Reflect & Renew: June 2013

Hello readers! Say hi to Reflect and Renew which you will be seeing around here at the end of each month. Inspired by Monthly Rewind at the Perpetual Page Turner. Enjoy! :)

Well, with the turn of a new month, Google Reader and Google Friend Connect will now officially go the way of the dinosaurs. I've already shared the news with y'all back in March. I also included a link to an awesome post over at Radiant Shadows looking into some Google Reader substitutes. Honestly, from what I've seen, it's between Feedly and Bloglovin. My personal preference is Bloglovin (there's more information here) so if any of you have Bloglovin, you know you can find me there! Just click the first button on the right with the B and the heart and you'll be taken straight to my blog! There's also always the 'Follow by Email' option available. Just enter your email in the box and Feedburner will do the rest for you! :) Hope to keep in touch with y'all, and to my fellow Canadians, happy Canada Day!

REVIEWS:

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky
Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle
Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality


DISCUSSIONS:
My Bookish Confessions Part 1
My Bookish Confessions Part 2

FEATURES:
Quote Madness: Bossypants


OTHER:
The Red Concert

BOOKS NEXT UP ON MY TBR LIST:

A Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook and Brandon Halpin
The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence
Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys
Geektastic by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
Peregrine Harker and The Black Death by Luke Hollands

Stunning by Sara Shepard
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
Miss Peregrine's Home for the Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

MOST MEMORABLE EVENTS:

Going to Montreal with my friends! 

Watching Now You See Me with my grandmother (Magic!)
Watching The Internship with my friends (I kind of want to work at Google now!)
Grad ceremony!
Discovering some awesome indie & used bookstores, cool cafes

MOST PLAYED SONG:

Demons - Imagine Dragons

THINGS I CAN'T WAIT FOR IN JULY:
Getting some down time
Possibly volunteering at my local library
Possibly volunteering at a daycare centre
Having lots and lots of fun before school starts again!
Canada Day!
Camp Nanowrimo!


AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE:
Lit Up Review kicked off this month. It's written by four amazing girls, you'll definitely want to check it out!
Jamie shares her reading timeline. What a cool idea!
Epic Reads share some super cute cards. I'm already bookmarking some for upcoming birthdays!
I've heard about the evil sentence (I released a breath I didn't know I was holding and all its variations) but it took Kelley to mention the crooked smile until I realized just how common it is too!
I know a lot of us are prepping for Camp Nanowrimo, me included. This post by Ms. Nova Ren Suma on outlining really motivated me to outline - something I rarely do!


That's all, see you next month! :)

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg

Published by Point; March 1, 2013

Hardcover, 272 pages

Borrowed from library

A hilarious new novel from Elizabeth Eulberg about taking the wall out of the wallflower so she can bloom.

Don't mess with a girl with a great personality!

Everybody loves Lexi. She's popular, smart, funny...but she's never been one of those girls, the pretty ones who get all the attention from guys. And on top of that, her seven-year-old sister, Mackenzie, is a terror in a tiara, and part of a pageant scene where she gets praised for her beauty (with the help of fake hair and tons of makeup).

Lexi's sick of it. She's sick of being the girl who hears about kisses instead of getting them. She's sick of being ignored by her longtime crush, Logan. She's sick of being taken for granted by her pageant-obsessed mom. And she's sick of having all her family's money wasted on a phony pursuit of perfection.

The time has come for Lexi to step out from the sidelines. Girls without great personalities aren't going to know what hit them. Because Lexi's going to play the beauty game - and she's in it to win it.

- Description from Goodreads.com

I have always been fascinated by the world of beauty pageants. In my household, I'm known for plopping down in front of the telly for hour-long marathons of Toddler & Tiaras. The drama. The humiliation. Honestly, what more could you ask for in reality television? So I suppose you could say I was excited to jump into beauty pageants on page. 

Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality tells the story of Lexi, a teenage girl over with being just average. So starts her superficial mission to completely reinvent herself as a girl with more than just a 'great personality'. To be frank with you, I'm a bit tired of all this superficial makeover nonsense. Because in all the books I've read with this, the characters are mostly all whiney and annoying. No exception here. However, with Lexi, you can't help but feel bad for her. She comes from a neglectful family and her mum fails to understand and respect her needs, instead focusing her attention on younger sister, Mackenzie, a beauty queen. No wonder Lexi feels she needs to give herself a makeover to gain attention. 

+ Pluses

• Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality is a fast and funny read, sticking true to Elizabeth's bubbly and hilarious character.
• The beauty pageant theme is unique - you don't see it in Young Adult often.
• I really enjoyed the secondary characters: Benny, Cam and Taylor. They really shined through.
• It's easy to relate to Lexi's feeling of neglect and her want of being a gorgeous, noticeable girl.

-Minuses

• Lexi is whiney and annoying. No extra points for this even if I can understand where she's coming from.
• The references to fatness and beauty made me very uncomfortable. Not sure what the message is here.
• Is there a mental love triangle here? Because there certainly seems to be the same indecisiveness. Make up your mind, girl! Logan or Taylor? You can only pick one. Geez!
• The ending fell flat for me. It did not feel complete and some loose ends were left. 

Still, this book was pretty

My Bookish Confessions Part 2

So here's part two of my Bookish Confessions series. You guys already know what you're here for so I'll stop talking and cut straight to the chase.

1. I like to write my review as soon after I've finished the book as possible.
Sure, I take notes as I read but no matter what I do, the words always come easier to me when I've just finished the book.

2. I never schedule my posts.
Well, unless you count doing Top Ten Tuesdays on Tuesday, then I might have to reconsider. But no, I don't schedule my posts at all. I kind of just go with the flow. I have reviews up after I've finished a book I think is appropriate to review and beyond that, I simply write whatever I think my blog is needing. For example, if I haven't done a Seeing Double in a while, I'll make it a point to throw one in in the future.

3. I'm not afraid to dog-ear funny pages in certain books.
I know some people don't like dog-earing but I'm all for it...in certain books. If it's a ratty book that I read from time to time for enjoyment (like my copy of The Undomestic Goddess), then you can't hold me back from folding down a couple corners to mark some laugh-out-loud moments. But if it's a sleek new copy of The 5th Wave, say, (which I snatched up yesterday!) then you can bet there ain't going to be any folding going on here!

4. Nor am I afraid to write in my books.
This goes mostly for all the classics I own and have read. They're much harder for me to digest so occasionally, I'll mark down my thoughts in the margins. I can flip back later and see all my deep thoughts.

5. I don't organize my books.
Not that I even have enough books to create an entire library system but nevertheless, I am not one to organize my books. Not by author or title - heck, my books aren't even all on the bookshelf! They're all scattered around my home which can be annoying when I'm searching for a particular book and just can't find it. At times, it'll be rather funny when all of the sudden, I'm brushing my teeth and I notice my old copy of the Philosopher's Stone on the counter. But over the weekend, I managed to rally up all my books and place them back onto the bookshelf. Unfortunately, I haven't made the effort to at least put them nicely on the shelf yet so my bookshelf is looking like this:

I think I've run out of confessions as of now but if you have ones you would like to share, don't hesitate to leave a comment! I'd love to hear from you! :)

Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle

Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle

Published by Dutton Juvenile; May 14, 2009

Paperback, 289 pages

Borrowed from library
Wealth, privilege, and way too many pastel-tinted opinions...that's Carly's life. And guess what? It's. Getting. On. Her. Nerves.

Carly wants to be real, and she's always counted on her little sister, Anna, to lover her and support her—and tell her how right she is. But when Anna turns "hot" over the course of a single summer, everything goes weird. Suddenly Anna's swimming in the deep end with the big girls—while Carly watches, hurt, from the kiddie pool. And of course there are boys involved, complicating things as boys always do.

With warmth, insight, and an unparalleled gift for finding humor even in stormy situations, beloved author Lauren Myracle dives into the tumultuous waters of sisterhood and shows that even very different sisters can learn to help each other stay afloat.

- Description from Goodreads.com

Peace, Love and Baby Ducks is the first book I've picked up by Lauren Myracle and without a doubt, I will be checking out her other books. I was overwhelmed by how good this book was and while I had some troubles with it, it was still a very enjoyable experience.

I really liked reading about the sister dynamic between Carly and Anna. Their relationship felt real and I liked that. One of my favourite things in novels is families and I'm super happy I got to see that play out realistically in this book. 

Another thing that was a big PRO for me were Vonzelle and Roger. They were the absolute bomb and outshined everybody else. I loved reading about them and if I had a wish, it would be to have Rozelle as my real life friends. 

The writing was also incredibly funny and quirky. It felt in place with Carly's character and it was so nice to be able to get who Carly was right away. But although I liked how straightforward Carly's character was, I absolutely detested her for a good amount of the book. She was selfish and super thick. And while I'm happy she wasn't perfect, there was too little character development for me to appreciate her. I felt let down by the ending because it didn't seem to me that Carly had learned from her mistakes.

There were also some things in the book that seemed irrelevant to the story. Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks is a bit of a self-discovery story and honestly, I didn't see how the baby ducks contributed anything to that. Perhaps it was symbolic to the unification of Vonzelle, Anna, and Carly but while reading, I just thought it was superfluous and unnecessary (just like my redundancy right there).

All in all, Peace, Love and Baby Ducks was a fun and fast read. I'm certainly happy I picked it up. There were some great attributes to this book, including the way Lauren subtly weaselled in some interesting observations of our current Western society. I thought it was very well done and although I was left wanting more at the end, it was a great read.

My Bookish Confessions Part 1

Here's to letting you know that I'm still alive! While I may not be posting every week now, I'm still constantly checking my feed and lately, I've been noticing a trend in confession posts. And because I am a very trendy person, I will be hopping on the bandwagon today with my edition of Bookish Confessions. Let's get started!

1. I prefer paperbacks over hardcovers.
No matter how much I love dust covers, I have to say I'm on Team Paperback. Sure, my covers get crinkled but there's a certain aura of awesomeness to a book that appears read. Paperbacks are also much cheaper which is always a plus when you're a bookaholic.

2. I prefer borrowing books over buying.
That is a lie. I don't acutally prefer borrowing over buying, I just make myself borrow books. Because when I'm let out in a bookstore, I go full out. I'll buy stupid looking books that I'm not even interested in, simply for the sake of buying a book. Which is why, in order to save my money from being spent on books I don't want to read, I borrow most of my books. With the exception of some books I just have to have. Y'all get me, right?

3. Music always has to be playing as I'm updating my blog.
Music is basically a must for anything I'm doing surrounding a computer. There's something calming about having some background noise (even if it's Call Me Maybe) while I'm typing away. It helps get my creative juices flowing. Writing reviews with music in the background is a thousand times easier than writing one without.

4. I never read over my posts.
It's not that I don't care enough about this blog to make it picture perfect, it's simply the fact that I want my voice to be as authentic as possible. And while I'm all for correcting spelling or grammatical errors is dandy, I find myself deleting whole lines of my posts when I do reread. I'm a born perfectionist and it would take me ages if I were to make every post as perfect as I would like them to be. I would never get any content out ever if I did that. Most of all though, my blog is my comfort-zone and that means being me without shame that people will judge me if I am super wacky and crazy sometimes.

5. I always write my reviews in one sitting.
I read a lot of books and it's easy for storylines to get muddled in my brain (My book blog was partially started to prevent this). After I've finished a book is when I have the clearest opinion on the book and I want to get all that out before they slip away. Which is why I write all my reviews in one sitting.


What about you? What are some of your bookish quirks? Let me know in the comments! And stay tuned for Part 2!

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
Published by The Dial Press; February 26, 2008
Hardcover, 389 pages
Borrowed from library

Lexi wakes up in a hospital bed after a car accident, thinking it's 2004 and she's a twenty-five-year old with crooked teeth and a disastrous love life. But, to her disbelief, she learns it's actually 2007 - she's twenty-eight, her teeth are straight, she's the boss of her department - and she's married! To a good-looking millionaire! How on earth did she land the dream life??! She can't believe her luck - especially when she sees her stunning new home. She's sure she'll have a fantastic marriage once she gets to know her husband again. He's drawn up a 'manual of our marriage,' which should help. But as she learns more about her new self, chinks start to appear in the perfect life. All her old colleagues hate her. A rival is after her job. Then a dishevelled, sexy guy turns up...and lands a new bombshell. What happened to her? Will she ever remember? And what will happen if she does?

- Description from Goodreads.com

Whenever I'm in a reading slump, I turn to Sophie Kinsella. Her books never fail to crack me up and this one was no exception. Remember Me? is a fun book with enough charm to grip you until the very end. If you've read some of Kinsella's previous novels, you'll notice some of the same characteristics in this book: financial sub-plot, hilarious and quirky main character, guys, and a giant obstacle the main character has to overcome. But even with all these similar attributes, Kinsella is still able to keep things fresh. This time, she brings out the old amnesia storyline. With Lexi having absolutely no clue about her life, ridiculous antics are sure to follow. And they do, progressing the story wickedly fast.

The only thing I had qualms about was the financial sub-plot in this one. I would have liked to see some follow-up about that and also, a bit more information as to how it all works out for her in the end. I suppose it's nice to keep the reader thinking but that was a bit too open for me.

In short, Remember Me? was a delightful read sure to please old and new Kinsella fans. Everything that's familiar about Sophie Kinsella is included here, along with a fresh storyline and some important lessons to take away. Absolutely hilarious, if you're looking for enjoyment, look no further!

The Red Concert

Something big happened yesterday, guys. I went to my first concert and saw one of my favourite artists in concert! It was such an amazing experience and I'm so grateful I was able to go. Taylor put on a wonderful show, not stopping for two straight hours! The vocals were great and all the artistic touches really made the concert memorable. And we had THREE opening acts!

The first opening act was Joel Crouse, whom I had never heard before but is superbly good. (Yesterday was his birthday so happy birthday, Joel!) I arrived a bit later and missed his first few performances but luckily, caught his amazing rendition of Someone Like You.

Then came Austin Mahone who was the second opening act. Well, all I can say is that I'm certainly no Mahomie. His dancing skills were quite impressive though!

And then there was Ed. Amazing Ed who came out and rocked the audience with his song, Give Me Love. He did a brilliant cover of Feeling Good which gave me chills and a great performance of You Need Me, I Don't Need You, Lego House, and The A Team. This is a picture I took from my seat way up in the back. This was actually one of my better pictures.

Once Ed had finished his tiny performance, there was a super long break and it took us well into the third half hour of the concert. But finally Taylor came out with her song, State of Grace (which is like one of my favourites.)

Here was the set list for her performance:

1. State of Grace

2. Holy Ground

3. Red

4. You Belong With Me

5. The Lucky One

6. Mean

7. Stay Stay Stay/Ho Hey

8. 22

9. Tim McGraw

10. Everything Has Changed

11. Begin Again

12. Sparks Fly

13. I Knew You Were Trouble

14. All Too Well

15. Love Story

16. Treacherous

17. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

In between her costume changes, there were amazing acts put on by her dancers and musicians. I clearly remember a zooming redhead violinist, jamming on stage before IKYWT and ballet dancers climbing out of a chest before Love Story. There were also flying drummers and some cool fireworks! 

In short, the performance was amazing! Everything was magnificent (including her vocals) and it was so much fun. Taylor is a wonderful performer and if you get the opportunity to see her, I highly suggest you take it! :)

Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky

Anatomy of a Single Girl by Daria Snadowsky

Anatomy #2

Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers; January 8, 2013

Hardcover, 227 pages

Received from the author - thanks!
With Judy Blume-like honesty and insight, this sequel toAnatomy of a Boyfriend is about life after first love--romance, sex, friendship, family, and the ups and downs of life as a single girl.

After everything that happened—my first boyfriend, my first time, my first breakup—jumping back into the dating game seemed like the least healthy thing I could do. It’s not that I didn’t want to fall in love again, since that’s about the best feeling ever. But as a busy college premed still raw from heartbreak, which is the worst feeling ever, I figured I’d lie low for a while. Of course, as soon as I stopped looking for someone, an impossibly amazing—and devastatingly cute—guy came along, and I learned that having a new boyfriend is the quickest way to recover from losing your old one.

The moment we got together, all my preconceptions about romance and sex were turned upside down. I discovered physical and emotional firsts I never knew existed. I learned to let go of my past by living in the present. It was thrilling. It was hot. It was just what the doctor ordered.

But I couldn’t avoid my future forever.

In Daria Snadowsky’s daring follow-up to Anatomy of a Boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Dominique explores the relationship between love and lust, and the friendships that see us through.

- Description from Goodreads.com

Anatomy of a Single Girl continues the story of Dominique, except this time she's single and ready to mingle. She's back at home for summer break and as fate would have it, she meets another boy. Ooooh. And yes, of course things happen. 

After reading Anatomy of a Boyfriend which is so incredibly explicit, Anatomy of a Girlfriend feels like a mouthwash. It's much less graphic (though I wouldn't necessarily say they have less sex) and I like that. I think it's also very representative of how Dominique has grown sexually. In the first book, she described play by play what went on in her, er, sexual life. However, in this book, there was less of "and then he started kissing blah blah blah" and more of "it felt exhilirating" and so on. I take this to mean that she's obviously much more experienced now and she's doing it really for her own enjoyment. She's not thinking about, you know, making sure her boyfriend is please, she's more focused on herself which I think is amazing. It shows that even though the breakup was bad and had a negative affect on her, Dominique has actually benefited from it in the way she's carrying herself. She's so much more independent and strong. You go, girl!  

Dominique has never been an outstanding character but now, real people aren't ever outstanding, are they? So you know, while I don't particularly like Dominique, I can admire her for being an authentic teen voice. I know that must have been said like ten thousand times by my fellow reviewers but it's worth reiterating. Daria understands teenagers and she knows how to write them. At times, Dominique is so real that she seems to be so much more than just a character in a book. 

I think that's what this book has going for it. It's not the storyline (which in all honesty, I found a bit dull), it's not the barrier-breaking sex talk, it's the fact that teens can relate to this book. It's the fact that it's authentic. Every single page in this book hits being a teenager spot on. I loved how Dominique had her flaws and the author wasn't afraid to show that. But she also displayed the good of Dominique which made her a very well-rounded character. 

There are also some great issues discussed in this book and some great lessons to learn from Dominique. This book is perfect for all teenage girls. You'll get so much out of this book from reading about Dominique's adventure with boys. And trust me, if you're not into all that graphic sex but still want to give Dom a shot, go ahead and skip right to this book. 

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
The Chemical Garden #1

Published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing; March 22, 2011
Paperback, 358 pages
Borrowed from library

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

- Description from Goodreads.com

Three words: Wither disappointed me. And I am so sad to say that because I really thought I was going to love this one as much as everyone else did. However, there just way too many things I had qualms about that just made this book a flop for me.

Firstly, the world building. I. Don't. Get. This. World. I mean, here's me, the person who barely ever pays attention in science and who is known to avoid thinking as much as possible, and even I know that this world makes as little sense as the simple statement: There are two suns in our galaxy.There was little explanation to this new world set in the future where all continents except for North America have been reduced to little islands, both Antarctica and the Arctic have been reduced to water by warfare, and now somehow amongst all this chaos, cancer has been cured but as a result, girls now die at 20 and boys die at 25. None of this makes any logical sense. And especially not when you've been given an iota of information to back it all up. Furthermore, I felt like all that chaos prior to this new future was merely added to emphasize the terribleness of their society and maybe make some statement about how war is bad. There was no regard for whether or not it made scientific sense and thus, I felt like a lot of it was superfluous and could have been taken out.

I also felt like there were inconsistencies with some of the characters. Let's start with Gabriel who seems to fall in love with Rhine upon first sight. Gabriel is Rhine's servant and he's basically supposed to give her her food and you know, get her whatever she wants. Now Gabriel has this terribly controlling boss named Vaughn who just so happens to be Linden's first-generation scientist father. He is menacing and creepy. If you were to work under him and you knew that if you broke one of the rules (which I presume would include "not fraternizing with the sister wives") you would be punished, why would you be flirting with Rhine? I mean, creepy guy is out to get you and you're flirting with her? Seriously, if I were Gabriel, I would be more worried about staying on Vaughn's good side no matter how much I love Rhine. Dude, if you're dead, you won't be able to see Rhine ever again. Think about that next time you go off with her.

And now for my sweet Rhine. Who's caught in a love triangle between Linden and Gabriel. Boy, is she indecisive! She says she wants to escape but half the time she's going on and on about how nice Linden is (though apparently she hates him) and blah blah blah. It's only until three quarters of the book in where Rhine actually makes a move on with her escaping and man, when it happened, I felt like "Why didn't she do this earlier???" because it seemed so EASY. I was honestly ripping my hair out because I was so frustrated. And is it just me but I liked Linden way more than Gabriel. I'm not saying that Linden was any good but Gabriel just felt so one-dimensional. I was rolling my eyes every time his name was printed on the page.

But I think the one thing that really pushed me to read on (and it wasn't Rhine's escape because excuse me, she didn't do that until the end) was Lauren DeStefano's writing. I loved it. It was gripping and she had me flipping pages like crazy at the beginning. I would seriously consider reading another one of her works simply for her writing. It was the only thing I really enjoyed in Wither.

While the writing is fantastic, I did not like waiting for Rhine to escape. The world made no logical or scientific sense and the characters were just downright aggravating. My verdict:

Quote Madness: Bossypants

Quote Madness is a feature here at Random Reads where I share some of my favourite quotes! Inspired by So Quotable at So Obsessed With. :)

I finished Bossypants by Tina Fey yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it. While I knew I didn't want to write a review for it (because it's a memoir and how do you review those?), I also knew that I wanted to share the sheer awesomeness of this book with y'all. And what better way to do it than through quotes? Especially when everyone knows that comedians often come up with some of the best quotes ever. (See here, Bossypants won the 2011 Goodreads Choice award for Best Humor. The jury has spoken!) Here are some of the most memorable quotes from Bossypants:

“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”

“To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.”

“By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.”

“I was a little excited but mostly blorft. "Blorft" is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.”

“You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.”