Summer Reading: All the Bright Places review

One of my absolute favourite parts of summertime is spending copious amounts of time reading; and I mean everything, books, magazines, journals, blogs and articals. Absolutely anything. Despite rationally knowing its good to take a break from studying, I find it so hard during the term time to sit down and focus on reading for pleasure. There's always a tiny little part of me that thinks I should be doing something more 'productive' - whatever that is!

Anyway, I tend to resolve to read more during the summer (as you'll know if you've been with me for a while) but I had exams to sit last summer due to illness during the official examination period. This year, however, I have been delivered the prospect of a fabulous almost care-free summer with plenty of free time and endeavor to spend a lot more time reading so I'm keen to share the highs and the lows of it with you.

The first of my big summer reads was All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven and, having seen a handful of reviews, I had great expectations built up about this book. The novel tells the story of two contrasting characters Violet and Finch, who meet unexpectedly meet on top of their school bell tower with both characters contemplating suicide. We travel with these characters on a journey involving several small road trips as well as their own individual more abstract journeys: Violet and her journey through grief, and Finch's journey through mental illness.

All The Bright Places is gripping from the get-go and I was unable to put the novel down from start to end. I was constantly curious to know what would happen next and shell-shocked to find myself shed a few tears (quite a sight on a sunbed I believe) in the final chapters.


I found that the novel portrayed some important and thought-provoking messages including the idea that you can love someone unconditionally, but you still can't always save them. It also addressed the issue of mental health in a way that is (in my experience) understandable and realistic.

On top of this, I read All the Bright Places whilst on a family holiday and immediately after finishing it, I recommended it to my younger sister who really doesn't enjoy reading. She managed to get through the book in a record-breaking 6 hour time period and was absolutely hooked, then decided she really enjoys reading after all. So thank you Jennifer Niven.

I'll be back soon with some more reviews and some general chat, but in the meantime, keep smiling :)

Kathryn x

Where have you been?

So it seems that I haven't been around all that much, if at all, for the past couple of months. I'm sure you'll all appreciate that I am just coming the the end of year 13 so have had a lot on my plate juggling exams and the baggage that they bring along, my swimming training, keeping up a job to fund university accommodation fees for next year, and trying my hardest to remain somewhat close to sane. And out of all of those things I think that latter has been and still is the hardest (but that'll be a post for another day I think). I haven't yet finished my exams; I have one more on Wednesday morning but I'm taking a quick break from revision to write this because I've had an exam this morning and any more thinking might just turn my brain to mush. 

Whilst I've been away, I have still been working on ideas for blog posts, as well as various other creativities. I guess it is a shame but I haven't really been in the mindset to let these ideas take shape. A few of you may know that I'm a fan of metaphors so lets call these ideas seeds. Seeds that grow into the trees or plants for your favourite fruit. Now these seeds have been planted and every time a little shoot develops a naughty little fox comes along and eats the top all because I have been so focused on other things that I haven't been protecting the shoots. But these seeds are strong, determined little things and they keep pushing. And, perhaps more importantly, very soon I'm going to have time to protect these little shoots. 

So I hope you appreciate that I haven't just abandoned my blog, I've just had way too much on and for a while had to work out which things in my life were the most important, and which I could put on hold for a while. But be assured, I'm back now. And back with regular(ish) posts as well as hopefully a few new surprises coming up over the coming months.

Keep smiling,
Kathryn x

What do you want to do in the future?

So this is going to be a different sort of blog post today. I haven't posted for a while and wanted to write but didn't have anything in particular to write about so I decided to just let my pen take control and see where it went. 

Since I've just finished my exams and my first year at college (year 12) and applying for university starts in September, I've been asked a lot about what it is I want to do in the future and I guess it's made me realise that I don't actually know, but that's okay! Sometimes it really is okay to be unsure of things. It just means that you're taking your time to consider things so that you don't rush into something that you don't really want to do.

For a while I've had a couple of options and one of those is to do medicine at university and then become a doctor. I have quite a lot of experience of the life changing things that doctors do and thought it would be absolutely fantastic to be able to help people like that. However, I've done quite a lot of voluntary work in hospitals and realised that often, the reality of the job isn't quite the same as you think. It is still something that I'm considering but I'd have to find a specialism with the minimal amount of paperwork possible as the main reason I'm interested in this is for the patient contact time. Which I guess could seem odd to some people who know me well as I can get quite anxious in social situations but, from my own experience, I'm not too bad in small groups for example when I'm teaching at swimming or in a classroom. So, I'm not by any means doubting the excellent work that medical professionals do. I'm just wondering whether or not the current system is something that I'd be happy working with because I believe that you never really work a day if you're doing something that you enjoy! 

One more thing that I've thought about is a career in teaching. I think it would give me plenty of opportunity to work with different types of people and the work experience I have done in schools has been really fun. I don't think I'd ever be able to teach in a primary school (the children are all way too small) but I quite enjoy maths and think I wouldn't be too much of a bad secondary school maths teacher. Again, because maths is something I enjoy, I think doing a degree in maths then a PGCE would be quite a good career choice for me but I'm not too sure. I may enjoy the degree so much that I choose a different career in maths. I know that by September I really need to have decided what I'm going to do and it may be one of these or I could choose something completely different but for the time being I'm not going to worry too much about it and just enjoy my summer. As long as I end up in a career that I enjoy, it doesn't matter too much to me and its probably what's here right now that I should be focusing on. Whatever happens, happens and you have to trust that you'll make the right decisions as they come along.

So in short, I'm not too bothered about what I do as a career or anything. I just want to have a job where I am happy and I'm in a position where I can make other people happy! But I do want to hear from you. What do you want to do in the future?

Keep smiling,

Kathryn x

New starts

So, a blog? Well this is something new for me! A brand new, fun and exciting adventure that I'll hopefully be able to share with all of you. 

It's important to try new things every once in a while and that is something I know all too well. However, I'm usually a person who struggles to embrace and new starts, thinking too much over things that have been and gone which I have no control over. In fact, for various reasons, I've kind of become more of a creature of habit which is something that I see as one of my biggest weaknesses. Thinking about this made me wonder how I can challenge myself to try new things, hopefully without worrying or panicking too much, and still have fun (because I appreciate that some new things genuinely are certifying and far from fun). So imaginekathryn was born...

I've always loved writing but never the sort where you are told what too write and when to write it. (1000 word essay on themes in An Inspector Calls anyone?) I decided that starting this blog will help me to continue this enjoyment with the freedom of choice; I can include absolutely whatever I like!

Last Wednesday I had my final AS level exam and though this would be a brilliant time to start - with the whole summer ahead of me. Over the next few weeks I have quite a lot of exciting things going on and I hope that you guys don't mind me sharing them with you! And more than anything I'd just like this to be a positive place to help make your lives happier at the dullest and darkest of times (as well as all of the happy ones!)

Keep smiling,

Kathryn