Disney's Frozen

I'm going to briefly assume that you're all well versed in your Disney movie culture, especially the somewhat recent ones. Or, more specifically, that you've seen Disney's brand-new movie Frozen.
Okay, so I'll be honest here: I love Disney movies. I love animated films. The good ones. Some of my favorites: Tangled, The Lorax, Wreck-It Ralph… and now, Frozen. All four of these are pretty new, and I guess a large part of that is due to the fact that I am pretty newly at the stage in my life where I'm beginning to be able to really enjoy a movie and all its parts. Or maybe I'm just getting to the stage where I'm not ashamed of being a teenager who watches kid movies.
Anyway, I am fully and completely enraptured in the world of Frozen. As I said before, I'm just gonna assume you've already seen the movie, because that makes my job way easier (read: spoilers).
So, okay. Where to begin? Well, before I'd even seen the movie I bought and downloaded the Demi Lovato version of Let It Go, and my little brother and sister were constantly asking to watch the trailer. This was back before Halloween, which I know because EVERYBODY thought I was dressing up as Elsa for this fantastic holiday, even though I was just a simple ice princess (well, not simple exactly - I refuse to be simple) and had the idea waaaay before I found out about Elsa's existence. It was a really great costume though and suited me fantastically.
Okay, back to the topic at hand - Frozen. I saw this movie at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, November 27, 2013, my local theater's first showing. I saw it with my dad, sister, aunt, and uncle. The four girls in the row behind me kept fangirling the entire time, shouting for a kiss and giggling and generally doing whatever it is we fangirls do. I, of course, was very proud of them. My family… well, they were a little annoyed. But.
The movie itself was kind of fantastic, regardless. The plot was intricate, the characters were detailed, the songs magnificent. Yes, there were flaws. Yes, some of the characters could've been more believable. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, everybody makes mistakes, and nobody's perfect. So let's leave that all behind! No hate on the important snowman, no hate on the white ice queen, no hate on the white Norwegians, no hate on the powerful girls, no hate on the guy who decided to help, no hate on the pretty stinkin' awesome rock trolls, no hate on the really good songs. Okay? Okay. So now that we've covered our bases…
The biggest thing about this movie for me was Elsa and Anna. Not just them individually, but them together. How they act around each other, and their relationship, and… ahh. When they were little, they played and had fun and were best friends, but then something happened - some big, powerful, sorta out of their hands thing - and they didn't really talk anymore. The younger of the two still wanted to play, and didn't get it, and the older one didn't really get it either, but she knew, and she didn't seek out the companionship of her sister anymore. Like, at all. The older one drew back from the world, shut herself inside of herself, and when she eventually tries to talk to her sister, being friendly for the first time in, well, forever, it didn't really work out. One push, and she fell. She broke. And then when she had the chance to flee, she fled. She built herself a palace of self-worth/thought/consciousness (whatever you want to call it), and didn't look back. But her sister, who still didn't get it (mainly because they aren't the same person, and even if you know factually what someone else is going through, you can't possibly know what they're going through. And that's okay! At least Anna tried.) came for her, and tried to get her to come back, and it was so so so so so so so so hard for her. She fled from her problems, and when they came back… she couldn't pretend anymore. But in the end, she just really had to care for her sister, because even though she never talked to her sister, she still loved her. She just didn't know how to love her until that moment. (You can see this continual love in Olaf, which is why he's totally important to the story, because he's the snowman they made at the very beginning, that was destroyed, and how at the same time that was destroyed Elsa thought her relationship with Anna was destroyed, and when Elsa subconsciously creates him again - that same snowman - it shows that she really is always thinking of how sorry she is that she destroyed everything they could've known.)
So although on the outside Frozen is a movie with a nice plot about some sisters and a curse and a power-seeking prince, it has another layer - the massive inner conflict going on inside Elsa, that you can only see if you really pay attention.
I paid attention. I really, really did. And I'm not saying that's the only under layer - Anna has her own inner conflicts too - but It's the layer that I liked the most, that meant the most to me. Why? Because I relate to that. Like, a lot.
You see, I saw myself in Elsa. And not just in the way that I saw myself in Rapunzel, but in the way that I am Elsa. My sister and I, on the outside, look a freakishly lot like Anna and Elsa. But not only do we look just like them, we act just like them. And our relationship… just like theirs. The first thing my aunt said when we got in the car after the movie was how much my sister and I are like them. There's the grasping at straws stuff - when our hair is in braids, she has two and I have one, her hair is brown and different from how it used to be because of me (long story, which also includes the "some big, powerful, sorta out of their hands thing" that happened) and mine is an incredibly light blonde (though not quite as light as Elsa's; I happen to not have ice powers), she's an outgoing optimist and I'm an introverted realist. But that's not all - that entire story - that entire story - up there, that entire thing that I wrote about Elsa and Anna, that's us. With the obvious differences aside, it's like somebody took my sister and I and Disney-fied us. That's what that movie felt like to me. It was so brilliant.

Obviously, I have a crap load of other opinions and insights into and on this movie, but that'll just have to wait for later. It has taken me entirely too long to post this.

Legend by Marie Lu

I find myself in this position all too often: I find a book that has received great reviews, and when I am finally able to read it, I sit down and engulf it all in a minimal amount of sittings. When I'm done, I have to try very hard to pull myself out of that cocoon I have been enveloped in for the last hour or so. It tends to be a difficult thing to do, and sometimes I feel as if I'll wander around aimlessly for days. Luckily, I usually have another book waiting for it's chance on the floor beside my bed, and the tiresome cycle starts itself again.
As you may have guessed by now, I recently (as in 10 minutes ago) pulled myself out of bed with two new names on my mind: Day and June. Day, the ruthless criminal who "failed" his Trial. June, the faithful agent of the Republic, the one person to have ever gotten a perfect score on her test. I can guarantee you now that their story will be ricocheting around in my head for the rest of the day, maybe longer. This book is going to stick in my mind for days to come, and may I just say, I ship Jay. Or Dune. Or however the fandom has decided to spell it.
Anyway, I love the book, and the characters, and the plot. It was intensely fascinating to me, constantly finding me on the edge of my seat. (Not literally of course. I was on a bed.) I love it when you discover secrets about a somewhat okay government that make it all seem so backwards. I guess the rest of the world does too, because distopian novels have seemingly overthrown undead romances in the fictional scheme lately. (Although the recent release-- and popularity-- of the film Warm Bodies leads me to believe otherwise.) In book series like Divergent and Matched, the government seems fine-- at first. Not to give away any major spoilers, but in Reached when you find out about the plague... delicious. I guess that's how it is in Legend, too, with the secrets about the plague spilling out through certain genius characters' "mad searching skills" and supreme amounts of logic (two things I myself have, by the way). The whole thing drips of girl genius and daring escapades, two things I LOVE. If a book has those, it's a good one. It might not be a favorite one, and they aren't the only qualities I would enjoy, but it's a good one.
Overall, Legend is definitely a new personal favorite, and I will be reserving Prodigy ASAP, mark my words.