Happy holidays guys! To celebrate, I've drawn gingerbread YA characters. Only, I'm letting you guys guess who is who. Good luck!

1. 

First one is a bit rough. Hmm.

2. 

I'm quite proud of this one!

3. 

4. 

I'm on a roll!

5. 

Picasso got nothing on me. 

6.

7.

So here you have it! Seven different gingerbread YA characters. Guess who they are in the comments! Or if you can't help yourself, just highlight beside the numbers (text is in white). Hope you had fun! Enjoy the holidays!

Solutions

1. Tris Prior

2. Percy Jackson

3. Hermione Granger

4. Katniss Everdeen

5. Augustus Waters

6. Lissa Dragomir

7. Mia 

-P.E.

I’m so sorry if you know people with these names, I’m not trying to be offensive in any way. 

I like to think that I’ve heard many names in my lifetime. The names I've heard come from quite a variety of cultures and when I was younger I collected baby names (don’t ask).

Some of my favourite are the more common names:

Girls

Maria

Lila / Laila

Diana

Giselle

Eliza

Cassia

Alexandra / Alexa

I like names that end in A apparently. I especially love these names because they sound nice but also because they can be translated to different languages and have unique and beautiful pronunciations.

Boys

Adam

Alex / Alexander

Dimitri 

Will 

James 

All I could think of was Four because I have Insurgent out for a reread but I did manage to capture some of my favourites. Interestingly enough there are no A's in the end of these ones (not interesting at all.. I know).

Now why am I thinking of names? Well I’ve recently come noticed a lack of ‘normal’ names in books. I define normal as something that would be found in large numbers in any of our daily lives. Like names up on the top of the baby names of the year list. 

I’m fine with most of the name, they are interesting and the authors have obviously thought deeply about them. For example, Beatrice and Tobias from the Divergent series are names we would expect Abnegation's children to have and they change their names once they become Dauntless to match their surroundings. 

But as I read some synopsis’ I find names that make me laugh. Note, a lot of the names I’m referring to come from NA books. I'm not going to mention the books but here are some names as I found them from the synopsis'.

RIDGE

All I can think of is falling off the ridge. I don’t want to call my boyfriend Ridge it’s just so brooding and edgy and no thanks. One can be a bad boy without having it predetermined by their mother.

DARLA

Was that an abbreviation from Darling? Meh.

HUNTER

So manly, I'm 18, have a busted up 4 wheel drive and my name is my status symbol. So sexy.

CLIFF

"Just jump of that cliff, will ya?" -.- I don't recommend using a name for your child if it can be used in a pro-suicide context.

MILES 

So should Canadians and the rest of the Metric world start naming their boys Kilometre? Centimetre?

WEST

How about East?

RAFE 

I'm a bad boy and I wear leather.. Oh yeah.
Araby

KATNISS/GALE/PEETA/PRIM

Very unique to the series but hecka weird.

GRACE/FAITH

Why do these names always belong to a pastors daughter in YA?

I can never understand why authors often go to the ends of the world to find all these names. They sure are fun to read about though and compile into lists!

What's Your Favourite? Do You Have Anymore to Add to the List?

-Mari & P.E.

Ugh.

I'm trying to write something, but it's not working out. I like when the blog has a mixture of discussion, thoughtful, and review posts, but these days I can't seem to get inspiration for writing anything remotely interesting.

There are ideas I have. I kind of want to write about how I feel like adults have taken over the YA world a little, but the idea isn't fully developed yet. I keep reading my thoughts and saying, "Nope, that's wrong. You can't say that. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

I am definitely my harshest critic.

There was also a post on drama, and how it's not necessary for YA bloggers, but to be honest, the post went "I've never encountered drama, and it's not a requirement of blogging," and it ended right there.

Yuck. So this is a writing exercise that you may or may not see (depending on what Mari thinks). This is me writing out my block.

See, when other people get block, I assume they do something like try to inspire themselves by visiting other blogs, or watching a movie. They may even leave the screen blank in despair. I've tried writing three to four different posts in the past few weeks, and finally, I got sick of it. I refuse to have writing block. So now, it can go away.

I just need a topic that is semi-interesting and that hasn't been covered before. Like.... (Well, if I knew, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Wait. I swear I know this isn't a conversation.)

A normal person would leave the computer when they have clearly nothing of substance to say, but I refuse to do that. I feel like if I get these words out, maybe they can clear up some space for some actual interesting words.

I feel like I'm in limbo. I'm done my summatives, and now I just need to do my exams. I'm learning nothing new in school. Theoretically, we should be studying right now but I don't want to study. I honestly am not terrified over any of these marks. Like, I'm done with these classes. Can I just start new ones already?

And I've sent in my university applications. All that needs to happen is for more schools to accept me. There's a mixture of confidence and absolute despair going on in my head. What if I don't get accepted? What if I do? It's debatable which is scarier.

This post may be one of the stupidest things I've ever written, but guess what: it works. Writing block is something everyone has experienced, and everyone has a theory on. I know there is especially a lot of talk on what to do when you're an author and you have writer's block (which sounds terrifying, because that's your job and writer's block means you're incapable of doing it) so here's how I get through it.

This. I have writer's block when I have a vision, but no understanding of the process. I want so badly to write that perfect post that everyone will enjoy. I want to touch people's hearts. I want to inspire people. I want to make a name for myself.

These desires are almost paralyzing my ability to write, because writing is free flowing and all over the place, and I never really know where my posts are going until they're done. I'm dealing with a lot of stress and guilt because I'm totally procrastinating right now, which is awful because I need high marks for university. Doing a post like this: rambly, with no aim, mostly my opinions with some tenuous link to blogging thrown in helps me because I'm doing exactly what I was scared to do.

I'm allowing myself to write. This post may never be read by anyone, and I'm pretty sure in a month when someone reads it and comments I'll feel pretty bad because a lot can change in a month (or maybe nothing will- Hello, future me!) but the biggest thing in my writing that I need to connect with is me. I want to write honestly, and this, while not structured or polished, is 100% me. Unapologetically.

(Who am I kidding, I'm so sorry I wasted your time on this mess of a post.)

(Mari says pass!)

-P.E.

(Oh, and I hope you guys enjoyed my artistic work. I was too lazy to search for appropriate images so I made my own. Do you like it or should I stick with stock images?)

This is again, one of my more random posts but I was thinking the other day about how all my life I've heard about the year 2050. One of the first images I remember from French class in my childhood was this dome with garbage everywhere outside of it and people walking around in space suits. This was supposed to be 2050, and the picture was about a world deeply polluted an hideous.

It's actually one of the most terrifying things I ever encountered as a kid, because my French teacher, a lady with short, brown hair who recommended me into French immersion later in conversations with my mom, said that she would die before 2050 and so it was up to us students to keep the world clean and make sure it didn't end up like that.



Telling seven year olds they're in charge of the future? So traumatic. I do think that was one of the formative experiences of my childhood, because I was terrified of that reality. For the first time I walked out of school and noticed the pollution all around. There used to be cigarettes butts on the pavement everywhere. After some new anti-smoking and littering legislation, the Ontario of today has way less garbage than what I remember from primary grades. Still, that message of environmental responsibility of the world has been ingrained in the heads of kids of my generation.

YA experienced a strange jump in dystopia a few years ago and I feel like I've read many of them. What I've noticed most is that the dystopia takes place in the 2000s. I vaguely remember a book about what happens in the very early 3000s. So what about the 4000s?


Any kind of guess on what life will be like two thousand years in the future will be completely wrong. It's scary thinking about it. Will there be a civilization left? Will there be another world war? Hydrogen and nuclear bombs? What will the pollution be like? How many people will populate the Earth? What kind of technology will they be using? Will any people even be left? Imagining so far into the future is a daunting task, but I think I would like to read a story that takes place in the 4000s.

It may as well be a fantasy because everything will have changed immensely from our primal times, but I guess I'm a little creeped out that authors keep imagining horrible things happening in the near future. That's my lifetime folks! I'm hoping the world remains pleasant and my generation can stop the pollution and work towards sustainability and a high quality of life for all people.

I'll still continue to read about dystopias taking place in the next fifty years, but I'll just throw it out there that maybe we're okay for a few more generations and the 4000s might be a better time to end the world.

-P.E.