Weekly Fangirl Round-Up

June 13, 2014Leave a comment

Check out all the information on the movie tie-in edition of If I Stay!

New Maze Runner stills have been revealed!

E. Lockhart’s most recent novel, sales which is getting SO much buzz, viagra 40mg has officially been optioned for film!

One of my favorite childhood story characters, medical Paddington, is heading to the big screen; check out the new trailer!

New images from the newest Jurassic Park film have been released, featuring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

Divergent fans, what you’ve been waiting for is finally here! Our Uriah has officially been cast for Insurgent and has arrived for filming!

More casting news for Insurgent, Rosa Salazar has been cast as Lynn!

In other Divergent news, Hector, the younger brother of Lynn and Marlene, has been cast as well!

Two new cast members have been announced for the adaptation of The DUFF.

A Song of Ice and Fire author, George RR Martin has officially joined twitter!

City of Bones star, Lily Collins, has been cast as the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Zomibes!

The first official trailer for Legend of Korra season 3 has finally been revealed!

Its happening, 90s kids, Netflix orders a reboot of The Magic School Bus!

Interesting announcement for video game fans: Sony has a Sonic the Hedgehog movie in the works.

Anomaly, featuring Ian Somerhalder and Noel Clarke, has a trailer!

Vanity Fair has chosen 23 women that will be the new wave of the future.

Check out all these new behind the scenes photos of the filming of Divergent.

The official author list for YALLFest 2014 has been announced and its MIND BLOWING.

Monday Missions #9

Girls Gone Sci-Fi at Mysterious Galaxy: Book Boyfriends Dating Game!

The Darling Buds at The Hotel Cafe-Recap and Live Video

Tuesday Top Ten: Best Books I’ve Read so Far This Year

Beta Readers Needed for The Awakened! Apply Now (til June 30th)

The Darling Buds at Gibson 90210-Recap and Live Video

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Darling Buds at The Hotel Cafe-Recap and LIVE Video!

June 10, 2014June 10, 20146 Comments

HI EVERYONE!

So its about 2 am now and I’m SUPER tired and exhausted but also super happy and I figured, medicine you know what, case I’m just going to write this post now because why not!

So about a month ago, find Jamie Campbell Bower, actor/singer/model/musician/hottie extraordinaire, did an acoustic set of some of his songs at Venice Beach. It was SO incredibly fun, and you can read all about it on the blog here.

Then a couple weeks he announced that him and his band, The Darling Buds would be playing a 21+ show at The Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles on June 9th. I immediately told all my friends and we scooped up tickets SO fast. I knew I had to see him and his band play.

Today I got to see him play, and I can’t even…the feels, guys, the feels. It was so much fun! It was, like, the ultimate girls night with some of my favorite girls!

We got to Hollywood early, had some food, and hung out, waiting in line to get into the venue.

Once we were in, we had drinks, listened to the opening band, and just laughed and talked. Seriously, it just felt so good to hang out with my girls!

Then Jamie, Tristan, Roland and Dan aka The Darling Buds came out to play, and they were just SO awesome. They rocked it. I thought that Jamie was absolutely amazing doing the acoustic set on the beach, but the whole band just blew it out of the water. I could barely handle it. Check out the video I got. I took two videos, one of the song “Waiting”, and a second video of a brand new song that they were debuting at the show for the very first time. They were going to say the name, but Jamie said it was embarrassing or something haha so it remains untitled for now.

After they played, I had to go to the bathroom, and Lily Collins literally passed right by me. I had seen her earlier, sitting at a table and I nearly passed out haha. I’ve met Lily quite a few times but I’ve never actually gotten to take a picture with her, and she’s one of my biggest crushes for sure. I was determined to track her down, and I did!

She was hanging out with Jaime Feld, who is Kevin Zeger’s wife, and I ADORE Jaime, so I had to get them both in the picture. Jaime was like “wait, what, me?” all surprised. It was so adorable. I was SO stoked to get Lily because she left almost immediately after this.

Then I ran into Roland, who is a member of the band! He was SO sweet, and later on in the night, came to talk to me and my friends, and he was just so excited about the show and the fact that it was sold out and that people were so enthusiastic and that we knew the words. SO cute.

The best part though? The band was hanging out in a sort of “green room” sort of situation and they were letting fans in the room, in small groups, to do a sort of impromptu meet and greet, so me, Sylvia, Steffie and Ally immediately got on board with this, and went in.

There we met the whole band, Jamie, Tristan, Roland and Dan and they were SO amazing. They stopped and talked to all of us, and took pictures. Jamie remembered us from the Venice Boardwalk show, which was SO epic and cool. I hadn’t had the chance to show Jamie my Fearless rune tattoo at the TMI premiere because it was kind of chaos so I showed him today, and he immediately recognized it as the fearless tattoo and was SO into it. I loved that he was SO dedicated to TMI and knew the rune, and said it was his favorite. They all signed Steffie’s Delicious Milk poster, and it was just a blast. We easily were the group that took the longest in there haha.

Me and Dan Smith :)

Jamie with Steffie’s Delicious Milk sign haha

Me and Jamie Campbell Bower <3

I got a Tristan selfie! With a beautiful photobomb by Steffie in the background!

It was honestly SUCH a great time, and I’m blown away with how much fun I had. Seriously. I knew it was going to be fun but I never ever expected to have this much fun, and I’m so grateful for such a great day today! The Darling Buds rocked, Lily and Jaime were awesome, and my friends were the absolute best.

Don’t forget, you can check out more pictures from the concert in this album on the official What A Nerd Girl Says facebook page!

And thanks for reading and watching as always :)

Fictional Crush of the Week: Clary Fray from The Mortal Instruments Series

May 31, 2014May 31, 2014Leave a comment

In celebration of the end of the Mortal Instruments series, cure this week’s Fictional Crush post is on a character that started it all in this series.

There is a quote from City of Heavenly Fire in the quotes section so if you’re avoiding spoilers, cialis 40mg I would avoid that section.

Character Name:

Clarissa Morgenstern aka Clary Fray

Book or Series They Appear In:

The Mortal Instruments Series

City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, City of Heavenly Fire

Author/Creator:

Cassandra Clare

Played By:

Lily Collins

Who They Are:

Clary Fray is the main character of the Mortal Instruments series. She’s short, redheaded, and has a love for drawing. She’s an ordinary teenager living in New York when she witnesses a murder, by a group of people that only she can see. When one of them comes back, she meets Jace, who is a half-angel, half-human warrior called a Shadowhunter. She soon discovers that she too is a Shadowhunter, kept secret by her mom for years. She soon gets wrapped up in the Shadowhunter world when a Shadowhunter gone rogue named Valentine starts to threaten the peaceful world that they’ve managed to create. In the second trilogy of the series, she’s forced to come face to face with her brother Jonathan, who literally wants to burn down the world, so he can rule among the ashes.

Why I Am Crushing On Them:

Clary! Clary is a fantastic character in this series and I honestly did not give her enough credit at first, even though she was the main character. I thought she was kind of a trouble maker and that she whined a lot but as I read the books over and over again, I began to like her more and more. I mean, first off, she’s a teenager, of course she whines. And secondly, her troublemaking ways are just her ways of being stubborn and strong. She’s not all that different from me, to be honest. I love that from the beginning, when she’s a simple mundane (human) girl, she’s so brave and strong. She throws herself, untrained, at demons and vampires and more just to save the people that she loves. Its incredible. Its incredible that she struggles to come to terms with her new life, and that she works so hard to become a true Shadowhunter. Without too many spoilers for CoHF, she really becomes a fighter, and fights alongside Jace and Isabelle and Alec and its absolutely incredible. Its so great to see her come that far. She’s determined. She’s also hilarious and has beautiful sarcasm. Plus she’s a little hot tempered redhead and you can never go wrong with that!

Notable Quotes:

“I don’t want tea,” said Clary, with muffled force. “I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them.”

“But I don’t want anything else in the world.”

“I figured all your classes were stuff like Slaughter 101 and Beheading for Beginners.”

“The other ten percent.”

“Well, when I was five, I wanted my mother to let me go around and around inside a dryer with the clothes,” Clary said. “The difference is, she didn’t let me.”

“You know,” Clary said, “most psychologists agree that hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.”

“I’m not an angel, Jace,” she repeated. “I don’t return library books. I steal illegal music off the internet. I lie to my mom. I am completely ordinary.”

“When you love someone, you don’t have a choice. Love takes your choices away.”

“I love you, Clary wanted to say. And, I would do it again. I would always ask for you. But those weren’t the words she said. “You’re not my brother,” she told him, a little breathlessly, as if, having realized she hadn’t yet said them, she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth fast enough. “You know that, right?”

“Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt.”

“There are a hundred trillion cells in the human body,” she said, “And every single one of the cells of my body loves you. We shed cells, and grow new ones, and my new cells love you more than the old ones, which is why I love you more every day than I did the day before. It’s science. And when I die and they burn my body and I become ashes that mix with the air, and part of the ground and the trees and the stars, everyone who breathes that air or sees the flowers that grow out of the ground and looks up at the stars will remember you and love you, because I love you that much.”

Tuesday Top Ten-Movies to Look Forward to in 2014

January 21, 2014January 21, 20144 Comments

Hello everybody! How are we doing this week? We’re now a few weeks into the year, approved and a new year brings so much: new year, pills new goals, new you, new books, new movies!

I get excited every year around new year because I think…oh all those movies I’ve been waiting for are now closer than ever!

There are a TON of great movies hitting the theaters this year, and I’m excited for them. Here are my top ten:

10. The Giver

August 15th

I’m not going to lie, this movie makes me incredibly nervous. I love this book. This book was the first dystopian novel that I ever really read and that was when I was twelve years old. This novel has definitely stuck with me, and I’m hoping that when it hits the big screen, it’ll be as beautifully filmed as it was written. The fact that there are all these big names makes me nervous because none of the people who are being cast seem to fit what I’ve imagined. I’m also not happy that Taylor Swift has any part of this movie. I mean, I can’t even handle my disappointment in that. But I’m holding out hope that despite that, and despite the most random of an ensemble cast, it’ll be the script from a beautiful book that makes this a great movie.

9. Maleficent

May 30th

It seems to be the hippest thing now to do fairy tale retellings now. And I’m totally okay with that. I love Disney movies, and have loved them since I was a kid. All these retellings just make it so that I can enjoy those favorite stories again and again as an adult, in a new way. I’m not an Angelina Jolie fan, honestly, she kind of bothers me. I was telling my friend that if she wasn’t such a good mom (or at least she appears to be), I would probably really dislike her. However, I think she’s an absolutely perfect pick to play the scary Sleeping Beauty villain and I think it’ll be a great movie. It already looks super great, and I’m really really really looking forward to it. The teaser trailer is just enough to make me want to watch.

8. Love Rosie

No Release Date…Yet

I literally have such little knowledge on this movie, its ridiculous. I know that its based off a book, but most movies are, so that wasn’t hard to conclude. But it has two of my favorite people in the world in the movie: Lily Collins and Sam Claflin. Both of whom I’ve met too! Which I just thought of and totally made me happy. But this was being filmed around the promotion time for City of Bones so it came on my radar and I’m excited to see it. There is no real release date for it because I think its super indie but I definitely want to see it, and hopefully read it, as well. I think Lily Collins is a great actress who hasn’t quite caught her break yet, and I adore Sam, who ROCKED Finnick in Catching Fire. Its bound to be a good movie, in my head.

7. X-Men: Days of Future Past

May 23rd

I wasn’t a huge fan of the “original” XMen trilogy. The first one was decent and the other two were just a yawn. They just didn’t impress me much. So when the prequel came out, I honestly didn’t have a huge desire to see that at all. Eventually I did watch it and I was blown away. I think the prequel was infinitely better than the original trilogy and I loved the cast immensely: James Mcavoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, January Jones and so on. I loved it so much. I would say they made one mistake in casting someone else for Banshee instead of sticking with their original choice of Robbie Sheehan. But that’s just because I’m biased and love Robbie. But because that first movie was absolutely incredible, I am DEFINITELY looking forward to the sequel. I think its going to be just as good, maybe better, and they got rid of Rogue and I’m SO okay with that.

6. The Maze Runner

September 19th

I really am looking forward to seeing this movie for several reasons. First off, I adore Dylan O’Brien. I wish that Teen Wolf would have grabbed me more than it did because he is SO great. So being able to see him as the main character of TMR is something I’m very excited about it. I’m also excited because it really was a good book. James Dashner is a great writer, and The Maze Runner is an incredible novel. Its also a really weird, bizarre novel, which leads to another reason I’m looking forward to seeing this movie: maybe things will make a little more sense to me when I can actually see them. Maybe seeing the maze and the Grievers and all that. I also think that its a very action-y book so it’ll work really well on the big screen. Thomas and his fellow Runners are constantly risking their lives to find a way out and I think that will translate SUPER well onto film.

5. The Fault in Our Stars

June 6th

Despite the fact that the fans of The Fault in Our Stars is kind of starting to get on my nerves and I’m starting to push more indie, unknown or underrated authors now, instead of just always John Green, I am looking forward to this movie. I enjoy John Green’s books and I did really like TFiOS a lot so I’m eager to see this movie. I also have a soft spot for Ansel, and I swear, it has nothing to do with his abs ;) I’m also excited because Ansel and Shailene will play brother and sister in another highly anticipated movie this year (look below!) and so I’m eager to see how they do both of them. They obviously have a chemistry on screen enough to be in two different movies together. I wish my favorites of John Green, like An Abundance of Katherines or Will Grayson, Will Grayson, on the big screen but there’s no way it’ll ever happen. So this is the next best thing. Let’s see how well they translated this book to the work of film.

4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

November 21st

Duh. I mean, do I really need to go into detail with this? When I first saw The Hunger Games, I definitely enjoyed it. Its a great movie, but it wasn’t…perfect, you know? There were things wrong with it, and I liked it but it wasn’t a huge favorite. When I saw Catching Fire though, it blew my mind. Its not perfect because a movie will hardly ever be as perfect as the book but it was pretty damn close. I wanted to stand up and tackle Francis Lawrence and all the brains behind CF with hugs and kisses because it was SO SO good. I was only partly looking forward to CF because HG was just okay. Now I’m dying to see Mockingjay because I have high hopes for it. I honestly think its going to be just amazing, and the casting they have been doing for it is great and I want to do fan camp again. The whole Catching Fire experience pulled me so much back into The Hunger Games world and I’m dying to see the first part of the finale. I still don’t know why its split into two parts but whatever. Let’s just enjoy it.

3. Vampire Academy

February 7th

This is only a few weeks away which makes me incredibly excited. I just read the books within the last six months but they have quickly become favorites of mine. The title and the idea of it sounded awful but Richelle Mead blew me away. Its an incredible series so I can’t wait to see it on the big screen. I’m so freakin excited. Plus I have huge crushes on both Zoey Deutch and Danila Kozlovsky and I want to see their chemistry as Rose and Dimitri. I am a bit nervous because it seems very “mean girls” but then I see a clip or a still of Zoey kicking ass and I get excited all over again. She’s super beautiful and perfect for the casting of Rose and I think its going to be a really fun movie. And I hope to get my butt down to the premiere so I can fangirl again and again over Zoey and Danila.

2. The Hobbit: There and Back Again

December 17th

I wasn’t overly impressed with The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug but I still feel like I need to go back and re-read the book and then rewatch the movie so I can really see whether I like it or not. It just didn’t effect me as much as the first one did. That one was just so amazing to me, the fight scenes and the elves, and Rivendell and the riddle scene with Gollum. Agh. But I’m hoping with the conclusion, it’ll comes together nicely. The end of The Hobbit is great, and a whole lot goes down so I’m ready to see that. I’m ready to see Smaug destroy the town, and I’m ready for Bard and I’m ready for Thorin to kind of go crazy and I’m ready for Bilbo to become an even bigger badass than he already was. I have some seriously high hopes for this movie (I mean, it is number 2 on the list) so I hope I am not disappointed.

1. Divergent

March 21st

I can hardly contain my excitement for this movie. When they first started casting for it, I admit, I was nervous. I was not a fan of Shailene Woodley. All I had ever seen her in was The Secret Life of An American Teenager and…no, just no. But the more I saw her transformation into Tris, the more I felt comfortable with her as Tris. Then I saw The Spectacular Now with my boyfriend at a special screening and it was SO good, and she really impressed me. She did such a great job. That, combined with the casting of Theo James as Four, made me more excited about the movie. I mean, have you seen Theo James. I need a bucket of cold water to the face every time I see him. Since then, we’ve gotten a TON of stills, really amazing trailers and I am just so excited for this movie. Once I saw the first full length trailer, I really thought, “wow, this could be good”. I love these books, I feel like I’m one of a small group that absolutely loved the ending and I can’t wait to see my favorite Divergent characters come to life in March. And to hopefully be at that premiere because, come on, its Divergent!

* * * * *

So there you have it! My Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2014! Check in next week to see my top Ten reasons why I want to be an author :)

What are some movies that you are looking forward to in 2014? Share in the comments!

Exclusive Interview with the Ultimate Fangirl, Sasha Alsberg!

October 9, 2013October 7, 20132 Comments

If you’re part of the Mortal Instruments fandom at all, generic and are on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook…well, I’m sure you’ve heard of Sasha Alsberg.

Sasha is the brains behind @TheShadowhunters on Instagram, an admin of Better in Black, and part of the blog Fandom News. She is also very well known for being Lily Collins doppelgänger.

I’m not kidding. The girl looks SO much like Lily Collins, it took me awhile to learn to distinguish the two. Because of her uncanny resemblance to Lily, and her humor and charm in her Instagram videos, Sasha has grown to 28,000 followers on Instagram, and counting. But I’ve been curious, and I know you guys probably have to, to know the story behind the girl on Instagram. So I emailed Sasha, and we set up an interview, and now, everyone, sit back and learn more about this awesome fangirl!

Sara: Most people know you as Lily Collin’s doppelganger or as the admin of TheShadowhunters, but we don’t really know you. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sasha: My name is Sasha Alsberg (as most of you know), and I live in the beautiful city of Chicago (Divergent). I go to an all girls high school, which I’ll be graduating out of soon, and I hope to go to college somewhere on the west coast. I have five sisters, and I’m the baby of the bunch! I’ve been in love with books for as long as I can remember, and it wasn’t until about two years ago that I decided to take my love for books online!

Sara: How did you get into the Shadowhunter Chronicles? When did you discover them and how did they become so important to you?

Sasha: It’s a funny story actually. A year and a half ago, my friend told me to read the TMI books but I was in a dystopian phase at the time, so it wasn’t until the summer, when I went to Europe for a month, that I actually read City of Bones. Right then, I knew these books were something special. I read the whole series in one week and I decided once I got home, I had to make a TMI Instagram account. That’s where it all started, and @TheShadowhunters was made!

Sara: What is your favorite book in the Shadowhunter Chronicles, and who is your favorite character?

Sasha: The Mortal Instruments: City of Glass, and Clary Fray :)

Sara: How did you discover you looked like Lily Collins? What was it like meeting her, and the rest of the cast members?

Sasha: I didn’t really think much of it until one day, I posted a photo of myself on my account and my followers told me.

It was surreal, I still cannot believe I met her. The whole experience was amazing. When Lily and Jamie spotted me in the crowd during the Q&A, I was stunned! I was especially surprsied when Lily wanted to take a photo of me and her on her cell phone! Jamie was just shocked; there’s a YouTube video of his reaction when he saw me; its quite funny.

When I met them again in Chicago, Lily told me how she sent the photo of me and her to her mother, and even her mother said we look alike!

I was still in shock when Lily said, “its crazy how we look alike!”

Sara: How does it feel to know that people recognize you from your instagram, your blog and from being Lily’s doppelganger? What is the coolest thing to happen because of that?

Sasha: Its such a compliment because Lily is gorgeous and so self confident. It really makes me smile when I get compared to somebody like that.

Lots of cool things have happened because of it. I do cosplay as Clary Fray, and it has really opened doors for me. For example. I’m traveling to Kansas City this weekend for a TMI cosplay photo shoot, portraying Clary Fray because I look like Lily. It’s just all very exciting!

The photo shoot took place this past weekend, and the photos were done by Carmen Desiree Seda. You can see photos from it on Carmen’s photography facebook page, on her instagram account, and on Sasha’s instagram account and blog.

Sara: What are some other authors and books that you enjoy to read?

Sasha: Divergent by Veronica Roth, Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, The Hunger games by Suzanne Collins, and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

Sara: What are your goals for the future? I know that totally sounds like a college admissions essay exam haha but what are your goals, do you want to travel, what are your career aspirations?

Sasha: My goal would probably be getting into a west coast college, going to conventions and studying social media or book publishing (marketing). I would also love to keep blogging about books and fandoms. I would love to travel to London again to meet my followers who live there, and just see friends. That would be amazing.

Sara: What are some things on your ‘fangirl bucket list’? Who are some authors or celebrities you’d like to meet, or places you’d like to go?

Sasha: My fangirl bucket list was largely accomplished this summer but I would love to meet Cassandra Clare! I’ve never met her sadly. I was supposed to but she got sick and couldn’t make it. I would also LOVE to go to Comic Con this summer, which I’m planning to do.

Sara: What are some quirky facts about you that most people don’t know?

Sasha: I’m not exactly sure, but I am a very stubborn and dedicated person. If I set my mind to something, I won’t let anything stop me.

Sara: Who is your fictional crush?

Sasha: Jace Wayland, Daemon Black, Jem Carstairs, Will Herondale, Augustus Waters…the list is endless!

* * * * *

Thanks everyone for tuning in to this AWESOME interview with a super cool fangirl. Don’t forget to check her out on Instagram, on Better in Black, on her YouTube channel and on Fandom News!

All pictures in this post are property of Sasha Alsberg or Carmen Desiree Seda. Please do not reuse or reprint for any reason.

Stuck in Love Movie Review

September 25, 2013September 24, 20131 Comment

Stuck in Love

Rated:

Rated R for language, treat teen drug and alcohol use, and some sexual content

Directed By:

Josh Boone

Cast:

Lily Collins, Logan Lerman, Nat Wolff, Jennifer Connelly, Greg Kinnear, Kristen Bell, Liana Liberato

Find the rest on IMDB here.

IMDB Movie Synopsis:

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

Okay, I thought that was possibly the lamest synopsis ever so here is mine: William Borgens (Kinnear) is a published author and he’s always taught his children to love books and to love writing. Three years ago, his wife (Connelly) cheated on him and left him for another man, and yet he still holds on to her. His children, Samantha (Collins) and Rusty (Wolff) are both effected by this, of course, in vastly different ways. Rusty is a hopeless romantic, pining after a troubled girl, Katy (Liberato), while Samantha is cynical and doesn’t believe in love, and pushes away the advances of Louis (Lerman). The story is a course of a year as all three of them experience the different stages of love and how they change in that year.

My Review:

First off, can I just comment on the fact that this movie was like my YA hero dream? You have Lily Collins who plays Clary in The Mortal Instruments, Logan Lerman who plays Percy in Percy Jackson and now Nat Wolff who plays Isaac in the upcoming The Fault in Our Stars movie. So that was enough to make me want to watch it. Then all these people online started watching it out of nowhere, and I thought, okay, I have to get on board with this.

And I absolutely LOVED this movie. It was such a beautiful movie and a great story. There is realism in every part of the story. The dad holding on to the cheating ex-wife and unable to move on, the cynical daughter unable to accept the ideas of love and a son who wants nothing more than to find that love. Watching those stories unfold, watching them all go through hurt and heartbreak and love and all of that, was just a beautiful thing to watch.

The thing about the characters is that Josh Boone doesn’t hold back on the intelligence of all of them. Every single one of them is extremely intelligent in their own way and I think that’s why makes watching them make the wrong decisions or take the wrong turns so addicting, and so compelling. I think every actor and actress here has a lot of heart and does an amazing job capturing their characters.

I think Logan Lerman brings around the kind of performance that he has in Perks of Being a Wallflower and I think that he can really stand out in these kind of roles. Lily Collins really shines, and I’m not just saying that because she’s absolutely beautiful and I have a crush on her. I adored her as Clary Fray, and I don’t think anyone else could have been Clary Fray but I think this is more of a winning role for her. She was absolutely beautiful in this movie, and I think she stood out big time.I think she is really the highlight of this movie. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Nat Wolff in anything besides pictures that John Green puts up of the TFiOS set, and he really captured my attention and my affection in this movie. He plays the awkward, sincere and lovable Rusty so well and I can’t imagine that he won’t be able to capture Isaac as well.

I love the adults as well, don’t get all cranky at me. I think the adults were an important part of the movie, especially Kinnear and Connelly as the parents. They were there, they had their own story to figure out but their story was so reflective on the stories that we got between Samantha and Louis and Rusty and Katy. I think that was the important part.

The music? Beautiful. There was just this indie sort of feel to it, combined with some songs that were recognizable. The music just seemed to fit so well with the movie and the story.

Loved the Stephen King cameo. I’m just saying.

I also just…I felt a real connection to how everything was just so wrapped in books and writing. William is a writer and he has inspired his children with books and writing. Samantha is about to become a published author (I had a mini fangirl attack at the thought of Lily Collins being an aspiring novelist), and Rusty is obsessed with Stephen King and with writing stories. Louis is a writer. The love that connects them all through stories and books was something that I couldn’t help but feel connected to. As a lover of books and of words and of writing on paper, I couldn’t help but understand how a book and a story could bring people together, whether it was a family or two people in love.

The only reason the movie doesn’t get 5 out of 5 is the predictability. It is a very predictable movie. It was beautiful and enjoyable to those with a hopeless romantic heart, who love to see pretty bows at the end of a movie about love (not in books though. I’m seriously sadistic when it comes to books…) but I love seeing romance. But you can almost predict what is going to happen in the end, and that might deter some people from liking it. But for me, it is still a wonderful story, and one that you enjoy even if you can already guess the ending.

Rating:

4 out of 5

* * * * *