Jojo Moyes: The Last Letter from Your Lover

Before this one I read one book from Jojo Moyes and it was Me Before You. I know what to expect from this kind of books and for me this is entertainment and relaxation. I am not a book snob, pretending that I read just highbrow literature, I appreciate all kind of genre but Me Before You wasn't a book that I'll remember, in fact it was hard for me to pick up other books by Jojo Moyes. And to be honest I don't know why, because I can't say that it was bad, maybe it didn't convey any emotions to me and I expected that it would. So when I picked up Last Letter from Your Lover it was without some great expectations and I must say I liked this one much much better. It delivered just what I wanted, entertainment and relaxation. A nice thing is also that the story takes place in the 1960's and in 2003.

(bookdepository.com)

In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident. She can't remember anything - her husband, her friends, who she used to be. And then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, and begins to remember the lover she was willing to risk everything for.

In 2003 journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper's archives for a story and she doesn't think she'll find anything of interest. Instead she discovers a letter from 1960 and is caught up in the intrigue of a past love affair.

"But even the chance to think upon your beautiful face, your smile, and know that some part of it might belong to me is probably the single greatest thing that has happened to me in my life."

"Rubbish - you make a choice. Everyone makes a choice." " So you've never been transported by something, never felt that pull?" He faces her. "Of course I have. But if acting on it meant I was going to hurt someone else, I took a step back."

" You know, you can't make someone love you again. No matter how much you might want it. Sometomes, unfortunately, the timing is simply... off."

"The young don't have a monopoly on broken hearts, you know."

I was thinking if I ever recieved a love letter. Nope, didn't happen. Do messages count? :)
What is your opinion of Jojo Moyes books? Which one should I read next?

Have a great day ;)

Nyx soft matte lip cream in 21 Transylvania

Remember when I said that I'm on a mission of finding a dark lipstick. In that quest I bougt two new lipsticks. One of them is soft matte lip cream from Nyx. 

The colour Transylvania is the darkest one of the soft matte lip cream line and I wasn't sure if I should buy it, because the reviews of this colour are not so great. So I actually put it out of my shopping cart. But then after a month or so it went back in my shopping cart and I said to myself that I will make it work somehow. So here it is.

On the Nyx website you can read the describtion: Neither lipstick nor lip gloss, this matte lip cream is a new kind of lip color that goes on silky smooth and sets to a matte finish. Soft Matte Lip Cream is surprisingly durable and unlike some matte lipstick formulas also moisturizing.

Do I agree wit this? 

The finish is definetly matte, with this I agree. But unfortunately I can't say that it goes on silky smooth. In fact the application is not easy. It goes on uneven and I had to go over lips multiple times to achieve some sort of acceptable result. It also emphasise dry patches. It is also far from moisturizing, in fact I would say that the more you have it on the lips, the more is drying. 

On the close up photo of my lips you can see how uneven it aplies and this is after going over the lips multiple times.

As I say, the lip cream sets matte and because it is so dry you get the feeling that won't budge. So yes, it is durable, even tough it did't survive a meal. It dissapears from the center of the lips and because of its dark colour it is very visible that the colour is gone from the center so you will have to reapy it. 

Although this lip cream has its flaws I'm sattisfied with the colour, let's say that from the distance it doesn't look uneven :) The smell is nice, a mixture of vanilla, cocos and rum.

I bougt the lip cream on Slovenian beauty site mojadrogerija.si and it was 10,19 €.

Have you ever tried Nyx soft matte lip creams? What colours and how they perform?

Have a great day! ;)

Essence the gel nail polish 32 discreet agent

For the first time since I started writing this blog I have on my nails a nail polish that is not discontinued or limited edition and you can actually buy it, so I tought i would do a quick review. 

I have a lot of Essence and Catrice nail polishes, because they are cheap, apply nicely, the colour selection is great and they last on me just as any other nail polish, this is two days, if I'm lucky. 

This one is a creme one, for full opacity you need two coats. I had no problems with the application. The brush is rounded at the end and quite wide. At first I wasn't a fan of these "new" brushes, but now I can polish my nails with them just fine. 

Some might say that the colour is ugly and not appropriate for a nail polish and I don't agree with that. It's true that I prefer classic nail polish colours like reds and pinks, but I like to experiment with the colours. This light army green colour (my describtion of it ;) ) was missing in my stash so I bought it. 

On all of the pictures are two coats of nail polish, a base coat and a top coat. Essence nailpolishes cost a little bit less that 2 € for 8ml and for me are not different that nailpolishes for 14 €. But bear in mind that I haven't found a nail polish yet, that would last whole three days on my nails. So I can't be a reliable source for nail polish longevity. 

Have a great day ;)

What I'm reading + NOTD pt.6

Philip Roth wrote quite a lot of novels and although the name is familliar to me, this is the first one I read. The original title is The Dying Animal and it was published in 2001. The speaker is David Kepesh, white-haired and over sixty, an eminent cultural critic and star lecturer at a New York college as well as an articulate propagandist of the sexual revolution. For years he has made a practice of sleeping with adventurous female students while maintaining an aesthete s critical distance. But now that distance has been annihilated. In chronicling this descent, Philip Roth performs a breathtaking set of variations on the themes of eros and mortality, license and repression, selfishness and sacrifice. The Dying Animal is a burning coal of a book, filled with intellectual heat and not a little danger.

Surprise, surprise, the nail polish I'm wearing is not from Essence, nor Catrice :) This one is O.P.I. with the name German-i-cure by OPI. 

Have a great day!

Why do you wear make up?

"Why do you have to wear all that stuff on your face? Look at your mum, she never wore any make up and she is beautiful nonetheless" And yes, while I agree with my dad that my mother is beautiful, for me wearing make up is not always to feel and/or be prettier. 

As a teenager I never wore any make up, not even a mascara. Then came the last year of high school and I started using a mascara, in first years of college I updated my make up routine with concealer :) Having said that, I have to also mention that I always had make up products at home. Lipglosses, mascaras, eyeshadows, eyeliners, nailpolishes. It was just that I used them only for special occasions. As much as I liked to look at them and try them on, I didn't really know how to use them properly. Then around 2009/2010 I discovered make up tutorials on youtube and I was hooked. My make up collection grew and I also learned how to use it. Not that I'm a professional, but if I would like to make myself look better, now I can :D 

Of course make up has something to do with confidence. There are days when you feel fabulous and then there are days when you feel like crap. There are some days when I look at myself and I think that I do look ok without make up.

I look like I'm a teenager, but I'm not :)

But there are also days when I look like this without make up.

Painful to watch, really 

And I don't see what is wrong if we put on a little bit of make up (or a lot if you prefer). I enjoy doing before and after photos, and I make sure that in the photo before I look really tired and strange, like the one above (let's avoid term ugly). 

Collage from 2013

It is not easy to be a woman in this male oriented society and if we have one small advantage that makes us look better if we want and need to, then why not use it. I get sad and then angry that we get judged for everything that we do. You wear a fair amount of make up? This is not right, you should wear less make up or go natural. You have acne and help yourself with make up to cover them up? This is not right, you are deceiving everyone around you (really? Really?). Example here. It seems like women can't win. You know, I think we should wear as much make up as we want to, or none, without being judged. At the end of this beautiful video that Lisa Eldridge made, I was trully touched and I suggest you to look at it. So many possibilities, so many options. I decided that I will play and have fun with make up, no matter what others think of me (this is really hard for me, but I will try).

Then there is another thing about make up. It makes me happy. Not just to wear it, but to play with it. To look at my collection, trying on lipsticks, deciding what make up to wear on some special occasions. My mum often says to my sister and me "When will you use up all of this make up?" Probably never. But this is not the point. The point is that my sister and I enjoy trying make up looks even if we are not very good at it. Sometimes we try to recreate make up looks that we see on youtube. Here I would like to tell you a dad joke. A joke that my dad makes everytime. Everytime. Sometimes we try bolder eyelooks, usually just on one eye. When dad sees us he would say "who punched you in the eye?" And it is funny because we know exactly what he would say. 

Choosing a lipstick in Mac store

I can't wait for some special occasions so that I can spice my make up rotine up a little bit and to feel beautiful and confident. And I don't see what is wrong with it, but sometimes I can't be bothered to put anything on me, and I think this is fine too.

What I would like is that if I feel like putting on red lipstick just to go to the supermarket I would and not be bothered what everyone else who doesn't even know me tought of this. I know I care too much of what others think of me and this has to change! :D

Tell me, why do you wear make up? Does it make you happy, or do you feel pressured to always look flawless and is some kind of obligation?

What I'm reading + NOTD pt.5

Another one from my reading list. From the YA section, but once again, nice story, that is better than some adult love stories. The title in English is Ketchup Clouds and is a story of fifteen-year-old Zoe, who has a secret - a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder. Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can - in letters to the man in prison in America. Armed with a pen, Zoe takes a deep breath, eats a jam sandwich, and begins her tale of love and betrayal.

The nail polish is from the Essence old line Colour & go (go figure) with the name Wanna say hello. Again, two coats, a base coat and a top coat.The nail polish is brown, just a regular creme brown, but I like it.  Here is a bonus picture of the nails with my cat so that you can see the colour better. And by the way I made a new category, which is Reading list, so you can see all the books I would like to read in one place, I'm also adding new books and crossing the ones I read out. 

What I'm reading +NOTD pt.4

Man, this one was hard to read. The describtion goes something like this. After the unsucessful shaving of her intimate parts 18 year old Helen finds herself in the hospital. After reading this I tought this would be a light and funny reading of a story of the teenager who is discovering sexuality and is experimenting with it. Well, I was wrong. 

The original title is Feuchtgebiete (German) and Wetlands in English. On bookdepository.com you can read that with her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming habits of the novel's 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Charlotte Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel has sold more than 680,000 copies, and is the biggest selling book on Amazon anywhere in the world. The book is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator's body and mind. It is difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel. Wetlands opens in a hospital room after an intimate shaving accident. It gives a detailed topography of Helen's hemorrhoids, continues into the subject of anal intercourse and only gains momentum from there. Clearly the novel has struck a nerve, catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over women's roles and image in society.

For me, it was hard to read, but not because of the honest and sometimes crude describtion of sex, but because of the vivid describtion of her health problems and questionable hygiene. I get sick as early as someone is describing to me how they hurt themselves unintentionally, so when reading this I had the permanent feeling of sickness in my stomach and at one point when Helen *spoiler alert* hurts herself to stay in the hospital a little bit longer, couldn't read any longer, so I just scanned through the pages when all this was precisely described. 

What to say, not so light reading after all.

The nail polish is beautiful and once again is a part of a limited edition from Catrice. From last year's collection Feathered Fall with a name Golden Plum-e. As always, a base coat, two coats of nail polish and a top coat. 

Have a great day :)

"If you think reading is boring, you're doing it wrong"

Here are some of the books I read this year. Photographed together with nail polish of course :) I normaly don't photograph books (but I write down what I have read), so here are just the books that I was reading at that time that I had freshly painted nails and wanted to take pictures of them. If you are interested in a nail polish let me know and I will tell you what nail polish it is ;)

1. Elizabeth Gilbert: PEČAT STVARJENJA (The Signature of All Things)
2. Dodie Smith: I CAPTURE THE CASTLE
3. Guillaume Musso: DEKLE S PAPIRJA (The Girl on Paper)
4. Eva Rice: THE MISINTERPRETATION OF TARA JUPP

5. John Fowles: ZBIRATELJ (The Collector)

6. Haruki Murakami: KAFKA NA OBALI (Kafka on the Shore)

7. Gayle Forman: ČE OSTANEM (If I Stay)

8. Jeffrey Eugenides:  POROČNI ZAPLET (The Marriage Plot)

9. Elizabeth Haynes: V NAJTEMNEJŠEM KOTU (Into the Darkest Corner)

10. Paolo Giordano: ČLOVEŠKO TELO (The Human Body)

11. Rainbow Rowell: ELEANOR & PARK 

12. Jussi Adler-Olsen: FAZANARJI

13. George R.R. Martin: PLES Z ZMAJI (A Dance with Dragons)

14. JonasJonasson: STOLETNIK, KI JE ZLEZEL SKOZI OKNO IN IZGINIL (The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared)

15. Jennifer E. Smith: THE STATISTICAL PROBABILITY OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

16. Michel Houellebecq: RAZŠIRITEV PODROČJA BOJA 

Have a great day :)