Monthly Recommendations | Family Focus

It's that time of the month again, my Monthly Recommendations are here! This month the topic is Family Focus and I don't know how well my recommendations fit into this topic but I'm going to give them anyway.

First book I want to recommend is the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's a story about a mysterious black and white circus that doesn't advertise its movements but just appears at some place and leaves without a warning. The performers of the circus form a tight family that takes care of each other and the whole story is quite heartwarming. Circus as a setting is also very interesting and I wonder why there are not more books or tv series set in a circus. Maybe it will be the next trend after this assassin trend passes.

Second book I'm going to recommend is actually a whole series and that is Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage. The main family reminds me a bit of the Weasleys in that they have seven sons and they accept outsiders amongst them easily. There are also other adults who sort of have the role of a parent and they are all great characters. Also the world is awesome but that's another story.

At the other end of the spectrum is Slam by Nick Hornby, a story of a 15-year-old skaterboy who accidentally gets his girlfriend pregnant. His mother also had him when she was 15 years old and she offers him great advice and support throughout the book. Following the teenagers trying to cope with becoming parents was written very realistically and though this was not exciting like fantasy, I enjoyed the story a lot.

Survivor Millenials vs Gen X | Mid-Season Thoughts

Now that it seems like there will be a merge this week I felt it was a good moment to recap this first half of the season and share my thoughts and feelings. The theme isn't the most exciting, not like Brain vs Brawn vs Beauty for example, but so far it has worked out pretty well, certainly better than old people vs young people in Nicaragua. Still, for some reason the Millennials have had the upper hand this season.

There has been a nice amount of twists and big moves and even blindsides already, some of which were good and some of which were not so good. I'm not too active on pre-season, I listen to a couple of Rob Has A Podcast -podcasts where they go through the cast bios, just to get to know the players a little bit. Prior to the season starting I didn't have particular favorites or winner picks but I have quickly formed them as I've been watching.

I do not like Figgy or Taylor and I was hoping Figgy was the first to go from the Millennials tribe. I thought Mari had the vote locked down but apparently Jay and Michelle were very convincing and turned things around. Jay's ruthless blindside last week got me totally unprepared, Michaela was my absolute favorite and I hated to see her go. I hope she will come back on some all stars season.

I find Hannah to be a bit similar to Aubrey last season but whereas Aubrey grew into a confident player, Hannah is still in that little overwhelmed phase. Adam on the other hand I like, I hope Zeke takes his to his new alliance. Will I feel is a bit over his head, he is riding Jay's coattails at the moment and not doing anything significant himself.

I don't care much for the Gen-Xrs, only Ken gets some sympathy from me. David is playing too nervous game to my taste and Jessica is interesting only because of the Legacy advantage. Ken should vote her out and get the advantage to himself. Sunday, Bret, Chris, they seem like cool guys but so far they haven't done much.

It's going to be an interesting episode this week, merging from three tribes to one has never been done before. I have many second-rate favorites (because nobody is as amazing as Michaela) who I hope do well after the merge but they are all in different tribes and alliances right now, so somebody will get booted and I will be disappointed yet again how my favorites never win. I don't dare to guess who will win but if it's not a Millennial, then I'm going to be very surprised.

October Wrap Up

All the school assignments took their toll in October and I only managed to read two books, TWO BOOKS, that's so much less than what I wanted to read. Anyway, let's wrap up the miserable October and move on.

The first book I finished was Thinks... by David Lodge. I blame this book for my bad reading month because this was for school and 2/3 of this was sooo boring. Then the last third of the book suddenly picked up the pace and a lot happened. I need to write a 2500-word essay about this also so I'm not getting rid of this damn book for a long while.

The second book I read was the Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas, the second book in Throne of Glass series. I'm working my way through this series and so far I'm not too impressed. My main problem is that I don't like Celaena at all and I'm not a big fan of Chaol either, so it makes reading the series a bit challenging. We'll see how the rest of the books turn out, I'm not a quitter. Before Christmas I will get through them and post a full series review.