Emily Howitt

Shadows, is the young adult prequel to the Lux series, by Jennifer L. Armentrout. I suggest reading Obsidian before Shadows even though Shadows is the prequel, because Obsidian explains the whole alien thing more in depth, and describes the dynamics of the world better. If you would like to read my review about Obsidian, go  here. Shadows is a novella, and it is also very sweet…well…until the end. But you already knew that if you read Obsidian first like I told you to. And if you insist on reading Shadows first than fine, go ahead, it’s your choice to read how you want you want to read. But Shadows does explain a lot of the reason why Daemon acts the way he does in Obsidian, and I’m not sure if Daemon would have as much effect in Obsidian if you were to read Shadows first. But again, your choice. Shadows is about Daemon’s brother Dawson, (I’m thinking Armentrout likes alliteration, although Shadows is the only novel in this series that doesn’t start with an “O”), and a hum...

Did you ever notice how adults tend to overcomplicate things, and where kids tend not to overanalyze things to death? It’s like as soon as a person gets to a certain age and they have “responsibility” it’s like they have to make all these dire decisions and if they make the wrong one the world is going to end. Or that even if they know what they want to do they decide, no, nope, can’t do that, that’s too simple. I feel like I’m not explaining this well. What I mean is, kids will make decisions based on what they want, and adults might end up doing that but they’ll heap piles on anxiety onto it by trying to make the “right” decision (as if there is only one decision they can ever make that will be right). Life seems like it can be a very complicated thing. Look at all the possible options there are to make money. Look at all the places you could live. All things you could do. All the paths you can take to get to the same place. Now this may seem like a good thing, everyone likes op...

With the exception of the first book, I devoured this series. I probably read the first book just as quickly as the others, I just read it months before I read the other ones. I don’t really remember why, but I feel like school probably got in the way. Ironic that taking English is all about reading, but you can’t read what you want to read. But thankfully I did have some good books this year, but onto the review. Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout is a young adult novel. About aliens. Normally I’m not such a big fan of aliens, but Armentrout definitely made the aliens in this series hot. This is your basic normal human girl meets not so normal boy story. Kind of like Twilight, and please don’t shoot me for saying that because I know there are hordes of people who would like to ground that book to a pulp or set it on fire repeatedly. I’m just using it as an example, because both books are similar in plot where the guy tries to hide what he is, and the girl eventually finds out. A...

I thought I would try some flash fiction on my blog. Hope you enjoy! I watched her standing by the ocean. The suns rays reflecting off her beautiful, golden hair. She had no idea who I was. She didn’t know that I existed. But I needed to touch her, to feel her under me. I needed to feel her skin against mine, hear her moans tickle my flesh. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand to be without her. But she was not mine. She was the forbidden fruit. All I could do was stare, and dream of an impossible future. I stayed up at night thinking about her. Every part of my body ached to be with her. But unsanctioned mating was not allowed in this culture, and I already had a wife. A wife who pretended she was sick every time we were supposed to mate. She hated me. She thought I was repulsive. I tried to buy into the whole getting married for the sake of the planet thing.  Repopulate the planet, they said. We need to repopulate it and create progress. This from the people who d...

Self-doubt is a bitch. Self-doubt plays mind games. It tells you your worst fears are going to come true, and that you are going to fail in the most epic way possible. That no matter what you do, you’re doing the wrong thing, and honey it ain’t gonna be pretty, so you should just give up now and forget about doing whatever it is you wanted to do. But you know what else self-doubt is? Self-doubt is a liar. What self-doubt really is, is stepping out of your comfort zone and leaving the safety of the nest. Sure, you want to stay in a nest and pretend that there is not a world outside, but that nest holds you back from life and doesn’t allow you to think for yourself. That nest forms you into what the nest believes in, and not what you believe in. It makes you a whole and not an individual. Now the nest is good for lots of things, but if you want to progress in pretty much anything at life you have to leave the nest, and that is painful. Why is it so painful to do things that we a...

I have done it. I have graduated. I have now finished university. While I am very happy about this, it is also a nerve racking time. A time of the unknown, and where I have no idea (well maybe a small idea) of where my life is going to go. Graduation speeches are always meant to be uplifting, to tell the graduates that their whole life is ahead of them and that they can achieve anything they want. And this is a great message. And it will be true for a lot of people. But the sad thing is that no matter what, not everyone will get their happy endings. Maybe all the graduates will, seeing as they’ve already done something a lot of people don’t. But even among them, will everyone succeed? Will everyone follow their dreams? Or will they get lost? Or get stuck on a little island they never intended to go to? Or even if they do everything right, there is always the chance they’ll make an early exit. Some people who have gone to the same university as me have already made an early exi...