A Weekend in Nice, France

A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I decided we wanted to go somewhere warm.  So after a little bit of googling and flight searching, we decided to go to Nice, France.

We had to leave by 2:30am on Saturday morning, and I almost overslept.  But I didn't, and we made it to the bus that took us to the airport.  The first thing we did when we got to Nice was made our way to our hostel.  We were able to drop our bags off, but our beds weren't going to be ready until 3:00pm, so we decided to find some food.  We then walked up Castle Hill and got to see some amazing views of the ocean.  We also walked around Cimetière du Château (Castle Cemetary) for a little while, which has huge gravestones.  At 3:00pm we went back to the hostel and took a nap since both of us only got about an hour of sleep the night before.  When we got up, around, we found some dinner and then sat outside of a bar for a while because we wanted to stay up late enough that we wouldn't wake up too early the next morning.  We went back to the hostel at 11:00pm, and I was surprised to find that we were the last people back to the shared dorm we were in.

The next day we checked out of the hostel around 10:00am and walked around a flower market for a little bit before taking a bus to Monaco.  Once there we walked into the famous Casino (Only the parts we could get into free).  Then we went and sat on the beach for a while.  We walked into the water, which was cold, but we felt we had to since we had gone through so much effort to see the sea.  We looked at all of the Yachts in the harbor and then went up to the Prince's Palace before returning to Nice.  We grabbed dinner and then took a bus back to the airport.

The weekend was fantastic to get away and be somewhere where the sun was shining.  In fact, we both ended up getting sunburnt.  We spent most of our time simply walking around and looking at the ocean.  I am not a beach person, so I was wicked surprised to find how excited I was to see salt water.

Are any of you ready for Spring to fully arrive?  Or do you want to fast forward straight to summer?

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw | Book Review

Reading Group: High School+

Synopses: Two centuries ago, in small, isolated Sparrow, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery and drowned in the waters surrounding the town. Now, each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three girls and seeking revenge by dragging boys to their watery deaths.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the town's fate. Then, on the eve of the sisters' return, Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into or the fact that his arrival will change everything... 

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters. 

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

Cover: I find the cover of this book to be very pretty with the shades of green, blue, and purple, with a pop of orange.  There are also a few illustrations throughout the waves: crows, a skull, and a sinking hand that I think work to help with the quote that says, "Secrets that lurk beneath the surface..." 

My Review: I grabbed this book from my internship because I thought it sounded really interesting, but I was afraid that it was going to be a little young for me.  Although I do think this book is appropriate for people a little younger than me, I didn't feel like I was too old to enjoy it and actually I really liked it.  I love magical books like this that incorporate some type of love story.  However, this love story was a little bit tragic for Bo because he fell in love with a girl and then, in a way, had to re-fall in love with her, which I was very happy he was able to.  There is a slight twist in this story that you might be able to guess, but if you don't you'll be stunned.  
This book has the storyline that says love can change pretty much anything, which some people may think is cliche, but I think I would be completely happy reading books with only this storyline for the rest of my life.  Love can change your entire outlook, but it can also make you selfless, which is what happens in this story.  When something has been the way it is for two hundred years it takes someone brave to change it while understanding that the consequences may end badly for them.  This story is about a town that still thrives off of a curse from the past, but when a new outsider comes to town, everything gets turned around and now it's up to Penny to decide what happens next.
On Amazon, it says "Hocus Pocus meets Practical Magic", but I'm afraid the people targeted for this book are too young for those movies.  I've seen Hocus Pocus, but I've never seen Practical Magic and I feel like I'm on the older end of the audience target, but I do agree.  I was explaining the plot to someone and she immediately said, 'Oh, like a darker Hocus Pocus!'  Three sisters accused of being witches and killed for it...Sanderson...Swan...it's all the same really.  

Click to stay connected:

Main Twitter: @juliann_guerra

Second Twitter: @writerjewels

Instagram: juliann_guerra

Second Instagram: writerjewels

Tumblr: juliann-guerra

Goodreads: Juliann Guerra

Wattpad: @writerjewels

Pinterest: Juliann Guerra

Spotify: juliann.guerra

Bloglovin: Juliann Guerra

Girl About Town by Adam Shankman and Laura L. Sullivan | Book Review

Reading Group: 14-years-old+

Synopses: Not too long ago, Lucille O’Malley was living in a tenement in New York. Now she’s Lulu Kelly, Hollywood’s newest It Girl. She may be a star, but she worries that her past will catch up with her. Back in New York she witnessed a Mafia murder, and this glamorous new life in Tinseltown is payment for her silence.

Dashing Freddie van der Waals, the only son of a New York tycoon, was a playboy with the world at his feet. But when he discovered how his corrupt father really made the family fortune, Freddie abandoned his billions and became a vagabond. He travels the country in search of redemption and a new identity, but his father will stop at nothing to bring him home.

When fate brings Lulu and Freddie together, sparks fly—and gunshots follow. Suddenly Lulu finds herself framed for attempted murder. Together, she and Freddie set out to clear her name. But can they escape their pasts and finally find the Hollywood ending they long for?

Cover: The cover is what drew me to this book, simply because I thought it was pretty.  I like that it's out of focus and has an 'everything is not as it seems' type vibe that the book actually ended up being all about.

My Review: I was expecting more from this book than what I got from it.  It seemed like there were so many different things happing, but at the same time not enough.  Freddie gets arrested at one point and goes to jail, but by the next page he's out and I was so thrown off.  How did he get out?  Why did he get let out?  How long was he in there?  And when his dad finds him you never learn how he found him.  Surely someone recognized him and reported back to his dad, but who?  And when it came to the whole Ruby putting the bullets in the gun it was explained why, but when did she get the opportunity to put the bullets in when so many people were around and Freddie looked in the gun right beforehand.  Also, when it comes to Sal at the end of the story just letting Lulu be happy with Freddie did not seem realistic at all.  Why would he just let her go with hopes that she would come back to him?  She still knows that he murdered someone and he would want to keep tabs on her to make sure she didn't tell anyone.
Also, I know this book takes place in the 1930's, but the language seemed so stereotypical.  Did people actually talk like that?  And will people say the same thing about our books 80 years from now?  To me, it just seemed very obvious that although the book takes place in the 1930's, it was written in 2017 by someone going off of stereotypes.
This book sounded really cool with blackmail and debts and murder and lies, but it didn't deliver for me.  Even when the truth was revealed it didn't feel like a giant "NO WAY" moment for me, but more of a relief that the book was wrapping itself up.  It definitely wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it left me with more questions than answers.  And maybe I'm just too old to be reading it.  I wonder what 14-year-old Juliann would think of it.

Click to stay connected:

Main Twitter: @juliann_guerra

Second Twitter: @writerjewels

Instagram: juliann_guerra

Second Instagram: writerjewels

Tumblr: juliann-guerra

Goodreads: Juliann Guerra

Wattpad: @writerjewels

Pinterest: Juliann Guerra

Spotify: juliann.guerra

Bloglovin: Juliann Guerra

Without Merit by Colleen Hoover | Book Review

Reading Group: 16-years-old+

Synopses: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends With Us and November 9 comes a moving and haunting novel of family, love, and the power of the truth.

“Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.”

The Voss family is anything but normal. They live in a repurposed church, newly baptized Dollar Voss. The once cancer-stricken mother lives in the basement, the father is married to the mother’s former nurse, the little half-brother isn’t allowed to do or eat anything fun, and the eldest siblings are irritatingly perfect. Then, there’s Merit.

Merit Voss collects trophies she hasn’t earned and secrets her family forces her to keep. While browsing the local antiques shop for her next trophy, she finds Sagan. His wit and unapologetic idealism disarm and spark renewed life into her—until she discovers that he’s completely unavailable. Merit retreats deeper into herself, watching her family from the sidelines, when she learns a secret that no trophy in the world can fix.

Fed up with the lies, Merit decides to shatter the happy family illusion that she’s never been a part of before leaving them behind for good. When her escape plan fails, Merit is forced to deal with the staggering consequences of telling the truth and losing the one boy she loves.

Poignant and powerful, Without Merit explores the layers of lies that tie a family together and the power of love and truth.

Cover: This book cover shows a destroyed piece of paper that someone has tried to fix by tying and pinning it back together.  This paper could represent the letter Merit wrote before she tried to kill herself and how once something is out in the world it's impossible to go back to the way it was before the information was known.  The interesting thing is that Merit's letter needed to be written in order for her family to start talking about things they had been avoiding for years.

My Review: To be completely honest with you, even though I've read and enjoyed Colleen Hoover's books before, there was something about the synopsis of this one that originally put me off, but I got it at work and decided to read it.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book was a lot better than I was expecting and it made me question why I thought otherwise.  Still, it's not my favorite Colleen Hoover novel.
This is kind of a coming of age story for Merit as she realizes that she is also part of the problems that her family has going on.  She spent years thinking that everything was out to get her, but in reality, she wasn't doing a whole lot to help herself out either.  So when two boys and a dog come into her life and shake it up a little bit, she's able to see things more clearly and learns how to give and receive forgiveness.  Something I really liked about this book was that it dealt with depression in a way that I had never really read before.  I liked that Merit didn't realize she could be suffering from depression because it felt more realistic.  I think a lot of people have had the "well it's normal for a teenager to have these weird thoughts sometimes" conversation with themselves.  And I agree that to an extent it is normal, but it's important to know when you've crossed the line between healthy and unhealthy.  Merit didn't notice until someone else points it out to her and even then she tries to deny it.  I liked how this was handled in the book because no one wants to believe they're depressed.
Absolutely no one in the Voss family is anywhere close to perfect and they certainly do not know how to handle each other at times.  I think a lot of people were upset with how the family handled things - especially Merit's attempted suicide - but there are families like this out there.  Families that downplay things and try and sweep their dirt under the rug so no one can see it.  That's why the boys' entrance into their lives were so important because they brought a new perspective and helped changes happen for the Voss family.    
This was not my favorite Colleen Hoover book, but I did enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would.

Click to stay connected:

Main Twitter: @juliann_guerra

Second Twitter: @writerjewels

Instagram: juliann_guerra

Second Instagram: writerjewels

Tumblr: juliann-guerra

Goodreads: Juliann Guerra

Wattpad: @writerjewels

Pinterest: Juliann Guerra

Spotify: juliann.guerra

Bloglovin: Juliann Guerra

Weekend in Dublin, Ireland

Hello everybody!

This past weekend a group of friends and I went to Dublin, Ireland.  Now, if you're anywhere near the UK, you may know that last week there was a 'snow storm' that caused a lot of issues for a lot of people.  I put that in quotes because the total amount of snow that fell was probably somewhere between 2 and 3 inches, in central London at least.  So for a bunch of Americans from the Northeast, we weren't worried about it at all, but then Thursday and Friday flights were being canceled left and right and we started to get nervous that our early morning Saturday flight was going to be next.

Luckily, our flight did not get canceled, but there was a moment when we thought we weren't getting on the plane.  There was a group of five of us that went, and most of us just packed a backpack because we were only going to be gone for one night, but one girl had a carry on size suitcase - still, no one really thought much about it.  However, at security, she's told that she needs to check her bag and is escorted back to the counter.  The rest of us walk to our gate, which of course wicked far away from security and she's texting us saying that she's in a really long line and that she doesn't know if she's going to make the flight.  The four of us start to panic because we have no idea what to do when the plane starts boarding.  Do we get on and hope she makes it in time?  Do we wait for her and all of us miss the flight?  Do we beg and plead with the airport gate worker to keep the gate open for five extra minutes?  We were told that the gate was going to close at 6:20am, but people were still in line, so we stood off to the side.  A couple minutes later our friend rounds the corner, and it was like watching the winner of the Boston Marathon cross the finish line.  The funniest part: we weren't the last people on the plane.

When we all got to Ireland, we had to figure out the best way to get to our hotel, which took some time.  We got in line to buy bus tickets only for them to tell us it was cash only, so we had to go back inside to the ATM and then get back in line.  But we did eventually make it, and we spent the day exploring the Temple Bar area of Dublin.  After a couple of hours relaxing in our rooms since we all had to wake up at about 3am, we spent the night at the actual Temple Bar and listened to a great cover band play a bunch of songs that we knew and sang along too.  The night ended with diner french fries and being back at the hotel before midnight.

  

Sunday we partook in an Airbnb Busking experience.  This was supposed to be on Saturday, but because of the weather, our guide changed it, which we ended up being happy about because we were all so tired on Saturday after everything that we probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.  He took us around the Temple Bar area and Grafton Street, explaining what Busking is and who started their careers this way (U2, Ed Sheeran, Hosier, etc.) which we had no idea about.  We also had to Busk for ourselves which was a lot of fun, but also nerve-wracking, since we are not singers.

After the experience, we walked to the Guinness Storehouse.  We walked through the self-guided tour and got a free pint in the Gravity Bar.  Personally, I don't like Guinness, but the tour was cool and how could I not have fun hanging out with friends?  From Guinness, we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to the airport.  It was a quick trip, but it was full of fun!

Click to stay connected:

Main Twitter: @juliann_guerra

Second Twitter: @writerjewels

Instagram: juliann_guerra

Second Instagram: writerjewels

Tumblr: juliann-guerra

Goodreads: Juliann Guerra

Wattpad: @writerjewels

Pinterest: Juliann Guerra

Spotify: juliann.guerra

Bloglovin: Juliann Guerra

Studying Abroad: 2 Month Update

Hello everybody!

February was an absolutely crazy time for me that flew by.  I was able to do a lot of traveling, and my brother came to visit me!  It's hard to believe that I have been in London for a full two months now.  If you haven't read about my first month and would like to click here!

I got to visit Windsor Castle on Saturday, February 3rd, which was beautiful.  It's also where the Royal Wedding is going to take place in May, so I was really excited to get to see where it was all going to be.  Plus, when I'm home and watching the wedding on TV I can say 'I've been there!' approximately 90 times.

On Sunday, February 4th I went to a place called Student Central and watched The Super Bowl!  Unfortunately, I had to stay awake until 4 in the morning only to watch the Patriots lose, but my friend is from Philidelphia, so I guess it was nice to see her excited.  Gotta love a good underdog story.  However, the next day I found the closest Dunkin' Donuts to help with my grief.  Thank goodness they have some here.

The next weekend I traveled to Berlin, Germany.  I already wrote a blog post about this so you can read all about it here.  Both the Windsor Castle and Berlin trips were excursions organized by my study abroad program that I signed up for all the way back in November.

Two days after I got back to London, my brother arrived for a visit over my school break.  Again, I already wrote about this so check it out here.  

The day my brother left, Thursday, February 22nd, I went to a The Vamps concert in Camden.  It was part of BritWeek and proceeds went to an organization called WarChild.  I was really excited to go because I love The Vamps music and the tickets were inexpensive.  Unfortunately, they only played about 9 songs, but at the same time, it was nice because I had to be up early the next morning to get to my internship.  I was also blocked by a photographer for a couple of songs, so he gave me his business card with his email and sent me this photo.  How great is that?  A photographer can block me at any concert if this is the outcome.

Tuesday, February 27th was my roommate's 21st birthday, and so we went to a bar called Ballie Ballerson which is a bar with a giant ball pit!  It was so fun to play in a ball pit for about an hour!

As amazing as the night was, it seemed the universe needed me to have some balance because the morning of February 28th was quite the trip.  There is snow in London, which is apparently not normal because it only snowed about 2 inches and yet everything was crazy.  I almost slipped numerous times on the way to the train station and then when I was crossing the street a bus started coming towards me, and I panicked for half a second.  On the train, after a stop, the doors closed and I immediately felt that my hair was stuck in between them.  Everything was fine, I was able to tug it out, but the fear of being scalped was there for a second.  Once off the train a friend and I stopped at Starbucks.  I got a hot chocolate and as we were walking to school I slipped a little in the snow, but I was so happy I didn't spill any of my drink on me.  However, I did manage to get it all over the sleeve of my friend.  We stood on the side of the sidewalk for a good 3 minutes wiping it off with napkins and laughing.  A woman walked by and said, "Oh no" which just made the situation that much funnier.  All of this happened between 8:00 and 9:00am.  Craziness.

Other than all those fun days, February was full of school and internship.  I've also started to get emails from my school back home talking about next semester which is mind-boggling to think that it's time to start thinking about my senior year of college!