Brownie in a Mug Recipe.

So I do realise that these are everywhere on the internet but I searched through tons of recipes and not really liking any so I kind of invented my own so if you try it out I hope you like it.

Ingredients

• 3 Tablespoons of flour,
• 2 Tablespoons of Sugar,
• 2 Tablespoons of instant hot chocolate (I prefer Cadbury but any works fine),
• 1 Tablespoon of Cocoa powder,
• 3 Tablespoons of water,
• 3 Tablespoons of melted butter (you could use oil as well, I just prefer butter. You could also use less or more, typically I just melt two tablespoons of butter and however much is melted - as long as its not over 3 Tablespoons - I will use)

So before I tell you the method I'm going to explain why I use instant hot chocolate instead of just cocoa powder. I like my brownies sweet and the cocoa powder makes it really bitter which I don't like, I could just use more sugar to counter that but I don't want to add too much sugar. If you do like your brownies bitter you could just use 3 Tablespoons of Cocoa powder instead. You could also add extra ingredients like nuts or chocolate chips or vanilla extract, honestly its to your preference, whatever you like you can put in, this recipe is just what I particularly like but everyone is different :)

Method

1. First put all of the dry ingredients into a mug (after measuring them) and mix them together,
   
2. Melt your butter (if using oil obviously skip this step),
3. Add in the water and butter/oil and mix until you get this consistency,
   
4. Put in the microwave for 1 minute (depending on your microwave power you might need less or more time, this picture is how I enjoy the texture of the brownie but you could leave it in longer to make it more crumbly or less to make it more moist), 
   
5. Finally, enjoy your brownie :) 

Book Review: Wolf by Wolf, By Ryan Graudin

Author: Ryan Graudin

Language: English

Her story begins on a train.

The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball in Tokyo.

Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year’s only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele twin’s brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael’s every move.

But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

This will contain spoilers so read at your own risk.

This book was recommended by a youtuber (booktuber), unfortunately I cannot remember which youtuber recommended it. As soon as she described it however I wanted to read it. The book is essentially an alternate universe where the allies lost the war and Germany won. Its in the perspective of a young girl who escapes from a concentration camp after being experimented on and gaining a new genetic trait (really don't know what to call it). I have previously learnt about Germany during the war and Nazis reign, in fact I just finished my As History exam this year which was about Germany, so I have learnt about it previously and as soon as you open the book you see the authors factual knowledge which is refreshing. I think Graudin really managed to capture what victims of the concentration camp went through which is important when writing a book which includes knowledge of WWII. 

As soon as I picked up the book I was enamoured with it, it's fast paced and really demands your attention which explains how I finished it in a couple of hours without putting it down for longer then five minutes. I particularly enjoy how Graudin separated the past and the present for Yael, by going from one to the other instead of having a few chapters at the beginning explaining her past and then going on to the present. It breaks the action up a bit and gives you a good look at Yael's past without overloading you with information.

I enjoyed how Yael took on Adele's persona without letting go of her goal. It shows how hardened she has become from the war and how she knows her mission and she isn't being sidetracked from a different life she could have if she just took over Adele's life. Something that did disappoint me though is how we never got to look at how the real Adele was adjusting which is understandable considering it was in first person but it was slightly disappointing. I was also incredibly frustrated with the end, how did Hitler not die? Also if the shape-shifter was taking his face, how long was he doing it for? Is the real Hitler even alive at all? So many unanswered questions! There is a sequel but I have to wait until November for that. There is also another book called Iron to Iron, which details the previous years race and focus on Luka's experience with the real Adele which sounds interesting but I do want to read the sequel before I read the prequel. 

Back to the book, I believe Graudin really created a realistic version of a world that could have occurred if Hitler had lost the war. With Germany managing to take over Great Britain to America remaining isolationists and turning a blind eye which America actually did until a certain point in WWII. I commend Graudin for keeping to the majority of the facts since as an author of fiction she could have easily bent them to meet her needs.

The race as a whole was riveting, I couldn't put the book down and the introduction of Felix to the race was nice, you can see he is a concerned older brother and how much family means to him which was refreshing. I also enjoyed how Luka was, don't get me wrong I don't appreciate him sedating Yael to win the race but I do appreciate how his character was both trustworthy but had a hint of deception around him and while I don't particularly encourage smoking I like that he does, its a small hint of a rebel in him that I appreciate. 

All the sabotaging also made so much sense, anything to win. For the German competitors it meant favour of their fuhrer and for the Japanese it meant honour which definitely fit what we associate with those countries citizens during the war, we still typically associate honour with the Japanese now, so I felt like it was a nice touch. 

Overall I enjoyed the book despite being frustrated with all of the unanswered questions but I suppose that's what the second book is for however that still leads me to scoring the book 4/5. I just felt the end of the book was slightly rushed with what happened which I can completely understand given that the sequel was obviously planned so a cliff hanger was needed but I do appreciate how Graudin gives us a hint at how the rebellion is rising, instead of just leaving it where Yael killed the fake Hitler.

Also if anyone has any suggestions for books that they want a review of, feel free to comment and I might end up reading it and writing a review, thank you. 

4/5

Book Review: As Dead As It Gets, By Katie Alender

Author: Katie Alender

Language: English

Publisher: Hyperion

It's been three months since Alexis helplessly witnessed Lydia Small's violent death, and all she wants is for her life to return to normal. 
But normal people don't see decaying bodies haunting photographs. Normal people don't have to deal with regular intrusions from Lydia's angry ghost, sometimes escalating to terrifying attacks.

At first, it seems that Lydia wants revenge on Alexis alone. But a girl from school disappears one night, and Alexis spots one of Lydia's signature yellow roses lying on the girl's dresser the next day. Soon, it becomes clear that several of Alexis's friends are in danger, and that she's the only person who can save them. But as she tries to intervene, Alexis realizes that her enemy is a much more powerful ghost than she's ever faced before... and that its fate is tied to hers in ways she couldn't possibly imagine.

Not even in her worst nightmares.

So I read this book in less than 3 hours and it is by far my favourite in the trilogy! (CONTAINS SPOLERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK). Also before I start the review can I just say how much I love the book covers for this series? I feel like they are so beautiful and really fit with the theme of the books, they look scary but at the same time so pretty and delicate which I really do appreciate. 

I love how at the beginning it kind of seems as if Alexis is the exact same way she was in the first book, at least the no friends part.

I also really appreciated her new "power". I find it incredibly she can see ghosts now.

Now if we look at her sister Kasey, I have to say she seems like an entirely new person; Popular, outgoing, has a boyfriend etc. the list could go on.

And lets talk about Jared for a second. I really hate him, I hated him as soon as he started to become controlling. I am glad he died. I don't say that often, yes he was going through a traumatic ordeal with his ex-girlfriend's death but I'm glad he died. I mean for crying out loud he drugged Alexis. I also felt like he needed to die, not just because of my hatred for him but the fact that there was no way he was getting over Laina's death, except maybe going to a lot of therapy sessions. As we see in this book there is something after death so we know he goes somewhere. Hopefully he can go and be with Laina wherever she may be and he can become a little more sane. But there is no love lost for his character dying.

Carter definitely improved from the last book, maybe its because he has seen what he had lost when he and Alexis broke up (or he realised how crazy Zoe was). But he definitely proved himself to me in this book.

Elliot, oh how I love Elliot, why did she have to die? Katie why did you do this to me? I really did love her, she was just an amazing character. She was strong, she was kind but only to those who earned her kindness and overall I just thought she was real. She was flawed obviously which was proved when she refused to have a spread for a dead girl in the yearbook until she got what she wanted. Which just added to her character and she became that friend that Alexis needed. 

Lydia, can we just recognise that she did not be what I thought she would be. Yes at the start of the book she was annoying and blamed Alexis for her death constantly but she really grew as a character despite being dead. She became something so much more than the girl we saw in the first two books and I can't help but acknowledge how amazing she became.

Finally Miss Hasan. I hate her, I hate her so much. I realise its her job to make sure Alexis isn't messing with ghosts but pumping the girl with drugs because she thought she was slightly crazy, no, at least get a real doctor to diagnose her as crazy first. 

Overall I gave this book a 5/5 because to me it was the best book. It was also the scariest, whilst I won't be having nightmares from it, it did make me see the series as deserving as its title of a horror.

5/5

Book Review: From Bad To Cursed, By Katie Alender

Author: Katie Alender

Language: English

Publisher: Hyperion

Alexis is the last girl you'd expect to sell her soul. She already has everything she needs--an adorable boyfriend, the perfect best friend, and a little sister who's finally recovering after being possessed by an evil spirit, then institutionalized. 
Alexis is thrilled when her sister joins a club; new friends are just what Kasey needs. It's strange, though, to see how fast the girls in The Sunshine Club go from dorky and antisocial to gorgeous and popular. Soon Alexis learns that the girls have pledged an oath to a seemingly benevolent spirit named Aralt. Worried that Kasey's in over her head again, Alexis and her best friend Megan decide to investigate by joining the club themselves. At first, their connection with Aralt seems harmless. Alexis trades in her pink hair and punky clothes for a mainstream look, and quickly finds herself reveling in her newfound elegance and success. 
Instead of fighting off the supernatural, Alexis can hardly remember why she joined in the first place. Surely it wasn't to destroy Aralt...why would she hurt someone who has given her so much, and asked for so little in return?

This book. All I can say is, brilliant. I thought I loved the first one but this one was just fantastic. (also this will contain spoilers, so read at your own risk) The story line has essentially completely changed, still paranormal entities but it has definitely changed from Sarah and her spiteful ways.

Kasey comes back and is better than ever, okay so she makes some mistakes regarding the sunshine club but I can really get on board with this new Kasey. She’s slightly more independent and she does stand up for herself against Alexis without the help of a spirit possessing her.

Alexis, really surprised me, I felt disappointed and proud of her all in one go. Disappointed because I felt like the character development in the first book had completely gone down the drain but then she stops that and you see her as a strong girl and she hasn’t completely back stepped as a character. I also love how when I think she has back stepped, it’s not back to that loner, it’s to a completely new girl which is going to sound confusing if you haven’t read the book. Also I like her as a whole but I don’t think I appreciate her hero complex, just call someone for help now and again please.

Next, a person I hate by the end of the book. Drum roll please… Carter. I can completely understand his behaviour when he is possessed but when he isn’t, just no. First he blows off Alexis, which I don’t mind too much because she would just be no help when he is trying to rehearse his speech. In fact, I tolerated him till the end. In the beginning I thought their relationship was cute and it was nice that they were together after the last book. And throughout the book when he isn’t possessed/brain washed/whatever you want to call it, they were a normal couple, arguments over little things when they’re stressed, hanging out a lot, that type of thing. It wasn’t until the funeral I hated him. How dare he essentially blame Alexis for Lydia’s death? Seriously, how dare he. She has just watched someone die and you’re annoyed that she didn’t call you when she was possessed and could possibly be hurt when she is possessed if she tells you. Get over yourself, not everything revolves around you. 

Now away from characters. I did like the storyline as a whole, I really did. A bit of advice though, when you read it (if you haven’t already), there are some words in a different language, don’t translate them yourself, yes they will translate but if you don’t know the language already just let it play out itself, it does explain and translate the words for you.

I also felt that this book was better than the first, I just felt it had more characters and it was slightly more entertaining than the first. Overall I liked the story and the plot line, I liked the characters and kind of being on the inside of Alexis being possessed/hypnotised by the entity because in the first book we didn’t get to see what it was like for Kasey being possessed. Again I read this book in one sitting when I really should have been doing homework and I can’t wait to find out what happens in the next book, especially since I know that in the next book Lydia is the ghost, so I think it will be cool seeing a ghost that we already know of and we know how they died.

Honestly just such an interesting and enticing read, can’t wait to read more!

4.5/5

Book Review: Bad Girls Don't Die, By Katie Alender

Author: Katie Alender

Language: English

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence. Dysfunctional like her parents' marriage; her doll-crazy twelve-year-old sister, Kasey; and even her own anti-social, anti-cheerleader attitude. When a family fight results in some tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunction into danger. Kasey is acting stranger than ever: her blue eyes go green sometimes; she uses old-fashioned language; and she even loses track of chunks of time, claiming to know nothing about her strange behavior. Their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in.

Alexis wants to think that it's all in her head, but soon, what she liked to think of as silly parlor tricks are becoming life-threatening--to her, her family, and to her budding relationship with the class president. Alexis knows she's the only person who can stop Kasey -- but what if that green-eyed girl isn't even Kasey anymore?

I discovered this book just over 2 years ago. I watched the “From bad to cursed” trailer because Zendaya was in it and since then I have wanted the books. However, do you know how hard it is to find these books in the UK? Extremely hard, I couldn’t find them anywhere. So just before Christmas since my mom has no idea what to buy me she asked me to put together a Christmas list, so while I was searching through books on Amazon, I remembered this series, so I added that and on Christmas morning I had received all three of them.

I read Bad Girls Don’t die, two days ago, (I wrote this review a while ago) it was my way of procrastinating though my Psychology revision. I finished it in a couple of hours and absolutely loved it. Its honestly a great book, especially if you like horror books that aren’t the incredibly cheesy ones when the ghost just wants a friend.

I also felt the character development in this book for Alexis was brilliant. I have read a lot of books where the main character remains the same throughout the whole book but I can honestly say Alexis doesn’t, she improves throughout the story. I loved how in the first couple of chapter Alexis really went through the backstory of herself and why she doesn’t have many/any friends and I really do like the way Katie Alender wrote it, it wasn’t an overload of information at one time and it wasn’t a scattered mess either, so I have to give props to Katie for that.

Ok so this is going to contain some spoilers so if you haven’t read the book yet or if you haven’t finished it just skip the next paragraph. 

So this is kind of a negative for me that I guessed the “twist” before it came about. In the book where Alexis and Megan both think it is Megan’s mom possessing Kasey, I immediately guessed that there would be a twist and the little girl from the story possessed Shara and is now possessing Kasey, that would be the only negative I can think of. That however, is not Katie Alender’s fault I do it all the time with books, TV shows and movies. I do love that although I wasn’t expecting it was Kasey going to a treatment centre afterwards, I really did appreciate that because I’ve read some horror books where all of the people are fine afterwards and they weren’t affected at all mentally, so it was refreshing to see.

It’s safe to read again :)

Overall I loved this book and I really recommend it, if you can get it. It's quick and easy read so if you want to get into the YA/ghost genre, I'd suggest this book.

4/5

Book Review: Fangirl, By Rainbow Rowell

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Language: English

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan...

But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

 I discovered this book through my best friend who wanted to read it. After she told me what she heard of the book, I thought it would be a perfect read for me, considering I do consider myself a fangirl.

So I bought the book off of amazon and the exact same day it arrived I started and finished reading it.

(WARNING THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS)

As you know the book is about Cath and her love of the Simon Snow book series, while I was reading the book I considered it to be that “universe’s” Harry Potter series. Throughout the book before each chapter there is a snippet from Cath’s fanfiction “Carry On”, now I’m not going to lie, I did tend to skip these parts, quite a lot. They just weren’t my favourite part to read and I just wanted to get back to Cath.

Overall I did enjoy the book, I enjoyed how relatable Cath was and how Rowell really captured the reason – I suppose – for fanfiction and why so many people read and write it. I loved Cath’s roommate Reagan who was all types of awesome and she really did care about Cath and was probably her first female friend she has had since her twin. I loved Levi, Cath’s boyfriend and Reagan’s ex who was sweet and actually quite real. If you read fanfiction then you know what a Mary Su is and in a lot of books with romance directed at young adults, the love interest more often than not turns out to be a Mary Su. Perfect in every way and everybody loves them or finds them important or hot etc, (cough, cough. Edward Cullen). So let’s all thank Rowell for not making Levi a Mary Su.

However, there were parts and people I didn’t like, Nick for example was dreadful and I really thought he would end up with Cath or maybe there would be a plot twist and he’d end up with Wren but alas he did not and instead ended up being a conceited, annoying idiot. (For lack of a better word). Don’t even get me started on the exaggeration of how popular Cath’s fanfiction was meant to be. It was so popular people on Etsy were making shirts with quotes from her fanfic on them. As a reader of fanfiction I find this so exaggerated. I’ve read stories on fanfiction.net (I assume the equivalent to the site Cath posts on) with thousands of reads and reviews but does anyone create tops with quotes from that fanfiction on them? No, because it’s not something I have ever seen happen. There is also Wren who I do not like till the end of the book and to be honest while I find Cath and Wren’s dad quirky, I find him a terrible parent figure and it shocks me that the girls weren’t taken from him when they were younger. 

Although overall, from the good and the bad of this book I reward it a 4/5 because even though there were things I didn’t like by the end of the book I did want a sequel (To me Carry On does not count and I can’t see myself reading it) where I could see how Cath’s and Levi’s relationship blossoms because let’s face it they are quite awkward with each other, I’d probably be the same but I just want to see if they stop being awkward and how Cath manages the rest of college.

4/5