Top Ten Tuesday: Characters at My Lunch Table

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

It's school season! Yay? No. The only way school would be AWESOME is if I had these people as friends in school. So far I've been making good connections, but come on, who wouldn't want these fictional characters at their lunch table? I made half of my list about people I want with me and the other half about characters I want far, FAR away. 

Who I want: 

Tina from The Princess Diaries
Tina is the best. She's supportive, slightly delusional, and unintentionally funny. The girl is a hopeless romantic and her ideas are chuckle-worthy. Who wouldn't want some entertainment at lunch during usual school drudgery.

Peeta from The Hunger Games
He would be our yummy food supplier. Yay for homemade bread!

Victoria from Audrey, Wait! 
Most of you are probably going "huh?" But I just reread this gem and she's hilarious. Quips and wittiness galore. I'd include Audrey too, but I'd want to be Audrey in this scenario so Victoria can be my best friend.

Katsa from Graceling
No one will try to mess with us.

Cress from Cress

The cutest person ever. She made me giggle so much when I was reading because of how much she geeked out. I need her sitting by me.

Who needs to stay away:

Dee-Dee from Gallagher Girls
She's a super nice person, but I think after a while she'd get on my nerves. Too perky?

Allyson from Just One Day
She seems too...wish-washy? I haven't read it in a while, but I remember feeling like pre-adventure that she was easily manipulated and bossed around. And then complains about it. Get control!

Jason from Meant to Be
I KNOW SOMEONE LIKE HIM. He was my mortal enemy until I knew him better and then we became kinda friends. But still. Don't sit with me.

Cady from We Were Liars
It'd be really nice to have a rich friend, but this girl is annoying, has no personality, and just too much. Too much of nothing for me.

Lia from The Naturals
I love and value honesty, but I'd feel too self-conscious with her at my table. She's good at lying AND detecting them. No thanks.

Who do you want at your table? 

ReaLITy Check: Growing Up

Books are our friends, right? WRONG. Friends don't lie, at least they shouldn't lie. Therefore, books cannot be our friends. Rewind to the beginning of my senior year, or even before that, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Fiction is fiction for a reason and I know that authors try to stick to realism, but need to spice things up. It's especially hard in contemporary because it's our world. Well, in late high school, I realized that everything I thought I knew about graduation was false, thanks to YA contemporary.

Do you know how many YA contemporary books are set in public high school? A lot. Do you know how many of those are set in senior year, usually the spring before they graduate? A lot more. Do you know how many of those realistically portrayed what senior year is supposed to be like? A whole lot less. Real life is no fun and usually boring so I get wanting to spice things up, but is it really necessary to traumatically disappoint me? 

I took the ACTs earlier than most, but still continued to take it throughout my senior year to boost my  score (I did well the earlier times, but a certain scholarship I needed required a high score that I kept missing by a point or less). There've been books that have talked about the SATs and others that have talked about scholarships. A lot of times, there has been mention of stress about picking a college and deciding what to do or how to get there or coping with growing up. But I NEVER read a book that accurately described the stress and the confusing, mundane tasks to actually reach college. 

The super long list I was never informed I had to do to reach college includes...

• Paying to just apply for college 
• Writing AT LEAST a 500 word essay (one I looked at had TWO!) along with other repetitive questions
• Actually deciding on which college, which requires lots of research and worrying
• Making sure the college you want knows you're accepting
• Signing up for housing (required, along with a meal plan for my college)
• Worrying about your roommate
• Waiting forever to hear about your room assignment
• Signing up for orientation
• Completing FAFSA
• Sending in your immunization forms...several times
• Repeatedly sending in your transcripts
• Applying for lots of scholarships
• Waiting to see if you're accepted for those scholarships, and having panic attacks when you're not and having dance parties when you are 
• Worry more about money, repeat this 10x
• Go to orientation and be severely bored
• Sign up for classes
• Wait

These are just the ones I remember off the top of my head and they don't even include junior year. Or deciding on which major you want. The problem with YA contemporary fiction is that it's way more fun than real life. I'm not saying that I don't want that, but it's cruel to realize you don't live in the same world. I constantly read about these people "worrying" (yeah, sure, whatever. Your stress is MINUSCULE compared to mine) about colleges, but they end up going to an out of state university. Those bad boys are about $20,000 more expensive! If you're a normal kid, where are you getting all this money from? What about the transportation home? What about your ACT/SAT scores? I've read a story where the girl was obsessed with memorizing vocabulary, but what about the other aspects? What about all the mundane details? Aren't you going to at least mention them? 

The growing up process is extremely different in fiction than it is in reality, as should be expected. But being a book lover makes it complicated. You want to connect with the character and have her feel the same way as you, but it's hard when your stress level is sky high and hers barely reaches the fence level. 

So fiction has given me another unrealistic expectation to grumble about because life is way harder than the (contemporary) main characters' growing up problems. Unless you live in Panem, I don't believe your complaints. Too bad you have [this problem] to deal with, but yay for you, you magically get accepted into the school of your choice far away even though you never studied. 

What's your complaint with YA contemporary, especially with school settings? Did you find your expectations for growing up completely delusional? 

Rewind & Review: March 24 - April 6

Hosted by Shae Has Left the Room

Newsflash: life is hard. It really, really is. It resembles Florida weather in a way. One moment, all is fine. Florida can be super sunny and the perfect beach day besides the intolerable heat. Then suddenly, it starts raining. But here's the thing about Florida rain: a lot of the time it rains and still looks perfectly sunny. So unless you hear it, you can glance outside and not even realize it's raining. Then it does go to the cloudy, stormy weather. The next thing you know, you can have a thunderstorm on your hands that rivals a hurricane. Where did that beach weather go? What I'm saying is that life can go from fine to what you think is fine to oh this is bad to DUCK FOR COVER in a terrifying, where's-my-peanut-butter instant. 

"Where's the books?" Yeah, yeah, here you go.

Books I Received: 

• To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han (Thanks, Ashleigh!) 
• Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson (Macmillan via NetGalley) 

Number of Books I've Read: 3

What I'm Reading Now/Next: 

• Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson (yay for read-alongs with Heather and Lauren!)
• The Hunt by Stacey Kade

Previous Blog Posts:

• Top Ten Tuesday: Things on My Bookish Bucket List
• DNF and a Mini Review
• Announcement: Guest Post on Another Blog
• Top Ten Tuesday: Gateway Authors/Books on My Reading Journey
• Waiting on Wednesday #4

Upcoming Blog Posts:*

• Top Ten Tuesday: Most Unique Books I've Read
• The Comparison Game
• Review: The Last Best Kiss by Claire LaZebnik
• Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Things That I'd Like to Own
• Waiting on Wednesday #5
• Review: The Hunt by Stacey Kade

*Subject to change

Bookish (and not-so-bookish) Happenings: 

• I got the Bloomsbury Kids' 2014 Fall Catalogue! Do you know what that means? Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas, ya'll.
• I meant to do a review this past weekend...but couldn't find time. Tis life. 
• But why didn't I do a review? BECAUSE SCHOOL IS EVIL. Save yourselves, kids. 
• At least I'm doing a read-along with Lauren and Heather. Somewhat. 
• One of my best friends is reading The Fault in Our Stars (and her sister after). Question: Does it make me a bad friend if I'm betting on if she'll cry? *shrugs* 

My life.

What's happened with ya'll these last two weeks? Do you have any major school projects coming up?