I have a penchant for piercings. Nah, not so much facial piercings. I stopped with my nose. But ear piercings. I like to collect them. I went for the biggie in September: a scaffold piercing. Some call it an industrial. For all you not riveted to your Big Book of Piercings it's basically two piercings at the top of your ear with a bar passing through both. FYI, the top of your ear is made of cartilage and requires considerable force to pierce through. So needless to say, this kind of piercing hurts like a bitch. I went with my sisters to get it done in their home city. Their piercer is hot. He tattooed my wrist last year - holding his hand for 45 minutes was like holding a little piece of heaven. So when the room started sliding away and I felt the cold grip of a faint around my throat as he forced that needle through my cartilage twice I said, "Nope, not today" and fucking pulled my self together. There was no way I was collapsing to the floor in the presence of this beautiful person. But I swear I came this close.

Similarly, you have no idea how close I came to giving up and laying on the floor whilst reading Matched by Ally Condie. This book is about as painful as a scaffold piercing but minus all the blood. I felt an almost overwhelming desire to shove more needles through my ear just to have something to do because this book is a major snooze-fest.

Hello? Hello plot?! Where did you go? Come back!! We need you!! Yeah, Matched has next to no actual plot going on. The basic story goes that Cassia lives in a Society (that's right. Society with a capital S) which has somehow reserved the right to dictate who she marries, where she works and when she dies. It's all very The Giver-ish, but without the menacing undercurrent. Cassia is paired with her bestie, Xander but finds herself falling instead for the dark and brooding guitar playing, poetry writing Ky (naturally), who she then begins a dangerous and illegal affair with. There's a bunch of hill-walking, angsting and sorting (whatever that is. Can anyone help me out here and explain exactly what sorting actually is?!) going on, all the while Cassia uncovers secrets and discovers the Society isn't as perfect as she's been led to believe.

So you know when you're really looking forward to eating potato salad, and you saved it in the fridge for days and you can't stop thinking about it and you're imagining taking a bite and there's chives, and mayonnaise and creamy potato goodness and you just know that it's gonna make a really sucky day feel a whole lot better, like nothing else on earth will fill that void in your heart except potato salad right now, I mean it's the only thing that will cure this grey haze you've been wandering around in for the past few days and you have never been so sure of anything in your life than that potato salad is going to lift that pressure that's been heaped on your shoulders, there's literally no other fix than sitting down with a fork and that pot of potato salad and just letting it give you a big savoury, comforting hug. You know that feeling right?! Well sure maybe it's not potato salad, but just go ahead and substitute your favourite comfort food and you'll get an idea of the feeling I'm trying to remind you of here. Well now picture this: your darling hubby ate your goddam potato salad. He just ate it. With no ceremony I imagine. With no appreciation for what that potato salad means to you. Urgh - I bet he ate it standing over the damn sink or some other similar insult to potato salad/comfort foods everywhere. That potato salad deserved more. 

And so did I. 

I feel the same way about my stolen potato salad/happiness that I do about Legend by Marie Lu: bitterly disappointed and a little bit betrayed. 

The back cover promised me that Legend was "based on a retelling of Les Miserables". Uhm ..... Really?! Where?! When?! I tried to shoehorn Legend into the story of Les Miserables but I just can't make it fit. Aside from Day have a somewhat passing similarity to Valjean, I'm really not seeing it. Maybe I missed something along the way, but I know Les Miserables fairly well, it being the only musical I can tolerate relatively happily, and I'm just having a hard time drawing parallels here. 

So the actual story goes that the United States is divided and at war, the west being ruled most un-democratically by the Republic, a cruel and unjust government who have divided their society into a caste system run by an elite few, oppressing the majority by subjecting them to eternal poverty and hardship in order to maintain control. June, from the Republic's richest district is the military's 15 year old prodigy; Day from the slums is the country's most wanted 15 year old criminal. The two are thrown together when June's older brother is murdered, with Day as the prime suspect. Lots of leaping around, staring into each other's eyes, and staggering around clutching gunshot wounds ensues as the Republic tighten their grip on the citizens and Day and June uncover secrets that reveal the extent of their governments cruelty and control. 

*Major Spoilers Ahead* !!! If you want to be saved, turn back now !!! Go !!! Run!!!

I DID IT!!

Divergent Series: Complete

Do I unlock some kind of achievement for this feat?!

And there were no tears shed. Of frustration, or other wise. Surprisingly.

Who knew a revolution could be so boring?! Or cheesy?! Holy crap. This book wins the award for the most time spent wandering around staring at the walls.

So the story goes that, after learning the true nature of their existence, Tobias and Tris set out on a journey to leave the city in search of answers. There they find yet more betrayal, lies and blood thirst, culminating in a race against time to save their city. So yeah, more of the same really.

McDonalds was closed today guys. McDonalds was closed. I needed my coffee and my hash brown and the damn place was closed. What is this? The apocalypse?! That place is never closed. I mean they're open Christmas Day for Chrissakes, in my city at least. I don't care if you have an electrical fault, people of McDonalds - I needed caffeine!! It's my choice if I'm willing to risk electrocution to obtain it!! The crushing disappointment I experienced was akin to that I felt whilst reading Insurgent - I was promised more than this.

So we pick up immediately where we left off following Divergent. Nope, Veronica Roth did not feel the need to treat us to even a hint of a recap. So Tris and the gang are thrown headlong into revolution and, I guess a war. Half the population side with those smarty-pants meany Erudites, the other half side with our brave heroes. There's a lotta angsting, getting shot at and wandering around staring at cracks in the pavement but I'm gonna let you in on a little secret - I kinda enjoyed it in a freaky, round-about sorta way. Sshh! Don't tell anyone.

This is not something I'm shouting from the rooftops because Insurgent makes no sense. I don't know why I enjoyed it. I mean, I'm not raving. I just quietly liked it.

There aren't that many things on this earth that hold my interest. I've tried ice skating, painting, long distance running, photography, yoga, aromatherapy, tennis: the list goes on. And the only thing I have an unending obsession with is my animals, particularly my horses. I love to ride. I love the power, grace and beauty of the horses. I love the speed and the agility they lend, and I love them for who they are too, in all their quirky, stroppy, unpredictable glory. My horses are my passion. I devote so much time, energy and cold, hard cash into making them the best they can be. I'm competitive and I love to win. I love the adrenaline rush that comes with the incredible highs of achievements and the lowest of the lows that come with the inevitable failures. And boy have I had some failures ..... Riding doesn't make it onto the list of the top ten most dangerous sports for nothing. The worst accident I ever had was when I fell from a bitch of a pony and landed hard on the ground with my foot twisted round the wrong way. I bust my knee pretty much as bad as is possible without breaking a bone. Every ligament torn, every muscle ripped, every nerve irreparably damaged. My left knee is still swollen and completely numb five years later. So why do I keep coming back for more? With so much risk involved, and having gone through so much pain, why do I keep trusting my safety into the hooves of a massive, unpredictable creature who's highly likely to leap three feet into the air when he catches his own shadow out of the corner of his eye? Maybe I'm a little crazy .....

It's the same story with The Mortal Instruments series. Granted, I'm not taking my life in my hands when I pick up the book but I am beginning to doubt my sanity when I beginning reading something that I know will cause me pain.

City of Ashes made my jaw hurt.