Shameless Self-promotion

Hey, guys! So recently I opened up a Society6 shop to try to sell prints of my photography, and shortly after, I decided to invest in Creative Cloud and try my hand at typography. I’m still learning so a lot of the stuff I do is very simple stuff (not to mention I’m more of a fan of minimalist stuff), but I am trying to learn how to use different tools in Illustrator. A lot of the typography I do will be book related (so far I’ve done Colleen Hoover, Rainbow Rowell, and Sarah J. Maas), but I have started doing song lyrics as well. I do take requests and I will do my best to get to them as soon as possible. If there’s a quote you want with a specific idea in mind, feel free to pitch me your idea and I’ll let you know if it’s something I can do. I already have done a custom request for Rachel if you want to see an example (it’s the scales in the collage above.)

Feel free to browse my shop and a big thank you if you purchase anything to help out this broke college student!

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Publish date: July 8, 2014

So Landline. I love Rainbow Rowell and her writing, and ever since Landline has been released, I’ve heard tons of glowing reviews and everyone was loving it. It’s fair to say I had sort of high expectations because of the reviews from others and because of my experience with her other books, but throughout the book, I just felt like it was… okay.

The plot took awhile to really kick off which was a slight problem because Rainbow’s books aren’t the longest. The plot was also just… weird to me. I knew ahead of time what was the source for all the weirdness in the plot, but even then, it was still just weird to me. I’m not entirely sure how to explain it. The weirdness of the plot made it hard for me to really get into the story like I had with Rainbow’s other books.

She still does a fantastic job of establishing relationships and characters quickly and deeply, so that department was still A+. For me, however, that wasn’t enough. I was fond of Georgie and her quirkiness and of her relationship with Seth (and how that conflicted with her and Neal’s relationship), but I didn’t have the same Attachment(s) to her that I have with Cath, Beth, and Eleanor.

Overall, this book was okay. It wasn’t bad, but if you asked me to list Rainbow’s books in order from favorite to least favorite, Landline would definitely be at the bottom of the list. If you were looking for a Rainbow book to get you started in her writing, I’d definitely go with one of her other three books first and work your way to this one last.

(3 out of 5)

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Publication date: September 10, 2013 (St. Martin's Press)

Fangirl brings us the story of eighteen year old Cath’s first year of college with her twin sister Wren. But when Wren decides she wants to start having her own life, Cath has trouble accepting that. Being a huge fan of the series Simon Snow, Cath completely immerses herself in the world of Simon to cope with having to have her own life. She struggles to find herself as she tries to maintain a relationship with Wren and fit in school but life quickly tosses her problems in the form of two boys, a creative writing class that soon proves to be much more difficult than she thought, and the return of a mother that abandoned them when they were in third grade.

First off, my summary of the book does it no justice and if you want a better and more appealing summary, go check it out on GoodReads or Barnes and Noble.

Anyways, when I first saw the title of this book, I was immediately intrigued. Being in the middle of a time where things like fangirls and fandoms and the like are exploding, I thought it was interesting that someone decided to write a book where the character was the exact embodiment of a fangirl in an active fandom.

What I really enjoyed about this book was that Cath is so easily relatable; her awkward and shy personality, emphasized with a well done case of social anxieties, is something many people can connect with without feeling like it was over exaggerated. The romance plot was also a nice surprise in that taking the usual route of “I’m a shy girl but around you I’m totally open and loud right away,” it actually did go with Cath’s personality of “I’m shy and I will continue to be shy and awkward around you until I slowly get more comfortable.”

My only real issue with this was that I wish the conflict with Cath and Wren’s mother was fleshed out more than it was. The reader is able to get a good understanding of it but it doesn’t delve very deeply.

(4 out 5)

~Yajaira