The Misfit Interviews: Jasmine Warga

Hello there Misfit Booknerds! It is indeed my pleasure to interview the amazingly talented Jasmine Warga and talk to her about her quirks and most especially her debut novel My Heart and Other Black Holes! Alright! Let's get it started!

SOME DEETS

If you can be stuck in another country or any city in the US besides your hometown, where would you like to be?

• Right now I’m going to say St. Lucia because it is freezing here and I’m desperate for some sunshine and warm weather.

Who is your fictional crush?

• Most recent fictional crush? Maven from Victoria Aveyard’s RED QUEEN. All-time? Pacey from Dawson’s Creek.

What is your guilty pleasure?

• I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I’m not embarassed of any of the media I enjoy, but I probably watch too much TV so I’ll go with binge-watching TV.

If you have a TV show you’d like to come back on the telly (not Netflix of course) then what will it be?

• Dawson’s Creek! I don’t know how that would work, but I want it. Also, I want a Sons of Anarchy prequel.

How was the #EpicReadsTour in the Harry Potter World? 

• MAGICAL. AMAZING. It was seriously the best. 

Who is the author you wish to work with if you are given the opportunity?

• Victoria Schwab or Nova Ren Suma. Both are brilliant and they write such genre-bending stories and I’d love the opportunity to get a glimpse into how their genius works.

AUTHOR Q'S

Again, congratulations! My Heart and Other Black Holes is a literary success and my friends are starting to go crazy for it. As always, I want to ask, what initially made you write this story?

• Oh, I’m so glad to hear your friends are enjoying it! I initially started to write the book after the unexpected death of one of my closest friends and I woke up with Aysel’s voice in my head. But while my grief served as a chief inspiration, I think the book is ultimately about love (in all its forms, self-love, friendship, etc) and the true saving power of human connection.

Aysel is such an amazing but distraught character. And she has such an unusually honest voice. What would you say makes her different from YA characters that go through these stages of depression?

Stereotypes in Books That You Are Probably Tired Of

Lately, I have been enjoying doing features on my blog, that I somehow couldn't stop. LOL. But then at the same time, it's also kinda hard thinking up of good content or a topic interesting enough to feature. And suddenly, while singing in the shower, I thought of the most stereotypical post I could post I could ever do. I think it was the soapsuds' fault. Anyway, I thought of talking about stereotypes in books you've probably been reading and are probably tired of... well hopefully not but just you know, maybe.

1. The girl or guy who has lost interest in the world's crap

These are the girls or guys who wish to either not exist, jump off a building or go to an entirely different universe because the world has become an intoxicating place to live in with all the bullying and whatnot. While we do cry and relate to a lot of the times, you sometimes wish that you'd get to read about cheery girls next because it's not that you are getting bored. You are just getting tired of crying.

2. Dense characters

BOOK BLOGGER LOVE-A-THON 2015: CURRENT BOOKISH HIGHS

It's my final post for this year's Love-A-Thon! I did wish I got to do the book spine poetry and Valentine card, but I was a tad busy and also timezones and sleep. LOL! Anyway, this post will focus on my "high" fives.

Let's get started!

BOOK:

I am currently reading Shaun Hutchinson's The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, although I wouldn't say it is making me extremely happy though it is good, but if I have a hangover over a book, and still currently high over it, it would be nothing, Top Ten Clues You're Clueless by Liz Czukas, because it's the happiest book I have read in a while. I could've said All The Bright Places or My Heart and Other Black Holes, but if you've read them, you'd understand where I'm coming from.

GENRE:

Well, the current genre I have been really into lately would have to be contemporary romance genres just because most of my TBR consists of them, though I'd appreciate a new experience. I just need to save up some money for now. LOL. Also, I may be entering this phase where you I am romantically needy now that I'm 21 and all? I dunno HAHAHA!

BOOK BLOGGER LOVE-A-THON 2015: BOOK SELFIES (THE T.S. 1989 EDITION)

So it's another day of Love-A-Thon! Today's challenge is taking photos of your favorite books! I actually love taking pictures of my books but I don't usually do it often, so here's a good chance for me to share with you my skills. I decided to include some polaroids from Taylor Swift's 1989 deluxe album, which I received as a gift, and tried to pair up the polaroid's message with the book's! Again, special thanks to Alexa Loves Books for this event!

Okay let's start!!! Check out every single one of them and tell me what you think!

The Statistical Probability of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

BOOK BLOGGER LOVE-A-THON 2015: HI! IT'S JAYVEE!

Hello there Misfit book nerds! How have you all been doing? I know you guys haven't missed me all that much coz I have posted a lot recently but here I am again with another feature. This year, I am very excited to be part of  the Book Blogger Love-a-Thon 2015, hosted by awesome book blogger and friend, Alexa Loves Books! 

And to fully start, I will answer a questionnaire provided for the Book Blogger Love-a-Thon 2015! Eeep! I'm excited!

1. What’s your name? 

Hello! My name is Jenivieve! But I would prefer if you call me Jayvee coz I dunno, it's a lot easier but you can call me other nice things. Like sweet tea. LOL

2. Where in the world are you blogging from? 

I am blogging from the Philippines! *raises flag really high*

3. How did you get into blogging in the first place?

I started blogging in 2013, where this blog wasn't even called Writer For Misfits and it was a personal blog. But then I started to involve books in my posts and interact with other amazing book bloggers, so last April, I became a full fledged book blog. YAY!

WTF: Selling of ARCs

This day has been really tiring, both physically, mentally and emotionally and I don't know how to describe my rage when I saw a post about a seller, selling ARCs over at Instagram.

As a blogger, who gets electronic advance readers copies or eARCs, we are notified by the publishing company, that these electronic copies are not for sale and can not be distributed unless they are notified of what purpose it might be used for. It's the same with physical ARCs and it is pretty apparent with their "NOT FOR SALE" sign on the covers of the physicals.

Yellowing Pages: YAY or NAY?

I did some spring cleaning the other day! YAY! OMG! I'm so proud of myself! I actually did some cleaning! HAHA! 

Well, it did take my Dad to give me a lecture on  how I haven't cleaned my room in daaays. Yeah. My Dad is a bit of a neat freak. Well, so am I, I guess.

Anyway, okay, let's get back to what I was talking about! I was cleaning my room and decided to clear out my "bookshelves" to clean off the dust from the surface and also to wipe my books since I hate covering them in plastic. But then I noticed something. The pages of some of my books, particularly those I got from 2013- which is when I really started collecting- started to have yellowing pages.

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Ten Book Related Problems I Have

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish where, each week, a Top Ten list is posted based on a particular topic.

Hi there! It's been forever since my last Top Ten Tuesdays post. I decided to take it easy with posting memes for the past month and I guess it was therapeutic but then it made me miss it. So here I am, writing a post for this week. Anyway, let's get to it! The theme for this week is Ten Book Related Problems I Have. I kind of interpreted this as problems I have when it comes to reading and also when it comes to questions I get in the process.

Review: My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

Title: My Heart and Other Black Holes
Author: Jasmine Warga
Publication: February 10th 2014, Balzer + Bray
Format: e-ARC, 320 pages.
Source: From publisher (HarperCollins! THANK YOU!!!)
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | The Book Depository | Kobo | National Book Store / Fully Booked (PH)

SYNOPSIS:

Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.

There's only one problem: she's not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel's convinced she's found her solution—Roman, a teenage boy who's haunted by a family tragedy, is looking for a partner. Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other's broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together.

Misfit Review:

It takes a lot of courage and willpower to gut your way out of sadness, especially when it seems like it's planning on staying there for a bit of a vacation. But with My Heart and Other Black Holes, an attempt and a spark may actually give you that push you need to get that sadness to take a hike home.

So the story starts with Aysel Seran, a 16 year old girl who is trying to find a way to off herself without having to do it alone. She stumbles upon Smooth Passages where people are looking for Suicide Partners. Aysel finds interest in FrozenRobot who wishes to die in a specific date: April 7. From then on, the two of them try to go through every day, dealing with the people they love, the prejudices of people and the growing black holes in their hearts.

How Do Authors See Reviewers of Their Books?

There's this article that I came up upon as I was scrolling through my Twitter timeline. It was a story of how author, Amy Spalding, made a Goodreads Young Adult Bingo, during her spare time.

OK guys I did something great with my lunch hour. pic.twitter.com/E06VEEgVXf
— Amy Spalding (@theames) February 3, 2015

This garnered a lot of attention from both authors and reviewers, both positive and negative. It especially hit some reviewers.

@theames guess only way not to get ridiculed is to give 5 stars to all the books to not get hate from you guys. very mature.
— Juhina (@juhina_) February 4, 2015

I am a reviewer and as much as I found myself reading the bingo card, got a good laugh from it, analyzed I was some of the boxes to be filled and then realized that other reviewers got to see this, it hurt me.

Review: Noggin by John Corey Whaley

Title: Noggin
Author: John Corey Whaley
Publication: April 8th 2014, Atheneum Books For Young Readers
Format: ARC, 344 pages
Source: Kai of Amaterasu Reads! Special thanks to Dianne of Oops I Read A Book Again for sending it in!
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | The Book Depository | Kobo | National Book Store / Fully Booked (PH)

SYNOPSIS:

Listen — Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t.

Now he’s alive again.

Simple as that.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but he can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still 16 and everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too.

Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, then there are going to be a few more scars.

Oh well, you only live twice.

Misfit Review:

Change scares us all. Whether it's good or bad, change is inevitable and stopping it may not be possible. Travis Coates would have to learn it the hard way after his head was cryogenically frozen for five years. He finds out that the people he loves move forward while everything about him has fallen into a complete stand-still.

Noggin is the story of Travis Coates, a 16 year old who had to go surgery because his body has been swarmed by cancer cell. The only thing that wasn't affected was his head. And he had to be reattached to a guy named Jeremy Pratt, who's head was removed from him because of a brain tumor. One day he wakes up to find he has been asleep for 5 years, his head on top of a new body. He's also learned that he's 16 again and would have to deal with that all over again. His friends from 5 years ago are still there, but now have lives of their own. He now has to deal with people who see him as a miracle boy while also trying to get back the things he thinks he lost.

I was a bit skeptical at first by Noggin but since I liked odd stories, I submerged myself to the book. But then, even with it's weirdness, it tells a theme that is all very familiar to us: CHANGE. With Travis, he doesn't want anything to do with the change that went on as he fell asleep and everyone changed. He didn't want his girlfriend, excuse me, ex-girlfriend Cate, marrying a guy named Turner, his parents are acting odd and the world that was so easy and chill for him, turned into a media uproar as well. 

A Shift On Book Blogging

Inspired by both Jamie of The Perpetual Page-Turner and Hazel of Stay Bookish's posts, I decided that I wanted to talk about how I feel about book blogging and the community itself.

My blog was nothing like what it is now a year ago... Yes, it has actually been a year since this blog was conceptualized, with a different name whatsoever and it was more of a personal blog, talking about my feelings blah blah blah. And out of the blue (late April), I decided to take book blogging seriously, shift to that and make my blog a full fledged book blog.

Trying out book blogging was not as easy, especially since I entered the whole blogging community with very little knowledge and how-to. I then started referring to other bloggers and they have been simply helpful and wonderful, giving me tips and resources. At first, it was all fun and games and then that's when I started becoming frustrated and insecure. Since knowing these amazing bloggers, it felt like it wasn't my place to even talk to them if my blog wasn't even worth anybody's time. So I did a lot of self promotion and even involved everyone to a giveaway, just so that I could say I have followers and that my view count was rising. Also learning about ARCs and whatnot excited me, and I researched all I can just so I can be part of the fun.Yes, as much as I would hate to admit it, when things started to change in the book blogging community, I was part of it.

But then, I started to think how much I was pushing myself to get a post out just to keep my blog alive at some point, or even thinking about what giveaway I should do next, and I think I got tired of it and somehow drifted away from having fun. At first, it was real exciting, now the whole blogging thing felt like work instead of sharing my love for a particular book. If you read my current feature about my reading pace, it will also give you an idea of how things have changed for me when it comes to reading and also blogging.

Lately, I've been enjoying posting features such as this, that either talks about my love for books or just try to entertain current followers and any future readers. And it even takes me forever to come back and blog, but at some point, I know I like what I post. As for the books that I read, I don't try to scurry for words in order to get the word out as fast or faster than the others. If I'm part of the general public that liked that book, then I don't mind if I'm last, as long as I get to actually enjoy it and love it. As I said to Jamie, my books need time and that I also need it. It also allows my reviews to become more personal and relatable to readers.

This whole experience has been a journey of self-awareness as well as the influence of those who have opened my eyes in  the goodness of book blogging. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this up, but I am surely enjoying how I am handling my blog now. As for the other book bloggers out there, especially those starting out, may this help you or at least make you think of what your getting yourself into.

If you want, you can leave comments below of what you think blogging is. Are you interested? What do you think makes a book blog good? As for my fellow bloggers, what inspires you to pursue a certain topic to talk about? And what fuels you to continue blogging? It would be lovely to hear from you!

Review: Top Ten Clues You're Clueless by Liz Czukas

Title: Top Ten Clues You're Clueless
Author: Liz Czukas
Publication: December 9th 2014, HarperTeen
Format: e-ARC, 304 pages
Source: Publisher, THANKS HARPERTEEN!
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | The Book Depository | Kobo | National Book Store / Fully Booked (PH)

SYNOPSIS:

Top Five Things That Are Ruining Chloe’s Day

5) Working the 6:30 a.m. shift at GoodFoods Market

4) Crashing a cart into a customer’s car right in front of her snarky coworker Sammi

3) Trying to rock the “drowned rat” look after being caught in a snowstorm

2) Making zero progress with her crush, Tyson (see #3)

1) Being accused—along with her fellow teenage employees—of stealing upwards of $10,000 

Chloe would rather be anywhere than locked in work jail (aka the break room) with five of her coworkers . . . even if one of them is Tyson. But if they can band together to clear their names, what looks like a total disaster might just make Chloe’s list of Top Ten Best Moments.

Misfit Review:

I honestly thought I was going to get bored while reading this book but it proved me wrong by giving me typical teenagers with unique personalities. Top Ten Clues You're Clueless is like reliving The Breakfast Club all over again.

The story starts with Chloe Novak going through the day with a list. She is obsessed with listing things from what she has observed, to things she needs to buy, etc. Everything for her could be listed and she is comfortable that way. It's Christmas Eve and Chloe has to work at the GoodFoods Market when money was stolen and she and her co-workers get accused of stealing it. It is then that everyone starts to bond and know each other a lot better than they had before.

I found every single character in this book adorable (well except Mr. Solomon. He's kind of a douche). I mean, just with Tyson! He's sweet and nice and ugh! I can gobble him up. He's also a very good voice of reason. Then there's Gabe who seems like a douche but becomes the type of guy you'd end up liking when you get to know him. Zaina is the girl you wish wouldn't exist because she seems too perfect and beautiful, who is nice but has her frustrations and flaws, and you realize she's human too. Micah, the resident nerd is kind, weird and just someone you wish would get life even if he actually knows every single thing in the universe. And finally, there is Sammi, the life of the party, the bad girl/rockstar who you thought you could hate but you secretly adore because she's actually cool and she doesn't give a rat's ass about anything. Bring them all together in a situation where they are forced to stay in and mingle with each other, and you got yourself a peek at their problems, queries and quirks.

The book focuses on how certain interactions with these characters come by. For example, Chloe gets too frazzled around Tyson because she has a major crush on him or that Gabe and Sammi are a total OTP but they clearly just like to banter with each other. It's just so cute when these things happen. AND ON CHRISTMAS EVE TOO! Especially with Gabe and Sammi! UGH!!!! 

We are introduced with chapters that have lists in them, mostly Chloe's Top Tens, depending on the situation they are in or how a certain member of her posse personifies themselves. The novel allows the characters to open up to each other even if they do work together in the same place. They end up understanding each other further and to work out their differences. There are some weird ways on how they do though, like with cleaning the whole store, which you might think is actually boring, although reading it was actually fun. It felt like I was with them in it too. And it definitely opened up a lot of good drama in it too.

The novel also tackles the problem of who actually stole the money. I'll leave that to your capable hands guys. It could be one of them. *whistles and walks away*

Anyway, Liz Czukas delivers characters that are light but with backgrounds that give meaning to their actions. She has wrote a unique way of introducing her main character to us, through her obsession with lists and observations and how in a way, it became beneficial to their pursuit of the truth. Though the concept of teenagers getting to know each other more isn't new at all to the young adult genre, Top Ten Clues You're Clueless provides a refreshing view of how stereotyping works and how friendships can be discovered in the most unusual of situations. 

May there be more novels that are refreshing and light but could deliver on being interesting enough for a reader to stay put and read it. And this novel, for me, did not leave itself clueless to that.

About The Author:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Liz Czukas is the author of fun YA romances like ASK AGAIN LATER (HarperTeen '14) and TOP TEN CLUES YOU'RE CLUELESS (HarperTeen '14). She also writes fun New Adult romances like WHEN JOSS MET MATT under the name Ellie Cahill.