Book Review: The Land Of Stories |Dreams That Glitter

This is a combined book review post about the first two books of The Land Of Stories series: The Wishing Spell and The Enchantress Returns, written by Chris Colfer, best known for his portrayal of the character Kurt Hummel in Glee.

The first book, The Land Of Stories: The Wishing Spell was published in July last year and it was Chris’s first book (of many, let’s hope). The success of the first book lead to a sequel which was published last week, already proving quite popular, currently no. 2 on the New York Times Best Sellers, while The Wishing Spell has climbed back up to no. 10.  Writing is something Chris has always loved and he has revealed that he has had The Land Of Stories planned out in his head since the age of 10, and that’s quite apparent as you read his books, the detail in which it is written is very well done, and each of the characters mentioned has a full back story, Chris said in his latest lifestream #CC360 – in which he also let loose that he definitely planned to write more books in The Land Of Stories series and had a set number in his mind of how many he wanted to do. When he was younger The Land Of Stories was Chris’s way of escaping the real world. Although the books are primarily aimed at children particularly in the 8-12 age range, there is something about them that can be enjoyed by all ages – so if you think you’re too old for fairytale books, think again and give these a read.

The Land Of Stories: The Wishing Spell 

The first novel begins in The Land Of Stories, where Queen Snow White is visiting her stepmother, the Evil Queen. On our planet, Alex and Conner Bailey are in school the first time we are introduced to them as 11 year old twins. They are in a class learning about fairytales and learn that true fairy tales have been warped by society to be far from their original plots and morals. It’s clear from the start that Alex is very enthusiastic about fairytales and is very fond of them, reading them from a young age she knows lots about them and is very alert during her classes about them, while her brother has less of an interest in the tales. You soon learn the twins haven’t had a great time recently and lost their father in a car accident almost a year before and life hasn’t been easy for them, living alone with their mother with occasional visits from their grandmother. Their lives soon take a turn in tune when their grandmother gives them a book titled The Land Of Stories. Alex is of course over the moon, and is curious about the book, until she falls into the book, quickly followed by her brother. They find themselves trapped inside of The Land Of Stories. They have to overcome a lot of obstacles in trying to get out of the book, along the way discovering lots more about their family and who they are, Alex’s knowledge of fairytales helps them a lot through their journey and trying to get back home. There are lots of interesting and unexpected twists and turns throughout the book which is overall very well written in an exciting and appealing manner.

The Land Of Stories: The Enchantress Returns – needless to say I was slightly excited about the arrival of this one

In this book the Bailey twins return to The Land Of Stories, but not in the way they hoped. The Land Of Stories is in trouble because the Enchantress has returned and planning to take over the world and the Otherworld. The Enchantress captures and kidnaps the twins’ mother, mistaking her for Alex, so the twins are desperate to go back to their fairytale land and save her and the world from the evil Enchantress and her menacing plans. Again they are faced with even more troubling problems and are forced to work together and use what they know to work away around them in order to save their precious world.

The thing I like most about these books is that not everything is predictable and things happen that you don’t expect are coming! The books are gaining more and more popularity as time goes on, and Chris said in his livestream that people that went to his first book signing tour all knew him from Glee and supported him from that, but now on his second book signing, he’s gained lots more fans purely from his writing, which I think is great, as Glee isn’t for everyone, especially children who are too young to watch Glee but love the books. It also shows how he’s getting more famous and gaining much more recognition around the world from a variety of people and age groups.

I’d also like to add that I love the work of Brandon Dorman, the illustrator of the book, the drawings on the cover and in each chapter are wonderful.

Meeting Chris Colfer|Dreams That Glitter

Apologies for the lack of updating, thought I doubt anyone actually reads any of this rubbish I post so very rarely. I’ve been trying to keep a journal but it’s not really working out because I get bored half way through writing because it takes so long, or half the time I just sit and stare at it because I can’t be bothered to actually write… this however is much quicker.

Anyway, the 16th June 2013 was the best day of my life, that whole weekend was the best weekend of my life. To cut a story short, I met Chris Colfer and he’s such a flawless human I’m not even sure he is human. He’s an angel, for sure. Not even in the slightest bit exaggerating there. I met so many lovely people, I just had the best time. It’s hard to put into words exactly how I felt.

When I found out Chris was doing a singing in London I literally squealed, threw my phone and sprinted downstairs to tell mum (which involved getting highly exciting, screaming and maybe hitting her, oops). Me and Vicky and Ellena planned it right away and were so excited because it just seemed so unreal. Other than for the Glee Live Tour which we didn’t get to go to, Chris had never been to London or anywhere in this country even. We just couldn’t get our heads around what was happening.

On the Saturday the first person got in the queue to meet Chris at 9.10am, even though the signing wasn’t until 1pm Sunday. We left around 1:30 in the end, originally we were planning on leaving in the evening sort of time, but we saw Bluewater’s tweets and panicked. We got to Bluewater at around 3pm and were 22, 23 and 24 in the queue (I was 23) – this is highly impressive as by Sunday at around 12 (when the queue got cut off) there was around 700 people, each and every one of which got to meet Chris because he’s such a babe and didn’t want to leave anyone out. After 500 they were all reserved so there was a chance Chris could’ve left after that.

The first thing we did after writing our numbers on our hands in sharpie, was go and buy the books from Waterstones – The Land of Stories and Struck By Lightning. Vicky told the cashier lady she was gonna pee herself and got told that was TMI… served the lady right for asking how she was. We were all practically bouncing off the walls with excitement so…

We immediately made friends with the people in front of us in the queue, and eventually made friends with more people further down as well. The whole weekend was like that though, you could potentially walk up to anyone and start talking and you’d be friends. We exchanged twitter names and it was strange because a couple of girls we were already following each other so it felt like we already knew each other in a sense…

At around 7ish me and Ellena went on a hunt for KFC because by that point we were starving, it took us about an hour to get back to Vicky with food, we got a bit lost after I read the map wrong, oops… Before that though I’d been sent to get coffee from Starbucks (which was directly opposite us) even though I don’t actually like it myself, and I said my name was Blaine so that it’d get written on the cups because reasons, I got a few weird looks but never mind. And the woman spelt it like ‘BLANE’ so we had to mark in the ‘i’. I later accidentally threw those cups away, oops again.

At around 9pm we spotted Willa and Chloe arrive and went down to go see them and say hi after we’d decided it was stupid not to. I don’t know why we were so shy about it at first, but we got on so well from the start and we ended up spending the entire night with them, so it was a very good decision to make. At about 11 I think, Lucy arrived and we all witnessed the Willy hug, which was beautiful. They ran at each other and like collided into this massive hug, and neither of them let go for ages and it was really cute. We all serenaded them with Somewhere Only We Know because Klaine.

None of us slept for more than a couple of hours (I got about an hour’s sleep in ten minute intervals) we spent a lot of the night talking. At 4am me and Vicky were the only ones in our little group still awake and this random guy came over with a pack of playing cards and started showing us magic tricks which are even more mind blowing at 4am when you’re sleep deprived and not really sure what’s going on (random guy, if you’re reading this, which I don’t think you will be, please make yourself known because I still haven’t found you in the land of tweets).

I woke up around 5:30am thinking it was about 8am, and then got very disappointed… I didn’t really get back to sleep after that. The morning dragged by until about 11, then it went so quickly it’s all a blur. We had to go back to our space in the queue, and the entire shopping centre belted out an acapella rendition of Don’t Stop Believing followed by Teenage Dream, that was amazing. (I’ll try and track down some videos and post them here at some point).

We were in the first group of people to go in and meet Chris, and we all piled into the bookshop, there was a lot of pushing and shoving and being the short little hobbit that I am, I was like the last person there to see Chris himself, but as soon as he appeared everyone broke into cheers. The whole thing was so surreal.

When I saw him properly, that was it I burst into tears. I don’t really know why, I’m not a crying kind of person, I don’t cry at anything really. But apparently if you put Chris Colfer in front of me I bawl like a baby. I couldn’t stop, I tried to compose myself a bit before I had to stand in front of him, but it didn’t really work. It nearly did, but when Vicky went up first and handed him the scrapbook we made him of 70 reasons why we love him, he summoned us over (he directly looked me and Ellena in the eyes, and waved at us to come over) so we all  stood there together and me and Vicky had to apologise for crying, Ellena was suprisingly calm.

I managed to actually get words out when it was my turn though, which is incredibly surprising considering the state I was in – I can’t believe I met him looking like that, that is the impression he’s going to have of me forever now. He may or may have said ‘Hi sweetie’ or something like that, but I don’t really know, it’s all a blur like I said. Anyway, he asked me what my favourite part of the book was, if I had a favourite part, and I said yes of course, I love the ending with the twist about their dad… (talking about TLOS) I then pointed to it as if he didn’t know what I was talking about which obviously he did like… and his face lit up and he was like ‘oh, yeah!’ and then he said ‘You’ll love the next book then, it has an even bigger twist!’ and HE WINKED AT ME. It was glorious. Then we all kind of ran out of the shop and hugged each other and were just sobbing hysterically.

As soon as we got out there was a photographer wanting a group shot, so we kind of composed ourselves a bit, and the photo is brilliant, we all look so happy with our signed books and ah… all the camping, the 22 hours of waiting, had all been worth it just for that 60 seconds with Chris Colfer. I can’t even explain.

I just had the time of my life, with two of my best friends, I met so many lovely people who I hope to meet again, and I met Chris Colfer. It was the best. ❤

Darren Criss|Dreams That Glitter

7th September 2012 – Night of the premier of Imogene. I’ve been on full on fangirl mode all evening, Darren Criss had his first movie premier and omg I’m so proud of him :’) Just a few years ago he was on stage pretending to be Harry Potter, putting on shows for friends and family and covering Disney songs on YouTube, and now he’s a freaking Hollywood star, in a major movie and major tv show, and still manages to be the most humble, adorable goofball he always was :’)

I’m so jealous of everyone was in Toronto tonight, and those who met Darren… I bet it was the most amazing experience ever. It’s quite hard to grasp the concept that a handful of people were in a room, watching the very first screening of Imogene, in the same room as Darren. Amazing.

From the spoilers I’ve seen from my endless scrolling on tumblr, it looks like there’s a lot of shirtless Darren in this movie. I can’t freaking wait. Now please can it be released in the UK now!

People saying Darren has changed are wrong, he hasn’t. Not one bit. Even though, I haven’t seen everything he’s been in, and just because I haven’t been a fan right from the start, doesn’t mean I don’t know that. From what I have seen (and I’ve seen a lot) I can see that he’s not changed a bit, he’s really still that sweet, adorable kid singing Disney songs in his bedroom. On a bit of a bigger scale. All he wanted to do was become a successful actor, and look at him :’) He’s truly inspirational…

^How can you not think he’s still an adorable goofball?:3 he will never fail to put a smile on my face.

Let me express my feelings on what makes someone a fan. You do not have to be there from day one to be a true fan. The point of fans is that once you become one, you will always be one, and really that’s all that matters. Whether you’ve been a fan of someone or something for five minutes or five years, it doesn’t matter as long as you know you’re going to be there until the end. That’s what counts. And I may have only discovered Darren through Glee, I don’t think that matters, just because I wasn’t the first person to discover him on YouTube, that doesn’t matter either. The fact that I will never stop supporting and loving him, that’s what matters.

And then there was also Fashions Night Out last night too! Which Darren was at 😉 And I really really wish his cover of Dress You Up would be released as a single, I need it!

^Fashions Night Out

This is a lot to handle… Darren is in a major movie. Chris Colfer also wrote and is starring in Struck By Lightning, also VERY exciting, oh and Chris is also author of The Land Of Stories, to which there is a sequel being written…. And Glee is back next week. And there were new Glee songs released yesterday. (It’s Time is my favourite, it’s already made it into my top 25 most played) – this is a lot to handle. And I’m finally getting season 2 volume 2 of glee, and the season 3 DVDs when they’re released on the 17th. I’m so happy and excited!:’)

P.S. The only picture I own is the picture of the book! The rest I nabbed off tumblr, if I knew who they belonged too I’d give them credit.