Love The Skin You're In!

Because it could become a book someday.

Another great, and weird, book from Jenny Lawson's Fantastic Strangelings book club, Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom is about Anthropodermic Bibliopegy. In other words, books bound in human skin. I'll admit to dropping all other books to read this one when it arrived based on the cover alone. 

Rosenbloom is a librarian, a journalist, and death positive which makes her quest at finding and proving out human skin bound books all the more intriguing. Obviously, your mileage will vary with this but I didn't find it disturbing or gross, so try not to let that be a deterrent to taking this book for a spin.

In the Mütter museum in Philadelphia, there is a human skin bound book on display. This is Rosenbloom's first foray into this world. And now is a place on my bucket list to visit when the world returns to "normal".

Rosenbloom is very thorough. She takes us through the myths of these types of books, how animal skins are made into leather (honestly, enough to make me stop eating meat for a bit), how they do a quick test to see if the book is indeed human (most aren't, their lore is what makes the book valuable, not the binding), and much more. 

You would think that the bulk of the human bound books would have came from the Nazi era. You would be wrong. As Rosenbloom discovers, most books of this nature are from physician libraries, which might be more disturbing. The physicians who swear an oath to help and protect patients also take skin from patients/corpses to make into books. Some of the books found actually bind the most boring of books, yet the physician felt they were the right book to bind in human skin. Back in the day, there was a disregard for patients who were disenfranchised, because of race, gender, or poverty, and physicians felt they could do what they pleased with these folks (see: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot). Rosenbloom attended a medical school class so she could see how students of today treat the cadavers they work on and discovered there is still a bit of that clinical gaze, but there also is more emphasis on being empathic with patients and not just seeing them as things to deal with. Well, whew, I guess.

It was interesting to note that in order to donate your body to science for medical classes you must be intact, ie. nothing missing. Looks like that's not an avenue I can pursue.

There are so many interesting facts and tidbits in this book that it's well worth reading. Note that Rosenbloom is death positive and has a good view on mortality. Death isn't something to be feared and her viewpoint is infused throughout the book. A good podcast to watch on Death positivity is Ask a Mortician by Caitlin Doughty (who authors many a good book on the subject)

The author on death (potential trigger warning for photos)

Book talk with the author

So I've Taken Up Smoking

 Just kidding. I would never. 

 But that is the title of the latest book I've read. Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney is a little (under 300 pages) book about a young girl coming of age and figuring out herself in NYC, of all places. 

A debut novel, Sweeney takes us up to Crab Island, Maine where Miranda's mother has disappeared (and presumed dead) and her dad is so caught up in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses that he often forgets himself and Miranda. Mr. Blackwell is a local jack of all trades fisherman who takes Miranda under his wing, including braiding her hair for her, teaching her about boats, and making sure she goes to school. Where would Miranda have ended up without Mr. Blackwell?

As she gets older, she's more awkward around people and chooses to forget to take the college exam. She has no real purpose in life and no one seems to be concerned about that. Except Mr. Blackwell. Mr. Blackwell and Miranda's dad had a fight so Mr. Blackwell has been absent from Miranda's life. But he's still looking out for her. He offers her a job with him after High School is over. When she tells her father, he suddenly gets her a job typing in NYC with two of his friends, Robert and Walter. Off she goes to New York.

Miranda is a tentative person, a bit backwards due to her upbringing, but determined to see New York. For someone so awkward, she makes friends with Ana, the coffee cart lady and Nate, teacher at the Institute with Robert and Walter. As Miranda tries to figure out who she is, who her dad was, and why she's stalled in life, her friendships take on greater meaning. Finding out who her dad really was from Robert and Walter makes her see him in a whole new light.

This was a sweet novel, and a quick read to boot. The writing is so well done, descriptive and beautiful, you'll end up re-reading passages over just to savor them.

My Literary Boo

 I will never give up on Harry Dresden. He's been my wizardy, literary boo since day one. Battle Ground is the newest novel by Jim Butcher and it's a damn doozy. It follows Peace Talks fairly quickly in publication and thank god, because where we ended on Peace Talks was not a place to end!

Spoilers be ahead, you've been warned. Although I will keep them to a minimum.

We are prepping for battle against the Last Titan, Ethniu, since she has declared war on Chicago in Peace Talks. But first...Harry battles a kraken. That's within the first few pages, as Harry and Murphy come back from Demonreach where he left Thomas, safe and sound and unreachable. There's no foreplay in Battle Ground. We're immediately in the fight.

Everyone gathers at Marcone's castle to come up with their battle plan. The good guys, even the somewhat good guys, are ready to die for Chicago, and sadly, a lot of them do. General Toot-Toot and his gang are pivotal in helping Harry and River Shoulders is more of a force to be reckoned with, despite his broken spectacles he insists on wearing. Vampires from the Black Court, including Drakul, take advantage of the chaos and end up taking down members of the White Council (RIP). Giants (Jotnar) come out of the water and nearly destroy the city and the entire Chicago skyline. Huntsman are wreaking havoc in the residental areas, eating people. Huntsman might be the most terrifying creature in here. And still they fight.

Butters, Murphy, Sanya, even the detective Bradley are in deep. But not everyone makes it to The Bean where the showdown with Ethniu will be. This part was heart wrenching. You've been warned.

The Bean apparently is a storehouse for weapons (someone in Chicago need to check this out) and Mab is making her stand here. Dresden arrives with ordinary people, an army of civilians willing to fight and die for their city. 

People fight, they die, some live, and some turn out to be much more than you ever thought possible. I bought the actual hardback for this because I knew I'd need to hug it when I was done. And I did. 

I can't wait to see where we go from here. EVERYTHING has changed.

Do other books have trailers???

Another Magic Book?

 I get a lot of my TBR books from the podcast, What Should I Read Next?. Almost as many as I did from the Books on the Nightstand podcast (RIP). In one of the episodes, Anne mentions Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey. It's a debut novel about a non-magical detective brought in to solve a magical murder. But why, you ask? Why not a magical detective?

Well, my friend, because the mages couldn't solve it. 

Ivy Gamble isn't magical, she's not special,  she drinks a lot, she's 40 and single and a private detective. At the beginning of the book, she gets mugged. She's not extraordinary. Ivy will be telling us all of this throughout the book. At first, this was hard to listen to, the woe-is-me ad nauseum, but Ivy grew on me. Somehow through the course of the novel, she strengthens, grows and matures. Just not necessarily how she wanted.

Ivy's twin sister,  Tabitha,  is a genius mage and a professor at the Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. Ah, now we see why Ivy struggles with not being special. Her twin sister IS. Special, magical, brilliant, and, we learn, cruel to young Ivy. Because of the connection, Ivy is hired by the headmaster to solve the murder of Sylvia, a teacher who was literally torn in half in the library.

Ivy may no be magical but she's damn good at her job.  Magic eludes her so we learn along with her how things work in the here and now magical world. This isn't Hogwarts, guys. This is a regular school with hormonal teens, bullies, popular girls, teen pregnancies, etc. Except they are magic. And one of them is the Chosen One. 

Once I got past the woe-is-me Ivy (this may have something to do with the narrator? Not sure), I warmed up pretty quickly to the story itself. I suspected the who in the WhoDunIt, but not the why. One thing you get out of this book is reality: families are hard. Relationships are hard. But sometimes you need to do the hard stuff because it will eventually be worth it.

Talk by the author

The Arab of the Future

When we were all locked down thanks to COVID, I watched a lot of Instagram Live with authors and other interesting people, one of which was Mira Jacob (author of Good Talk - READ IT!). Someone asked her for either her favorite books or her current reading list (I don't remember which) and she brought up The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf. Since I want independent bookstores to survive this dumpster fire of a year, I ordered the book through Bookshop.org. Unfortunately it lingered on my shelves for a bit. Turns out a pandemic and more anxiety than normal isn't conducive for attentive reading.

Once I picked this up, I sped through it. We had some beautiful end of summer days here, so this book was my go to, with a beer, for patio reading. Riad has 4 volumes in this series and volume 2 was just delivered to me the other day. Yay!

This graphic novel leads us through Riad's childhood in the Middle East. He's French and Syrian and spends time in both countries, with both families, and he shows us through a child's eyes how bizarre and complicated adults are. His father feels his destiny is to be President, yet travels abroad to France for school to get out of required military time in Syria. There he meets Riad's mother and, after dad gets his doctorate, they end up in Gaddafi's Libya. From Riad's perspective, we see everything as crumbling, yellow, and confusing. Since private property was abolished, their house had no lock. If they all went out together, other people could take over their house and toss them out, which happened. Food lines were long with a scarcity of food. They only leave when Gaddafi orders everyone to change jobs, forcing teachers to become farmers and vice versa. Since dad was a teacher, he decides now is the time to leave.

They end up in Syria, via France, to his father's home village. One thing to notice, which I didn't realize until the end, is that the places are color coded. Libya is washed in yellow in the graphics, France is blue and Syria is red. Syria is still felt as crumbling, with bribery, segregation of the sexes, bullying cousins and grandmas that lick your eyeballs.

Volume 1 was really good, the drawing could be called cute, but there is a lot of dark humor and just darkness in general (the puppy scenes were disturbing). Well worth the read for graphic novel fans. And if you aren't a fan, try it anyway!

Interview with the author

Interview with the BBC

How to Spin a Good Yarn

 Clara Parkes is something of a guru in the knitting/crochet world. I have several of her extremely comprehensive books about yarn. When I say comprehensive, I mean it. Everything you could ever want to know about yarn or socks or processing wool, see Clara.

Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool is a small book (under 200 pages) and is eye-opening in quite a few ways. A lot of what I've learned about wool, I've learned from Clara and from experience. I have about 12 years of knitting under my belt and, while I have a better idea of what yarn is good for a project vs what really isn't, I still have much to learn.

A few years ago, I sponsored an alpaca from Montrose farms in Indiana and got the fleece. I had every intention of doing the entire yarn-making process myself....until I saw the 7lbs of fleece and just got stuck. I ended up sending it to a mill and receiving some beautiful skeins of yarn in return. What I missed out on was, well, the entire process. I ended up getting one pound of alpaca fleece to try it myself. Here's to not getting overwhelmed!

In Vanishing Fleece, Clara is the lucky recipient of a bale of fine wool (no, it wasn't a gift). This is about 400-600 POUNDS of wool. And I thought my 7 pounds of fleece was overwhelming. She decided to crowdfund finances (with gifts) to take this bale of wool from start to finish. She was able to visit the places in America who still scour, spin, and dye wool, as well as the farm with the sheep, where it all starts. Lucky her, right? And lucky us, because, though this is a small book, it's packed with her experiences and details every step of the way.

America is falling behind in wool producing. Small farms do their part, but places to process the wool are so very far and few between that it often costs more to ship wool somewhere for processing than the return on the wool itself.  Wool starts off being scoured. Cleaned of all the bits of debris and other matter so that it can move into spinning. The Bollman Hat Company in Texas is one of the only wool scouring places in the US. Clara meets up with Ladd Hughes to get a tour of the facility and to see her bale in it's cleaned up glory.

She divvies the bale up and sends them off to different mills to be spun into yarn. Kraemer Textiles, S&D Spinning Mill, Bartlett Mill and Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill each invited Clara in to watch her wool get to the next step. After that, obviously, the yarn needs color! A Verb for Keeping Warm tackles natural dyes (the Indigo process was fascinating). Since the wool spun up not quite as planned, Clara went to Spirit Trail Fiberworks to dye another batch. Jennifer Heverly, the owner and operator of Spirit Trail, has a unique way of handling the yarn and getting brilliant colors. Again, another fascinating process. The Quince and Co dyehouse is one of the final, more scientific, stops in the dye process.

I guess I'm geeky enough to have enjoyed the entire trip. If only there was a way to make this stuff my career. Hmmm.

I think it's always good to understand where the products you use, be it yarn or every day items, come from. How they are made and who they help. I sincerely hope there is a way to boost the wool producing business in the US, but with so many big companies taking their work overseas for cheap labor over quality, this is where we are. 

Take a look below for some cool links

Dyeing with Indigo

Fruity Knitting Podcast - Interview with Clara Parkes

Ladd Hughes from Bollman Hat Co.

Yeah this is where The Graveyard Shift was filmed

Bartlett Woolen

A Good Gothic

Hispanic Heritage Month is nearing it's end and, while I was determined to read more books in honor of it, I only managed to read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. But what a damn good book it was.

I got this novel as part of the Nowhere Bookstore's book club via Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess. Her book picks are phenomenal, not a miss so far. Of course, I didn't end up reading Mexican Gothic during the month it was picked because that's what I do. I flit around my stacks of books (over 1,200 books) in my house like a magpie, picking up and plucking what interests me in that moment. Once I saw Hispanic Heritage Month was coming up, I dug out Mexican Gothic from the stacks. Add in a pleasant surprise to see a signed bookplate in the book from the author! 

I'm a fan of Southern Gothic, a genre that usually has dark humor, grotesque characters, and horrific plots that take place in the American South. Think Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, etc. Mexican Gothic (the book) rides along those same genre lines, except taking place, obviously, in Mexico. Gothic is not scary, per se, it's more along the creepy/horror lines, with just enough of a touch of realism to make you know this could happen.

Noemí Taboada is a socialite, flitting around from man to man, interest to interest, while her father gets more aggravated at her inability to follow through on anything. She is set on going to University, studying anthropology, but her father just wants her married and quiet. Despite this description, I really liked Noemí. Her father sends her to High Place, when her cousin sends a bizarre letter, claiming she's held hostage there and the walls are talking to her. Her cousin, Catalina, is newly married to Virgil Doyle, a broke, bizarre, and apparently alluring man. When Noemí arrives, she's not welcomed with open arms. It's a downright cold and creepy reception.

High Place is dark and foreboding and ruled over by Howard Doyle, Virgil's father. Everyone obeys his rules except for Noemí and the youngest son, Francis. Catalina is docile and drugged and, to be blunt, weird shit is happening at High Place. Howard has an obsession with eugenics and, as such, believes Noemí is a perfect specimen. But for what?

Amid waking and sleeping nightmares, Noemí tries to save herself, Catalina and Francis from a horrific experiment at creating a perfect race.

Incredibly creepy and absolutely wonderful!

Hulu is turning this into a limited series! I'm IN!

Interview with the author

Has It Really Been Six Years?

Seems like yesterday that I read Skin Game by Jim Butcher (because it kind of was). Six years since Skin Game, we finally have Peace Talks! I got this as an audiobook and, while it took me some time to get my head back in Dresden's world, it took off at such a speed and twist that I ended up doing marathon listening sessions. I'm so glad Dresden is back. He is my literary boo.

I actually finished this mid-September and can't really say why it's taken a month to write a review. It was a long, long wait for Peace Talks and perhaps I was just savoring it. Or life just got chaotic. Either way, here we are. Harry Dresden is a wizard in Chicago. He's had 15 books prior to Peace Talks of just trying to be a wizard detective but then getting all twisted up in the evils of the Underworld. He's a good guy, just ends up in the wrong place at times. 

If you are new to Dresden, here's your backlist to catch up on. Battle Ground, book #17, came out Sept 29, 2020, so get ready!

Dresden is not just a Warden of the White Council, he's also The Winter Knight. Conflicting careers that make everyone around him doubt his morals. His half-brother is a Vampire, his granddad is one of the most powerful wizards on the Council. Harry has taken on raising (very loosely) his daughter, Maggie, with help from the Carpenters, one of which is a retired Knight of the Cross who has protection from angels. There are a lot of people in play in Peace Talks, but in the end, I think we come down to Dresden's family. Since he's an orphan, Dresden chose the people in his family and it's amazingly comforting to see how well they have his back, regardless of his conflicting obligations.

Thomas does something so weirdly unlike him that I still can't quite figure out why (hoping that makes more sense in Battle Ground). He gets in desperate trouble that puts his life on the line and Harry, knowing Thomas as well as he does, tries to get him out of it. This forces Harry to work in tandem with Thomas' half-sister Lara Raith, an even more powerful vampire and head of the White Court. He's also required by Queen Mab, the Winter Knight's boss, to perform whatever favors Lara desires as payback for another favor. Harry is in a terrible position. I say that a lot throughout the book.

Ebenezar McCoy, Harry's granddad, is a bit of an ass in this one. He's 100% against vampires and has no knowledge that Thomas is his grandson. Instead he chooses to constantly lecture Harry on how stupid he's being with his choices. McCoy even attempts to kill Harry, but there's a LOT of action leading up to that (or is there?).

So, if you think everything written above is the plot of this book, you are wrong. This turns out to just be the subplot, or a minor, plot. After the big...twist? reveal? Oh shit moment? you actually start forgetting everything that happened prior and your only concern at this point is what's next. 

Ethniu, the Last Titaness, crashes the party. And threatens to destroy Chicago and anyone who tries to stop her.

We leave Peace Talks on a cliffhanger. Dresden and company look to be in a no win situation, but it's Dresden, right? 

Dresdenverse (spoilers be here, be warned)

Harry Dresden series (just 1 season but still good!)

Trailer for Peace Talks (since when do books have trailers??)

There's Definite Improvement

 I cleaned out a bookcase on my staycation (which felt horribly like a regular workday - just without work) and found a book from Lee Child called Die Trying. Based on the bookplate inside the front cover, I've had this particular book in my possession for over 20 years. I wasn't really into Jack Reacher back then, I most likely just thought it sounded good.

Well, now that I read quite a bit of Reacher (all out of order, you know me. Wouldn't do a series any other way), I plucked this from a donation pile and read it. I can definitely say that Child has improved the Reacher character over time.

Die Trying is book number TWO in the series and it didn't feel very Reacher-y to me. But Reacher is fresh out of the military and starting his jaunt around the country. He's not.... broken in yet.  But he still has the knack for being in the wrong place at the right time.  

Reacher is just strolling through Chicago when a woman leaves a dry cleaners. She has a full load of clothes and is using a cane which causes her to trip and Reacher to jump in and assist. Being fully the gentleman, Reacher offers to carry the clothes to wherever she's going while she limps along beside him.

And then they are abducted.

From here, we get to know the woman is Holly, an FBI agent who has very close ties with higher ups in the government. Reacher is just a fortunate mistake for the kidnappers. They are taken to a compound of people who feel the government is doing them wrong and want to create their own 'Murica. (Gosh, how familiar does this sound in 2020?) Since Holly is so connected, they are using her as bait. For whatever reason, the apparently brilliant leader of the group keeps NOT killing Reacher despite knowing he's a threat. If someone like Reacher entered my compound, and kept nosing around, I'd want him gone. But... I'm not a brilliant leader of rogue 'Mericans.

Die Trying had a lot of action and was, for the most part, a satisfactory Reacher book. I think Reacher gets more stoic as the books progress so definitely read this if you want emotion from the man.

Poetry is queer really, just by nature.

Thanks to a book club, I've encountered this odd little book. Once I started it, I really wasn't sure it was my jam. But it really became my jam and I sped through it in one sitting.

I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain by Will Walton is both prose and poetry with Avery as our guide. It's as much dealing with grief as it is trying to figure things out, as a teen who is gay and wants to have sex with his best friend. With a mother who is an alcoholic. A grandfather, Pal, who drinks and then creates this hole that has to be filled.

Avery is trying to make sense of his grief in losing his grandpa, while dealing with everything else. And the everything else is, frankly, A LOT. We jump around between past and present, prose and poetry, lists and scattered thoughts. If you can keep up, you can go deep into the ride of Avery's thoughts and emotions.

Honestly, grief stays right below the surface. Eleven years have passed since I lost my dad and I still speak in present tense sometimes. It bubbles up out of nowhere at the most innocuous thing. Watching Avery try to work through his grief at Pal's death brought up emotions that I didn't expect to see. 

This isn't your ordinary book. Dive in, but don't expect a linear path.

The title of the book is from an Emily Dickinson poem:

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -

The Night the Circus Comes to Town

 “You’re not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it’s not true. You’re in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that’s enough.”

I've heard so much about The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern that I got it from the library to see what the fuss was about. While I liked it, and thought it beautiful, I remained fussless.

Celia and Marco are two magicians, who are in a competition against each other. Celia has natural magic while Marco has to work at it. They are trained by elderly magicians who apparently pit their students against each other on a regular basis. I really had nothing but distaste for the two "mentors". The black and white night circus is their battleground, so to speak, for the competition. The circus, le Cirque des Rêves, arrives unannounced all over the world, stays for a few weeks, then disappears. Each tent is a thing of beauty and marvel. 

Celia and Marco fall in love, causing a problem to the competition. I'll be honest, while they are the main characters, they were not who I cared about. The competition itself wasn't enough to interest me either, in and of itself, but the magic and the writing that brought the magic to life, did keep my interest. Poppet, Widget, and Bailey, side characters supposedly, held my interest much more. They seemed very real, very there. 

Perhaps it's because I'm not one for love stories. Everything surrounding Celia and Marco kept me going, but for Celia and Marco themselves. What is pretty cool about this book is that it was created during NaNoWriMo, an event I try to participate in before giving up by the second week. 

This truly is a beautifully written book. If you are a sucker for love stories, this will be the one for you.

NY Times Review

Interview with the author

 

It's a whole new game

Funny enough, I read Jim Butcher's Skin Game almost exactly 6 years ago (previous review here). I've been waiting OH SO PATIENTLY for #16 in the Dresden Files series and it's here!!! Since it's been six years, I wanted to re-read Skin Game to bring back all the memories.

Oh yes. Harry Dresden is my literary crush. And being thrown back into his world was just what this jacked-up dumpster fire of 2020 needed. You can read my old review for the plot. 

This go around I listened to the audiobook because James Marsters is the narrator.

Spike!

He's an excellent narrator and makes a great Dresden. I love this damn series. Onward to Peace Talks.

BTW, did you know The Dresden Files was a show as well? I found it on Amazon Prime and started re-watching. Makes me just as happy :) Most definitely not the books, but worth watching.

The Dresden Files show

Jim Butcher at Comic Con 2020

I Thought This Would Be Different

Not going to lie, when I read this was Steel Magnolias crossed with a book club that kills vampires, I was expecting something funny, light, different.

While there were some funny bits, this was heavier than I thought it would be and left me a bit upset.  Patricia is our main protagonist, a former nurse who gave up her career to help her husband's medical career (red flag 1). She stays home to raise the children and tries to get involved in her neighborhood book club. It doesn't go well since the head of the club is a wee bit uptight and, instead of being fun, it's a miserable experience for Patricia. (I've been in such book clubs). 

A few of the ladies do a break out club, reading crime novels with the occasional "normal" novel mixed in, for depth. She's got a good group of friends now and reads books she actually likes! Her husband still insists on working ungodly hours for a promotion, leaving her to essentially be a single mom. They've also taken in his mom, who has dementia, and Patricia cares for her as well. 

When Patricia is brutally attacked in front of her own home by an elderly neighbor, things change. James Harris, the elderly neighbor's "relative", comes around and Patricia is enchanted by him. Hell, everyone gets enchanted by him. Weirdly enchanted. 

Harris' appearance is around the same time black children start disappearing. Patricia, having read up on vampires, figures out what James is and tries to sound the alarm. Her husband's reaction is just outright appalling (red flag 2) as well as her friend's reactions. She's essentially on her own.

Grady Hendrix touches on systemic racism here: why else would a vampire target black children from a working class neighborhood? He shows us how lethargic the police are in responding to the missing children, how the wealthier white neighborhoods have a "Well, it's not happening HERE" attitude. 

As Patricia fights the fight, things get dark (yes, they were already dark, they get darker). I was happy with the ending and happy seeing Patricia stand up. I was less happy about the side plot of the missing black kids and their tormented parents just..... disappear. 

Ms. Greene stands large. She's the black lady who is hired by Patricia to help care for her mother in law. Ms. Greene put her life on the line when Harris attacked Miss Mary and was the pivotal person to bring the missing children to Patricia's attention. And in the end, Ms. Greene did the bulk of the dirty work. I wanted her to have more kudos, more limelight and more of the happy ending. 

In the end.... Fuck Patriarchy and Fuck Racism.

Interview with the Vampire (book author)

 

Don't Drill a Hole in Your Head

I forget who first turned me on to the Sawbones podcast (I feel like it was Science...Sort of). I love science-y facts and I especially love medical science-y facts. This is also the reason why I love Mary Roach's books so much as well. Give me medical history facts and I can annoy friends and family for DAYS.

So while I listen to the podcast on a regular basis and I knew they had a book, I still had not purchased said book until a very important event came up in my life. I volunteer and raise money every year (for the last 12 years!) for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation and normally I'm out and about hosting trivia nights, dine to donates, etc to raise the money. This year, good ol' COVID put a stop to that. The Foundation was in a pickle. If we didn't raise the funds, medication and research trials would have to stop. 

I decided to do a Zoom trivia night to raise money. But what to do? People already did some fun ones, like 80s, sports, etc.

I know! Weird Medical Trivia!

I quickly ordered the Sawbones book and got to reading. WOW. This is seriously my kind of book. I could not stop texting friends and family with "DID YOU KNOW...." texts. They were getting to where they just ignored me.

Trivia night went really well. I centered a bit around poop - I mean, we're all about the digestive diseases here - and I think people had a great time. I structured the questions in a way to be easy enough to let people gain some points as well as being informative and gross.  My friends and family got to learn about the Urine Flavor Wheel and drinking diarrhea as a test for cholera. They were impressed and disgusted. I raised money. My job was done.

Justin and Sydnee McElroy are the hosts. Sydnee is a doctor and great at researching! Justin is hilarious and always has the right thing to say.

That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it!

Interview with the McElroys

One of their live shows

We All Float Down Here....Again

This is my second time reading IT by Stephen King. The first time was roughly 8th-9th grade, lugging this gigantic 1,000+ page book around to my classrooms. When my tests/homework were done, I pulled IT out and thunked it down on my desk and started reading. (No, I wasn't popular. Why do you ask?)

The second time through was in the last several months but I listened to it via Audible, with the intent of listening to the 44 hour behemoth on my work commute. Until I was no longer allowed to commute. (Thanks COVID). Finding time at home to listen to 44 hours of Steven Weber 1000% throwing himself into the screaming and chaos of the story was rough. But once it really started rolling, I couldn't stop listening.

So there will be spoilers here, because really, this book came out in 1986, Tim Curry already graced us as Pennywise in 1990 and we have 2 more modern movies. You should have read this by now. Speaking of, do listen to Overdue Podcast's very pared down take of IT. It's hard to cover this book in such a short space.

Also, if you've seen the movies, do not brush your hands together and feel you read the book too. Not even close, bucko. We'd need at least 7 movies to cover everything in the book.

Onward.

I believe everyone knows the basic premise. Pennywise the clown terrorizes the town of Derry, Maine. Basically, he eats children. He comes around every 20 some years after resting from his feasts. In 1957 to 1958, he terrorizes the wrong children. We meet Georgie Denbrough when he chases his little paper boat down to a storm drain. He meets his grisly fate when he reaches into the grate to get his boat from Pennywise. His older brother, Bill, or Big Bill, blames himself for Georgie's death. Bill's friends, Eddie, Richie, and Stan, and later, Ben, Bev, and Mike, all experience some sort of encounter with IT, in some form. Wanting to avenge Georgie's death, they, The Loser's Club, come up with a plan to kill IT.

There are many, many, many paths to the culmination of said plan. Honestly, I think it's a great ride, so don't skimp out. Get to know the kids because soon we meet them as adults. Also, toss all your hatred at Henry and his fellow bullies. What assholes.

In 1984 to 1985, Mike is the lone Loser who remained in Derry. His job as librarian allows him to keep watch for when/if IT rises again. The Losers thought they had killed IT back in the 50's but there was a little bit of doubt left that made Mike stay. Unfortunately, he was right. IT comes back and starts feasting on the town's children. Lest you think IT just eats and leaves, you'd be wrong. IT has a terrible habit of turning people's minds, evil people do his bidding, decent people turn a blind eye to the violence happening right in front of them. IT is pure evil and Derry is its home.

Mike calls back all of the Losers because they made a vow to return if IT really wasn't dead. All but Stan return (RIP Stan) and, as they get to Derry, they start to remember everything they've forgotten. Their memories were so buried they even forgot each other.

The adult Losers go into battle once again and fully defeat IT (or do they?), but they lose Eddie in the process. Mike is seriously hurt and they are just down to a few Losers. Things do get a little weird with the Turtle and all but, still, stick with it. Because, near the end, is the punch that got me. Again.

I remembered that this book really bothered me when I first read it. No, it wasn't the clown, the deaths, the violence. It was the memories. Or the lack thereof. As the Losers got older, their memories of Derry and of their best friends were essentially wiped out. You know, memories fade as you get older. You don't always remember what it was like when you were 12. But there usually is something there.  In the case of the adults, nothing was there. Bill had even forgotten Georgie, such is the magic of Derry.

When the adult Losers battled IT, we lost Eddie. Valiant Eddie, rushing in with his asthma inhaler to save his friends. Losing an arm in the giant spider's mouth (it will make sense, just read the book) and dying, surrounded by his friends.

Who promptly forget him once IT is defeated and they move on to their regular lives. "Eddie, was it migraines or asthma he had? What was his last name again?" It's not the Loser's fault, it's the magic of the town but that was the part that punched me hard in middle school and again as an 40-something.

I believe that people don't leave us as long as they are in our memories. It's been the one thing I cling to when trying to work through grief in my life. So Eddie being so forgotten, made non-existent, broke my heart. Giving his life to save theirs didn't register to them. To them, it never happened. His body was left down in IT's sewers and Eddie, just....didn't exist.

That might be my worst fear. Dying and being completely forgotten.

(As a side note, there is another book that stokes my fear - The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Another damn good book too)

IT is well worth the time to devour. Some little paths lead nowhere, a la King, but overall it's a really great story of childhood, best friends and child-eating clowns.

Bill Skarsgard - New, Fresh IT

Tim Curry - The OG IT

IT Chapter One Trailer

1990 IT - I really need to watch this again

There was a little girl with a little curl

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate was not what I expected. Honestly, every time I think I've "met" the most horrible person, the world introduces me to another much worse. C'mon world...is that necessary?

Thankfully, in this case, we're also introduced to someone on the other end of the spectrum. But the world is still cruel. In this novel, the evil, horrible person is real. The good person is not.

Rill Foss and her family, Dad Briny, Mom Queenie, and siblings live on the river in a shanty boat. It's a terrible night when Queenie is giving birth, only to discover she's having twins and something is terribly wrong. Out of desperation, Briny takes Queenie to the hospital and tells Rill to watch over the kids. He'll be back soon.

The only person coming to the boat for Rill and her siblings is Georgia Tann (click that link, woman is EVIL), and she's there to take all of the kids to an orphanage. Filling their heads with lies about seeing their parents real soon, she gets them in the car and takes them far from their home. Rill tries to keep the kids calm, with her own promises of seeing Briny and Queenie soon. But they land in a place of unspeakable horror. I know that phrase is overused, but it's true in this situation.

Kids are abused, tortured, raped, and sold to the highest bidder. And Tann profits off all of them. Rill's family is broken up, either through adoption or death, until it's just Rill and Fern.

In between Rill's story, we are in mostly present day with Avery Stafford, a wealthy lawyer who is the favorite daughter of Wells Stafford (these names, for real), an influential Southern Senator.  How are they remotely related to Rill's story? Damn good question that took some time to answer.

Avery really didn't interest me, honestly, none of the Staffords did. Wealthy people who suddenly decided NOT to marry for influence and to march to their own (wealthy) drum usually bore me to tears. Avery is interesting in that she is the catalyst that pulls past and present together. We don't dive deep into the Staffords and for that, I am thankful.

Rill and her life, however, is horrifying and intriguing, made worse knowing it's based on facts.

Wow, No Thank You

I'm so very behind in reading the books sent to me from Nowhere Bookshop for the Fantastic Strangelings book club. Not because the books are not good, they truly are, but so are so many other books calling my name!

I signed up for the Nowhere Bookshop event where Jenny Lawson and Samantha Irby talk about Irby's new book, wow, no thank you, and just about weird things in general. It was a fun/funny event!

Irby's latest book is a series of essays so it's super simple to read one and go do dishes. Read one on your lunch then go back to work. And they are hysterical! At first, I did wonder why there was so much about poop and Irby's digestive system and I remembered before I read it, she has Crohn's Disease. I had Ulcerative Colitis, a sibling of Crohn's, and yeah, I still make a lot of poop jokes and I talk about my guts and jacked up body a lot too. I'm just not nearly as funny.

I had previously read Irby's other book We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, and again, hysterical. She brought up her first book, Meaty, in one of the essays and I feel like, yeah, I'm reading her backwards, but I'll have to read Meaty too.

While I would recommend reading all of the essays in wow, no thank you, I have to say Country Crock and A Guide to Simple Home Repairs made me laugh hard if only because I get it. Country living in a Republican state can be....different. And having your first house with all the things that can go wrong...and still go wrong... is funny when it's someone else dealing with it.

“The closer I creep toward the precipice of forty, the more time I spend listening to the same songs I listened to in high school and combing through surprisingly vivid memories of my time there, which is wild, because I did not actually have a good time being young!”

 Good stuff. Perfect for, well, right about now! Get a copy!

I didn't expect THAT

I picked up Make Me by Lee Child from my stacks prior to heading to a doctor appointment because I was thisclose to finishing another book. I could either grab a new book to start or take two books to the appointment because I refuse to sit and wait without something to entertain me!

This is #20 in the Jack Reacher series, which I constantly read out of order. It's ok to do that with these books, really. Reacher starts out making a spur of the moment decision then gets all entangled in some seriously bizarre shit. I'm super glad I'm not Reacher. I'd hate to think, "This is an interesting town, I'll get off here" and then end up in....whatever the hell this was.  Side note: Mother's Rest IS an interesting town but geez oh pete, I was not prepared for that kind of interesting.

Reacher wants to know the history behind the name Mother's Rest, a spit of a town in the middle of nowhere. He gets off the train and is immediately accosted by Michelle Chang, a hot (of course) former FBI agent, who is in Mother's Rest looking for her partner, Keever. Keever has went missing and she's hoping he just went home for a bit and was coming back. Keever called her for backup then just disappeared. We know exactly what happened to Keever from the first page, but Chang has no idea.

Reacher is apparently bored so he agrees to stay and help Change figure out the mystery of the town. There's a group of townspeople who are keeping tabs on Reacher and Chang, including the one-eyed motel manager. They are harassed and finally, literally, ran out of town. But not before Reacher kicks dudes in the balls and the head repeatedly, because that's really what he does best, right? His body count isn't as high in this book as the last I read, but he did kill one man twice.

They engage with a science reporter, Ashley Westwood, whom Keever wanted to contact, but was not able to (seeing as how he was dead). Westwood wants the book rights if there is a story so he comes along for the ride in LA back to Mother's Rest.

Once they get with Westwood's contact about the Deep Web, things get dark, very dark. We find out what is happening in Mother's Rest but it's not enough to explain what they have already encountered. Back to Mother's Rest we go. I was trying to come up with all sorts of scenarios they would run into and I was so incredibly wrong on all of them.

I'm going to assume I'm just not a dark enough person to imagine these things and that's why the twist was a real twist that surprised me. So....good job, Child! *shudder*

Link: Child really doesn't like Reacher and is happy to hand the series over to his brother to take on

Bluest Eye

I've been following the DrunkKnitter on Instagram for a bit because she's local-ish and a great knit designer. When the protests started happening against police brutality and BLM became a top news story, she started a #MKALBookClub (you can search Instagram for the hashtag). We would be reading a book and she was giving out a free mystery pattern to knit at the same time.

The book was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The pattern is Pecola.

I had The Bluest Eye in my bookcase but I had not yet read it. Once I picked it up, printed the pattern and casted on....well, the knitting went by the wayside until I got the book finished. This is Morrison's debut novel and her writing from the start is just lyrical. I kept going back to re-read passages, initially because they were beautiful, then again because they were so impactful.

We're in 1941 and Pecola, a young black girl, yearns to have blue eyes. It's one of her greatest wishes.  Pecola is constantly told that she is ugly. Her family is ugly and everyone just accepts that this is true. Pecola is sure that if she had blue eyes, she couldn't be ugly anymore.  The novel is mostly narrated by Claudia, another young black girl, with whom Pecola has to stay with when Pecola's father sets their own house on fire.

Claudia firmly believes she is beautiful. She, and so many others, use Pecola's ugliness as a way to make themselves feel better. But I think Claudia is only person to acknowledge that in the novel. Pecola's father is an alcoholic, abusive man. Her mother shows more care and affection to the white children she cares for than her own kids. Her brother has ran away too many times to count, never taking Pecola with him. Eventually, Cholly, Pecola's father, rapes her. She ends up pregnant when she is still just a child herself.

Pecola eventually gets her blue eyes....in her mind. She descends into a mental breakdown and the final chapters put us in her head as she spirals downward.

The abuse Pecola endures, not just from her family, but from her community, is almost unbearable to read about. When Pecola wishes for blue eyes, it's to achieve the beauty of "whiteness" as if only white people can be beautiful. When I started unpacking that, I honestly didn't know what to do with it. I listened to interviews by Morrison about this novel and discovered it's the same today. Whiteness is held up as a standard a beauty, even for black people, and that makes zero sense to me. I know that beauty is supposed to be a virtue in our society. You must be attractive, you must be beautiful, to be somebody, anybody.  That is now, and always was, an incredibly damaging virtue to strive for. But it's even more damaging to tell black folks that they must strive to look as white as possible to be considered beautiful.

The world is unyielding (Morrison's words) to black girls. In this novel, you feel like Pecola doesn't stand a chance, that everyone sees her drowning and no one steps in to help. Claudia and her sister seem to be the only ones who are rooting for Pecola and her baby. Everyone else takes a step back.

This was an eye opening novel. Morrison has been on my list of favorite authors since I read Beloved so I'm glad the Drunk Knitter started her book club to get us reading.

And I finally got back to the knitting and it's working up so beautifully!

I like Toni's answer. Why would she be asked this when I would bet money that white authors are not asked the same question?

The Mountains Wild - ARC

I got this copy of The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor from NetGalley as an advance reader's copy. I had a bit of trouble getting into it, it felt like the upward ride on a rollercoaster, but then came the rushing climax and twists and I was hooked.

Set in Dublin, Homicide Detective Maggie D'arcy is back when clues of her missing cousin, Erin, turn up. Erin disappeared over 20 years, along with several other woman, and when some personal belongings show up of Erin's, Maggie heads back to Dublin. The detectives are reluctant to allow Maggie to help with the investigation but eventually concede when the parents of the newest missing girl ask for her help.

We get to go back and forth, with Maggie and Erin's upbringing, Erin's volatile history and her decision to up and move to Dublin from Long Island, and Maggie's first trip to Dublin when Erin first goes missing.

Once Maggie is in the case files and starts uncovering missing information is where this really picks up. Her mind is stellar, as she puts two and two together and realizes what really happened. I think the saddest piece is where Maggie began believing that Erin was responsible for the other missing girls. Erin's history was tragic, indeed, and she made it hard for people to get close to her.

This is an excellent mystery, well worth taking the time to read.

This book will be out June 23rd! Make sure you get a copy!

The Museum of Mysteries

This will be short and sweet :)

I got The Museum of Mysteries off of Chirp Audiobooks for cheap. It's co-written by Steve Berry and MJ Rose. I've ready Steve Berry, never heard of MJ Rose. So essentially, I got it for Steve.

It was a super short audio book, about 3 hours, and I kept waiting to hear Berry's POV somewhere. In short, not a fan of this one. Based on other reviews, it sounds like I'm not the only one thinking this was short on Steve.

Here's the GoodReads synopsis:

Cassiopeia Vitt takes center stage in this exciting novella from New York Times bestsellers M.J. Rose and Steve Berry.

In the French mountain village of Eze, Cassiopeia visits an old friend who owns and operates the fabled Museum of Mysteries, a secretive place of the odd and arcane. When a robbery occurs at the museum, Cassiopeia gives chase to the thief and is plunged into a firestorm.

Through a mix of modern day intrigue and ancient alchemy, Cassiopeia is propelled back and forth through time, the inexplicable journeys leading her into a hotly contested French presidential election. Both candidates harbor secrets they would prefer to keep quiet, but an ancient potion could make that impossible. With intrigue that begins in southern France and ends in a chase across the streets of Paris, this magical, fast-paced, hold-your-breath thriller is all you’ve come to expect from M.J. Rose and Steve Berry.

Brennan is the best.

I felt like I missed something when I read this. I scrolled back through the Temperance Brennan books and didn't seem to have missed anything. But we start off with Brennan's boss being murdered and Brennan having a brain aneurysm as well as being blackballed from her job by her boss' replacement. Did I miss where all this happened?

Either way, Brennan plunges ahead on a case of a faceless corpse that is found, without being in official capacity to do so. I worried about Brennan, she seemed a bit unhinged and paranoid in this book. But it turns out she had a right to be.

Something is very off about the faceless corpse, as well as the new head honcho's description of the case. Skinny Slidell, as well as others, don't have a lot of respect for the new coroner so they help Brennan out.

The key word in the title is Conspiracy. We went deep into conspiracy theories, the dark web, podcasts spewing garbage (much like what we have today) and Brennan went DEEP.  The rabbit holes are far reaching and you'll enjoy them more discovering them on your own.

We should constantly be reminded of what we owe in return for what we have.

Back in January, Masterclass had an all access pass on sale for all of their classes. I bought it, thinking 2020 was going to be my year of learning and change.

Oh hindsight. You so funny.

Since I've been stuck at home for over 2 months, I have delved into Masterclass classes and discovered Doris Kearns Goodwin had a class on Leadership (viewed through FDR, Johnson, etc). Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian and I remembered being interested in her interviews on The Daily Show (The Jon Stewart version). But I never read any of her books.

I'm halfway through her class and decided to see if the library had any e-books available (I miss going to the library the most). I ended up with No Ordinary Times as an audiobook. I really enjoyed it. I knew little about FDR and Eleanor, really just the basics.

This book covers their relationship and the US's entrance into WWII. We learn a great deal about how Eleanor basically wrote the book on how modern (most modern) First Ladies would act: the causes they take on, the public appearances, and their dedication to America. In this case, Eleanor also had to act as an FDR proxy when the President could attend in person. Paralyzed by polio, he relied on Eleanor to report back to aid in his decision making.

I would say they were a great team.... and they were, but affairs and such always cause problems. The Roosevelt's were no exception.

FDR did a lot in his unprecedented four terms as President (term limits were set shortly after). His fireside chats, the New Deal, helping our allies defeat Hitler, etc. Eleanor was no slouch either in the human rights arena.

It's very interesting to compare the past Presidential decisions, Congressional decisions as well, to current day. It's also interesting to know that the New Deal was protested against, but is common day now. It's also interesting to compare the current COVID stimulus with the New Deal as well.  History is just damn interesting.

FDR - Fireside chat

Fast Facts about Eleanor

Once In A....

Here's another review I swore I wrote, but, in reality, I just discussed it with a friend. Am I losing it? Probably. I both need to interact with people and do not want to be around people. What strange times.

I quite like Jack Reacher, even if his circumstances are a bit unbelievable. In book #24, Reacher sees an old man, with an envelope full of money, fall asleep on a bus. He also spies a rapscallion who is eyeing the envelope. When the old man gets off at his stop, so does the rapscallion. And so does Reacher.

Reacher thwarts a robbery and, in his insistence on helping the old man home, is now eyebrows deep in gangsters and mafia goings on. How does he do this?

The old man is actually using the money to pay back a loan shark, and, for some reason, Reacher decides to act as the old man to get more info. We get the back story on why this old couple hits up mafia loan sharks in the first place (it feels slightly incredulous) and it must hit Reacher's sympathy bone, because he stays on to help them out.

A waitress comes along for the ride in taking down all of the mafia. Again...what?

If you disregard the credibility of such a story and you choose to go on the ride without thinking, this is an excellent book with an abnormal amount of violence, even for Reacher.

This is our story

I'm surprised I didn't write a review for Ashley Elston's book This is Our Story. I felt like I did. Maybe I just wrote it in my head and never actually put fingers to keyboard.

Today is a beautiful day in the Midwest. Windows are open, sounds of people out in their yards floating in. It's a great change of pace from the locked up (safe at home) dreary days of the past 2 months. I hope everyone is well and staying healthy.

I think this book was recommended by the Book Riot podcast but darned if I can find it! Either way, it was a pretty good story as listened via audiobook through the library. I'm fairly certain it's a YA book as the main characters are High Schoolers and, while the plot was more adult, it felt young.

Kate Marino is a senior and works as an intern at the DA's office (where her mom works). The River Point Boys are a group of five super wealthy and, naturally, handsome boys. They go into the woods for a hunting party, but only four boys come out. Who killed Grant? None of the boys are talking. And being from wealthy families, they don't have to.

Mr. Stone, the DA, ends up with the case and is ordered to get the boys off since the families are such good donors. Sad, but true. Mr. Stone, however, along with Kate, decide to dig in and see if they can get enough evidence to prosecute Grant's killer.

As Kate digs in, we find that Grant is a not so stellar guy and several people actually had motive to get rid of him.

I read it too long ago to remember a lot of the details but while it's called a thriller, I don't think that's true. It's a good mystery, a little unbelievable that a teenage girl gets as far as she does, but was fun to listen to and I ended up bingeing the last bit for the Whodunit.

Interview with the author

The Big 3-0!

Not me, silly. I'm about hjkashsk years past that.

John Sandford's new Lucas Davenport book is out and it's the 30th in the series. How is this even possible? I mean, Davenport has aged, sure, but he's still one of the best characters out there. I will admit, I was worried since the last few books that the Davenport we knew and loved was gone and a new, post-gunshot Davenport was here to stay.

Masked Prey brings back Davenport. Where the law is the law, until it isn't.

I can't imagine where Sandford picked up his neo-Nazi, white supremacist plot line (plucked straight from the headlines of 2019?) but it was something we're familiar with, unfortunately, now in this new realm.  Someone has created a 1919 website showing photos of senator's children with neo-Nazi articles. The implication? Go out and kill the kids.

Lucas is brought in by Henderson and Smalls to work with Jane Chase of the FBI to get this figured out before any kids get killed. Once again, Davenport's thought process, his leaps of intuition, brings us to a unlikely culprit that causes a angry, white man to get up his guns and start hunting kids.

At first, I thought the ending was anti-climatic and wasn't very happy. But the thrill is in the chase, and the chase took us on some crazy-ass roads that led us to a showdown. Was Lucas outside the law? Yeah. But I can't fault him.

You can't go wrong with John Sandford's novels. I consider him a GD National Treasure!

Video interview with John Sandford

Sometimes I wish I played video games

Not really. Video games of any kind have never really snagged my interest, for the same reason TV and movies haven't either. I prefer reading. When faced with downtime (prior to COVID-19, that was rare. Now, I have so much down time....), I would always grab a book, newspaper, or magazine and sit down and read.

Five Nights at Freddy's The Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthorn and Kira Breed-Wrisley has made me vow to never play video games. I got this book from a friend and it really kept my attention but also really made me remember how much I hated the Showbiz Pizza animatronic band (really, any giant person-in-an-animal-suit ~ looking at you Chuck E. Cheese). Those creeped me out so much and this book is full of them. Except, in this case, they are killers too.

6 minutes of creepy

A group of kids return to Hurricane, UT to attend a memorial for one of their classmates, Michael. Michael was snatched and presumed killed when the kids were 7 years old and, 10 years later, Michael's parents are setting up an award in his name. Charlie, whose father owned the pizzeria where Michael disappeared, is struggling more so than the others. Her father killed himself (in a rather weird way) and her visit to their old house brings back memories that she had forgotten.

As Charlie starts remembering her past, well, things get stranger than you thought they could.

Charlie and her group of friends go searching for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza for kicks but in up getting much more than some shits and giggles. This book goes all out creepy and somewhat gory, but seems suitable for hardier kids. I might be overstating it because I have no idea what the video game is like, but if you like creep and jump scares, you'll like this. All in all, we do not have many murders so the gore-level is low while the creep factor is high.

*shudder*

Sometimes I need help

I finished reading the second book in the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. Sometimes, I really wish there was an easy graphic to help explain who the characters are. I feel that fantasy and sci-fi have such creative names that I tend to get lost on who is who.

It didn't help that I had read the first book so long ago.

Either way, I still like this series! I felt this was a bit draggy. We knew early on the Elend (now King Ruler) and his kingdom were about to be attacked and taken over and, while there was action to be had, it took awhile to resolve that issue. "Issue" she says, like having your city invaded is just an issue.

Vin is still the mighty assassin, out to protect Elend, king AND lover. But we enter Zane. Another Mistborn who is trying to convince Vin that Elend is using her and Mistborns should be free to....kill at will? I admit, this part was confusing.

A spy has infiltrated the inner sanctum and everyone is suspecting everyone. Or, not. Because everyone but Vin seems highly unconcerned about this. Honestly, I think it was one plot point too many to keep track of for the characters. They were worried about defending their city!

Elend's own father is one of the leaders at his door trying to steal everything. As much as Elend tries to reason with him, it's not to be.  Towards the end is where the action ramps up, with literally everything happening and dissolving and truths becoming known. It was hard to keep up with but I quite enjoyed it!

I am hoping to grab the next one before I forget everything I just read.


This will be cool as SHIT if they make this happen!

Mistborn movie

She's not completely fine. Neither am I.

I finished Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman back in early March. I didn't write a review right off and then, it seems, our world has fallen into a weird, scary, confusing place. I spent the last few weeks unsure and waiting. Waiting to see what happens with COVID-19, waiting to be told what to do. Because, I sure as hell didn't know. How do I keep my mom and sister safe? Should I work remote? Will that be seen as extreme?

And here we are. Week 1 of pretty-much mandatory working remote, not seeing my family and friends as much, not getting hugs from my mom. I'm scared to death of what might still happen but I'm trying to stay in a pattern. Some normalcy. I've been able to get groceries, able to get meds, visited my family from a safe distance, but mostly stayed at home. At first, I was too anxious to read or knit. Then I switched off the TV and my anxiety decreased a bit. I'm keeping up on the news through newspapers now, real and online, but trying to avoid social media a bit (except for Mark's daily dance party which is NEEDED right now).

I'm nearing the end of The Wells of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson and am going to use this downtime to keep up on my reading and writing. I've written in my journal nearly every day because we're living in a historical period right now.

Back to Eleanor and why this woman is NOT fine. Right off the bat, you know something isn't quite right. She drinks alone, in her apartment, just enough to keep her lightly drunk from Friday to the start of Monday until she goes back to work to get through the weekend. She's seemingly uptight, precise about everything, and has a lot of reasons on why she looks down on so many people.

Then she meets Raymond. An IT guy who comes to work on her computer at the office, he somehow takes a liking to her. He's described as sloppy and unhygienic by Eleanor but honestly, being in IT myself, I think that Raymond is just a regular IT dude. Raymond is key in helping Eleanor, she just doesn't realize it yet.

Eleanor falls for a local musician, and she falls hard. It was painful reading how she researched (aka stalked) him, how she changed herself for him (but never met him), how her life revolved around a man she never met, while ignoring who was really in her life. Her weekly talks with Mummy were also painful.

Things spiral out of control, Eleanor is not fine, and she finally recognizes her life for what it is. This truly was a great novel, painful on occasion to read, but you can't help but cheer Eleanor on towards a more rewarding life, with people who really do care for her.

Gail Honeyman talks about the novel

An Interview with Gail Honeyman