Experiencing a Different World

I love to read. I love to read many different kinds of books, from many different genres. But when I look at the shelf that holds my most-loved books, nearly all of them come from the fantasy genre. Filled with exciting stories of Hobbits, rabbits, and elves, even just glancing at the covers is enough to make me smile and feel excited. The heroes in these stories encourage me on bad days and cause me to be more determined on good ones. If fantasy didn’t exist, I’m sure I would still love to read, but until I started reading these types of books, I didn’t recognize how much impact characters and stories could have on people’s lives, for good or bad. Today, I am going to share the reasons fantasy is my favorite type of story to read.

Join the Dark Side: An Exploration of Fictional Villains

One of the reasons I love fictional stories so much is that they remind me that Good will always win, no matter how hopeless the situation looks. But for it to do that, the characters need to be up against others who are constantly trying to stop them and discourage them. Sometimes, I feel like the bad guys of a story get foiled a little too easily, and while the “dumb sidekick/villain” character can be funny, I don’t enjoy seeing them very often. That’s not the kind of opposition we face in our daily lives. In this post, I’m going to talk about ways certain fictional bad guys stand out, whether all are redeemable, and ways writers have made me like some of them, even if I don’t agree with their actions. 

The Elven Padawan: From Erebor to Echo Base – #17 – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Sunshine Blogger Tag

Audrey Reads The Silmarillion

This week, I delved deeper into Middle-earth history and lore, and read The Silmarillion. I have had this book since Easter, and had read a few chapters of it, but was distracted by other books, and a little intimidated by all the characters and places in it. And there are A LOT of characters. But I realized that even if I couldn’t name all of Fëanor’s sons, I could still enjoy the book, and learning the history that came before the tales of Bilbo and Frodo. In this post, I’m going to give some of my thoughts on it and give some introductions to the main characters.

My Favorite People in A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Obsessing over fictional characters is one of my favorite things to do. Their sacrifices and heroism inspire me, and their mistakes teach other lessons while making me love them more because I can often relate to their weak moments. I like analyzing why they make the choices they do in order to understand them better, which also helps me empathize with other people. Sometimes I can easily tell who is going to be my favorite character as soon as I see them, other times it takes a while for them to grow on me. But once I decide I love a character, it’s not often I change my mind. My list of favorite characters is very long, so in this post, I will be limiting it to a few of my favorites from the Star Wars universe. And these are in no particular order of favorites because it is very hard for me to rank characters, other than Leia, Han, and Luke who are usually my top favorites.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson – Book Review

It’s Summer! Which means more free time, and while that’s fun for a while, Summer can get a little boring after a few weeks. (Or is that just me?) In this post, I’m going to talk about the first book of one of my favorite book series: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, the first book in The Wingfeather Saga. I will be attempting to do this without spoilers, so you are safe to keep reading if you haven’t yet read these wonderful books.

Real Heroes

Two characters I am constantly having to defend from being spoken against are Frodo Baggins and Edmund Pevensie. People will say they don’t like Frodo because Sam had to get him out of some tight spots, or because he wouldn’t throw the Ring into Mt. Doom when he finally arrived. Or they won’t look past Edmund’s attitude and actions at the beginning of his journey. They tend to look at their weak points and decide that these characters aren’t as heroic as their friends, like Peter or Sam. But I believe that ALL of these characters are examples we should follow and that Frodo and Edmund show us something about being a hero the others do not.

Thoughts on Solo: A Star Wars Story

My first reaction to Solo was the same as my initial reaction to Rogue One, Rebels, and even to Star Wars itself. “Nah, that doesn’t look interesting.” Since I have been proven majorly wrong on all three of the past accounts, I have decided to give Solo a chance before deciding where I truly stand on it. In this post, I will talk about some of my concerns, as well as some things I’m looking forward to in the next Star Wars film.

Ezra Bridger, Hope of Lothal

Even though the adventures of the Ghost crew have ended for the moment, I’m definitely not ready to stop talking about them. As I thought through everything that happened with the last few episodes, I kept coming back to how stinking proud I am of our “Blueberry”. He’s changed so much, that when I go back and watch “Spark of  Rebellion”, he hardly seems like the same person. (Aside from his unique sense of humor and dorkiness, which will always be a part of him.) In this post dedicated to him, I want to go through some of the main ways he’s grown through the series and some of my favorite Ezra moments.