Howls Moving Castle

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Okay so I read this book it's called Howl's Moving Castle there is a movie a based off of the book but apparently is a far off retelling of the book so I'm not going to recommend watching the movie before the book at all if you just want to skip the book all together because they're nothing alike. 

Anyway, as far as the book, I absolutely loved it. It was one of those books that are a little off and a little weird and personally I love that in a book it makes me feel as if you get the best of both words because they can be light-hearted and fun but also deep underneath and I appreciate that and a good book. 

So how's Moving Castle is about a girl named Sophie who is an oldest daughter and she initially believes that that settles her fate and she's the oldest daughter of two younger sisters and so she being the oldest means that she will not have a good life that it's just meant to be boring and things like that because that's the fate of the oldest according to Sophie. 

So one day as you know things move along in the book she gets cursed by a witch that is known for her wickedness and she is turned into an old lady and Sophie is so shocked by this that she doesn't initially react she actually flips upside down and walks out of her home and never turns back and she's like well I'm an old lady my life has changed and I get to go do whatever I want because at this point what else am I going to do. 

So she ends up going to house Castle who is a known Wizard and he is known for stealing and
kidnapping girls so she goes up there she basically forces herself into his home where she meets his little Apprentice Michael and his magical fire demon who lives in the fireplace named Calicifer. 

So it is like a found family I love the fact that this book. Found family isn’t my favorite all the time but it's extremely comforting that we get to see an extremely flawed but kind character go through these things that Sophie goes through. 

One of her flaws is that she's extremely nosy and me personally I cannot stand nosiness but it like I said made me appreciate the flaws within a character because it makes it more realistic and human but one of my favorite dynamics of the book is the growing relationship of Sophie with herself and with her fate and with her power and she starts to realize that she isn't who she initially believed herself to be and she grows this understanding of herself that I can really appreciate. 

I also love Howl as a character because he is something much deeper underneath the surface of what the book initially gives us and what Sophie's interpretation of him is at first and we get to know him throughout the book and he is an extremely interesting character that I think a lot of people will love because to me he's extremely funny but he's also much deeper than what meets the eye and I love that in a character. 

All the other characters I also learned to love and appreciate because they add to the story, the plot of this book is actually extremely good and I just enjoyed the fact that it was a little odd the descriptions were interesting and there was a plot twist that I did not expect to be honest and also one of my favorite things about this book is that you get to hear Sophie's thoughts but she isn't necessarily and unreliable narrator but when you actually pay attention to the things that are going around her versus what she's thinking you can see the difference between how she feels and what's actually going on and I appreciate that. 

I really like this book. I 100% recommend that anyone could like it for real especially if you love something that is fantasy romance and light-hearted but deep within and it shows you something within characters that you can learn from then you can appreciate this book. I left out A LOT of details so this barely touches the surface trust me if you think this spoils it pls go read it for yourself. 

Let me know if any of you have or will read it. I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you because I love a good discussion. 

Thanks for reading! 🌸

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Fashion Magazine

🍂 ✦ 🍁 ✦ 🍂

SWEET SIDE QUEST PRESENTS

THE FALL
FASHION ISSUE

07 outfits for your autumn wardrobe

FALL 2026

01 — THE CLASSIC FALL GIRL 🍂

Sweater + Jeans + Boots

THE CLASSIC FALL GIRL

There is something about a cozy sweater, a good pair of jeans, and boots that will never stop feeling like fall to me. It's simple, effortless, and somehow always looks put together.

🍁 THE VIBE: cozy • classic • effortless

02 — THE SKIRT MOMENT 🎀

Sweater + Skirt + Tights + Boots

THE SKIRT MOMENT

A mini skirt with tights and a cozy sweater is one of my favorite ways to make an outfit feel a little more feminine while still keeping that cozy autumn feeling.

🎀 THE VIBE: girly • playful • autumn chic

03 — THE CAMPUS GIRL ☕

Cute but Comfortable

THE CAMPUS GIRL

Because sometimes you want to look cute for class without feeling like you spent two hours getting dressed. This is the outfit for coffee runs, lectures, library days, and pretending you have your life together.

☕ THE VIBE: casual • cute • effortless

04 — THE IT-GIRL 👜

Statement Coat + Heels + Handbag

THE IT-GIRL

Sometimes the outfit needs to be dramatic. A statement coat, a gorgeous pair of heels, and a handbag that makes you feel like the main character can completely transform a simple fall day.

👜 THE VIBE: glamorous • confident • dramatic

05 — THE COZY WEEKEND 🧸

Oversized Sweater + Leggings + Boots

THE COZY WEEKEND

For the days when you want to be comfortable but still feel like you actually got dressed. Add your favorite boots, grab a coffee, and you're ready for a cozy Saturday.

🧸 THE VIBE: cozy • relaxed • warm

06 — THE 2000s GIRL 💿

Statement Pieces + Fun Accessories

THE 2000s GIRL

Give me the slightly tacky accessories, the fun colors, the statement pieces, and all the little details that make an outfit feel like it came straight out of a Y2K movie.

💿 THE VIBE: playful • nostalgic • fun

07 — THE MAIN CHARACTER 🍁

My Ultimate Fall Look

THE MAIN CHARACTER

Of course some shoes had to be included because it wouldn't be me otherwise. A good shoe makes the outfit.

🍁 THE VIBE: main character • dreamy • autumn

My sucky monday

 

The way my day went today was just so annoying. I'm fine for the most part. I just want to say I think it's important to allow yourself to have one of those days. I woke up and I already knew it was coming but I started my period and usually how mine goes I'm fine until I start doing activity or a couple hours in I start feeling as if my body is slowly trying to take me out. I had three classes to go to today so I usually get up early in the mornings so that I have time to spend with God and myself before I go to class because it helps me feel grounded. 

So I did my usual, I got up washed my face, brushed my teeth and ate my breakfast while doing my Bible study and you know just spending time with the Lord as I usually do and then I hopped back in bed because I usually have about an hour to myself and I was so tired I ended up just going back to sleep until it was time for me to start getting ready to go to class and I did exactly that. I got up, got dressed and everything and then went to class. 

 I don't know where y'all live but where I live it is so freaking hot and right now we're in this heat wave where even when it rains the rain is hot. It's really annoying and everyone is pretty miserable. Having to go to class and walk around in this heat is frustrating especially because my campus is all over the city so we just have to walk up all types of hills and everything and it's just annoying. Me personally? I'm not sure if anyone can relate to this but turning 20 has made me feel like I've hit puberty all over again because my body reacts to things completely differently now. I never sweat in my life like the way I do now and I don't know if it’s because climate change has it hot as crap or because I've gotten older but I literally feel like I'm drenched in sweat five seconds into stepping outside and it's the most annoying thing ever because I am very conscious about smells I do not play about smelling decent so it's I’m uncomfortable and obviously you do the natural things like take baths, put on deodorant but like sweat is sweat and it just bothers me because I feel like I can smell my sweat mixed with my lotions and perfumes and deodorants and it’s gross. 

I know other people must not think that because no one avoids me or has said anything and people sit beside me constantly so I'll say I must not stink but they say that you no one smells you like you smell yourself so honestly it's not surprising but like I don't the smell of sweat and it's just grossing me out and I be ready to cry walking around campus feeling like a sweaty dude. 

But anyways I'm already sweating a whole bunch and I started my period so by the time I was in my third class of the day I started cramping and I was really sleepy and I was getting a headache. I was irritated and I had a shin splint walking to class because I usually am in the same buildings on campus since my freshman year I've always been in the same areas but with my school they put the smallest majors on the outskirts of the campus so the art school is literally so far and I have 15 minutes to walk from the main part of campus all the way to the art school and it's the most annoying thing ever because like I said my school is pretty much around the city so I had to Dodge cars and everything else on top of it being hot and my stomach was cramping. 

So I had to endure sitting in an art class which I'm sure is a very fascinating thing and I personally love art as a hobby but I have no passion for it and I could not care so I was pretty much miserable and counting down the time it was time to leave not to mention despite me basically running to class i was still almost late and there was barely any seats so had to sit right in front the professor, fighting not to fall asleep. When it was finally time to leave I felt a little bit better but then I realized that I didn't drive to campus today so I had to wait an hour for the bus. In the heat. With my stomach cramping. And a headache. No food. 

By the time I got home the first thing I did was get in the shower because my stomach was hurting so bad and when I got out I took pain medicine, fixed a bowl of cereal for dinner because cooking wasn’t an option and I got in the bed and I haven't moved since. I also ate pretzels. I did  my homework and I'm not going to lie, I half did it. I really didn't care, I was frustrated.

 

Anyway I don't know what my point of this is I just wanted to say something about my day because I was irritated and hot and I guess the whole of what I want to leave you with is just it's okay to have those days especially when you're sitting there in pain and not every day is going to go perfectly. I was frustrated but I made myself feel better because I just allowed myself to feel my pain and be a little bit of a slob in the bed because I wasn't in the mood even though it's a Monday and I could be getting stuff done I probably should be studying I just couldn't because all I wanted to do was sit in the bed. Thankfully tomorrow I only have one class and it's not till 1:00 p.m. so I can try to get things done tomorrow but I only goal for today was to do the homework for tonight and call it a day and that's exactly what I did I'm writing this block and I'm probably going to start getting ready for bed even though it's 7:00 p.m.

Thanks for reading! 🌸

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The Hunger Games

I recently read The Hunger Games book for the first time and I have to say I really enjoyed it even more than I do the movies. The movies are very popular, they’re starring Jennifer Lawrence and I did watch them a lot, especially when they first came out but I always had an interest in reading the books because I thought if the movies were so good I can't imagine what the books are like. I finally took the time to actually read it and it is so much better than the movies and there are a lot of aspects of the book that I think the movies did a great job at displaying.

 

One of the main things I liked about this book was the fact that we got a great inner dialogue of how Katniss was feeling and thinking. We got this extremely strong but also flawed character which is really nice to see because I feel like authors have a habit of trying to make their main characters especially when they're female as little flawed as possible so that they’re like-able but with Katniss her flaws are part of her and they're part of her trauma and the author doesn't shy away from that.

I love Katniss as a character because even though she is this girl who is struggling and going through hard times because of what the capital is doing to their world and they're living in this dystopian environment she still takes the time and cares for her family. I like the fact that the resentment that she has for the capital along with her mother and Haymitch for example she sees makes her more human because resentment comes with struggles sometimes.

She describes her trauma of her father's death and how she hated her mother and distrusted her for falling into a deep depression after his death, so much so that she abandoned her kids.  Even though I personally believe that her mother deserved the benefit of the doubt because depression is a real thing and I could completely understand how someone would fall into a deep depression and not care about anything else, not even lives when they lose someone that they've loved in that way. I think it makes Katniss real to have that flaw of not being able to  understand what her mother was going through because it shows that she's a young, and little close-minded. 

I think this situation between Katniss and her mother I believe that Katniss can't fully grasp why  her mother abandoned them because of her mental state because Katniss has never loved anyone that deeply and it's interesting to me because it's one of the lessons she's about to learn with her relationship with Peeta.

Another thing I loved was how her resentment for the people around her lessened as she went on in the hunger games. She began to miss her mother and dream of her. She disliked Haymitch because she couldn’t understand how he became a drunk but she realized that they are a lot alike and maybe he became a drunk because he went through the hunger games and had to mentor other kids for up to 30 years and have watched every single one die. At first she she didn’t like Peeta and didn’t trust him but they’re friendship grew and she opened her eyes to see that Peeta's actions were him trying to protect her. She made a lot of people villains because she was angry but by the end of the book she had a new found love and appreciation

for them and realized that the anger she carried were for the capitol and those were her true enemies. 

Another one of my favorite aspects of the story is that even though Katniss tries very hard to come off as to strong nonchalant character who's just doing what she has to do to survive like everyone else when she gets in the arena for The Hunger Games she inherently becomes more human throughout the situation because she starts to feel the weight of being in a place where not only is she being hunted but she has to kill. She doesn't feel like she has room to cry or feel her emotions and one of the biggest emotions she does feel is anger and she refuses to let herself feel anything else but as she grows in the arena and she meets more people she realizes that she doesn't want to be angry anymore. She begins to fear ending up a drunk like Haymitch because she saw herself within him. 

As for the love story with Peeta the romance is aspect of this book is really good to me I like the fact that is pretty obvious that Peter loved her for a long time and Katniss had never known and she always wondered about him deep down and it wasn't until she got into that situation with Peeta of being in the Hunger Games that she realized she paid a lot more attention to him than she thought. They knew each other better than they had thought they did. I like the fact that she's very honest with herself about how she feels even though she may not completely understand herself. She cares for Peter but she isn't in love with him and she can feel herself falling in love with him but she's not going to force herself to recognize feelings that she's never felt before. 

Although I do feel bad for Peter that his feelings are not completely returned neither one of them know that that's not the case they had just recently got out of a situation where they had to survive being hunted and killed it was extremely traumatizing situation and feelings like a relationship is not simple to just figure out as soon as you get out of The Hunger Games. I do understand that he thought thy were real because nobody told him that they were acting to stay safe from the capitol but he also needs to learn that at a time like this romantic emotions aren’t the focus. 

I do believe that Peter owes her the benefit of the doubt because even though yes she was pretending to be in love with him to survive the capital there are very obvious feelings there and it's obvious she cares for him in some way she just might not be in love with him and I think it's true what she said, that he should be a little bit more understanding because before this they were basically complete strangers and just because he loved her from the beginning she doesn't owe that to him and she has someone that she loves and her main goal was to survive and get back to her family.

I think Peter realizing that her feelings were not romantic in the level that his were he forgets that she cared for him in many other ways and that even though the relationship may not be romantic and it's an extremely deep friendship and I don't think that's something he should throw away because of his feelings being hurt. 

My last observation I had to say about the movies. The movies are great. I do love them. I do wish that by the time in the middle to end of the movies where all the big fights were happening I do think that the tributes should have looked a little bit more starved in the movies. They looked well put together and I feel like they could have used some CGI or something to make them look a little bit more malnourished because in the books they barely had food they were starving for days on end.

Overall though I really enjoyed this book and I definitely will be finishing the series and taking my time I 100% recommend this if you like dystopian with a little bit of romance and I like the fact that we're going to be able to see her grow as a character but also the romance within these books grow. 

Thanks for reading! 🌸

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Being okay with making mistakes

Mistakes or something that everyone handles differently in their lives and I  know that when it comes to me I didn't always handle making mistakes in the best way and I wasn't always smart about it. 

I had a really bad habit of thinking that one simple mistake was detrimental and it would cost me everything  and that thinking put a fear in me that made me leave no room for mistakes in my life ever and that was really hard to do because as a human being you're going to make mistakes is part of being a person and if everything was meant to go perfectly all the time that's how it would be but it's not. 

I would do everything possible to make sure everything went perfectly when they didn't it was like everything fell apart but that was never the case even when I felt like things were going really badly there's never a time where I can say I don't appreciate that time in my life or the lesson that I learned because what am I main things I learned about mistakes is that a lot of the time what you need to do is take it as a learning lesson and move on and try better. 

There's really nothing you can do after the mistake happens besides do your due diligence, try again and learn from it because you can't go back in time and make things better or change how things happened. You can only fix it moving forward. 

I think it's important to understand though that you cannot fix everything and some things aren't meant to be fixed. There are learning lessons in the mistakes that you make in this life whether that is never doing that thing again or doing it a better way or changing you as a person either way there's something to learn from it. 

Obviously I still do not like making mistakes, especially big ones but I handled them a lot differently than I used to.  when I make a mistake yeah in the moment I'm very upset and I don't really want to do anything and I don't have positive feelings at all but once I take the time to fill my feelings I get up, do what I can and I move on from it and I take that Learning lesson to heart. 

I try again if I want to try again I change whatever I think I may need to change I do something before I allow it to make me feel as if I'm lesser than I'm not smart enough or anything negative because that's how you begin to be unkind to yourself for something that is literally in your nature. No matter how hard you try you cannot be perfect, not in the way you look, not in the way you feel, not in the way you do things, it's just not possible and until you understand that is going to be a very hard life.

 

I hope that some of you learn that life is supposed to be fun and exciting and you're supposed to do what you can to enjoy it while you're here and yes make sure you do what you have to do to live a comfortable life but do not forget to be kind to yourself and remember that you're human. There's a way to hold yourself accountable but still have respect for your feelings and your mindset and who you are as a person. Whether you're in school or you're working a job or you're struggling in any way just remember to take the time and breathe and get out of your head and then  do what works best for you so that you can figure yourself out. It's easier said than done but trying is better than doing nothing. 

Anyway I hope this helps someone in this gives anyone the motivation to be a little easier on themselves and remember to stay positive. 

 Thanks for reading! 🌸

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