FOUR FRIENDS.

A few more things I’m currently enjoying.

Two of these are things I’ve either mentioned here on my blog or my Youtube channel before; the remaining ones are recent finds. Let’s take a closer look!

#1 MEMORY by Misaki Kawaii

Yesterday I went shopping with Emma, and we stopped by Tiger because I needed some craft supplies. Some marzipans wrote me to check out the Misaki Kawaii collection, now available, and so I did. All of it is so fun and colourful, but the one item I decided to take home, was this memory game. Did you use to play it when you were little? I remember loving it so much, and I thought every kid would have fond memories (ah, get it?… okay, sorry) of this game, but apparently I was wrong. Emma told me she never did, she didn’t know the rules, and so we planned to play it together.

Just in case you are not familiar with the game, the box comes with 40 “tiles”, with 20 different images. You place them all faced down and on your turn, you pick two and flip them. You will have to remember what you see because if they don’t match they go back faced down. Once you know where the matching images are located, you can flip them and collect them, and continue until you get one wrong.

It’s super simple, but I definitely wanted to add it to my board game collection, especially considering that the illustrations here are so unique!

#2 ANIMAL CROSSING: HAPPY HOME DESIGNER

I bought this game for myself during Christmas. I absolutely love Animal Crossing so I knew I would enjoy this as well, but because I’ve heard some bad reviews about it, I kind  of left it on a shelf until a few days ago.

As soon as I started playing it, I realised how wrong I was to think that this wouldn’t be so good. It’s really fun! It has a lot more to offer than I’d imagined, and not only you get to build and decorate the villagers’ houses, but even the main town sites, like the hospital, the school and shops. Isn’t that amazing? You have a huge selection of furniture in the catalogue to pick from (for free) and you are given some pointers on what you must get done, and based on that, you get to be creative and make anything you like.

I seriously can’t put it down, which is bad because I have tons of work to do, but it’s just too good!!

#3 MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN by Ransom Riggs

I said in one of my previous posts that I was reading this book, and I explained how much people recommended this to me and how I simply had to check it out since Tim Burton is making a movie out of it.

So I read it all in about a week, and now that I’m done, I can share some thoughts on it:

1. Very interesting story; so detailed and well thought out. I found myself thinking about the book while I wasn’t reading it, and that’s usually an indicator of the fact that I’m into the story.
2. The pictures are a huge plus: since the events and people are so… peculiar, having them not only helps you get in the right mood, but also adds to the creepiness. The picture on the right, with the two boys wearing a costume, is my favourite out of all the book. So creepy.
3. It’s original and different from anything I’ve ever read; I can see how this will fit well with Tim Burton’s style.

My rating would be a 8/10 – missing two points simply because I normally prefer a different kind of literature and although it was very creepy, my interest faded for a few chapters when *LITTLE SPOILER* the fight begun. But the beginning was great, the development of the story was incredible, and the ending kept me wanting to know more – which I will, since I already have the second book!

#4 FORGOTTEN PAPERS from Portugal

I got these while I was in Lisbon. The last day we entered a shop called “A Vida Portuguesa”, and Felix spotted this little clear envelope full of old papers. He knew I would have wanted it, so he got it for me.

When you open it and get the paper out, a lovely old scent of desiccated roses comes with them. To be honest, I haven’t decided yet if I should keep them as a memory of my trip, or if I should give them life and write on them, making them travel around the world, so they can reach my friends, with a message. Should I use them? Should I keep them? Ah, so difficult.

Either way, I’m happy Felix got these for me, as they look so wonderfully aged.

These are the four things I wanted to write about today. Now I’m gonna go back to play, ehm, I mean, work. OF COURSE.

Marzia.