Review: Living the EnerQi Connection by Sheri Laine

Everyone wants to feel healthy, strong, and alive. Sheri Laine, a 28-year practitioner of Oriental medicine, shows readers how to do just that through a unique concept using the L.A.I.N.E. method: Learn, Align, Inform, Natural, Energy. In Living the EnerQi Connection, acupuncturist Laine explains how Qi—the vital energy that circulates round the body in currents—works and how readers can benefit by cultivating and nurturing it.
The way in which we choose to harmonize and preserve this energy is what Laine calls EnerQi. Because this force field changes based on how well we take care of ourselves and by the lifestyle choices we make, we can actually raise our energy frequency to a much higher level, becoming stronger, happier, and more alive than ever before.
Living the EnerQi Connection is not only an enjoyable read, but its demystification of cencepts and traditions from ancient Oriental medicine, including the art of acupuncture, is easy to understand. Readers will discover an uncomplicated path to achieving balance by incorporating beneficial changes in their daily lives that will empower them to be healthier, happier, more relaxed and more fulfilled. 

Author Site

My Review

If you're thinking about having an acupuncture treatment but have no idea what to expect, then this book is most definitely for you. If you're feeling a bit low and don't know what to do, then this book is most definitely for you. If you're thinking about becoming an acupuncturist, then this book is most definitely for you too! Yes, I enjoyed it even though I have had acupuncture before so know what to expect. But I did enjoy delving deeper into this ancient form of eastern medicine. Not only was the book about acupuncture, but the author also explains how to live a healthy, happy life. She offers advice on many aspects of living well, as well as featuring stories about other people who have managed to change their lives for the better – either through eastern medicine or just by changing their diets, increasing their exercise and / or all of the above. This is one of those books that is just good to have on hand whenever you feel a little under the weather.

REVIEW: Starlight by Chelsea Campbell

Tour Page

Adrienne Speck is the biggest loser in her high school, so she can hardly believe it when a magical boy falls from the heavens to grant her three wishes. He is cool, confident, and definitely popular-crowd material—everything Adrienne's not. With his help, she has a chance to get everything she's ever wanted: get kissed, get popular, and get a date for the upcoming dance.

But Adrienne discovers magic isn't all it's cracked up to be, and the road to popularity is paved with humiliation. To make her dreams come true, not only will she have to get the lead in the school play, ask out the most popular guy in school, and stand up to the current queen of popularity, but also keep her personal genie from trashing her room, dressing like a nerd, and revealing to her mom that he's living in their attic. For someone who's supposed to be helping her, he couldn't be making her life any worse. That is, until she starts to fall for him.
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Name one of your all-time favourite books?
Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen.

Where is your favourite place to write?
My couch!

What is your favourite movie that was based on a book?
The Last Unicorn.

Name two of your favourite authors.
Sara Shepard and Andrew Smith.

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
My thumbs bend back really far. It grosses people out.

Who would play you in the movie about your life?
I don't know who would actually play me, but I aspire to be someone who would be played by Emma Stone or Jennette McCurdy.

Tell us an interesting fact about where you live.
Probably everyone already knows this, but Seattle is built on top of a previous version of itself. The old city that was there didn't work out--something about mud, if I remember right--so they built a new one on top of it. But parts of the old one are still there, underneath. You can go on tours. And when you're on the tour, you can look up and see these squares of purple glass, and then later when you're above ground, walking around town, you see the same purple glass and know you're above the old city.

Favourite myth / fairytale?
I really like all the creepy ones, which doesn't really narrow it down. If I have to pick just one... maybe Beauty and the Beast, because it's got some dark parts to it, but there's also love.

Who did you want to be when you were a kid?
Ariel, from The Little Mermaid. Except I wanted to keep the tail and live underwater, because you can pretty much go anywhere in the water, so it would be kind of like being able to fly. Now I think back on that and am like, "Why would I want to live in the ocean???"

MY REVIEW

This book totally charmed its way into my heart. I devoured it in a single sitting, it was so adorable! I love a sweet teen tale and this certainly didn't disappoint with the arrival of a very odd but totally loveable stranger to grant the main character, Adrienne, three wishes. Starlight is a little quirky, light-hearted and fun with some heart-wrenching moments in between. Everything you could want from a teen romance with an awesome fantasy twist. At times it reminded me of the movie Stardust (but just a little). This would also make an equally awesome teen movie.

Chelsea is a fabulous writer and I'll be checking out her other books in the near future.

Chelsea M. Campbell grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains a lot. And then rains some more. She finished her first novel when she was twelve, sent it out, and promptly got rejected. Since then she's written many more novels, earned a degree in Latin and Ancient Greek, become an obsessive knitter and fiber artist, and started a collection of glass grapes. Besides writing, studying ancient languages, and collecting useless objects, Chelsea is a pop-culture fangirl at heart and can often be found rewatching episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Parks and Recreation, or dying a lot in Dark Souls.

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Review: The Polaris Uprising by Jennifer Ibarra

The Polaris Uprising by Jennifer Ibarra
(Polaris #1)
Publication date: October 30th 2013
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult

Synopsis:
In less than seven years, eighteen-year-old Ryla Jensen will succeed her father as the president of Neress, a nation where all citizens are cared for from the moment they’re born. Fed, sheltered, even educated—every need of theirs is met.
The only price they pay is their free will.
Groomed since childhood to take on a role she’s not even sure she wants, Ryla’s only escape from the pressures of duty is her sister, Alanna. But when her eyes are opened to the oppressive regime her father built, she begins to question everything she’s set to inherit—and finds herself at odds with her sister’s blind allegiance to their father.
Torn between loyalty to her family and the fight for freedom, Ryla must decide just how far she’s willing to go to make a stand and risk losing the person she loves most in the world: Alanna.

My Review

Firstly I should say that although I really enjoyed this book, I wouldn't really put it in the YA category. More NA really (although there is no sex!). One of the main reasons is because I found it difficult to believe the main character, Ryla, was only 18. Yes, she's the daughter of the president and all that (clearly has an older head on her shoulders) but she just didn't act like an 18 year old at all. That was one of my few irks. The other is that I found it a little slow to begin with. The majority of the story was based upon Ryla and her sister, Alanna's relationship. It was only at the end of the book that I realised the importance of this - it was like an 'aha' moment as I approached the ending.
I must say I was taken by surprise with the turn of events. Initially I was hoping that everything would be summed up nicely but then with the advent of certain events (I won't give the game away!), I realised The Polaris Uprising has the potential to be a fantastic series, and boy would it make an awesome movie - Hollywood, are you listening?
All in all, a very interesting and thoroughly entertaining read!

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AUTHOR BIO

Jennifer Ibarra grew up on a steady diet of books, Star Wars, and other fantastic feats of the imagination. Her debut novel, The Polaris Uprising, is the first book in a trilogy and mixes dystopia with family drama, romance, and political intrigue.
She lives in Silicon Valley, where she does marketing for a tech company and spends her time running, cooking, baking, and keeping up with celebrity gossip.
Website: http://www.jenniferibarra.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/writejenwrite
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialjenniferibarra
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7124832.Jennifer_Ibarra

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