Moldova!

Now we can get on to the actual list (which is in no particular order.)

1. Rhythm Inside by Loïc Nottet for Belgium

I actually think I would like Belgium's song even if it weren't a Eurovision song, which is pretty much the highest compliment I can pay a Eurovision song. When I first watched it I couldn't quite figure out why I loved it so much but then James Dawson described Loïc Nottet as 'Boy-Lorde' on Twitter, and everything made sense.

2. Beauty Never Lies by Bojana Stamenov for Serbia

This one starts off a little ballad-y but don't give up on it! It gets real at about the 1:55 mark and I LOVE IT. I feel like this might be a real contender but what do I know? I liked Moldova's song so clearly I know nothing about what the rest of Europe wants.

3. Warrior by Nina Sublatti for Georgia

The award for best outfit goes to Nina Sublatti, that's for sure. There are actually two songs called 'Warrior' in the contest this year but I can't remember who sang the other one or what country it was for or even if they got through to the grand final. This one is better.

4. Golden Boy by Nadav Guedj for Israel

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about Eurovision! It's so boyband, so energetic, SO GREAT. There are so many boring ballads and serious songs this year and I am so grateful to Israel for actually getting into the Euro-trash spirit and sending this glorious entrant.

5. Heroes by Måns Zelmerlöw for Sweden

Okay so this one is a little bit on the ballad-y side too but it's so catchy! And look at how he interacts with the projections! He's having fun and so am I. Maybe he's not having as much fun as Israel's contestant but I mean, who is?

6. Still In Love With You by Electro Velvet for the UK

In a surprising turn of events I actually really like our song this year. I wasn't so keen when I first heard it a few months ago but I've listened to it a few times today and it's actually just really fun. I like it. It certainly won't win, but hopefully we'll get a few points!

7. Tonight Again by Guy Sebastian for Australia

Now, what Australia has done here is made the mistake of just sending a really good song. I like this song. I would listen to this song on Spotify. I might even download it. But it's not going to win Eurovision. Sorry, Australia. I do really it though and I hope you enjoy taking part in Eurovision for the first (and last, let's be real) time!

What do you think of my choices? Is there anyone you really liked who I haven't included here? Or do you honestly just not care one bit about Eurovision? (Don't worry, this will be the last post about it until next year.)

I'm actually having a little Eurovision party tomorrow with a few of my friends but I'm sure I'll be tweeting about it too if those of you following me on Twitter aren't bored of that already.

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#ReadWomenMonth 2015! Challenges + my TBR.

That's right, friends! If you're new around these parts then firstly, welcome, and secondly check out this post from last year where I explain what Read Women Month actually is. If you're very old around these parts then still welcome, and I hope you're as glad to see Read Women Month back as I am! Also I'm sorry I called you old...

For those of you who have no idea what Read Women Month is and who can't be bothered to click on that link (no judgement, I get you.) it's pretty simple. Last year I made the decision to only read books written by women for the whole month of June and encouraged others to join me. And I'm doing it all again this year!

This year I've decided to come up with a few challenges for those of us taking part. (Don't worry, these are not physical challenges. We do not encourage that on this blog.) You can do any, all, or none of these challenges. It's completely up to you! There is no wrong way to do Read Women Month... unless you're exclusively reading books written by men... then you've sort of missed the point.

Read Women Month 2015 reading challenges.
(Just in case you haven't quite got it yet, all of these books should, of course, be by female authors.)

Challenge no 1: Read a classic.
My choice:

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

Murder on the Orient Express counts as a classic, right? It does in my mind. I've yet to read any Agatha Christie despite buying this and one of her other books last year so I'm really looking forward to getting into this.

Challenge no 2: Re-read an old favourite.
My choice:

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

I reserve the right to change my mind because I do what I want, but I'm pretty sure I'll be picking up I Capture the Castle for my re-read. It's one of my favourite books ever but I've actually only read it once so it's definitely time for a re-read anyway.

Challenge no 3: Read a book in a genre you don't normally read.
My choice:

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Fantasy was the obvious choice for me for a genre I don't normally read. I actually have no idea how long The Bone Season is because I have it as an ebook, which means it could very well take me the entire month just to read this one, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it even if it does take weeks to read.

Challenge no 4: Read a book by an author you haven't read before.
My choice:

Secrets and Sapphires (Cinders and Sapphires in the US) by Leila Rasheed

Agatha Christie and Samantha Shannon are both authors I haven't read before so I could totally get away with doubling up for this one but I'll probably try and squeeze in Secrets and Sapphires too if I have time after the three books I've already mentioned.

And that's it! Those are the four challenges and my choices for each of them. The challenges aren't compulsory for taking part in Read Women Month by any means. I thought it would be something a bit fun and different for this year but if you don't fancy any of them then don't worry about it! The only rule for taking part in Read Women Month is to read books by women!

Please do let me know if you choose to take part in Read Women Month in any way! You can leave me a comment to let me know if you're taking part or, just like last year, I'll be checking the #ReadWomenMonth tag frequently throughout the month on both Twitter and Instagram.

And if you'd like to see my Read Women Month posts from last year they can all be found here!

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A little road trip.

A few weeks ago I went on a little road trip with a few of my friends. We had lunch in and explored Falmouth, then we drove to Pendennis Point (where I feared we might all be blown away by the extreme winds!) and on our way back home we stopped at a roadside Starbucks, where I had my first frappuccino of the season. It was a pretty great day.

All of these photographs were taken at Pendennis Point. I had my Instax with me so my friend Chuck used my DSLR for most of the day but I managed to snap these few photographs that I'm pretty pleased with.

And for good measure, here's a bonus picture that Chuck took of me in Falmouth.

My hair was like a bird's nest by the end of the day.

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Brushing off the dust.

What is this? A post? I know. Hold on to your hats, people. We're getting back into it.

You may remember back in October last year when I announced that I was starting a separate blog, stasialikesbooks, for all my bookish posts. Well it turns out that didn't go so well. 1) I just ended up posting on that blog fairly often and never posting on this one and 2) it turns out I don't actually enjoy writing book reviews in that sort of format as much as I thought I would. Who knew?

So, what's going to happen next?

1) I won't be posting to stasialikesbooks anymore. Maybe one day in the distant future I'll change my mind again but for now we're going back to the way things used to be. By which I mean that I'm going back to just posting whatever the heck I like on this blog and trying not to worry about what a mess it might be.

2) However, I am still pretty pleased with what I did post on stasialikesbooks over the past few months so at some point in the next few days I'll be reposting all of those posts over here. I know this will probably be very annoying for your bloglovin' feed but please bear with me! There are only 19 posts to be switched over and then everything will get back to normal.

3) I'm going to start posting about makeup and beauty a little bit. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I've mentioned in this post but I just thought I'd let you know while we're here. It's something I'm really interested in and most of the blogs I follow are beauty and fashion blogs so this has been a long time coming really. 

4) I'll still be posting about everything else you're used to seeing here, including books, films, tv shows, baking, and photography, I'll just be adding a few more things to the mix. The more the merrier, right?

I'm sort of still figuring out what I really want this blog to be but I'm getting some idea now and I really hope you'll stick with me while I work it out.

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stasialikesbooks | A very small second hand book haul.

How great is my new duvet cover? It's so eighties. I love it.

This is just a tiny haul because mum came home a few weeks ago with a small pile of used books she had bought for just 25p each and we split them between us. She kept My Sister's Keeper and some other novel I've forgotten the name of that sounded equally like something I am just not interested in and I took ownership of these two very interesting looking titles.

What if you grew up to realise that your father had used your childhood as an experiment? 

Rosemary doesn't talk very much, and about certain things she's silent. She had a sister, Fern, her whirlwind other half, who vanished from her life in circumstances she wishes she could forget. And it's been ten years since she last saw her beloved brother Lowell.

Now at college, Rosemary starts to see that she can't go forward without going back, back to the time when, aged five, she was sent away from home to her grandparents and returned to find Fern gone. 

I've heard plenty about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves over the past year. It's been everywhere since it came out and I've seen a lot of very mixed reviews but nothing about it really caught my interest until I saw a review, coincidentally the day before mum brought this book home, that sort of spoiled what I think is supposed to be the big twist of this story. (I could be wrong. It may very well turn out that this thing is obvious from the beginning but I don't want to mention it just in case!) Normally that sort of thing would turn me off a book but in this case it has actually made me far more interested in the story than I was before and I'm definitely looking forward to reading it.

In a tiny flat in West London, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother, Laura, and three ancient Hungarian relatives. Imprisoned by her family's crushing expectations and their fierce unEnglish pride, by their strange traditions and stranger foods, she knows she must escape. But the place she runs to makes her feel even more of an outsider.

At Combe Abbey, a traditional English public school for which her family have sacrificed everything, she realises she has made a terrible mistake. She is the awkward half-foreign girl who doesn't know how to fit in, flirt or even be. And as a semi-Hungarian Londoner, who is she? In the meantime, her mother Laura, an alien in this strange universe, has her own painful secrets to deal with, especially the return of the last man she'd expect back in her life. She isn't noticing that, at Combe Abbey, things are starting to go terribly wrong.

I haven't heard much about Almost English but I do remember picking it up once in Waterstones some time ago and thinking it sounded interesting, although obviously I didn't buy it and did completely forget about it until mum handed me this copy... The reviews on goodreads don't seem to be overwhelmingly positive but it does sound like an interesting plot so I'll definitely be giving it a go!

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stasialikesbooks | Book review: My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with your Gut by Hannah Hart.

One day, lonely cubicle dweller and otherwise bored New York City transplant Hannah Hart decided to make a fake cooking show for a friend back home in California. She opened her laptop, pulled out some bread and cheese, and then, as one does, started drinking. The video was called "Butter Yo Sh*t" and online sensation My Drunk Kitchen was born.

My Drunk Kitchen (the book!) includes recipes, stories, colour photographs, and tips and tricks to inspire your own adventures in tipsy cooking.
(x)

I feel like I should start this off by saying straight out that this is not really a cookbook. I understand why it's being marketed that way but I do worry that some people who aren't familiar with Hannah and her youtube series also titled My Drunk Kitchen might buy this book expecting some actual recipes they could replicate at home and come away a little disappointed.

This is not to say that I don't think this is a good book (or that there aren't at least a couple of recipes in here that I see myself trying to recreate in the future. Saltine nachos, anyone?). I think this is a great book. Hannah Hart's typical humour is present in abundance and fans of her youtube videos will not be disappointed. My Drunk Kitchen is like a big sister giving you advice not just on cooking but more importantly on life in general. Hart is, as usual, incredibly funny, infectiously optimistic, and unfailingly honest, in the best way possible. The book does take the form of a cookbook, which I think is very clever, with each pun-tastically named recipe containing a life lesson or piece of advice, much like the standard format of the My Drunk Kitchen videos themselves.

My Drunk Kitchen is full of advice from the Hart (I had to) and honestly, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that it might just be impossible to read this book and not feel more positive about life afterwards.

Fans of Hannah will definitely enjoy this book but if you've never seen her videos then it might leave you a little confused. Luckily, you can fix that right now.

4/5 stars.

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stasialikesbooks | Hot Key Books twitter competition haul.

I am so behind on my posts right now. I'm sorry.

Those of you who don't follow me on twitter (why?) may not know that well over a month ago, on Valentine's Day, I was in bed with the most horrific fever and worst headache I have ever experienced. I did not think anything could make that day anything other than completely awful but between hours-long naps I checked twitter to find that thanks to a quotation from The Isobel Journal I had won the Hot Key Books Valentine's Day competition! Let me tell you, it helped a little. 

A few days later that huge pile of books up there arrived at my door and I was pretty floored. I had only expected three or four books so thank you x1000 to Hot Key for being so unbelievably generous!

I've already read and reviewed both Paper Aeroplanes and We Were Liars so you can check out those reviews for full synopses of the books. As I read and thoroughly enjoyed both books as ebooks I am extremely happy that I now have them in paperback form for my bookshelf! I also already owned Fearsome Dreamer as a paperback but I have a friend who I am certain would enjoy it so now I have another copy to give to them! 

Beau Vincent is rude, bad, and dangerous to know. So why can't good girl Ashton Gray keep away from him? She already has the perfect boyfriend - her town's local Prince Charming, Sawyer Vincent. But Sawyer is away for the summer, and in the meantime Ashton is bored, and the heat between her and Beau is undeniable - as well as irresistible. Ashton is about to unleash her bad girl - but what will she do when Sawyer comes home? And how will Sawyer react when he returns to find his girlfriend in the arms of his best friend - and cousin?

The Vincent Boys is the only one of the new books that I have read so far but I won't be reviewing this one on the blog, I'm afraid. I only gave it two stars on goodreads and I just don't really have a great deal to say about it. I did enjoy parts of it and I can understand the appeal but it just wasn't really my thing, unfortunately.

The year is 1910. For the past decade, the Averly family has lived a life of luxury in India, but now they must return to Lord Averly's ancestral estate, the sprawling, majestically beautiful Somerton Court. As the household staff hastily prepare for the family's arrival, they receive shocking news: Lord Averley is bringing back a fiancée with three children of her own, and on top of that, there are rumours of a terrible scandal surrounding Lord Averley's resignation as Lieutenant Governor of Bengal.

I've actually been wanting to read Secrets & Sapphires (Cinders & Sapphires in the US) ever since I read this review on Forever Young Adult about two years ago so I was extremely excited to receive this one and it will probably be the next one I pick up from this haul.

Who says fate is written in the stars? Set in seventeenth-century Europe, Jepp is the coming-of-age story of a teenage dwarf limited not only by his height but by his destiny. Seemingly bound for a life of misery as an astronomer's court dwarf, Jepp must prove himself to be a capable and trustworthy student in order to escape his fate. Willing to defy the stars to win the life he wants and the woman he loves, Jepp must choose his own course and become the man he wants to be.

Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is probably not a book that I would have picked up on my own and I hadn't actually heard of it before I received these books but it sounds really interesting and I am really looking forward to reading it.

After months of bullying and romantic heartbreak, seventeen-year-old Aidan Flood feels just about ready to end it all. But when he wakes up one morning to find that local beauty and town sweetheart Sláine McAuley actually has, he discovers a new sense of purpose, and becomes determined to find out what happened to her. The town is happy to put it down to suicide, but then one night Aidan gets a message, scratched in ice on his bedroom window: 'I didn't kill myself.' Who is contacting him? And if Sláine didn't end her own life... who did?

Shiver the Whole Night Through is definitely not a book I would have picked up on my own and I was a little apprehensive when I first read the blurb but after watching this review I'm really looking forward to this one too!

Thank you Hot Key for this amazing haul of books!

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