Day of Love

Valentine's day with my boyfriend this year was wonderfully simple. No crazy presents, no intense plans. Just flowers, cards and a Pinterest-inspired DIY date jar! I wanted a simple manicure to go along with my casual clothes, yet still feel girly and pretty.

I went with a simple glitter accent nail mani. It was so easy to find my perfect polish combo via my massive Julep nail polish collection. I chose Martha, a creamy opaque pink for my base color, and added Love to my ring finger to make it pop. Love is such a romantic red and pink glitter polish, with a subtle gold microglitter, and can be worn either over another polish or by itself. It definitely made me giddy inside to see it added into our February Maven box as a free gift!

I hope your Valentine's Day was just as romantic and memorable! Happy reading!

An Abundance of Katherines // Nail Art

Colin has a thing for girls named Katherine, just like I have a thing for awesome books and fun nail polish. So I have to be honest, this post was a blast to work on! I love the simple, white cover of John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, and the seemingly hand-drawn images and words gave me so many fun ideas for what to paint on my nails. 

I love a bright, white nail, so I was happily inspired by the novel's cover. Other than the heart, I wasn't too keen on the idea of having any of the little drawings (especially a parabola!) from the cover on my nails, so I knew I needed a couple of other fun images to use. I loved the use of footnotes throughout the book, so that was definitely something I wanted to incorporate on my nails. Also, Colin continuously refers to his heartbreaker as Katherine XIX, which gave me another cute idea for my nails.

As far as actual products I used for these nails, the white base is L'Oreal I Will, with accents of Ciate Mistress for the heart and Twilight for the numbers. The consistency of I Will is a bit hard to work with, as most bright whites are. It definitely takes a couple coats to get it smooth and without streaks. And like always, I love my Ciate mini polishes, so those are always a blast to use.

I'm on a John Green kick, so get ready for a review for An Abundance of Katherines soon! Happy reading!

Midweek Inspiration

I hope everyone is having a fabulous week! Seeing as it's almost Friday, I've decided to round up some of my favorite nail polish and bookish inspirations to get us through the rest of the work week. I found most of these little beauties on one of my favorite inspiration sites, WeHeartIt, and a couple I photographed myself!

Enjoy some inspiration and happy reading!

Essie Nail Polish // Lauren Conrad Novels //
Photo via WeHeartIt

Essie Nail Polish //
Photo via WeHeartIt

Photo via WeHeartIt

Essie Nail Polish // Bikini So Teeny //
Photo by Novels and Nail Polish

Julep Nail Polish // Emily Griffin Novels //
Photo by Novels and Nail Polish

Barnes and Noble Classics //
Photo via WeHeartIt

Nail Polish Brands I Love

Spotlight: Julep Nail Polish

You'll become very familiar with some of my favorite nail polish brands, and one is definitely Julep Nail Polish. I am a proud Maven, which means I receive monthly packages delivered right to my door, dressed up with pretty ribbons and little extra goodies.

I fell in love with Julep right off the bat because of the bottle's elegant design. Its tall, rectangular style is easy to hold while painting my nails and stores very easily, especially since I have a huge collection! Another aspect I love about this brand is the fabulous brush style, which follows the finger nail's natural shape. The brush is slightly wider and more flattened than many other nail polishes, which allows for spreading the lacquer much more evenly.

Some criticism of Julep Nail Polish falls on its thick consistency, but I love that it is rich enough for the color to come out completely opaque. It does take a bit longer to dry, but a good quick-dry top coat fixes that problem in a snap!

Whether you're yearning for a soft, pastel mint, a bright blue or a full-coverage red glitter, Julep has a huge selection. If you want to become a Maven too, head over to Julep's website and they'll help you step by step find out your style profile and get started with your first box! Get those nails painted and happy reading!

Looking for Alaska // Review

If you're looking for a book that will make you cry, laugh and feel it deep in a hidden place that is only reserved for the strongest of feels, you've got your book right here!  Looking for Alaska is the novel that launched John Green's career, and for good reason! A unique structure, plus characters that have genuine heartbeats and questions about life, makes it impossible to put down until you've read its very last words.

Immediately, I was hooked wondering what "before" was referring to, and as the days counted down to after, nothing other than work could keep that book out of my hand (and even sometimes during work, I would sneak a page or two!). And well, after, I needed to know why everything happened. Now, don't worry, if you haven't read it yet, I won't actually spoil what happens. But if Looking for Alaska is on your "To Read" list, have that box of tissues on hand!

One thing I love about the novel's structure of "before" and "after" is how much thought John Green put into choosing this particular idea. In interviews, Green noted that many important events in history or great works have a defining moment in which everything is changed for good: 9/11, Hiroshima and even the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians, for that matter, annotate the passage of time as BC and AD. I can't think of a better structure for this wonderful piece of writing, because it not only adds suspense, but truly highlights the gravity of the novel's life-changing situation.

Photo via WeHeartIt

When it comes to character development and John Green, there is no finer artist. I BELIEVED these people were real, which is so hard to do when it comes to YA fiction. I believed them almost too much, because I would often times find myself frustrated and annoyed with Alaska's impulsive and quite selfish actions. I wanted to guide Miles through his first awkward moment with a girl, and I wanted to hold each of them when everything came crashing down around them. And then, all at once, I remembered that I wasn't a student at Culver Creek and I couldn't fix all of their heartbreak. And even though I knew I couldn't, I was so happy! So wonderfully overjoyed that I even cared for characters I read about on pages of a book this much! And that pretty much sums up my love for this beautiful, crazy story.

Have you read Looking for Alaska? What are some of your thoughts on John Green's first novel? Let me know! Happy reading!

Looking For A.... Perfect Manicure

I adore John Green! He is a wonderfully talented writer who creates stories that wrap you up in a perfectly constructed quilt of complex characters and heartbreaking romances. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use the very intriguing cover artwork of Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska, as inspiration for my first manicure to be featured on Novels and Nail Polish. 

 

You'll come to learn I have a few certain brands of nail polish that I love to use, and one is Ciate nail polish! I used Vintage, a rich shade of asphalt grey, for the base color. It applies very smooth and only takes two coats to become completely opaque.

My review of Green's first novel is on its way soon. Happy reading!

A Touch of Character Development

Allow me to start by introducing myself. My name is Taylor, and I am a bookaholic. Literature is my draft beer, short stories are my whiskey and novels are my fine wines. There is a certain high bookworms get from finding that perfect book or catching a whiff of the classic library scent we all know and love. Gone are the days when books were just for the nerds and outcasts. Today, us bibliophiles are able to stand proud and tall in front of the rest of the world and proclaim how much we love the handsome Peeta Mellark or relate to the strength of Katniss Everdeen.

And as much as I love pages of words sewn together in beautiful sentences, I equally adore anything girly. That, of course, points directly to my Achilles Tendon in any drug store or Target, nail polish. If a newly released hard cover novel is my Whiskey Sour, then a brand new bottle of nail polish is a perfectly aged Port. A stylishly manicured set of finger nails is just like that striking book cover that catches your eye from across the Barnes and Noble.

I have come to the conclusion that it is time for my loves of both nail lacquer and literature to find a home, together, on this blog. Here go my adventures in nail art inspired by the beauty in the books I read. 

Welcome to Novels and Nail Polish. Happy Reading!