Album Review: BENEATH THE SKIN by Of Monsters and Men

Icelandic five-piece band, Of Monsters and Men, unleashed their second album today named Beneath the Skin. Following their highly successful debut album, My Head Is An Animal, the band had a lot to live up to. This successor does not disappoint at all, sounding like a loyal sequel to their first album whilst still bringing something powerfully individual to the table.

A Fortnight in Photos [From May to June]

Since the end of exams, I've been trying to make the most of the time I have left at university. That means jam-packing every day with outings, food and shopping. These past couple of weeks have been blissful; that is partly because of the recent appearance of some beautiful weather, as well as spending all these moments with the people I love. I managed to capture some lovely photos whilst all this was happening to feast your eyes on. May you all be enjoying wonderful summers!

Blind date with a book, a spontaneous pick from Waterstones with a flat white and a good friend // Loving the 

colourful interior of Scribble in London

Tea and lemon cupcake in Crumbs Cupcakery in York whilst visiting a friend // Found a lovely mason jar in a bespoke shop, 

perfect for throwing in some lemon slices and ice cubes with plain water // Seeing wild bunny rabbits all over campus!

In Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-Upon-Avon // A five-hour picnic on the first day of real summer weather

Some greenery surrounding campus // Started my first Vonnegut novel // Beautiful stained 

glass windows in a National Trust property

(Inspired by the "Week in Photos" posts by the lovely Rhiannon Ashlee)

Top University Reads: First Year

Behold, my first year as an English Literature student has ended. Although this means hours slaving over essays are over, and cramming for exam season is a thing of the past (for now), I have read some absolutely amazing texts this year that I would have never touched before doing this degree. If there's one thing that is invaluable about an English Lit degree, it's that I've become so much more open-minded literarily, and some of these new favourites have truly revolutionised the way I think about the world around me (which is what you would like literature to do really).

So below is a list of the favourite texts I've studied this year and why you should read them too:

1. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

One of the first books I studied this year and tells the story of young teenager Melanie who unexpectedly becomes orphaned and must move in with her uncle and his new, strange family in the countryside. The novel is fantastical, feminist and outrageous. If you've read Carter before, you might have an idea what kind of tone this novel is, but it retains a sense of reality whilst intermixing just the right amount of Magical Realism. The narrative presents a beautifully raw coming-of-age where the ambiguous ending forces you to question today's society; especially for a young woman.

Book Review: THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER

Source Photo and Cover Art: http://www.heatherlandis.com/

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: the beautifully-covered, hauntingly-mysterious cliché-parody. Michelle Hodkin's bestselling primary novel of the Mara Dyer series tells the story of young sixteen-year-old Mara, whose friends' untimely deaths shock her into psychological trauma, forcing herself and her family into a new life. Once they all settle into a new place, Mara cannot shake the doubt, guilt and uncertainty that plagues her daily. Now nothing is certain; everything a question.

A Week Without Wifi

So if you're reading this, you're probably quite similar to me: the internet can no longer be classed as a pastime, or a hobby, but rather an alternate life, that simply runs alongside your regular one whilst they dip into one another occasionally. Although I wholeheartedly agree with this viewpoint, it can get a little concerning when I think about how much I can rely on the internet for everything. It becomes a platform that I spend way more of my life on than doing things away from the screen and this very dependence had me worried that I couldn't function normally without it (starting to sound like an addiction to you? Me too.)

The other day, when I met up with one of my close friends, Ellie, we started discussing this fairly bleak habit that we both harbour. Cue a pact: go an entire week  (Wed 1st April - Wed 8th)  without using the internet. None, nothing, nada. Even the thought of it was nearly insurmountable. An entire week?! Yet this very reaction prompted us even further, for it shouldn't be that hard or shocking to go a short seven days without logging into the nearest Wifi hotspot.

This is the story of how I tried, did fairly well at and then ultimately failed this pact. Yet there's a lot to learn here about how certain aspects of the internet are crucially useful or necessary (without being dramatic) and how others can be easily suspended if we put our minds to it. However, more importantly, this challenge also allowed me to take a step back and enjoy the beauty of the outside for a change. Here we go:

Marathon TV: THE 100 Overview, Thoughts and Predictions

We all have those moments when we hastily binge-watch a show after we check it out on a whim or hear the hype in some crevice of the internet. Despite the fast-pace-large-intake, marathoning TV shows is a great way to fully immerse yourself in the world and realise exactly what works and what doesn't in the plot, characters and universe. So I thought I'd start a new series called "Marathon TV", for intensive overviews of all my thoughts on the show, predictions for any future seasons (and to curb my withdrawal symptoms of not being able to immediately watch the next episode).

The first instalment is The 100 (produced by Jason Rothenberg), a science-fiction teenage drama that takes place in a post-apocalyptic universe. There have been two seasons so far, airing on the CW or E4 in England and can be compared to the extremely popular series Lost mixed with The Hunger Games. The premise itself is intriguing: the earth has currently been unpopulated for nearly 100 years due to a nuclear war where radiation which has left it unsurvivable for human beings. Cue the creation of 'The Ark', a large space station that now houses the remainder of the human race. However, The Ark is beginning to run out of air and rapid action needs to be taken. This leads the Ark's council and governmental system to decide to send down a group of 100 teenage delinquents and criminals, a large enough but expendable population to go back down to earth to assess its conditions and whether the human race can move back there for good. Once The 100 land, all seems well at first. But lingering radiation has had its effects on the ground, and the teenagers are not alone. 

Current Top 10 Albums

I'm one of those people who needs to listen to music whilst they work. So with stressful exams and essay periods, I'm simultaneously and inevitably binging on and discovering new music. With some all-too-exciting Easter exams coming up, I thought now would be a good time to run down on my current favourite albums. These are constantly changing but I finally managed to whittle them down to a somewhat structured Top 10:

10. Open Season - High Highs (2013)

I've been listening to High Highs for a while, but have only listened to this album in its entirety recently. It is the perfect album for moments of relaxation and apt for both looking outside at the rain and laying down in the sun. Their sound is made up of these beautiful soft and slightly crackly drum beats and guitar twangs that emulate a spinning record. The real epitome of the High Highs however, is the lead singer's dusty and almost cottony voice that simply wraps around your ears like an enveloping hug. A true experience of cosiness here. Favourite Track: 'Flowers Bloom'.

TV Review: BLACK MIRROR - FIFTEEN MILLION MERITS

Every so often, you watch something that makes you reel back, enstranged, and forces you to really look at the world around you, to really see what is happening that has become so familiar. Black Mirror, a Charlie Brooker psychological-thriller series, looks at the impact technology has and could make on our future society. Each episode is self-contained and assesses a different technological development or invention that bends the possibilities of the future, stretches human capabilities and tests human morals. Every episode is startlingly creative, presenting the technological modern audience with everything and anything that could go wrong.

One episode in particular, "Fifteen Million Merits" (S1E2) hit me significantly hard. The narrative tells the story of a future universe where humans live in futuristic, black-boxed rooms, riding on stationary bicycles day-in-day-out to generate power. Each person must ride everyday to receive "merits", a kind of electronic currency that they need in order to purchase everything from toothpaste to new clothes for their online avatars. This universe is bleak, but simultaneously bright with the light from the screens implanted in every wall.

Film Review: MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN

How is it that we now live in a world where we can make contact without ever touching? How it is that we can interact, torment, and embrace others without ever having to say a word? Jason Reitman's (Juno, Up In The Air) latest feature, Men, Women & Children explores what makes this possible by delving into the extremes and possibilities of the internet. No longer a purely functional service, the internet has become a removed yet entirely absorbing ecosystem that now coexists alongside reality. Reitman successfully considers this crux of the modern day: where displaying more and more of our identities online is leaving what is left in our bodies in a fragile position. How does the internet affect personal development and relationships when it becomes the ultimate mediator that filters into every facet of our lives?   

An array of shocking and unusual narratives converge as the film presents us with a selection of characters whose stories all intertwine, networked like the internet itself. Reitman's film takes place from a distanced perspective, beginning interestingly in outer space whilst a omnipresent narrator observes the human race's new and strange technological behaviour as David Attenborough would of a colonised species, where something very odd has interfered with the direction of our evolution. This allows the viewer to become removed as heavy issues such as infidelity, eating disorders, porn and privacy are addressed. But above all, the viewer begins to notice how the uncontrollable acceleration of the internet can harbour obsession.

Concert Review: ALT-J 'This Is All Yours' at the O2 Arena, London

For one evening only, British alternative rock band, alt-J performed at the O2 Arena in London, filling the entire space both literally and with their musical presence. The performance was stellar, connecting with me on a level far more complex and metaphysical than just a pair of ears enjoying a band in a concert hall for 20,000 people. alt-J's music had me longing for hours afterwards to return to the sanctuary of their sound as each note was played and each word was sung with a haunting and yet comforting edge. 

The show began with the first support act, Gengahr. Being the first supporting act of a successful and popular band is always difficult but Gengahr fell disastrously flat in the expanse of the arena. Their instrumentals were solid and yet the vocals were completely lost in ambiguity with the lyrics being discernible and the notes rarely hit. Perhaps they would have been more successful within a more intimate venue but their performance was poor and undoubtedly overshadowed by the second support: Wolf Alice. I listened up on a little bit of their music before arriving but was still pleasantly surprised by their performance. Their sound was thoroughly pleasing, comparable to The xx meets Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Overall, it was a successful opening for one of the most enchanting evenings I have ever experienced.

Top 10 Films Watched in 2014

I got through significantly more films this year than last as well as managing to go to the cinema a lot more often. I'm planning to write another post about watching films at home vs. the cinema, but I really liked that I made watching films more of a social activity this year and shared my favourites with my closest friends. So here is my countdown:

10. Her (2014)

I hadn't heard much about this film actually before going into the cinema to watch it apart from an offhanded synopsis of "it's about a man and Siri getting together". Of course, a man's relationship with an operating system is the basic plot outline of this film, but its real merit comes from the cinematography and set design. It was a stunning film, the visuals made up of a selection of bright block colours that go against the stereotypically grey colour scheme of futuristic films. I particularly found the opening and the idea of a corporation that write letters pretending to be from other people really fascinating. The narrative itself wasn't amazing, but the themes and emotional resonance you draw from the film is extremely thought-provoking and powerful.

Top 5 Books Read in 2014

2014 was a successful year for reading. I finally completed the 50 books challenge, total books read coming to 62. This was also the first year I started participating in readathons which really helped bump my book count up, so I plan to do some more of these next year. I also started my degree in English Literature where I can finally dedicate all of my time to appreciating the beauty of words. So for my list of the top 5 books that I read this year:

5. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

This is one of the first books I read this year and it absolutely blew me away. You can read my full review here. The concept was very well done; an alien invasion which develops into a complex and harrowing series of events. My main reason for having this book on my list is how well Yancey wrote the action. It was simultaneously exciting, fast-paced and nerve-racking. The only problem I had with it was one of the narrators' voices, which irritating at first, was quick to get used it. All in all, it was one of those books which you spend the entire day waiting for when you have another free moment to read it.