Reading John Marsden's Tomorrow series

A little less old-school than the other series I've written about, with a completely different style. I love John Marsden's writing style - so very casual, so very Australian, but just captures you completely.

Tomorrow When the War Began. Dir. Stuart Beattie. Ambiance Entertainment, 2010. Film.

The Tomorrow series (so named because the first book is Tomorrow When the War Began) is about a group of Australian teenagers who go away camping in the bus, and come back to find the country has been invaded and they are the only people left who haven't been captured. The series documents their attempts to hide from enemy soldiers, and their eventual transformation into guerilla soldiers.

What I really like about this series is that Marsden creates realistic characters - you believe in them because they react the way you'd react, they're just as scared as you would be, and as brave as you'd hope you would be. It's not always war war war, when Ellie's mind slips from the task, she's thinking about school, about family, friends, her farm and any manner of material things. She falls in and out of love, she has bad moods and laughs at inappropriate times. Something about this story is just so very real that you can't put the book down, in case you miss what happens next.

Usually with these series overviews, I rate each book. I'm not going to do that this time, because none of these books really work on their own. It's a continuing storyline, and there's really no way to skip a book. All I can say is that it seems a lot of people dislike The Night is For Hunting because it really changes the focus of the series for most of the book, but I wouldn't skip it because the end is pretty essential for the flow of the series.

There are seven books in the original series:
Tomorrow When the War Began
The Dead of Night
The Third Day, The Frost **

Darkness, Be My Friend
Burning For Revenge
The Night is For Hunting
The Other Side of Dawn

** also called "A Killing Frost" now apparently? That's how it's listed on Goodreads anyway.

There is also a trilogy set after the war called The Ellie Chronicles:
While I Live
Incurable
Circle of Flight

Whilst I enjoyed the trilogy, I wouldn't call it an essential read. It's a lot less action packed, it's missing most of the group that made the Tomorrow series so good, and deals with a lot more everyday, boring occurrences, some of which really don't seem to add anything to the story. But if you've loved the series, you'll enjoy these.

MAC Sculpt and Shape Powder in Accentuate/Sculpt

My camera and lighting adds a little warmness, so, you know, grain of salt

I have the kind of cheekbones you have to invent whenever you apply makeup - "where would they be, if I had them?", and until now, I've never had a truly great powder contour. Sure, I have Illasmasqua's Hollow pigment, but that's a cream and I find that such a faff, especially with the amount of makeup and concealer it takes to make my skin look passable. Ain't nobody risking buffing that off with what's actually a pretty firm cream. I had been using Sleek's Face Contour Kit in Light, but whilst the highlight is flawless, the contour is actually pretty warm and dark for me.

Thankfully, the MACnificent Me Collection has brought us the MAC Sculpt and Shape Powder in Accentuate/Sculpt (not to be confused with the same products in the Sculpted Face collection, which don't carry this exact shade and wasn't out when I bought this). The contour is perfect for my NW20 complexion. There's no messing this up - it just looks completely natural. The highlight isn't shimmery at all (I'll add another on top after because girl's gotta glitter), but instead highlights in the artist sense (light brings things forward, dark pushes them away). It's actually fairly cheap for a MAC powder product ($44AUD), considering this is the larger face powder size, not blush sized.

If you're looking for a contour, I would definitely recommend checking this out.

Reading 'The Chronicles of Narnia'

I've been slowly getting through my reading challenge by reading a lot of series. There's something about a continuing storyline that really pushes you to keep fighting through, and you're never 'between' books, where you can't decide what to read next.

 One of the series I read this year (and loved just as much as the first fifty times I read them), was C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Because I've read them several times, I read them in chronological order, however if it's your first time, I would definitely go publishing order (or at very least, skip Magician's Nephew until later).

Artwork by Paulline Baynes
 Lewis, C.S. The Silver Chair. London: Geoffery Bles, 1953. Print.

The Magician's Nephew: This isn't a stand-alone novel. I mean, it could be, but so much relies on TLTW&TW, and reading this first takes away a bit of the magical feel from that book. It's a very simple story with not a huge amount of plot - a boy and a girl get tricked by a magician into travelling into another world, accidentally drag an evil witch out of a dying world and into a brand new world. Like Last Battle, you really can't avoid the bible parallels here, as C.S. Lewis has made them about as subtle as a tornado.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: If you haven't read it, you've at least probably watched the movie or the miniseries. At very least, you know the plot. This is the most famous book, and with good reason. The miniseries is wonderful, even if Lucy was cast with one of the more annoying child actors of all time. I would probably rate this as one of the most universally likable of all of the series, but it isn't my favourite.

The Horse and His Boy: When you read older books, you always have to balance incredibly awkward racism/sexism/et cetera with the enjoyability (not a word apparently) of the story itself. And oh boy is Horse and His Boy one of those books. Incredibly racist, with a whole race of people who are clearly based on Muslims being the bad characters. Once you fight past that, it's a really fun adventure tale. It's nice to see the Pevensie children's rule of Narnia from the perspective of other characters, as it's really glossed over in TLTW&TW, and to have talking animals as major characters instead of side characters.

Prince Caspian: It's a good story, it's a short story, but I've always glossed over it when I'm remembering the series. There's some nice characterisation, but there's just not that much to this story.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Starts with the greatest first line of literary history: "There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it". This is basically C.S. Lewis' try at The Odyssey, and you'll either love it or hate it. I enjoy it.

The Silver Chair: Has always been my absolute favourite book of the series. It's not even that I particularly like Jill or Eustace as protagonists (though I absolutely LOVE Puddleglum, so there's that), but it has the best adventure of all the books, great exploration of places outside Narnia, and, well, it's just a really good book. Because, Puddleglum.

The Last Battle: Ugh. I mean, it's not the worst book I've ever read, but it's Lewis' least subtle attempt at religious allegory, and just not a great book. But you've gotta finish the series, and it's short enough. You'll hate Lewis for his treatment of Susan though.