#BookWorm: Room

Hello fellow readers,

I recently finished reading the book Room by Emma Donoghue. In 2010 I remember my mom telling me about this book, but the cover was super unappealing so I didn't want to read it. Seriously, never judge a book by it's cover. This book is great, however there were somethings that disappointed me, which I will get to later. The book is from 5 year old Jack's perspective who is the product of his mother's kidnapper and rapist. They are confined to an eleven by eleven room and Jack has never seen the outside world. His Ma has always told him that there is nothing outside so that he does not get confused as to why they are kept in the room. It truly is a fascinating story that draws you in, and the fact that it is from Jack's perspective instead of Ma's is a whole new twist.

The reason I was disappointed when I read this story was that I had heard from a number of people that it was based on a true story. IT'S NOT! Not an ounce of it is based on actual events or people. Which is a good thing, but is also kind of disappointing when you are reading this incredible story thinking it is real then find out it isn't. I have read numerous places that this story was confused with the Jaycee Dugard story, which is strangely similar (even the concept of it). Emma Donoghue claims that she wrote the entire story before Jaycee was found, and therefore could have had no idea but that it was a sad coincidence. It is kind of odd though, and eerie, some of the similarities between the two stories. Overall I would give it a 9/10. I really enjoyed it, even as a work of fiction. I actually finished it in less than a week while working full time and overtime hours!

So have you read Room? Or are you planning on seeing the movie? I am curious and want to see the differences between the book and movie as there usually are many. I'm also pretty intrigued because the movie is rated R, so I am wondering how graphic it will be. Next up is The Story of Everything by Robyn Schneider. I am thoroughly enjoying checking these books off of my list and have really loved people's suggestions, so thank you for letting me know about books you loved and think I would enjoy!

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia :)

#BookWorm: Independent Study + Graduation Day

Hello fellow readers,

I recently finished up The Testing series with the last two books Independent Study and Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau. This series has greatly exceeded my expectations and I am so glad that I found this hidden gem of a trilogy. If you haven't read The Testing yet, skip ahead to the second set of bold!

*** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS ***

In the second book of the triology, Independent Study, Cia starts her life at the University and begins to notice some strange things going on. People start to treat her differently, including her first year guide Ian and boyfriend Tomas. As her memories start to return from the testing, she starts to remember who she should trust and who she should not. She gets put into a challenge with other new University students, similar to the testing where she has to take charge. In the challenge she learns more about her fellow classmates and more about the University's motives. When students are assigned an internship, Cia runs into some familiar faces and learns some very important things about people she trusted. Without spoiling too much, this book has an amazing ending. If you haven't read this book yet, skip ahead to the next section after the bold.

In the final book of the series, Graduation Day, Cia is forced to make a choice when President Collindar gives her a pretty serious task to take on as a part of her internship. After she watched Symon murder Michal in the rebel camp, Cia has been on wits end. She has to decide what she is willing to lose if she does not take President Collindar's task seriously. The ending to this book is pretty good! I was happy it wasn't a typical ending.

***SPOILERS COMPLETE***SPOILERS COMPLETE***SPOILERS COMPLETE***

All in all, I cannot wait to see what becomes of these books. Although it has similar themes to the other post-apocalyptic series out there, it really can stand on its own. I would give both of these books a 8.5/10. Kept my interest, but sometimes things got repetitive. It would be nice if you read them not in a row to have reminders of things that happened before, but if you read them one after the other it can be annoying. I truly hope it is made into a movie series as I could see people really getting hooked on the characters. I recently picked up a fresh stack of books from the library, and up next on my list is the story Room, which is soon to be a movie Nov. 25! I can't wait to finally finish this book as I cried during the commercial at the movie theater hah!

Thanks for reading with me,

- Olivia :)

DIY Mini Pumpkin Pies

Hello everyone!

This week I worked on a new recipe, mini pumpkin pies. Madi LOVES pumpkin pie, and I am not really a fan, so every year I make him this massive pie and he eats like half of it before it goes bad. So this year I decided to try something new and make mini pumpkin pies so that he could enjoy it! Side note, I remember the first time I made Madi a pumpkin pie. We were living with roommates in our first apartment and I made it around this time of the year. I don't like pumpkin pie and haven't tried it since I was probably six or seven, so I didn't remember what it tasted like. The whole process was a disaster. I dumped half the filling out of the pie while trying to put it in the oven (onto our blue kitchen rug). I served it hot, like right out the oven hot, to him and watched with a hopeful smile as he took his first bite. He politely told me "Babe, I think it's supposed to be cold." Durp. So then I put it in the fridge for a few hours. By the time we went through all of that the pie was mediocre at best. Every year I have worked on perfecting my pumpkin pie recipe for him, but it is hard as he is not a sweets fan and I can't taste test it because I don't like it in the first place. So since I finally got the Madison stamp of approval on last year's pies I used the same recipe to make miniature pies this year!

Here's what you need:
- 1 1/2 box of 2 Pillsbury Pie Crusts (or make your own)
- 1 1/2 can of pumpkin puree
- 10 oz. of evaporated milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of white sugar
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- 1/4 tablespoon of salt
- 1/2 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon
- cooking spray
- muffin tin

Makes 18 mini-pies

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix all of the ingredients together and blend.

3. Cut out small circles with a cookie cutter or lid of something that will fit the size of the muffin tin from the pie crust.

TIP: to get the most of your crusts, re-use extra crust to make more and use a rolling pin to flatten out as much as possible
4. Spray the muffin tin with cooking spray (I literally never fail to get halfway through putting things in a muffin tin and forgot I didn't spray first, ugh)

5. Place the circular pie crusts in the muffin tins trying to center them as much as possible (you can see I failed at this)

6. Pour the pumpkin pie mix into the tin, trying to fill to the top of the mini pie crusts

7. Bake for 20 minutes

8. Let cool in the fridge for at least two hours or overnight.

9. Place whip cream on top, and wallah! You have yourself a mini pumpkin pie!

Now the presentation of mine is very poor ( I didn't even take a picture afterwards). Next time I will take time to actually try and make them look presentable. However, as far as the Madison stamp of approval, it was considered a success! Do you have any tricks or ideas for mini pumpkin pies? I may try some bite sized with a mini muffin tin for Thanksgiving! We shall see!

Thanks for baking with me!
- Olivia :)

#BookWorm: Dear Daughter

Hello fellow readers!

I finally ventured from the world of Young Adult reading back into the more adult world with the book Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little. Another book I found thanks to Amazon's Recommended Reads section when I was looking at books similar to Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. This book is about a girl named Jane Jenkins who was convicted for the murder of her mother when she was seventeen. She gets released from prison because the forensics department in California was charged with falsifying evidence, and she is trying to figure out if she actually killed her mother. Her memory of what happened went blank about a few hours before the time of the murder until she called the police to report the murder. The plot of this book is super interesting and overall I REALLY liked this book. At first I was turned off by the intense language and grotesque descriptions of the murder, but it actually wasn't quite as offensive throughout the book unlike Gone Girl which literally was so gross the whole book it made me like it a little less. I'm all for making the characters personality come out, but sometimes it makes me wonder if the author is a really good writer or if they truly have issues too. However this was not the case with Dear Daughter. 

If you loved any of Gillian Flynn's books, you will love this book. If you didn't like Gillian Flynn's books due to language but like the mystery/thriller/who-dunnit appeal of books, you probably will enjoy this one. Overall rating, I would say 9/10. Yep, it's that good. I love when books answer all of your questions and connect dots you may have forgotten about in the middle of the book. It makes me happy as a person who hates unsolved mysteries and unanswered questions. Up next on my list are the final two books of The Testing series: Independent Study and Graduation Day. My list continues to grow as I keep getting suggestions from not only Amazon, but fellow readers. Seriously I LOVE hearing recommended reads from people so don't hesitate to share with me! 

If  you haven't noticed by now, I added a section to DHTBB at the top of my page called My List of Books which has a list of every book I've ever reviewed on DHTBB listed by genre as well as which I recommend by using a * and New York Times Bestsellers with the abbreviation NYT next to it. I also put the list of books I am wanting to read. I update each list every time I review a book! If you are looking for a recommended read, check out that list. If you have read everything I recommend or that interests you already on that list, message me! I love when people come to me for book advice :). So have you read this book Dear Daughter? Any thoughts? I want to hear! Share with me!!

Thanks for reading with me,

- Olivia :)

Fall Adventures: Durham, NC

Hello fellow bloggers!

Ahh, fall is in the air. This is my absolute FAVORITE time of year. It is also one of the reasons Madi was able to convince me to move to North Carolina. This year I get to live in the beautiful fall weather as a resident of the Carolinas and I am so excited that we have gotten to do some fun fall activities.

The second week of October my mom came to visit Madi and I, which was convenient timing because Madi was participating in Duke's graduate school camp-out for season basketball tickets (he won by the way ;) ). I got to spend some good time with my mom and although I didn't get to go apple picking due to my fractured radius, we did get to do some shopping for fall clothes! It was beautiful weather here: sixty five and sunny for the most part with some rain on Saturday while we shopped away. We also went to go see the movie The Intern, which if you haven't seen it yet: GO SEE IT! It was so good and again I think super under-rated as it did well in the box office but not as good as Hotel Transylvania 2... interesting. Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway did AMAZING together. I thought they made such a great team and the movie really gave a good message. Although we didn't do as much as I had originally anticipated I was happy to relax a little after my first full week back at work (5 days of 8 on days can be rough when  you are used to 3 days of 12 on night shift!).

The third week in October Madi's sister and one of my best friends, Sondra came to visit! We were able to do some more actual fall activities around the area which made me super excited. We went to a local farm called McKee's and got to walk a corn maze, ride a hay ride, pick out a pumpkin, and see adorable animals! That night we got to get crazie as Cameron Crazies at Countdown to Crazy! It was so unreal to be in a packed stadium of Blue Devil fans and watch the 2015 Championship banner be unveiled for the first time! Way too cool!

The fourth week in October was more low-key again since Madi had an exam week the following week, but I was able to participate in the Light the Night for Leukemia walk with some of my co-workers in RadOnc! It is always so surreal to see the survivors, supporters, and friends all walking together for a cause! I also got to finally carve my pumpkin and I am very proud of it! Of course it had to be Disney themed ;). Tinkerbell was the winning vote from Madi since Peter Pan is his favorite Disney movie.

The fifth week in October we got back into Duke athletics with the opening game against none other than Florida Southern! Which is hilarious because we watched Florida Southern play last year right before winning the D2 national championship so it was cool to see two teams we love play each other. Madi's parents both attended Florida Southern, that is where they met, so Madi has always had a strong connection to the college and has grown up watching their basketball team expand. We spent Halloween at home since I was still recovering from my cold from the previous week. We did get the chance to get out to the tobacco trail again with the gorgeous leaves for a quick mile and a half walk with Nike!

Although we didn't have our annual Halloween party or get all dressed up in a new and creative outfit this year, I loved being in the fall atmosphere and look forward to what November brings as the weather cools down more. I can't believe Thanksgiving isn't too far away and Christmas is officially in the midst! I have some fun holiday DIY crafts and baking I am excited to try for the winter season, so stay tuned for that! Any suggestions for more fun fall activities that we can do while we still have a few weeks left? I would love to hear!

Thanks for keeping up,
- Olivia :)