Book review: Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant...

Under Your Skin is a suspenseful crime thriller about Gaby, a daytime TV presenter who finds a dead body in a park on her morning run. She touches the body, and finds herself at the centre of a police investigation for murder after more and more evidence stacks against her.

I must admit I found this book a little slow and hard to get into, the writers style was a little frustrating as it kept rushing from one thing to the next. After a while though I really got into it and it seemed like it was turning into a pretty good murder mystery. I'm sad to say on the most part it was pretty predicable, and the last final twist was kind of ridiculous. It was on the same level as films that end with the main character waking up and it turns out everything was a dream. -_- 

P.S. I've joined goodreads- find me here!

Pop in a Box January...

You may have seen my post in December about monthly subscription service Pop in a Box who send you a mystery Funko Pop! Vinyl each month (for £8.99 plus postage) based on your profile where you create a wishlist of the ones you want.

This is my second month subscribed and this time I received Harley Quinn with her gun. She is a very cute addiction to my growing collection!  It looks like a lot of people received her this month, and I now feel I need to get Joker to keep her company... (any excuse to buy more!)

On the subject here are some recent Pop purchases...

I highly recommend Amazon as a good place to get Pops, but avoid Zavvi at all costs, their customer service is terrible. I originally bought a Spike from them and they sent me a True Blood Pop (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ OF ALL THE NERVE!

Any other Pop collectors out there?

Lush sales haul...

Boxing Day morning I got up early determined to get some half price goodies in the Lush Boxing Day online sale. In hindsight I kind of wish I'd stay in bed, as the sale was a disaster and Lush were somehow completely unprepared. I somehow managed to frantically add stuff to my basket, paid and hoped for the best! Over two weeks later the stuff finally turned up. Here's what I got...

Here's the loose stuff I got... 2x Golden Wonder, 2x The Christmas Penguin, 2x Shoot For The Stars, a Dashing Santa, Luxury Lush Pud, and Snow Angel. 

I also got the Whoop Whoop, Season's Greetings, and Christmas Candy Box gift sets. If you want to see what's inside these I will be uploading a little video to my YouTube channel :)

So I'm pretty much sorted for the next couple of years, which is just as well as I'm staying in bed next time!

Book review: Very British Problems by Rob Temple...

This book was an impulse purchase to bump an Amazon order up to £10 for free delivery. I like humour books that you can dip in and out of so thought I'd give this a try. The book is written by Rob Temple the creator of the Twitter account @soverybritish, and essentially this book is mostly a collection of his tweets.

The tweets are witty observations about British people and our eternal embarrassment, obsession with queues and need to repeatedly apologies. Of course it's hugely generalising but I found this book really funny, and actually pretty relateable. There was some filler in here, and some pages were filled with just a couple of lines in huge font. I also noticed a couple of times things had been repeated. 

Overall though I thought this was a funny little book, that would make a nice gift :) 

Japanese candy: Puccho Gummy Ramune & Melon Soda...

Firstly the packaging for these Puccho gummies is a strange shape... but moving on the little tub is filled with small gummies (around the size of midget gems) that are nice and squishy. The two flavours in this one are ramune, and melon soda. 

As usual with Japanese candy the flavours are spot on. The melon gummy tastes just like you are biting into a piece of juicy honeydew melon, and the ramune gummy is sweet and fizzy. For such a small piece of candy it seriously is like a flavour explosion! These are really yummy, and there is a variety of flavour combinations to try.

I got mine here from Oyatsu Cafe for £1.31.

Models Own Diamond Luxe in Marquise Maroon...

This was one of my favourite nail polishes to wear over Christmas so I had to do a little post about it. It's Marquise Maroon from the Models Own Diamond Luxe collection; every shade I have tried from this collection so far I have loved. The polishes are smooth and opaque and have a lovely fine shimmer. The photos for this really doesn't do it justice- the colour reminds me of The Wizard of Oz ruby slippers red!  

Etude House Sugar Tint Balm...

One of Etude House's newest products caught my eye immediately- I can't resist lip products! The Sugar Tint Balms come in cute packaging that's covered in sprinkles. There are eight shades to choose from, and I decided on Pink Macaron, Blackberry Jelly, and Cranberry Pie. The promo images as usual show inaccurate swatches, in real life I found the balms to be much more pigmented!

In terms of the tint part I find them to last really well, but on the balm side of things I don't find them to be particularly moisturising, the texture is quite thick and almost dry (particularly with the darker shades.) Having said that, for the nice colour choice, cute sturdy packaging, and tint staying power I like these a lot and am tempted to complete the collection and get the other shades as they are all really lovely!

I got mine here for £5.76 each. 

Recently watched...

Labor Day (2014)

This turned out to be a fairly good sentimental drama about a guy who escapes prison and takes a single mother and her son hostage only for them to fall in love with each other. Josh Brolin plays the nicest escaped criminal ever (especially when you see flashbacks to his crime) and Kate Winslet does a great job as the very anxious and depressed mother who is scared to leave her house. Of course the story is pretty far fetched, and a little cheesy but overall I thought it was a sweet, well acted film.

Don Jon (2014)

On the surface this almost plays out as a typical rom-com, except it's much more than that. It's a thoughtful film that looks at both men and women's irrational expectations of love and relationships thanks to the media's objectification of women, the popularity of porn, and 'fairytale' like rom-coms that always have a happy ending. All of which leave men expecting some up for anything hot girl, and women expecting a perfect prince to sweep them up from their feet. It's only when Jon realises that that he finds a meaningful relationship.  

St. Vincent (2014)

Bill Murray's performance absolutely made this film, as Vincent a quite mean, snarky old man that befriends the the new neighbours son. There were some funny moments, but overall the story was quite predicable and at times a little cringeworthingly cheesy (if cringeworthingly isn't a word it should be!) I felt like Melissa McCarthy's character was given an undeserved hard time, and Naomi Watts fake baby bump was really kind of weird. Despite all that it's well worth a watch for Bill Murray who really brought Vincent to life in a hugely entertaining way.

The Machine (2014)

This is a British sci-fi film that focuses on two computer programmers who are trying to build an android that is self aware (or alive) to help humanity, but the people above them have other ideas- they want to turn the androids into killing machines. This film tries really hard to be like Blade Runner, right down to the moody dark atmosphere and the snyth music. Although I found the supposed love story a bit rushed and stupid I still think it was an enjoyable enough film though.

Post Christmas sales haul...

When it comes to the Boxing Day sales there's no way you are getting me out the house early or at all to manically try and find some bargains. Internet shopping on the other hand, in my pyjamas I'm down for. Here are the bargains I picked up (aside from my Lush sales order which I will post separately when it arrives!)

First up ASOS... I bought two tops from the Curve line including this beautiful unicorn design for just £7. I love it!

The other top I got was this My Little Pony tee, which was £14 and is all sparkly. When I get tops I always size up as I like them loose, but it turns out this one is really big on me, I can't bring myself to return it though as it's too cute...

I get a calender every year and had this DC Comics one on my Amazon wishlist for ages, finally watching it go down from £12.99 to £1.99 so snapped it up.

Of course to get free Amazon delivery I had to spend at least £10, so took this as a sign that I should definitely get the Buffy Pop! Vinyl... The I found out Zavvi had a 2 for £20 offer on their Pops so I bought Gogo Yubari from the Kill Bill collection (who is usually really hard to find) and Willow. They are so adorable! After that I swiftly put a ban on myself for buying anymore. Not sure how long the ban will last though! (Edit: have already pre ordered another d'oh!)

Did you get any good bargains in the sale?