#just like my winter list i did write ever review immediately after finishing the book and i think.

[peachscribe]

peach’s summer book list

i had a lot of fun compiling the list of books i read during the 20-21 winter, so i decided i would do a summer one as well! i still have a lot of books i own but haven’t read, so im definitely not lacking in material

if you didn’t see my winter list, how my book list works is basically like this: i read a book that i own but have not previously read, write a short summary immediately after finishing the book, write down my thoughts on the book, and then provide a rating for the book. i also might include background info on why i read this particular book/feelings about the author, but that depends on the book. that’s how each entry works

without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

okay so i absolutely adore another book by andrew smith (written after grasshopper jungle) called the alex crow. it’s one of my favorite books of all time, so naturally i wanted to see if grasshopper jungle would make me feel similarly. just like the alex crow, grasshopper jungle’s plot is. so fucking weird. it stars austin szerba, a teenage polish kid who lives in ealing, iowa, and is often sexually confused regarding his girlfriend shann and his best friend robby. and in ealing, iowa, austin and robby accidentally and unknowingly unleash an unstoppable army of huge six-foot-tall praying mantis bugs that only want to do two things: fuck and eat. and i just have to say: andrew smith’s got an absolutely dynamo writing style. alex crow is similar, where it’s a book about kind of everything all at once, framed in a moment centering around teenage boys. it’s fantastic, and it’s more than a little gross, and i love it. this book made me feel so many things, and i thought austin was such an amazing narrator and main character to identify with. this book has it all: shitty teenage boy humor, fucked up science experiments, and poetic imagery that will make you want to cry. and explicit lgbt characters.

412/10 andrew smith what do you put in your water i just want to know

2. Burn by Patrick Ness

patrick ness has written a plethora of some of my favorite books (such as a monster calls, the chaos walking trilogy, and the rest of us just live here) so when i saw this one in the store i knew it would be a great one. burn is an alternate history fantasy that takes place in 1957 frome, washington, during the height of the cold war, and it begins with a girl named sarah and her father hiring a dragon to help out on their farm. but there’s not just dragons, farm living, and cold war tensions; there’s also a really shitty small town cop, a cult of dragon worshippers and their deadly teenage assassin, a pair of fbi agents, and a prophecy that sarah’s newly hired dragon claims she’s a part of. i think eoin colfer’s highfire was on my winter list, which also featured a story that included dragons and shitty cops, so when i first began burn i thought it was funny to have two books that had both things. you know, if you had a nickel etc etc. but that’s really where the similarities end because burn is entirely it’s own monster (dragon). burn is entirely invested in its world, and its fascinating. not only that, i had no clue where the book would take me next. there were so many surprises and amazing twists that honestly just blew me away. this book also includes beautifully written complicated discussions on family, race, and love - it features interracial and queer romances as the two most prominent romance plots which was such a nice surprise from a book i wasn’t expecting to have that kind of representation. this book is witty, fast-paced, and a very heartening read - i absolutely adored it.

9/10 dragons and becoming motivated by the power of love and friendship are so fucking cool

3. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

i hate this book! as meat loves salt is a historical fiction novel which takes place in seventeenth century england, which is going through a grisly civil war. the protagonist, jacob cullen, is a servant for a wealthy household and is engaged to another servant in the house. but due to certain events that are almost entirely jacob’s fault, he flees the house and is separated from his wife. from there, he joins the royal army and meets a kind soldier, ferris, and the two become fast friends. jacob and ferris’s relationship begins to bridge past friendly, and jacob struggles with his homoerotic feelings as well as the growing obsession and violence inside him. also, they try to start a colony. listen, i don’t know how to describe the book because so much happens, but it basically just follows jacob and all the terrible decisions he makes because he is, truly, a terrible person. ferris is kind and good, and jacob is scum of the earth. he sucks so bad. the entire time i was reading this book (which took absolutely so long), all i wanted was for jacob to just get his ass handed to him. i wanted to see him suffer. and it’s not like i just personally don’t like him - i believe the book purposefully depicts him as unsympathetic even though he is the narrator. i did enjoy the very in depth and accurate portrayal of what life would’ve been like in seventeenth century england, and i think it was interesting to read a character that is just the absolute worst person you’ve ever encountered and see him try and justify his actions, so if you enjoy that kind of thorough writing, then this book would be perfect for you. however, i did not see that bitch ass motherfucker jacob cullen suffer enough. i’d kill him with my bare hands.

2/10 diversity win! the worst man on earth is mlm!

4. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

i know ive had a friend tell me how great one of schwab’s other book series is, but truthfully i bought this book because the cover is sick as hell and it was on a table in the store that advertised for buy two get one free, i think. something like that. anyway, this savage song takes place in a future in which monsters, for whatever reason, suddenly became real and out for blood in a mysterious event nicknamed the phenomenon. august flynn is one of these monsters, but he takes no pride in that fact and only wants to feel human. kate harker is the daughter of a ruthless man and is trying her hardest to be ruthless, too, but deep down she knows it’s just an act. their city, verity, stands divided, and kate and august stand on either side - but when august is sent on a mission to befriend kate in the hopes of stopping an all out war, the lines begin to blur. this book rules. august and kate are such interesting and dynamic characters, and the narrative is familiar while still being capable of twisting the story around and taking the feet out from under you in really compelling ways. this savage song is part of the monsters of verity duology, and i can’t wait to dive into how the story continues and finishes.

11/10 sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover

4a. Our Dark Duet by Victorian Schwab

this is the sequel and finale for this savage song and i’d figure i’d update everyone: fantastic ending, beautiful, showstopping, painful.

12/10 loved it and will definitely be keeping an eye out for schwab’s other books

5. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

oh boy. okay. white is for witching is about a house, and it is about the women who have lived inside of it. when her mother dies abroad, miranda silver begins to act strangely, and there’s nothing her father or her twin brother seem to be able to do about it. she develops an eating disorder and begins to hear voices in the silver family house, converted to a bed and breakfast by miranda’s dad; and she begins to lose herself in the house and the persistent presence of her family legacy. white is for witching switches perspective dizzingly and disorientingly between miranda, her twin eliot, miranda’s friend from school named ore, and the house itself. this story is a horror story as much as it as a tragedy as much as it is a romance as much as it is a bunch of other things. oyeyemi brings race, sexuality, nationality, and family into this story and forces you not to look away. this book is poetry.

(like i mentioned briefly, this book heavily deals with topics of race and closely follows miranda’s eating disorder. read responsibly, and take care of yourselves)

15/10 this book consumed me and i think i’ll have to read it another 10 more times to feel it properly

6. These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

okay. okay. strap in for a ride. these violent delights is a romeo and juliet style story, taking place in glittering 1920’s shanghai. the city stands divided - not only between the foreign powers encroaching on chinese land, but also between the scarlet gang and the white flowers, who are at the height of a generations-long blood feud. juliette cai, heir to the scarlets, has recently returned from four years abroad and is determined to prove herself ruthless enough to lead. roma montagov, heir to the white flowers, is standing strenuously on his place as next in line due to a slip up four years prior and is desperate to keep hold of his title. and in the midst of juliette and roma’s burning history with each other threatening to combust, an unnatural monster lurks in the waters of shanghai, loosing a madness on scarlets and white flowers alike. this book has it all - scorned ex lovers, political intrigue, deadly monsters, and all set on a glamorous backdrop of the roaring twenties. i absolutely was enraptured by this book and the way it plays around the story of romeo and juliet so well that it easily became it’s own monster, but with the punches and embraces of something classically shakespearan. gong does just an absolutely breathtaking job of fitting this fantastical story amid the larger world of shanghai and the real life historical events that had shaken the city to its core. completely immersive and outstandingly heart racing.

17/10 i was chewing on my fingernails for the last thirty pages and will continue to do so until the sequel is released (our violent ends, 16 nov 21)

7. The Antiques by Kris D’Agostino

you ever heard of the american dysfunctional family story? this is most definitely that. at the same time george westfall’s cancer takes a turn for the worse, a hurricane hits the east coast, and suddenly all at once the issues of his health, the hurricane, and all three of his children’s achingly dysfunctional adult lives are crashing into each other. reunited by george’s death, the westfall siblings have to face their grief, each other, and the problems in their own lives they attempted to put on hold while planning their father’s memorial. this is a nice story about grief and loss and love and somehow finding the humor amidst it all.

(this book does include a depiction of an autistic child who does experience several pretty bad meltdowns due to ignorant people around him not understanding how to cater to his needs. im not an authority on what depictions are or are not harmful, but i do believe this depiction is ultimately loving and well-intended.)

7/10 it made me laugh and cry and was generally one of those books that somehow hit you close to home

8. Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill

fierce fairytales is a poetry anthology that reimagines classic fairytales from a modern, feminist viewpoint, acknowledging that the line between hero and villain, monster and damsel, are not as clear cut as the classics try to make you believe. this book also includes illustrations done by the author herself, which i think is really cool. my personal favorite story reimagining was the story of peter pan and captain hook, called ‘boy lost’ which looked at how peter and hook’s relationship began and rotted. all in all, i think this collection of stories had a lot of important things to say and said them in frank, easy to understand poetry and prose.

7/10 beautiful message and pretty prose, but at times a little cliche

and that’s all from the summer! my fall semester starts tomorrow, and overall i feel very good about all the reading i did this summer. i even read four other books not on this list for work! so i definitely feel like i made the most out of my time, and im really glad i was able to read so many stories that made me feel a variety of different things

thanks so much for reading this list, and let me know if you read or have read any of these books and tell me what you think of them!

happy reading<3

#book recs #book rec #book rec list #grasshopper jungle #burn #as meat loves salt #this savage song #monsters of verity #white is for witching #these violent delights #the antiques #fierce fairytales #just like my winter list i did write ever review immediately after finishing the book and i think. #i think here you can really tell what my immediate reactions were based on how the review is written fbfjfjd

[ghstandpucks]

Nothin’ Like You ~ Cale Makar

In honor of reaching over 200 followers, here is a song fic based on Dan and Shay’s Nothin’ Like You. I have a few requests in my inbox that I will be working on. If you have any, feel free to send them in using this prompt! Thank you for 200!!!

Master List

I remember when I first met you Sipping coffee in a corner booth You were twirling your hair And I just had to stare For a minute or two

Cale was with Tyson and J.T. after practice one Wednesday afternoon. The three of them decided to stop and get some coffee as it was a cold winter day outside. They were waiting in line talking about something E.J. had said earlier that day when Cale’s eyes landed on you in the back corner by a window. You had a cup of coffee and were staring at your laptop, completely oblivious to the world around you. He couldn’t help but stare as you wound and un-wound a strand of hair around your finger, every so often stopping to type something. Tyson kept talking as J.T. realized their defenseman was completely distracted by something. Following his line of sight, he chuckled. “See something you like? Or someone?” he chirped his teammate. Cale started to turn red as he looked away from you.

“I thought maybe I knew her,” he muttered. Tyson had stopped his monologue and was paying attention also now. He looked over as you had your head buried in a book, slowly typing something out.

“How did she carry all those books?” he asked with a slight laugh. Cale had noticed the numerous books you had scattered around the table. Didn’t people just do their research online now? “You like studious girls Makar?” Tyson elbowed him.

I was laughing at your stack of books Then you shot me that smile Hey beautiful girl, in your own little world Let me in it

“Man shut up,” Cale said turning on his friend. Unknowingly to them though, you had actually heard all the commotion. It was why you enjoyed doing your research in coffee shops; the garbled noises made it easier for you to concentrate. This doesn’t mean that you had heard what they said exactly, but who could really miss three hockey players walking into a small coffee shop in the middle of the week.

You looked up right as Cale was glancing back over at you. As you locked eyes, you sent him a shy smile and looked back down, trying to focus on your work again. Of course you knew who they were, all of Denver practically did. You were just an overstressed grad student with too many deadlines coming up though; he was probably just looking around the place.

The three of them ordered their coffees, and Cale noticed that you had looked sadly at your cup after taking a sip. He walked up to the counter and got the attention of the barista. “What did that girl in the corner order?” he asked, and was told it was a caramel latte. “I’ll take one of those too,” Cale said, paying for a second coffee. J.T. gave Tyson a look before he could say anything as they watched Cale walk over to you with two coffee cups.

You got all of my attention And you ain't even trying Yeah, you're my kind of different And I never seen nothin'

Nothin' like you

“Um hi. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought you could use this,” Cale said, announcing his presence at your table. You looked up, slightly startled as you had been engrossed in a thought you had while typing out your research. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he chuckled nervously.

“No, you’re fine! Sorry, I had a train of thought going,” you sputtered out just as nervous as him. “Thank you, that’s very kind. What do I owe you?” you asked, instinctively reaching for your wallet. Cale shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, trying to think of what the guys on the team might say in this situation. “Your number maybe?” he made a face like he couldn’t believe he just said that, and you couldn’t help but giggle.

“Um, sure, yeah,” you squeaked out, writing your number on a piece of notebook paper and ripping it out to give to him. “I’m Y/N,” you introduced yourself.

“Cale,” he said, taking the paper from you. He was about to ask what you were doing when Tyson called out to him.

“Makar, are you coming?” Cale turned toward his friends who had big, goofy grins on their faces watching the interaction. You blushed slightly at the thought of others watching you.

“I’m sorry. I’ll text you,” he stuttered out, putting your number into his pocket. You smiled softly at him and nodded.

“Thanks for the coffee,” you said and he smiled at you.

“My pleasure.”  

Shades on spinning in a summer rain Dancing when there ain’t no music Just the right kind of crazy, baby

           Cale had texted you like he said he would that same evening. You honestly weren’t expecting it, but felt completely giddy when you saw the unknown number and read his message. He explained that he would be gone on a road trip with the Avs for the next week, but would like to take you to dinner when he got back. You accepted and plans were made; the two of you talking regularly throughout the week getting to know each other better.

           The Avs returned home on Thursday, and a few hours later Cale was at your apartment knocking on your door. He had brought you flowers and you couldn’t help but smile at the kind gesture. The two of you made your way to dinner, talking the whole time. He had just finished telling you a funny story from the trip, beaming at the giggle he had enticed from you when your food arrived. As you looked down at your plate, you started moving your head and shoulders in an excited fashion. “Are you dancing?” Cale questioned you with a chuckle. You stopped immediately.

           “Oh my gosh, sorry. I tend to have a happy dance with food. It’s a weird family thing. I don’t even realize I do it until it’s pointed out to me,” you rambled on, face turning red. Cale shook his head.

           “Don’t be sorry. I though it was cute,” he said in a low tone. You smiled and giggled nervously; Cale deciding then and there that he wanted to continue seeing that smile for as long as you would let him.  

Something about you Rocking that rock 'n roll t-shirt Whole party dressed up But you just doin’ your thing Ain't nobody ever seen nothin' like you

           You were working on your research the following Friday night, having the game on in the background. Cale had taken you out to dinner once more since your first date, and the two of you had been nonstop texting. The Avs had won, Cale scoring that night. After the game you were about to text him a ‘congratulations’ when your phone started to ring, the caller ID showing it was him. “Congratulations!” you said as you answered and heard him chuckle on the other end of the line.

           “Thanks Y/N. Hey, what are you doing tonight?” he asked, and you heard a few wolf whistles behind him with muttered ‘shut ups’ coming from the defenseman.

           “I’ve just been working on my research since I got out of class earlier. Why?” you asked, trying not to laugh.

           “Come out with us. We’re all going out to celebrate,” he said in a more hushed tone, and you could imagine him trying to avoid the whole locker room from hearing.

           “Cale, I would love to but I’m not dressed to go out,” you said.

           “Who cares. Please? I would like you to come,” he pleaded with you ever so slightly. You looked down at your outfit, deciding it wouldn’t take much to put on some jeans quickly. Your Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt didn’t look terrible at least.

           “Text me the address,” you said into the phone, and you could hear the excitement in Cale’s voice as he said he would.

When you're wearing them worn out jeans Purple untied shoestrings You're a light in the dark And you're stealing my heart like a gypsy

           Showing up to the bar, you became a little self-conscious. Maybe you should have changed? The second Cale spotted you though, he thought you were the most beautiful girl in the room. The front of your band tee was tucked into your ripped black jeans, your white converse showing years of wear as they were no longer exactly white and the shoelaces were frayed at the ends. Cale knew you were probably stressed with your research, and yet you still had the softest smile and a sparkle in your eyes when you found him in the crowd. “You made it,” he whispered into your hair as he hugged you close. He felt you giggle into his chest.

           “Couldn’t let you down,” you answered simply. Cale smiled at you and took your hand, leading you over to a table where some of the team was sitting.

           “Coffee shop girl!” A slightly tipsy Tyson shouted.

           “Oh my God,” Cale muttered as you giggled. You were introduced to everyone as you took a seat between Cale and someone he called Gravy.

           “So what is your research on?” Gabriel Landeskog asked when you said you were a grad student at the University of Denver.

           “The archaeology of Zoroastrianism,” you said, and caught many blank stares.

           “Zoro what?” Andre asked.

           “It’s an ancient Persian religion. Today’s modern practices of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have common ties to it,” you briefly explained.

           “Wait, that was the religion Freddie Mercury practiced,” Sam Girard commented, looking interested. You nodded.

           “That’s how most people have heard of it now,” you responded.

           “What is your research trying to say about it?” he asked.

           “So I’m basically writing a big literature review to make sure it is preserved in the archaeological record. It was the first dualistic religion in a time where civilizations had their pantheons to believe in. It spread with the Persian conquest, but no one they conquered was ever forced to convert to it. Now it’s a rare religion to come across, and their numbers keep getting smaller. With it being one of the oldest organized religions, it needs to be preserved and the traditions documented before we lose it all through modernization attempts.” To you, your explanation was simple and one that you had said many times whenever asked what you were studying. It seemed you had impressed the table though, and you slightly blushed as a few questions started flying your way. You didn’t notice Cale softly smiling at you while you talked about a topic that you loved so much; he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. His teammates noticed though, and boy were they going to give it to him at practice.    

I love the way that you kiss me In front of everybody So baby come and kiss me They ain't ever seen nothin'

Nothin' like you

           The following day at practice, the guys were giving Cale crap for how head over heels he seemed for you. The fact he hadn’t kissed you yet was another source of ridicule. Everyone who had met you ended up adoring you within the time span that you spent with them at the bar; and they could easily see that their defenseman was taken by you as his cheeks would turn red at the mention of your name. They were all happy for him, but that didn’t mean the chirping would stop.

           They had another home game to play the following day, and Gabe convinced Cale to invite you and have you sit with Mel and Linnea. Later that day Cale went to your apartment and handed you his jersey, asking you to be there for the game. You couldn’t say no to him, not that you wanted to anyways. That Sunday you put on the jersey and headed to the stadium. Meeting Mel at the front, you quickly got along and enjoyed the game. The Avs came out victorious again, and you followed the captain’s wife to the locker rooms. You stepped aside as Gabe made his way over to his wife, feeling a little out of place. Luckily for you, Cale wasn’t far behind.

           He didn’t know if it was from the guys comments or seeing you in his jersey, but one second he was smiling widely at you, then the next his lips were on yours and his hands on your waist. Without a second thought, you kissed him back, your hands holding his face to yours. You were both grinning ear to ear as you separated, chirps flying all around but all in good nature. Giggling, you hid your face in Cale’s chest as his face turned bright red.

Shades on spinning in a summer rain Dancing when there ain’t no music Just the right kind of crazy, baby Something about you Rocking that rock 'n roll t-shirt Whole party dressed up But you just doing your thing Ain't nobody ever seen nothin' like you, yeah

           A year had passed and you were at the end of your grad program. You were set to present your research at the graduate fair, having been selected to present your research on behalf of your department. The Avs were scheduled to be flying back home that day, but Cale wasn’t sure if he would be there in time to see you present. You told him that it was fine, that you understood; and you really did. He was hell bent on making it though. You weren’t that surprised when you saw Cale sneaking into the back of the auditorium. What did surprise you was that half the team had followed him in. Having become good friends with them, they wanted to be there to support you too. As your name was announced, you swear you had the loudest applause.

           You calmly presented your research, smiling at Cale when you finished and a few questions were thrown your way. Having worked so hard, the questions were simple to answer. Finding Cale afterward, he took your poster from you and the two of you made your way to his apartment so he could unpack from the trip. Changing into some leggings and one of his shirts, you showed him the bound copy of your 105 page thesis. He was so proud of you and couldn’t help but share the cover on his Insta story. The two of you cuddle and slept better that night then you had in a while. For him it was being back home with you, and you finally had the stress of your research gone since the first time you met him.  

Nothin' like you Shades on spinning in a summer rain Dancing in the rain no music Nothin' like you Rocking that rock 'n roll t-shirt Whole party dressed up But you just doing your thing Ain't nobody ever seen nothin' like you, yeah

           Once you graduated, Cale asked you to move in with him. You had secured a job at a museum as a curator in their Antient History section. Setting up an exhibit all morning, you met up with Cale at the same coffee shop you had met at two years prior later that day. “Sorry I’m late” you muttered to Cale as you found him. He smiled and gave you a quick kiss.

           “You have nothing to be sorry about. I already put your order in,” he said as you sat across from him, taking a sip of the coffee he got you.

           “You know me so well,” you hummed with a giggle, the caramel latte tasting sweet. Cale grinned at you.

           “Technically, your coffee order was the first thing I learned about you, so I better get that right,” he chuckled. “That and you seemed like a huge nerd.” You faked offense, but laughed anyway.

           “It was all those books that got you. I knew my tactic of sitting in a coffee shop would work for me one day,” you winked at him.

           “It did. I’d never seen nothing like you,” he grinned, reaching into his pocket to take out a small velvet jewelry box.

Never seen, never seen nothin' like you Ain't never seen anything like you Mmm Never seen nothin' like you

Tagging: @yeahcalesy @avsfans95  @tysojost​ 

#nhl imagines #nhl x reader #nhl fic #nhl fanfiction #cale makar imagine #cale makar x reader #colorado avalanche imagine #nhl imagine

[thetypedwriter]

Cold Iron Heart Book Review

Cold Iron Heart by Melissa Marr Book Review 

I don’t think many people are aware or have read the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr, but that’s alright. I originally started this book blog as I had so many thoughts and feelings about the books I was reading and yet no one to share them with. 

So I might be talking to me, myself and I in this book review, but at the end of the day, it’s still a way for me to express how I feel about the literature I’m consuming even if no one else is reading this. 

Wicked Lovely is one of my favorite series from when I was young. I still remember very clearly how my love story with these books started as it was odd and coincidental. I was at the grocery store with my mom and a promised “quick” trip quickly turned into an hour-long shopping spree as my mother was prone to do. 

Back then I was in middle school, had no cell phone, and was bored out of my mind. So what is any pre-teen to do? I went over to the small, sad book selection in the grocery story and picked up the novel with the most interesting cover. 

This book was Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. 

I read it the rest of the day and finished it that night, consuming page after page. I was completely transfixed. It was dark, gritty, violent, sexy-all things that my twelve-year old self found entirely fascinating. 

It was a fantasy book about fairies, but these fairies were deadly, life-sized, cruel, violent, beautiful and loving. 

I’ve been enamored with fairies and fairy lore ever since. All because of this book and the series that followed. It hooked me in ways that I still don’t fully comprehend, but I understood then that I hadn’t read anything like it before and I was drawn into Melissa Marr’s world and never quite left it, even all these years later. I’ve gone back and re-read Wicked Lovely multiple times and each time I still found it enjoyable and alluring. 

Cold Iron Heart is a different beast. 

A few days ago, my best friend (who is a journalist) sent me an email saying that local Arizona author, Melissa Marr, was releasing a new book and that she might have the opportunity to interview her. 

I was ecstatic, of course, and not so subtly tried to persuade my friend to let me silently snoop in on the interview (I didn’t, by the way). 

It was then that I realized I hadn’t checked in on Melissa Marr for some time-what had she been writing? Imagine my surprise that one of my favorite series of all time not only had a new book-a prequel no less, but also several new short stories. 

I was flabbergasted. And beyond excited. 

So I ordered the book immediately and read it the moment it arrived on my doorstep to eventually find myself with...mixed feelings with a negative tinge. Okay, more than a tinge, more like a cascading waterfall of negative feelings. 

First off, the book is a prequel. 

Now. Melissa Marr could have done so many cool things with this. There are so many interesting characters that I would have loved to see more in depth or delve into their histories. 

Like Miach and Beira, for example. I’ve heard about the late Summer King since book 1, but never got to read about him as he was dead before the series began. However, his legendary love with Beira, the Winter Queen, would have been so incredibly bewitching to read about it, especially if it involved the birth of Keenan. 

This would have been an awesome choice. 

Irial and Niall would have been another incredible one, probably the best one. We’ve been told over and over again throughout the series that these two hot-heads with a past used to run the Dark Court together, wreaking havoc, taking lovers, seeking new heights, etc. 

But do we get to see this transfixing time? Nope. 

I would even have settled for a story about the Hunt, Sorcha and Bannanach, literally any character done in the right way. 

But...no. Melissa Marr decides to write a prequel that is literally a carbon copy of the first book Wicked Lovely, but innumerably worse. 

Everything in the prequel is exactly the same as the original novels. Miach is dead, Keenan is looking for his Summer Queen, the Winter Girl is pissed off for not being the chosen love of Keenan’s, Irial is temptation in the flesh, Niall and Irial are at odds, Bananach is causing discord, Sorcha is isolated and frigid, the list goes on and on. 

Nothing of consequence, novelty, or importance happens in this book. 

Frankly, it just felt like a terrible redo of the first novel, just set 100 years back. 

I didn’t give a single flying crap about Thelma or Tam or whatever her name was. She was a worse version of Leslie, of Aislinn, of every other cool female character we eventually get to read about in the main series. 

Thelma was contradictory in the worst of ways. She said one thing, like she would rely on no man and never have children and then turned around and did every single one of them like some sort of hypocrite galore. 

She was so irritating and boring to read about that I tended to skim her parts because it was just paragraph after paragraph of bitching and moaning about the same goddamn things over and over again: stay away from fairies, oh god this fairy likes me, no sex, no children, no love and then bam! She just throws it all away. 

Urgh. 

The worst part too is that this isn’t a well written book. It’s repetitive, quite boring at times, and caters way too much to the reader. 

Something I loved about the first Wicked Lovely is that Melissa Marr kinda just tosses you into her world and calls it a day. She doesn’t hold your hand or over explain. She just describes and lets you glean for yourself. 

I loved this aspect of the original series. I liked learning about her world and the characters this way. 

Cold Iron Heart spits on the idea of this concept. Marr repeats herself so much about the same things, who Irial is, what fairies are, why this is happening, that I grew increasingly irritated as the book went on. 

Who on earth is she explaining this for? New readers? Why in the world would any new reader start with this book? The newest one that comes after six others???? It makes no goddamn sense. 

So not only did I feel patronized and aggravated, but the love story between Thelma and Irial grated on me as there was no basis for their love. 

It was ridiculous with no shred of authenticity and I hated it, especially knowing that he already loves Niall and Leslie only to come back and say, “wait a moment! I had another true love that I’ve never mentioned before. Yeah. Her name was Thelma. Or Tam. Or whatever, I don’t know. I knew her for three days, most of which was just sex, and then I lost her after she had my baby but I conveniently forgot about it because of nonsensical plot! Hahahah, good right?”

No. Not good. Horrible. 

Overall, this book is a waste of time and trees. 

I don’t know why Melissa Marr even wrote and published this. I can see her writing this for herself because why not, but as a fan and a reader this was beyond disappointing. 

It’s like how all Harry Potter fans felt when J.K. Rowling wrote The Cursed Child and we got movies about Newt Scamander when we literally wanted anything else-Marauder series anyone??

It’s a particular kind of egregious offense when a favorite series or author of yours ends up ruining the canon you’re in love with. For that reason alone, I am stripping Cold Iron Heart from my heart and mind, like it never existed. 

Just like I did with Cursed Child, or the fact that you-know-who dies in Death Note (if you know, you know). I just...don’t believe it. It ruined all the lovely things Marr had previously written and the stories that defined so much of my love for YA, for fantasy, and for my own writing as a whole. 

I know for a lot of you this was a bumbling mess of a review with little to no clarity of the plot or who these characters are. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you are still reading if you didn’t know the book or the series in the first place, but that’s alright. 

Like I said at the beginning, this is a way to get my intense feelings and thoughts down onto paper and now that I have I feel marginally better, although still pissed off that this book exists and that I currently own it. 

Sigh. 

Well if you stuck around for the ride, I appreciate it. If you skipped this particular book review, I understand that too. 

Recommendation: Burn this book. However, if you want a gritty, tantalizing fantasy story, pick up the original Wicked Lovely and be whisked away into a world that has stuck with me since the first moment I read it on the fateful day at the grocery store. 

Score: 3/10

#cold iron heart #melissa marr #wicked lovely #book blog #books #book review #Book Recommendations #YA Book Review #ya book rec #booklover #3/10

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

February Picks

And just like that another month is coming to a close. I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. I’ve continued watching some favorites from last month and am sad some have come to an end. Meanwhile a bunch of shows came back from their winter hiatus, so it was a lot of fun getting back into their story-lines again.

Be prepared for spoilers once again...

SANDITON

Masterpiece’s Sanditon ended this past Sunday, here in the states, and I am jumping on the campaign that we need a season 2! It can’t end like that with so many open ended story-lines (okay maybe just one or two, but still we deserve more). 

Who would have guessed that Esther would become one of my favorite characters in this series and that’s mainly thanks to her well written character development. From the “villain” in episode 1 she grew into so much more and was such a complex character. I really enjoyed watching her story unfold. I am SO HAPPY she married Babington and his speech to her about living side by side, knowing he loves her more and just wants to see her happy. Wow....Goals. I want to see this relationship progress even more (if that’s possible) with a season 2. Speaking of things I want to see: Will Sanditon be rebuilt and how long will it take? Will there be an alternative allowing Sidney to be with Charlotte? Major twist there as their relationship doesn’t end with a happily ever after (very un-Austen like for the main protagonists). When he returned at the end stopping Charlotte’s carriage, I seriously thought he would have said he broke up his engagement, but alas. The previous episode I really wanted them together (thanks to Sidney’s speech to Charlotte when he told her his ex-fiance left and how Charlotte makes him a better person *melts* and of course their dancing scene the episode prior was amazing). In the early parts of the season, while I knew Charlotte and Sidney would be a thing-eventually, I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for Young Stringer’s character and my appreciation never truly left. I felt he was paired well with Charlotte. Such a tragic ending for him. He wanted to better himself (much like the Parker brothers) but after his father’s death he no longer will. Throughout the series, I enjoyed Miss Lambe’s character, but I agree with many reviews that I was reading that her character was kind of dropped at the end. I’m curious what her reaction will be when she finds out about SIdney’s engagement...

Thank you again, Andrew Davies. I was not expecting to like this adaptation so much.    

ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST

The best way to describe one of NBC’s latest shows is that I feel happy and in a good mood whenever I finish an episode. (And then I’m immediately upset that I have to wait a week for the next one. I watch them too fast.) I’ve heard many people compare it to Glee and while I could definitely understand that I keep getting drawn back to Abc’s short lived Eli Stone. There Eli (played by Jonny Lee Miller) could hear people around him sing and dance, which helped him solve upcoming law cases. In this show he was experiencing a brain tumor, but so far Zoey seems all clear. Instead, a freak accident while she is getting an MRI scan and listening to music, allows for her to hear people sing (and perform) their innermost feelings. There’s still some logistics to discover like what Zoey looks like when she watches these performances (does she move around or look like she’s just staring into the air. I might be thinking into this too much...I know). We just recently found out that sometimes she can speak to others as they are happening. Each time she hears someone sing she is meant to help them with something in their life. It could be a family member, co worker, friend, or like this past week her boss. While there’s one major problem (that she has to fix), there are often multiple songs in one episode which I really enjoy. The cast is also very strong, both musically and as actors. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the season is headed!

TO ALL THE BOYS P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU

When the first film was released on Netflix about 2 years ago, I was instantly a fan. I was unfamiliar with the book, but quickly added to my TBR list. (My to read list is extremely long, so I still haven’t gotten to it. Story of my life.) I really enjoyed watching Lara Jean experience the results of having her secretive love letters distributed to her past crushes. I was definitely Team Peter and Lara by the end of the film. They were adorable. The sequel was released earlier this month and I kind of forgot about it. It felt like we had been preparing for the sequel for a bit and then I must have been watching too much Disney Plus to miss the trailer. Watching P.S. I still love you, I just missed the original film. There were parts I liked and I was a big fan of John Ambrose (and of course Jordan Fisher because he’s great), but overall I felt like much didn’t happen. Also, Lara and Peter’s relationship kind of bothered me in parts. I understand that for both of them this was the first time they were in this kind of relationship and could feel awkward about certain things (like the Valentine’s singing-gram or writing an original poem). The main part I did like about them was towards the end when he arrived at the retirement home. I don’t say this often, but I have no want to re-watch it any time soon.   

VIOLETTA SEASON 1

Speaking of Disney Plus....

In a quick month and a half I have successfully watched ALL 80 episodes of season 1 of Violetta. I feel so accomplished and know the withdrawal will happen very soon. (I just finished last night and I’ve been listening to the music a lot recently). I’m so upset that season 2 has not be released on Disney Plus yet. I thought it would be by now because the streaming service has been up for a good amount of months and this show was so popular around the world. Unfortunately, I have not been lucky with my Google searches for when they’ll release it and no luck with YouTube either (no English caption options). I’ve been hearing that season 2 is really great because season 1 did a nice job of establishing these characters and now we get to see more story-lines. I will miss the students and teachers at the Studio as well the home-life at the Castillo’s house. Throughout 80 episodes it’s understandable to love and hate several characters as you’re with them for a good amount of time. For some people it was a roller coaster, but there were a good amount that I liked pretty consistently. I am a fan of Violetta and Leon and they had some super cute moments. I think it was about episode 35 where I truly felt like connection. When Tomas left the love triangle for a bit I actually grew to like him and would often joke how he never smiled and had a Tomas face. I really liked You Mix and the introduction of Frederico. Some great songs came out of that section like Ven y Canta and Tienes el Talento, but my favorite is definitely Ser Mejor. And of course, I will always have love for Pablo. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss reading subtitles (I really do feel like I know more Spanish now). Definitely check out this show if you want something drama filled and funny at the same time. 

LEGACIES

I know I dedicated a whole post to Chris Wood’s return as Kai Parker on Legacies. (See the article here:https://talesofafangirlwithadvr.tumblr.com/post/190761328673/omg-legacies-2x12) But I still had to include it in this wrap up because once again Legacies is doing a great job this season. I was so excited to see it when it came back from the mid-season hiatus. Since the return of Wood it has gotten more of a TVD vibe than usual, which is great. I haven’t watched the last episode, but have seen a clip of Kai masquerading at the school. I am going to be very interested to see for how long he hangs around and how long it takes for them to discover him AND how Josie handles the evil inside of her. 

BROOKLYN NINE NINE

Thank goodness this show got renewed (and picked up from NBC). When it started a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded how much I missed it. I can’t get over that this is already the second season on NBC. As usual the hi-jinks of the Nine Nine have been entertaining to watch. The Jimmy Jab games were great. I loved how Hitchcock was so desperate to win that he was taking Scully’s array of pills. What an ending with Debbie! Did not think she could be capable of that. I can’t wait to see the outcome next episode. I’m so excited for a Santiago-Peralta baby. It was a great episode when they were hiding it from Charles and Adrian returned. I’ve seen the movie Memento and it is great! It was hilarious each time he was like, ‘I don’t know what that is’ and then saying ‘Finding Dory’ solved everything. I am so happy that this show was suggested for me to watch and fill my Office and Parks and Rec void. Whenever a new episode’s on the DVR I can’t wait to watch it.      

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

And last, but certainly not least, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has once again not disappointed me this season (I know it’s still early, but I’m optimistic). It started at the end of January following the events of Crisis and I liked how this season transitioned with all the changes (the major one being the introduction of Zari’s brother). I am really happy to see her again though and how she is having these flashes of her old life on board the Wave-rider. I can’t wait to see that reveal happen (especially because as of right now only Nate knows the ‘truth’). I love seeing Ava as a permanent part of the Legends crew and as stepping in as Captain when Sara was away. She is a great addition and I like how quirky she is since we first met her. Her and Sara are perfect. I also love Ray and Nora. Nora as a fairy godmother is fantastic. One of my favorite episodes was the one with the 80s dance. Her role in all of that was great and her realization with what she can provide for these kids. I feel like this is going to be the reason Ray leaves the Legends. I remember seeing Brandon Routh’s Instagram Post about leaving the show and this feels like the reason he will. I hope that isn’t for a while though because I am going to miss him a lot. 

Until March!   

#sanditon #masterpiece sanditon #sidney parker #charlotte heywood #sidney x charlotte #esther denham #esther x babington #renew sanditon #zoey's extraordinary playlist #team simon or team max #to all the boys ps i love you #lara jean #disney’s violetta #violetta season 1 #we want season 2 disney plus #violetta season 2 #Legacies #legacies season 2 #kai parker is back #brooklyn nine nine #jake x amy #dc legends of tomorrow

[vcg73]

Witch!Kurt #42: The Calm Before the Storm

As promised, I got back to work on this.  :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Adam hummed as he moved through the kitchen, fetching plates, cups, and cutlery from their cabinets and drawers before dishing up the two servings of eggs and sausage links he’d just finished cooking.

He pulled a large orange from the refrigerator and cut it into halves, placing one on each plate. He really preferred grapefruit, but Kurt hated even the scent of them, so he compromised by purchasing a large bag of Mandarins on his last shopping trip. It made him feel better, since Kurt had ceased purchasing his own former staple of strawberries once he had discovered that Adam was allergic. Adam had insisted that there was no need for Kurt to give up a favorite food, and Kurt had made a noise of agreement but Adam had noticed soon afterward that their grocery list never had that particular fruit on it anymore. The bottle of strawberry pancake syrup that had formerly graced their little condiment shelf had also mysteriously vanished. It was the sort of sweet gesture that his husband tended to make without thought, and Adam was determined to show that he appreciated it in just as subtle a fashion. He refused to be another one of those people in Kurt’s life who took his generous nature for granted.

Pouring a steaming cup of tea for himself and coffee for Kurt, he smiled at how delightfully domestic this was. Other than company, the thing he had missed most during his seemingly endless span in the emptiness of the Void was simply having something to do. Getting his hands on some small chore and keeping busy with it. Adam had never been an idler, never one to just sit quietly with his hands folded and wait for something to come along. From earliest childhood, he had been a doer, taking satisfaction from playing games, cooking meals, scribbling notes, inventing choreography, learning some new skill, or sorting out an activity for others. He and Kurt had that in common, along with having work and living spaces that tended to stay tidy and well organized, though neither took it to neat-freak levels. Adam had missed being able to set his hand to a thing and see it completed, and a small part of him thrilled at the mundane little task.

It bothered him more than he liked to admit that he was still slightly off his game when it came to getting his nerve up for comings and goings beyond the loft, even after six months back in the real world, but having a full time stay-at-home job now helped immensely. Most of his daylight hours were kept busy making calls, booking online appointments, and sorting out talent for various casting calls about town. It made him feel useful again, and after only two months on the job, he was already earning praise from his employers and glowing reviews from their clients. That little boost to his self-esteem was making him bolder about going outdoors and meeting people again. Now that winter was over, greenery was beginning to pop up everywhere and the days were becoming mild and pleasant, beckoning him to take a nice walk through the park, or down to Bui’s for a spot of tea on his lunch hour. He no longer worked for Mrs. Bui, having given up his position as stock-boy to an eager young high schooler once his schedule with H&B had been set, but he still liked to pop round for a hot cup, two or three delicious chocolate biccies, and a nice gossip.

And then there was Kurt. How lucky he felt each day to wake up to the sight of that beautiful face on the pillow next to his, to phone him at lunchtime to say ‘how are you’, ‘what would you like for dinner’, and ‘I love you’. Such simple words, but so full of delight to them both. And he liked to be here, finishing up his work for the day, or bustling about getting the evening meal when it was his turn to cook, having it ready when Kurt came home from work or school, and seeing his face light up with joy at the sight of him.

“Hello, husband,” Kurt would say, with that loving look in his beautiful eyes as he came forward for a kiss and a fond embrace. “How was your day?”  

Kurt took positive delight in that greeting, and Adam enjoyed hearing it just as much. He supposed over time the shiny newness of being married would wear off, but for now it was still great fun.

Adam buttered four newly popped slices of toast and once again divided them between the waiting plates, adding a quick smear of marmalade to his own half and a dribble of honey to Kurt’s. He added a bit of honey to his tea as well, then used the spoon he’d stirred it with to mix a helping of nonfat creamer and a packet of sweetener into the coffee. He took a small sip of the latter to test the level of sweetness, and then grimaced, wondering what he’d been thinking as he took a quick swig of tea to banish the taste. Kurt had grown up drinking Burt Hummel’s noxious brew, and he still preferred his coffee strong enough to degrease an engine or melt the spines off a cactus.

“Breakfast is ready, husband of mine,” he said, setting a plate and the coffee on Kurt’s side of the breakfast table just in time to greet him with a kiss as he wandered out from the bathroom, wearing a towel about his waist, skin fresh and still ever so slightly damp after showering.

Kurt kissed him back with a smile and immediately went for the cup, taking an experimental sip followed by a large happy slurp. “Mmm, this is great!” he said. “You used hazelnut creamer, didn’t you?”

Vaguely amused at his enthusiasm, Adam said, “I did. I used that cocoa infused espresso you bought last trip, and I thought hazelnut would be a nice complement to it.”

“Nutella in a cup,” he sighed blissfully, belting back another swallow. He kissed Adam again, on the cheek this time and said, “Be right back.”

Kurt disappeared into the bedroom, and Adam had just enough time to top up his cup and add another good dollop of creamer before Kurt emerged again wearing a smart new outfit of gray checked trousers, black shoes and belt, and a shimmery green, patterned button down. Now that he had truly got the hang of using his assorted magics, Kurt could get himself dressed for the day in the literal blink of an eye. The only delay would be in choosing which outfit to wear. It was the one power that Adam envied him, though he doubted that even being able to instantly don and discard clothing would give him the impeccably chic and polished look that Kurt always had.

After all, even his own power to whisk his hair into order with a thought did not give him the ability to look sexily tumbled when rising from his pillow of a morning the way Kurt typically did. Adam usually looked as though he’d received electric shock until he got himself under a hot shower, and he knew he could potter around in his closet for a good half hour trying on assorted items and still look like he’d just escaped from a harrowing ride through a clothes dryer. Lucky for him that Kurt found the rumpled look attractive.

“What’s funny?” Kurt asked, sitting down to breakfast. He hadn’t been gone long enough for the food to grow cold and he tucked in with an appreciative appetite.

Adam just waved a hand. “Oh nothing. Just musing about how unfairly gorgeous you are for first thing in the morning.”

Flattered, he blushed a bit, his eyes sparkling at the compliment. “You look nice too.”  

And he did. Adam had a video call with a producer this morning, someone his agency had landed for casting of a big-budget film. Adam’s job was simply to take down the particulars of cast size, shooting schedule, and what sort of roles they were looking to fill, and then he would take down their availability and set up a second meeting with one of H&B’s more senior casting agents. But even that required a bit more spit and polish than usual.

He told Kurt as much. “I must let them see that Hanover & Bradley is a posh firm, even down to the lowliest of booking clerks.” He straightened his black and gold striped tie before lifting his nose in the air and sticking his pinky out with extreme dignity as he took a sip from his teacup.

As he had expected, Kurt laughed. “Well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. I wish it wasn’t considered unprofessional to suggest casting yourself. I glanced at the script spec you were reading last night and that movie sounds right up your alley.”

Adam smiled. “Appreciated, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for the chaos of a film set yet. Though I must admit that I have been growing bolder of late. I’ve been considering scraping the rust off of my acting skills and joining the Lightning Circle for one or two evenings a week.”

For a moment Kurt looked blank, but then he brightened as the name clicked. “That’s the Improv group that your friend Joey runs, isn’t it?” At Adam’s nod, he clasped his hands. “Adam, that would be amazing! It’s a perfect way to stick a toe in the water and find out whether or not you’d be comfortable on stage again. Joey was an Apple, so he’ll totally get it if you’re not quite ready to get out in public yet. You two were really close during my freshman year, so I imagine it would be like slipping into a favorite pair of shoes to work with him again. It won’t even matter if you’re rusty, because figuring your way around an awkward moment is the whole idea of Improv.”  

Adam beamed at his support. “Exactly right. I had a talk with Janice during my last session about wanting to take baby steps back toward my aborted career. She suggested testing the waters in some small way, then reporting back on how it went. I was thinking Community Theater, or joining the Lexington retirees for one of their in-house productions, or a sketch comedy night somewhere. Then I recalled Joe telling us at the last Apples get-together that he’s renting a space in the Village. His troupe rehearses a few nights a week and performs on Sunday evenings. They write sketches, work out the framing, and then sort of fill in the blanks before an audience. I know for certain that I’m welcome to join.”

Kurt was grinning. “Then you should totally do it. Maybe we could start by attending a performance on the weekend, just to see what it’s like. That way you can make an informed decision about whether or not it’s something you want to do. I think it would be so good for you, honey. I know how refreshing it can be to put your problems aside and just be someone else for a little while. Plus it sounds like a lot of fun!”

Pleased at how easily Kurt had not only accepted the plan but dove straight in with his support, Adam said, “So, it’s a date then?” 

Privately he was thinking that if this worked out, it might be a bit of fun they could do together. The others always asked after Kurt, and seemed quite interested in his progress at NYADA, so they would be glad to have him.

“It’s a date,” Kurt confirmed. Munching the last bite of his breakfast, he glanced at his phone on the table beside him and made a startled sound. “Oh, gosh! Is that the time already? Isabelle asked me to help choose the summer dress selections for the website today and I don’t want to be late.”

Adam nodded. He needed to get himself ready for the meeting soon as well. “Have fun and I’ll see you this afternoon. Is it your turn for dinner tonight?”

“It was, but I’ll do it tomorrow. Brittany called earlier and asked if she, Santana, and Tubbington could join us. They’ll pick up something from the Golden Lotus on the way here.”

He was used to this. Members of their witch family dropped by at odd hours all the time and usually brought food with them, so Adam nodded. “I’ll text and ask them for an order of sweet and sour, or maybe some General Tso. That pineapple and green pepper concoction they picked out the last time was revolting. I was belching peppers for two days straight.”

Kurt laughed. “I already asked. Santana likes that stuff, but Brittany agrees with you, and of course Tubbington would probably stage a revolt if they didn’t get his beloved Kung Pao Chicken, so nobody balked at my request to add Pork Fried Rice and General Tsao.”

Taking one last swig of coffee, Kurt took his dishes to the kitchen, then hurried to the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth. Giving his husband a minty kiss goodbye, Kurt grabbed his bag and a light jacket and was out the door.

Adam stared fondly after him for a moment, then willed the magical ward back into place and went to his own work.

~*~*~*~*~

“What’s happened?” Adam asked when Kurt came through the door without his usual cheerful greeting. 

The buoyant mood Kurt had left home with this morning had transformed throughout the day into a feeling of tense foreboding that had been palpable the moment he walked in the door. Before that, actually. A more tamped-down version had been singing along their emotional bond for the past couple of hours. 

Adam found himself wondering if their idyllic breakfast this morning had just been the calm before some great storm. Whatever it was, he suspected that their Sunday theater plans had just been cancelled. “Is something wrong in Ohio?”

“No,” Kurt said, speaking the word with a hint of hesitation. He made an impatient gesture with his hands as he amended it to, “Not exactly. Nothing’s really wrong, but I had a text from Sue Sylvester today and I suspect it’s no coincidence that she sent it to me on the same day Brittany and Santana suddenly decided to drop by for dinner.”

Adam agreed that this was unlikely. Sue had kept her promise to keep tabs on the Blaine situation for them, but she wasn’t the ‘just dropping a friendly line’ sort of person. “What did it say?”

Pulling out his phone, Kurt showed him the message. ‘Red Alert. Paddington has taken a flea dip.’ “What on earth?”

“Sue always codes her messages,” Kurt explained. “She thinks satellites are sharing them with the C.I.A. or something. Paddington is the nickname she gave to Dave Karofsky after he came out as gay. Y’know, as in a baby bear.”

Adam snorted, picturing the hulking young man he had briefly glimpsed on his aborted surveillance trip to Lima dressed in a duffel coat, red hat and wellies. “So in her own peculiar way, she’s telling you that Dave has rid himself of a certain pest?”

“That’s how I read it,” Kurt agreed. “He must have broken up with Blaine. Either he shook off Blaine’s persuasive influence somehow, or he just wasn’t as taken in by it as we assumed. I’d be interested to find out what happened. The important thing for now is that if Dave is gone, then Blaine doesn’t have anyone handy to power-dump his stolen magic into. That might make Blaine vulnerable.”

“Or it might make him more of a problem,” Adam reminded him, willing away the shiver of apprehension that skittered down his spine at Kurt’s words. “If Blaine has suddenly found himself alone and forced to return to what Santana colorfully calls the ‘snatch and splooge’ technique of transferring power, he could be extremely dangerous.”

Kurt shook his head. “That’s assuming he hasn’t stored power in half the innocent Standards in Lima. He was always unnaturally good at swaying a crowd to his side, long before the soul-polluting began. He’s a lot easier to deal with one on one than with a pack of supporters behind him. Especially ones who are convinced against all logic and evidence that he can do no wrong.”

Reading his meaning in that, Adam said flatly, “You are not going to face him alone, Kurt.”

“Well, I’m not sending you to spy on him again,” Kurt countered with a trace of heat. “I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”

“Nor I you, so if you think I’m going to just sit here safely on the sidelines while that nasty blighter attacks you, then …”

“Adam, I’ll be at twice as much risk if I’m worrying about what might happen to you,” Kurt interrupted. “I’m not an idiot. I know how dangerous he can be, and that you both want and deserve to be with me when I face him, but he nearly killed you once, and then just seeing him for an instant all but paralyzed you! The last time you two were face to face, you were at full strength and he still nearly destroyed you. What if he finds out that you’re not only still alive, but that I’ve married you, and once and for all torpedoed his plans for me? He’ll go berserk and I don’t want to risk him taking that out on you. If I put you in his line of sight, I might as well be pulling the trigger on you myself.”

Adam wanted to argue back that he would be equally devastated if Kurt were to face their enemy alone and be killed or sent to the Void. Which might well be the same thing, since none of their group might be able to find and rescue him if he were to be banished to that place without an anchor. But Kurt would resist such reasoning. For all his instinctive mother-henning of loved ones, he could be remarkably blind when it came to his own well-being.

“Darling, what with all the Lima people who came to our reception, I highly doubt that Blaine has remained oblivious to my miraculous return from the great beyond. I’m safer with you, and the members of our coven, than I ever would be alone.” He struggled to keep his voice calm, even though he suspected that his emotions were broadcasting loud and clear anyway. “I may not be as physically strong as I was the first time I encountered him, but magically I’ve grown stronger. One of the upsides to being part of a good coven. Since Joining with you, I’ve gained new levels of control. But what you’re forgetting is that neither one of us is in this alone. We have a group of excellent witches and Familiars at our back, as well as friends and family. It may turn out that Blaine has put together an army of brain-washed sycophants, but if the Intelligence we’ve received thus far is true, then we also have Coach Sylvester’s magically-inclined Cheerio squad to counter them.”

As he had hoped, Kurt responded to the logic of this statement. “That’s true,” he said slowly. “I hate the idea of putting kids at risk, but I’d put my money on the Cheerios over Blaine’s personal Fight Club any day of the week.”

“I wouldn’t discount Sebastian’s influence over his former prep-school peers either,” Adam pressed. “Or for that matter Finn and Sam’s influence over your old Glee Club, which might even have countered Blaine’s a bit. Just because you’ve been left with that self-enamored tosser as your sole responsibility in the past, doesn’t mean you still are. You were a lone ship on a stormy ocean once upon a time, Kurt, but now you’re the captain of a veritable armada, and the rest of us are just waiting for an order to fire a shot across Blaine’s bow.”

Kurt’s mouth, which had fallen open during Adam’s impassioned speech, clicked shut and he gave him a wan smile. “I’m not sure you aren’t being just a little too optimistic here, but you have a good point.” The smile widened. “You like to claim that you’re not much of an orator, but you give a darned good rallying speech.”

“I think so too,” Santana said by way of greeting, making the two of them jump in surprise as she opened the door and walked casually into their discussion. Kurt had dropped the ward as he came inside, and left it down knowing his friends would be arriving right on his heels. “And he’s right, oh Captain my Captain. If you go back to Lima and cut us out of all the fun after keeping us waiting for months to kick Anderson’s bubble butt, we’ll disown you and elect a new coven leader. I hear Drumsticks has his eye on the spot.”

“Johnny? But he never…oh,” Kurt said in chagrin, laughing a little when he realized she was teasing. “I guess I’m being kind of stupid.”

“Never bothered us before,” she replied, a wicked twinkle in her eye. “I take it you heard from Sue?”

Brittany and Tubbington, who had come in behind her, put their sacks of food down on the kitchen island and Brittany said, “She sent us a message this morning before I called. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything then.”

“Paddington?” Adam queried, wondering if they’d got the same text Kurt had.

Tubbington gave him a frown and said, “Dawn Patrol”.

Not as familiar with Coach Sylvester’s unique personal code as the rest of them, Adam said, “What does that mean?”

“Be on alert because it might be time to come to Lima and get Blaine out of everybody’s way,” Santana translated casually.

Seeing his confusion, Kurt said, “Dawn. You know, as in the dish-washing soap that’s supposed to be extra good at clearing away greasy messes? It … never mind. The point is that Blaine has been dumped, and Coach thinks it might have him off balance enough for us to make our move.” He looked at their guests and said, “Adam was reminding me that we’re a team and that Blaine is no longer just my problem.”

“He’s right, Junior,” Tubbington garbled as he pulled a steaming box and a pair of chopsticks out of the nearest bag and stuffed a large bite of food into his mouth while he spoke. “I been keeping tabs on your family through Sebastian and he tells me that Blaine has already started sniffing around your house now that Sam is living there again.”

“What?” Kurt said in alarm, jumping up from the chair he had just taken.

Brittany patted his arm. “Don’t worry, nobody is in danger. That’s part of what we wanted to tell you tonight. Your dad has Fam, that’s what Sam and Finn call themselves when they’re not being individuals, did you know that? Anyway, Burt has made them wear that cologne Adam made for him at Christmas, just to be safe. He offered some to Sebastian too, but a Familiar can’t be influenced by Wild Magics so he didn’t need it.”

“I should mix them up a fresh batch if Burt is sharing,” Adam mused, already considering ways he might beef up the recipe while still keeping the cologne smelling pleasant. Having been victim to Blaine’s venomous influence once, Sam and Finn might be more than usually vulnerable, and that wasn’t a risk he wanted to take. “Perhaps I could mix it into a deodorant, so there would be no danger of anyone forgetting to wear the potion. ‘Magical Musk for Men’, or some such.”

“You should do it,” Santana agreed, shrugging when she saw that nobody was bothering with food except for the always voracious Lord Tubbington, and going for plates and forks, which she spread around the table before helping herself to a serving of fried rice. “The old stuff does its job, though. Sebastian reported to L.T. that Blaine showed up at the house last night, God only knows why, and Burt met him at the door with a wicked set of hedge-clippers in hand.”

She cackled at the thought and everyone else had to grin at the picture it painted when Brittany added, “Your dad told him he’d had a feeling that it was time to prune away the obnoxious weeds that were in his yard. Then he clacked the blades just a couple of inches from Blaine’s crotch and stared him down until he ran off.”

“Didn’t stop moving until he hit the Lima Bean, from what I hear,” L.T. said with satisfaction, treating them all to a window-shaking belch as he picked a stray vegetable from his beard and popped it into his mouth. “Damn, that’s great. The Lotus must have a new chef.”

Kurt, no longer surprised that his father hadn’t reported the visit, sighed and sad down, taking a spoonful of rice and another of steaming beef & broccoli. Adam and Brittany likewise sat down and helped themselves to a serving of mouthwatering entrees. Adam happily sailed into the box of spicy chicken, also accepting a spoonful of beef & broccoli when Kurt shook the box with an inquiring look. Santana pulled out a second container of Kung Pao, having known from experience that nobody else would have a chance at the initial serving of Tubbington’s favorite, and passed it around.

“If Blaine is already trying to get in good with Sam again,” Kurt mused after a moment, “then it really does support the idea that losing Dave must have come as an unpleasant shock. To his ego if not his magic-stealing. There’s no way he could know that Sam isn’t alone anymore, right?”

“No,” Adam said, “I’m sure he doesn’t know. After all, he believes that he murdered Finn, just as he thinks he did to me. But if he’s seen him around Lima, then even without Sight he must realize that Sam is suddenly a good bit healthier than he was when their friendship was broken off. I could see so clearly, and I don’t even know the poor fellow well.”

Brittany nodded. “We went to visit my folks a couple of weeks ago and I looked in on Fam. Sam’s almost back to his old self again. You did a really good thing for him when you joined him with Finn.”

“Technically that was Sebastian’s idea,” Kurt said, giving credit where it was due. “And all of you helped.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who actually did the heavy lifting,” Santana countered, having no patience for self-effacement. Not when it came to an act of combined delicacy and power, not to mention personal risk, that had left even her cynical self in awe. Sounding baffled by her next words, she added, “And Finn is happy riding around in the back of Sam’s brain. I thought sure he’d be going crazy by now, given how much he liked being the center of attention back in high school. Instead he seems to think he’s some kind of secret agent. As long as Sam lets him take the wheel and do what he wants a couple of times a day, he doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck that nobody else knows they’re taking to Finn Hudson, ex Lima superstar.”

“I suspect without the influence of power-hungry girlfriends, he’s actually happier out of the spotlight,” Kurt said dryly. “He liked being part of the Quarterback-Head Cheerleader power couple, until it became more pressure than fun. Then he hooked up with Rachel and she was a cattle prod in the backside as far as the craving for fame and popularity went. It wasn’t until they went long-distance and Finn didn’t have anyone to give him orders, or any independent direction of his own, that he kind of crashed.”

Brittany nodded. “And Sam always felt more comfortable having an image to hide behind, so he probably likes being able to sit back and let Finn take over some of the time.” She smiled gently. “I think the people who used to know them both are a little confused, though. People never seem to see things clearly without a map.”

Remembering some of the mind-bending leaps of logic this woman had taken in the years he had known her, Kurt had to agree. Brittany always saw things clearly, it was one reason she had the most powerful gifts of Sight and magical intuition he had yet encountered, but unfortunately her idea of clarity rarely matched up with anyone else’s. At least not without a lot of practice in translating her thoughts. He had become far better at ‘speaking Brit’ over this past year than he had ever done when they were schoolmates.

“Makes sense,” he said. “Okay, so assuming my family is safe, Fam’s secret is still intact, and Blaine is beginning to lose control, how much time do you think we have to deal with this?”

“Not long, I would say,” Adam said, brow furrowing in thought. “When I confronted him two years ago, he panicked and went into immediate attack mode. Same with your brother. If he’s reeling from the insult of being dumped, and possibly from the withdrawal of whatever power he’d stored up in your friend Dave … well, I fear we’ve left this kettle boiling too long as it is.”

Tubbington cut in, “Oh, he’ll be feeling it, I’m sure of that. I don’t know if that other kid is still in town or not, but if he broke off their relationship it’s a cinch Dave’s not willing to let Blaine cozy up for a nice easy power withdrawal. Whatever magic had been stored in him would have started draining away almost immediately once he was at a safe distance.” 

At Kurt’s querying noise, Adam said, “As you know, magic has a shelf-life. We can only do so much before we’re either starving or exhausted from having used up our reserves. Storing magic in a prepared object allows it to stay viable for a while, like storing perishables in the freezer. But storing it in a person would mean using their physical reserves. Like storing those perishables in a hot garage. The power would begin to ‘go bad’ in a very short amount of time, and while the vessel could be damaged in the long term, they could also be helped by it in the short.”

“In what way?” Kurt asked, resting his elbows on the table and pressing his lips to steepled fingers as he unconsciously adopted a studying pose.

Santana answered, “Like, if Sam had been critically injured and Blaine had siphoned a portion of his own power, his own life-force, into him to keep him alive until they could get medical help, that would be okay. Noble, even. Not that something that selfless would ever occur to him.”

Tubbington agreed, “I’ve been around long enough to see that happen a couple of times, but before the human litter-box came along, I’d never even heard of a witch, regular or Wild, stealing magic from other witches without their knowledge and power-dumping it into some poor unwitting Standard. Only to steal that power back for their own personal use with no thought as to how much damage they were causing. That he did it to supposed loved ones?” He made a sound that suggested he was about to reject the box of Chinese food he had just inhaled.

“The sorts of things we can do as witches gives us an advantage over the majority of society,” Adam resumed. “And it is widely accepted throughout the community that that sort of privilege gives us a firm ethical responsibility to not misuse our power, nor go mucking about in the lives of Standards. I have wondered from time to time if the general bias against the weak, uncontrolled power of most Wild witches hasn’t led to the rest of us dropping the ball there. After all, if one never knows they’re a witch, how is one to develop the ethical foundation that is, quite frankly, expected of us? Blaine Anderson is an extreme case of self-aggrandizing moral decay, but I doubt he’s alone in it.”

“Well, there’s a cheerful thought,” Santana said sourly. “You’re saying all this is somehow our fault?”

Surprising them all, Kurt who said, “No. I spent months, years even, blaming myself for all the crap Blaine pulled when we were together. I’ve finally accepted that I wasn’t responsible for his actions or responses, only for my own. I’m not going back to thinking otherwise. Blaine was hypocritical, oblivious to other people’s feelings, and painfully self-absorbed long before he and I first started having problems. I was just too infatuated at first, and too emotionally beaten down later, to actually see it. I suspect from certain things he’s told me about his childhood that he always has been that way.”

Adam nodded. “True, and we’re speaking of Blaine as though he were a child, with no ability to recognize how destructive his behavior has been. He’s not.”

Brittany nodded. “There are a lot of bad people out in the world who got there without any help from magic. People who commit terrible crimes every day. Blaine is just doing his the easy way.”

Making a frustrated motion with his hands, Kurt said, “If the magical community is at fault in any way, it’s in not actually behaving as a community. NYADA is as much a school for witches as a school for performing artists, but you’d never know it until something goes wrong.”

“Do you know they actually had the nerve to send us a sternly worded letter after our wedding, admonishing us for performing a Major Working without a senior coven official present?” Adam said to Santana, Brittany, and Tubbington in response to his husband’s disgusted tone. “Basically they scolded us for not asking permission. Kurt was ready to go down to NYADA on the spot, likely leaving a few scorch marks in his wake, but I convinced him to not ruin a promising academic career, and to take a different approach.”

Smiling slightly, having come to appreciate Adam’s occasionally twisted sense of humor, Santana said, “What did you do to them?”

He blinked at her with calculated innocence in his too-wide blue eyes. “I merely passed the letter over to Gran, with a gentle hint that she wasn’t being properly respected for her status as a Senior level witch, and reminding her that Carmen and her crew never did apologize for their laxity in my own rescue.”

She laughed, “Oh, you are evil!”

Kurt laughed as well. “We got another letter that same week advising us to ‘please disregard the former missive’ and congratulating us on our wedding and a ‘difficult job well done’.”

“Honestly it was as close to groveling as I ever expect to see from the Almighty Carmen,” Adam chuckled. “Gran must have given them a tongue-lashing they’ll never forget.”

A sigh came from Kurt. “That’s what’s so frustrating, though! If powerful coven leaders like Madame Tibideaux, whose business is supposed to be education, would only make it their mission to trade information, help those who need it and make sure nobody falls through the cracks the way Finn and I almost did, and assessing and training those with power without treating those with unusual types of magic as second-class or unimportant, the world would be a much better place. They have the power, and they could make sure that cases like Blaine’s wouldn’t happen, because someone would always have their eyes open to step in and redirect someone who’s going the wrong way before they turn into a complete disaster.”

A swift interested chain reaction of glances and nods passed between his companions. Every good coven eventually developed a higher purpose, something beyond mere friendship and the occasional Major Working. Kurt had, without quite realizing it, just hit upon theirs. Their peculiar mixture of powers and creative problem-solving, Adam’s interest in the history of witchcraft, Johnny’s fascination with the mechanics of spell crafting, the unexpected co-mingling of Animagus and Purebred Familiars, Kurt’s own seeming magnetism toward all manner of people, both magical and Standard, drawing even Wild witches and the extremely rare Magic Dampers into his sphere; all spoke to the blending of a wider, more open overall community.

Oblivious to their silent communication, Kurt went on, “I guess that’s why I still feel like confronting Blaine is up to me. Or rather, to us.”

“Well, you know you can count me in,” Lord Tubbington said. “I’ve wanted to flex my claws on that ugly little scratching post since the first time I saw him.”

“Mine too,” Brittany said with no trace of irony. “I knew he was up to something bad the first time he came to Glee Club dressed like male Rachel.”

Still smirking a bit, Santana said, “I’ve been waiting to kick his ass since last Thanksgiving. What do you say, Kurt?”

He nodded. "Let’s get Dani, Johnny, Monica, and Elliott over here. I think it’s time we put together a plan.”

THE END

#Witch!Kurt #Kadam fic #One Three Hill Coven #Kurt Hummel/Adam Crawford #not Blaine or klaine friendly

[annviscom]

Year 3 - FMP

(14 April 2021)

‘Pamela Paul’s memories of reading are less about words and more about the experience. “I almost always remember where I was and I remember the book itself. I remember the physical object,” says Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, who reads, it is fair to say, a lot of books. “I remember the edition; I remember the cover; I usually remember where I bought it, or who gave it to me. What I don’t remember—and it’s terrible—is everything else.”

For example, Paul told me she recently finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin. “While I read that book, I knew not everything there was to know about Ben Franklin, but much of it, and I knew the general timeline of the American revolution,” she says. “Right now, two days later, I probably could not give you the timeline of the American revolution.”

Surely some people can read a book or watch a movie once and retain the plot perfectly. But for many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the rest is gone.

“Memory generally has a very intrinsic limitation,” says Faria Sana, an assistant professor of psychology at Athabasca University, in Canada. “It’s essentially a bottleneck.”

The “forgetting curve,” as it’s called, is steepest during the first 24 hours after you learn something. Exactly how much you forget, percentage-wise, varies, but unless you review the material, much of it slips down the drain after the first day, with more to follow in the days after, leaving you with a fraction of what you took in.

Presumably, memory has always been like this. But Jared Horvath, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, says that the way people now consume information and entertainment has changed what type of memory we value—and it’s not the kind that helps you hold onto the plot of a movie you saw six months ago.

In the internet age, recall memory—the ability to spontaneously call information up in your mind—has become less necessary. It’s still good for bar trivia, or remembering your to-do list, but largely, Horvath says, what’s called recognition memory is more important. “So long as you know where that information is at and how to access it, then you don’t really need to recall it,” he says.

Research has shown that the internet functions as a sort of externalized memory. “When people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself,” as one study puts it. But even before the internet existed, entertainment products have served as externalized memories for themselves. You don’t need to remember a quote from a book if you can just look it up. Once videotapes came along, you could review a movie or TV show fairly easily. There’s not a sense that if you don’t burn a piece of culture into your brain, that it will be lost forever.

With its streaming services and Wikipedia articles, the internet has lowered the stakes on remembering the culture we consume even further. But it’s hardly as if we remembered it all before.

Plato was a famous early curmudgeon when it came to the dangers of externalizing memory. In the dialogue Plato wrote between Socrates and the aristocrat Phaedrus, Socrates tells a story about the god Theuth discovering “the use of letters.” The Egyptian king Thamus says to Theuth:

This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

(Of course, Plato’s ideas are only accessible to us today because he wrote them down.)

“[In the dialogue] Socrates hates writing because he thinks it’s going to kill memory,” Horvath says. “And he’s right. Writing absolutely killed memory. But think of all the incredible things we got because of writing. I wouldn’t trade writing for a better recall memory, ever.” Perhaps the internet offers a similar tradeoff: You can access and consume as much information and entertainment as you want, but you won’t retain most of it.

It’s true that people often shove more into their brains than they can possibly hold. Last year, Horvath and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne found that those who binge-watched TV shows forgot the content of them much more quickly than people who watched one episode a week. Right after finishing the show, the binge-watchers scored the highest on a quiz about it, but after 140 days, they scored lower than the weekly viewers. They also reported enjoying the show less than did people who watched it once a day, or weekly.

People are binging on the written word, too. In 2009, the average American encountered 100,000 words a day, even if they didn’t “read” all of them. It’s hard to imagine that’s decreased in the nine years since. In “Binge-Reading Disorder,” an article for The Morning News, Nikkitha Bakshani analyzes the meaning of this statistic. “Reading is a nuanced word,” she writes, “but the most common kind of reading is likely reading as consumption: where we read, especially on the internet, merely to acquire information. Information that stands no chance of becoming knowledge unless it ‘sticks.’”

Or, as Horvath puts it: “It’s the momentary giggle and then you want another giggle. It’s not about actually learning anything. It’s about getting a momentary experience to feel as though you’ve learned something.”

The lesson from his binge-watching study is that if you want to remember the things you watch and read, space them out. I used to get irritated in school when an English-class syllabus would have us read only three chapters a week, but there was a good reason for that. Memories get reinforced the more you recall them, Horvath says. If you read a book all in one stretch—on an airplane, say—you’re just holding the story in your working memory that whole time. “You’re never actually reaccessing it,” he says.

Sana says that often when we read, there’s a false “feeling of fluency.” The information is flowing in, we’re understanding it, it seems like it is smoothly collating itself into a binder to be slotted onto the shelves of our brains. “But it actually doesn’t stick unless you put effort into it and concentrate and engage in certain strategies that will help you remember.”

People might do that when they study, or read something for work, but it seems unlikely that in their leisure time they’re going to take notes on Gilmore Girls to quiz themselves later. “You could be seeing and hearing, but you might not be noticing and listening,” Sana says. “Which is, I think, most of the time what we do.”

Still, not all memories that wander are lost. Some of them may just be lurking, inaccessible, until the right cue pops them back up—perhaps a pre-episode “Previously on Gilmore Girls” recap, or a conversation with a friend about a book you’ve both read. Memory is “all associations, essentially,” Sana says.

That may explain why Paul and others remember the context in which they read a book without remembering its contents. Paul has kept a “book of books,” or “Bob,” since she was in high school—an analog form of externalized memory—in which she writes down every book she reads. “Bob offers immediate access to where I’ve been, psychologically and geographically, at any given moment in my life,” she explains in My Life With Bob, a book she wrote about her book of books. “Each entry conjures a memory that may have otherwise gotten lost or blurred with time.”

In a piece for The New Yorker called “The Curse of Reading and Forgetting,” Ian Crouch writes, “reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism—a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text?”

To me, it doesn’t seem like narcissism to remember life’s seasons by the art that filled them—the spring of romance novels, the winter of true crime. But it’s true enough that if you consume culture in the hopes of building a mental library that can be referred to at any time, you’re likely to be disappointed.

Books, shows, movies, and songs aren’t files we upload to our brains—they’re part of the tapestry of life, woven in with everything else. From a distance, it may become harder to see a single thread clearly, but it’s still in there.

“It’d be really cool if memories were just clean—information comes in and now you have a memory for that fact,” Horvath says. “But in truth, all memories are everything.”’

#level6 #fmp #research

[just-another-winchester]

My Supernatural Origin Story!

I know it’s getting close to the time where everyone goes to bed, so I wanna send you all goodnight messages in thanks.

I had no clue when I started watching Supernatural that I would meet so many wonderful people. I want to explain to you what happened, if you are interested, read on! If no, then that’s fine, there are thanks beneath the cut as well.

I will honestly be amazed if you guys don’t get bored reading this.

I am a strong advocate of sharing the love. And that is something I haven’t come in contact with a lot.

My family is not physically loving people, I am a person who enjoys physical love. And no, I do not mean sex, I mean hugs, cuddles, kisses. Stuff like that, and my family, they don’t do that, especially now that I am an adult, they think I shouldn’t need it.

I got my first job when I was 17. I was hired as a Crew Member at McDonalds. I worked from 11 am to 4 pm most days, the only day I always had off was Sunday.

I loved my job, I got along well with my co workers mostly, and the customers were generally not that bad. I was very new to the world since I had been home schooled most of my life, so I generally had a positive opinion of everything, even when I dealt with a rude or mean customer, I shrugged it off and thought, ‘oh well’

When winter came around I switched my hours to full time because I wasn’t willing to walk in the cold.I worked 6 am to 2 pm. I slowly became more and more exhausted, less willing to do things. Before I knew it winter was over, but I liked my paycheck, so I kept the hours.

The job and the people slowly began to weigh me down, I was always exhausted, and I didn’t want to do anything.

Finally, in March of 2016, my grandmother passed away while I was at work. I have never experienced a worse feeling than when my brother, who was working there as well at the time, came up to me and told me that my grandmother was gone.

My grandma was my rock, she was my happy place, when I went to her house, all was well with the world, I was allowed to be a child, I goofed off and had fun. It was grandma’s house, but it was home.

When she passed, that was when my world came crashing down. Anxiety and depression set it, something I had never dealt with before. I was always a cheerful kid, while my brother and cousins had a song that my grandma would sing to them, I had my own special song, You Are My Sunshine, because I was always happy.

After I lost her, that song was a bitter reminder of what I wasn’t anymore.

I finally ended up leaving the job on good terms after a panic attack. My GM had anxiety issues as well so she was very kind and understanding.

I began looking for a job after a few months, and it was a struggle to find one, no one was hiring, but I couldn’t go back to McDonalds. It was just too much stress, I needed to ease into something, not go back to what caused a lot of problems in the first place.

Finally, I came to a book bindary that had employed my older brother over the summer for the past three years as summer help for college kids.

I wasn’t in college, but I was hired on full time as a processor. Ya know the stickers, bar codes and such you see on library books? That’s what I did. Seems easy right? It was, for the most part.

The problem was speed. We had a quota, and for me, someone who needs to take her time otherwise I’ll screw up everything, that was problematic.

Is was here though, that I found friends. Good friends. I had my first ever girls night out with a couple of the women from this job.

This was the start of Supernatural for me.

I saw one of my coworkers wearing a shirt with the words Carry On My Wayward Son, and a sillhouette of Sam and Dean. I didn’t know about Kansas, but I had heard the song before, so I asked if that was the band.

Then, low and behold, the community gathered around! Okay, so it was only three people at the time. But it still counts!

They said it was a shirt for this show called Supernatural. I’ve always been interested in creepy sorts of stuff, so I asked what it was about.

After it was explained to me, I decided it sounded interesting. I was curious, and wanted to know more. 

I had been in the middle of watching Prison Break, and decided when I was finished with that, Supernatural was next on my list, because I was needing something to watch anyway.

A couple weeks later, I was fired. Unfairly by my opinion, and the opinion of all of my co workers.

They all found it unfair, my co worker Teresa, she trained me, she had told me for a fact that I was not the slowest person there, and the problem was, I was fired because they said I was just too slow.

I had been happy while at this job. But when I was fired, the depression set back in, I was sad, and discouraged.

Then I remembered Supernatural. I decided, I had plenty of free time, let’s check it out!!

I looked up a trailer for the first season, and... I loved it. I don’t remember my original thoughts or feelings exactly, I just thought it looked interesting. So I said Yes to the dress!

I found the first episode, and watched it, and before I knew it the seasons were flying by.

I’m a lot like Sam, but I’m more of a Dean girl, because there is nothing I love more than a big brother. Dean’s entire personality made me wanna cling to him.

I cried, I laughed, I got angry, I got happy. The show was my solace in a way, it made me happy, it made me forget the crap that was happening.

I had already been on a writing site, and as I was finishing the first season, I decided I wanted to roleplay. I created a character, that I, to this day, am very proud of. Her name was Hali.

Through this character I got out all my feelings, all my bad negative thoughts and emotions. I worked them through her, I became Hali when I was alone, I turned myself into her and used her to work my way through my struggles, through my hurt.

My first encounter with a member of the supernatural family was @blue-heaven-winchestergirl83. I roleplayed with her where my character was Hali, and hers was a nephilim named Kass, who was easily incredible.

I rped through the rest of my time watching, right up until the season 13 premiere, and I loved it. Carmine was and is my friend. She guided me through the beginning of my love of Supernatural.

There wasn’t too much love for the show there however. I wanted to read more! Especially, Dean smut. Cause I mean... come on, this guy.

And so, I searched on google for some links to fanfiction, it always led me to tumblr when I was interested in 5sos or 1d fics, but I had never been interested in tumblr, it was just... confusing to me. I didn’t understand it, and I am not fond of new things.

Finally, I read through all of @theinsandoutsofcastiel masterlist. OH MY GOD I loved it all, so I finally decided to start using it.

I had already created a tumblr previously, but hardly used it because I wasn’t much into what I had created it for.

I logged on, and we were in business.

I wrote a fic, that was honestly so many kinds of bad that I am probably going to end up taking it down and rewriting it. But with that, spawned something.

The first memorable encounter I had was with @impala-dreamer, I started following her cause I liked that she said Castiel was her patronous, I thought she was funny. Then I got through her masterlist and I decided she was also pretty damn cool.

I loved her and her work, so, one day I sent an ask, wondering if she would review one of my fics, and she did, and it gave me hope.

She helped me through a lot of things, she was patient with me, and kind to me. Even though I know I annoyed the crap out of her, because I annoy the crap out of myself.

With Beka, I learned a lot about tumblr, I became more comfortable with it. I joined a couple challenges, and that got me more likes and followers. She reblogged my fic, I believe it was about removing plastic from a turkey. 

I made a post, telling her about how grateful I was to her. And from that, came Amanda.

I don’t even remember how @amanda-teaches and I fully began talking, unsure which of us started it, but it doesn’t matter, cause Amanda, she’s my people. She is a constant ray of sunshine and I love her with all my tiny little heart.

She beta’s my fics, she helps me through them, she lets me rant at her about ideas, and she’s just so incredibly patient with me. She is still, and hopefully always will be, one of my closest friends.

@queen-of-deans-booty is another one I don’t fully remember meeting, I remember loving her so much, she was so sweet and I just loved her writing. I left her an anon ask, I was getting down on myself, and she was kind and patient with me, she told me it was safe to come off anon, and then, she allowed me to put her on my Dream Team, or forevers list.

She reblogged and commented on the first chapter of my series You’re Not Alone. I still read that on bad days, to remind me that I can still do good.

With that, came a flood of love. It spiked me to more followers, more likes, more reblogs. I was more noticed.

I don’t remember how I came to know @katymacsupernatural, but I will never deny it was one of the best things ever. Undeniable Heat was what I found of hers. I loved it, with all my heart, it was incredible and I immediately wanted in. Her story inspired me to write my imaginary world where Jensen and Jared are my honorary brothers, where Dani and Gen are my best friends, and where Misha is just a constant goof of a great friend.

I love writing it, even though Im not comfortable sharing it yet. Her inspiration to write it aided me a lot, she was so incredible, and then one night, she opened her inbox, and I pulled a full frontal attack.

I bombarded her with stupid little poems, goofy things and just me being a dork. I told her I was kidnapping the Winchesters, and for the next few weeks that was just our thing. It made me so happy. She was the first person I was comfortable not doing anon with, because she played along, and made me happy.

And thus struck up that friendship, which, wow... has done more for me than I can say. She and Amanda are what I call my butter pumpkins. And let me tell you, that it the highest honor.

Katy, you are constant and wonderful.

Since then, I have gained more than 200 followers, at this moment I have 243.

I was lucky enough to meet @becs-bunker, @sillesworldofwriting in a way through my fic called Just A Touch, which was a fic I wasn’t even proud of. I got such a roar of feedback from that fic, and it was at a time where I needed it most.

After that I met @thing-you-do-with-that-thing, and I love her to pieces because I see her and I see a strong, and brave person. She reminded me that you don’t have to take crap. She showed me how to stand up for someone, and for myself.

I don’t think I can say enough about the people who have helped me on this site. But to all of you who I have tagged, and will tag.

I’m sorry if I don’t have much to say about you, but you all mean more to me than I can say. Thank you for sharing the love, thank you for being there.

Thank you for helping me feel like family.

The #spnfamily, it’s one of the best things that’s happened to me. Through all the hate I have recieved today, I laugh at it, because I know I have all of you. So thank you.

@manawhaat @polina-93 @cassieraider @dizwinchester @babypieandwhiskey @nightlyinsomnious @cass-trash @ladywinchester1967

And anyone else I may have forgotten. I love you, your support is keeping me going everyday.

You will never know, how much it means.

#not spn #personal stuff #kinda my origins #thanks for reading

[newstfionline]

Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read

Julie Beck, The Atlantic, Jan. 26, 2018

Pamela Paul’s memories of reading are less about words and more about the experience. “I almost always remember where I was and I remember the book itself. I remember the physical object,” says Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, who reads, it is fair to say, a lot of books. “I remember the edition; I remember the cover; I usually remember where I bought it, or who gave it to me. What I don’t remember--and it’s terrible--is everything else.”

For example, Paul told me she recently finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin. “While I read that book, I knew not everything there was to know about Ben Franklin, but much of it, and I knew the general timeline of the American revolution,” she says. “Right now, two days later, I probably could not give you the timeline of the American revolution.”

Surely some people can read a book or watch a movie once and retain the plot perfectly. But for many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the rest is gone.

“Memory generally has a very intrinsic limitation,” says Faria Sana, an assistant professor of psychology at Athabasca University, in Canada. “It’s essentially a bottleneck.”

The “forgetting curve,” as it’s called, is steepest during the first 24 hours after you learn something. Exactly how much you forget, percentage-wise, varies, but unless you review the material, much of it slips down the drain after the first day, with more to follow in the days after, leaving you with a fraction of what you took in.

Presumably, memory has always been like this. But Jared Horvath, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, says that the way people now consume information and entertainment has changed what type of memory we value--and it’s not the kind that helps you hold onto the plot of a movie you saw six months ago.

In the internet age, recall memory--the ability to spontaneously call information up in your mind--has become less necessary. It’s still good for bar trivia, or remembering your to-do list, but largely, Horvath says, what’s called recognition memory is more important. “So long as you know where that information is at and how to access it, then you don’t really need to recall it,” he says.

Research has shown that the internet functions as a sort of externalized memory. “When people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself,” as one study puts it. But even before the internet existed, entertainment products have served as externalized memories for themselves. You don’t need to remember a quote from a book if you can just look it up. Once videotapes came along, you could review a movie or TV show fairly easily. There’s not a sense that if you don’t burn a piece of culture into your brain, that it will be lost forever.

With its streaming services and Wikipedia articles, the internet has lowered the stakes on remembering the culture we consume even further. But it’s hardly as if we remembered it all before.

Plato was a famous early curmudgeon when it came to the dangers of externalizing memory. In the dialogue Plato wrote between Socrates and the aristocrat Phaedrus, Socrates tells a story about the god Theuth discovering “the use of letters.” The Egyptian king Thamus says to Theuth:

This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

(Of course, Plato’s ideas are only accessible to us today because he wrote them down.)

“[In the dialogue] Socrates hates writing because he thinks it’s going to kill memory,” Horvath says. “And he’s right. Writing absolutely killed memory. But think of all the incredible things we got because of writing. I wouldn’t trade writing for a better recall memory, ever.” Perhaps the internet offers a similar tradeoff: You can access and consume as much information and entertainment as you want, but you won’t retain most of it.

It’s true that people often shove more into their brains than they can possibly hold. Last year, Horvath and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne found that those who binge-watched TV shows forgot the content of them much more quickly than people who watched one episode a week. Right after finishing the show, the binge-watchers scored the highest on a quiz about it, but after 140 days, they scored lower than the weekly viewers. They also reported enjoying the show less than did people who watched it once a day, or weekly.

People are binging on the written word, too. In 2009, the average American encountered 100,000 words a day, even if they didn’t “read” all of them. It’s hard to imagine that’s decreased in the nine years since. In “Binge-Reading Disorder,” an article for The Morning News, Nikkitha Bakshani analyzes the meaning of this statistic. “Reading is a nuanced word,” she writes, “but the most common kind of reading is likely reading as consumption: where we read, especially on the internet, merely to acquire information. Information that stands no chance of becoming knowledge unless it ‘sticks.’”

Or, as Horvath puts it: “It’s the momentary giggle and then you want another giggle. It’s not about actually learning anything. It’s about getting a momentary experience to feel as though you’ve learned something.”

The lesson from his binge-watching study is that if you want to remember the things you watch and read, space them out. I used to get irritated in school when an English-class syllabus would have us read only three chapters a week, but there was a good reason for that. Memories get reinforced the more you recall them, Horvath says. If you read a book all in one stretch--on an airplane, say--you’re just holding the story in your working memory that whole time. “You’re never actually reaccessing it,” he says.

Sana says that often when we read, there’s a false “feeling of fluency.” The information is flowing in, we’re understanding it, it seems like it is smoothly collating itself into a binder to be slotted onto the shelves of our brains. “But it actually doesn’t stick unless you put effort into it and concentrate and engage in certain strategies that will help you remember.”

People might do that when they study, or read something for work, but it seems unlikely that in their leisure time they’re going to take notes on Gilmore Girls to quiz themselves later. “You could be seeing and hearing, but you might not be noticing and listening,” Sana says. “Which is, I think, most of the time what we do.”

Still, not all memories that wander are lost. Some of them may just be lurking, inaccessible, until the right cue pops them back up--perhaps a pre-episode “Previously on Gilmore Girls” recap, or a conversation with a friend about a book you’ve both read. Memory is “all associations, essentially,” Sana says.

That may explain why Paul and others remember the context in which they read a book without remembering its contents. Paul has kept a “book of books,” or “Bob,” since she was in high school--an analog form of externalized memory--in which she writes down every book she reads. “Bob offers immediate access to where I’ve been, psychologically and geographically, at any given moment in my life,” she explains in My Life With Bob, a book she wrote about her book of books. “Each entry conjures a memory that may have otherwise gotten lost or blurred with time.”

In a piece for The New Yorker called “The Curse of Reading and Forgetting,” Ian Crouch writes, “reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism--a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text?”

To me, it doesn’t seem like narcissism to remember life’s seasons by the art that filled them--the spring of romance novels, the winter of true crime. But it’s true enough that if you consume culture in the hopes of building a mental library that can be referred to at any time, you’re likely to be disappointed.

Books, shows, movies, and songs aren’t files we upload to our brains--they’re part of the tapestry of life, woven in with everything else. From a distance, it may become harder to see a single thread clearly, but it’s still in there.

#memory and reading #reading and memory #recall memory

[allenmendezsr]

Ultimate Ebook Creator Amazon Kindle Mobi Epub Word PDF

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Ultimate Ebook Creator Amazon Kindle Mobi Epub Word PDF

 Buy Now

    Hello there! My name is Nitin Mistry and I would like to tell why I created the Ultimate eBook Creator (UEC)…

Back in February 2011, another very cold Canadian winter day, I was sitting watching TV with my wife and our two boys. My wife had just finished working on her first recipe book but she looked frustrated. I asked her what was bothering her.

She told me she just finished her recipe book in Microsoft Word format and she tried to publish on Amaozn KDP several times, but KDP kept rejecting her eBook, saying there were formatting errors she did not understand!

She told me that if she could earn some extra money selling her eBook then maybe she could take more time off to spend with the boys. She told me, she had tried many different software, both free and paid, but nothing seemed to work. Trying to publish on Amazon KDP was so near impossible!

Then she said “honey, you create software in your day job right? Then why can’t you create a simple ebook writer/creator that I can use to create and publish my ebook?” At that time I knew nothing about Amazon KDP or Kindle devices. The next day, I decided to do some quick research into creating ebooks and what was available on the market.

After a few days I decided to help my wife fulfill her dream (and to earn some brownie points – if you know what I mean 😉 ). That’s when my Ultimate eBook Creator was ‘born’ and the rest is history.

Fast forward to today… UEC has been an incredible success! UEC has helped over 3000 authors publish their eBooks on Amazon and other platforms! The sales from UEC have enabled my wife to quit her day job to be a full time mom to our two boys and a children’s book writer. She has published two recipe ebooks and over 40 children’s ebooks on Amazon KDP using UEC and earns a nice passive income.

How to Self-Publish your eBook Many people have a dream of being an author and wonder how to go about publishing an eBook and specifically how to self-publish on Kindle, Barnes & Noble, iBookStore, Smashword, Lulu. Well I have some really good news for you. All you will need is the Ultimate eBook Creator – which is probably one of the best eBook creation software on the market today. You can write your eBook from scratch using the built in professional WYSIWYG editor or, if you already have your content in a text file or word document, then you can literally import all your content into UEC, organize your content into chapters and sections and have your e-book published in less than 30 minutes (depending on how large the book is). UEC is probably the only e-book software you will ever need! It takes care of all the complex formatting and automatically generates your “Table of Contents”, so all your formatting headaches are gone! You can generate for Kindle (MOBI), Barnes and Noble, iBookStore, Smashwords, LULU.com (EPUB) or generate an MS Word document or even a PDF document!

Why Kindle eBook Formatting is not easy? Did you know that 95% of the people who manage to publish an eBook for the Kindle never sell a single copy. It’s not their content. Most of the time the author has probably spent hours, even days or weeks writing the eBook. So why do they fail! Well it’s the final step … Formatting the eBook! Formatting your eBook to satisfy the rules for Amazon KDP is not easy! All you have to do is Google search the phrase “Kindle formatting issues” and you’ll see what I mean. Poor formatting results in bad customer experience, and even worse, puts your book on Amazon’s poor quality radar and they will warn or even remove your eBooks from Amazon KDP! This is one of the main reasons why there are so many eBook formatting services online. Most charge a monthly fee of $27 or more. Just imagine paying $27 per month! That’s a lot of money! Not with UEC. Because with UEC you only pay a onetime fee and get lifetime of free updates! UEC is so easy to use! It takes care of all that complex formatting, so you can focus on the content which is what you like to do! The Ultimate eBook Creator takes care of all the complex XML, XHTML, HTML5, CSS and all other format related techie nerdy stuff that you can just don’t need to worry about!

How to Publish on Kindle UEC makes it super easy to publish on Amazon Kindle devices. It’s almost like painting by numbers! In fact the Ultimate eBook Creator comes with a step by step guide which shows you how to publish your UEC generated Kindle e-book (in .MOBI format) right into Kindle. In fact I gave my 16 year old son a project for summer. He wrote his eBook using the UEC eBook software in 2 days and had it uploaded into Kindle on the third day. Here’s the book if you are interested – NBA Trivia. He is making between $300-$500 per month on this book alone!

Get Your Book Accepted On Amazon KDP the First Time! Getting your eBooks accepted on Kindle, iBookStore, LuLu, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble is probably one of the most difficult tasks you will encounter. Don’t believe me? Just do a simple Google search on say “iBookStore formatting” and you will read tons of blogs and stories about people struggling with the iBookStore. Here’s the process. You upload your book using a service like lulu.com. Wait 3-4 weeks to get your eBook validated. If there is even one error, your eBook will be rejected! But here’s the kicker. They DO NOT tell you ALL the errors at once. Then you fix that one error and submit again. Wait another 3 weeks to see if your eBook got accepted. This goes on and on until you fix all the eBook errors… PAINFUL!! Not with UEC though. I have so many UEC customers who email me back and say “Hey Nitin, my eBook got accepted the first time! And I only had to wait 4 hours!”.

Publish to iBookstore, Smashwords and LULU the First Time! If you think publishing to Amazon is hard, wait till you try the other platforms! I have had so many customers tell me that UEC is probably the only software available that publishes to Apple’s iBookstore, Smashwords.com and LULU.com the first time. You see UEC compiles 100% perfectly validated EPUB files, so no need to spend money on services that do this for you.

Never worry about eBook Formatting again! Here’s the good news. Ultimate eBook Creator takes care of all the complexities of formatting your eBooks once and for all. This is because UEC creates your eBooks from the ground up and generates 100% clean and lean XHTML code – unlike Calibre that tries to convert a Microsoft Word document with all that junk formatting hidden characters that make your eBooks look like c***! I hope, you know what I’m trying to say! Even though your eBook formatting may seem to look ok XHTML code it creates is really bad and bloats your eBooks with junk code that increases the size of your eBook. Amazon KDP has a 50MB limit and other platforms have a maximum size limit too. Your eBook will be rejected if it exceeds the max size limit!

Creating Adult Coloring Books UEC has built in templates to help you create Adult Coloring Books. Once you have your designs ready, UEC has built in tools to automatically bulk insert all your images at once onto alternate pages and format them to be center aligned. Learn more…

Creating Interactive eBook is Easy! The latest eBooks that are selling like hotcakes are INTERACTIVE eBooks! With the Ultimate eBook Creator, you can now easily create Interactive eBooks. Quiz books, children’s books, puzzle books. The list goes on and on.

Do You Really Want to Read the Kindle Publishing Guide? Without UEC, you would need to read and understand the 100s of pages of documentation to get it right. If you GET IT WRONG and your book can be rejected because it will fail the MOBI/EPUB validation!

If you get it wrong AND somehow manage to get through the Amazon’s evaluation process, people who buy your book will not only leave HORRIBLE reviews and ask for an immediate refund! Seriously the worst thing that can happen is getting a bad 1 star review. I would rather Amazon reject my book, than getting a 1 star bad review. The review will REALLY effect your sales. Trust me I’ve been there!

Adventure Path eBooks UEC can create simple Interactive eBooks. Here’s an example of a sports trivia interactive eBook that my son created on Amazon KDP – NBA Interactive Trivia.

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Multiple Language User Interface UEC user interface supports the English and German languages. In the future French and Spanish will also be added. Remember I am not talking about the spell checker which supports more than 80 different languages!

Multi Language Spell Checker UEC has a multiple language spell check built in. So whether you write your book in French, German, Spanish, Italian and many more (around 80 other languages) – UEC’s got you covered!

MAC Users? Ultimate eBook Creator is a Microsoft Windows Desktop Application (Windows 10,8,7). However it will also run very well on a Mac computer provided, you have a PC emulation software installed – I recommend Parallels. In fact I have many customers who use a Mac and they tell me UEC runs perfectly on the MAC with this Parallels PC emulator.

UEC CD-ROM Now Selling on Amazon I am very excited to let you know that UEC is now selling on Amazon on a CD-ROM. Click Here to Purchase CD Version from Amazon.com.

After Sales Support I am very serious about serving my customers and I will always try and help as much as I can. I answer support questions usually within the hour or sooner. But of course even I need to sleep, and then I answer the next day. Here’s what my customers say about my support Click Here ….

60 Days Money Back Guarantee You have a 60 day 100% no quibble money back guarantee. If you are not happy with the UEC for any reason, just email me within 60 days and i will refund 100% of your money! After refund, the software will be deactivated and so will not work any longer.

FREE Lifetime Software Updates! Here’s another guarantee. You only pay a ONE TIME FEE – but you will get FREE lifetime of updates! This means all the new features I add to UEC such as embedded audio and video support will be free for all customers!

Over 3000 eBooks Created with UEC on Amazon KDP I am so excited and proud to tell you that collectively my customers have used Ultimate eBook Creator and published over 3000 eBooks on Amazon KDP and other platforms such as Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Smashwords and more. Here is a very small sample of eBooks published!

Ultimate eBook Creator Features

System Requirements

Built in Pro Editor like MS Word

eBook Generator

MS Word Conversion Tools

PDF Conversion Tools

Writer’s Studio

Customer Testimonials

Lisa Orban – Indie United Publishing House

System Requirements This software application is ONLY for Microsoft Windows For Mac users read this.

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[aboutbigbooks]

Recent Releases Part 2: Points of View

Once again, I have a bunch of advance reader’s copies thanks to NetGalley and Goodreads (in return for honest reviews). And once again, the bunch contains a variety of fiction and yields a range of recommendations. If you’re looking for a big book, there are a couple that come close (> 400 pp.) that I can heartily recommend. A theme that inadvertently runs through this crop is multiple narrators, a technique that most of these books use to good effect.

In chronological order, here are some new novels (and a couple of paperback releases) from the second half of 2017. Hint: my highest recommendations go to the more recent releases.

Siracusa (Delia Ephron, 304 pp., paperback release June 6). Two couples to go Italy together: Taylor and Finn (who bring their daughter, Snow) and Lizzie and Michael. Told from their four perspectives, relationship chaos ensues – a situation that you can foresee from the start. I won’t say more about the events to avoid spoilers, but think entropy. Around the same time I read Siracusa, I also read Jane Smiley’s Commonwealth, which made me think about writing a blog post about wife-swapping novels. The difference between the two books? Ephron’s characters are anxious, dramatic, or both; Smiley’s are (as always) serene and observant. Read them both for an interesting contrast.

Read if: You like your drama high.

Emma in the Night (Wendy Walker, 320 pp., August 8).  Two sisters disappear, and only one, Cassandra, shows up on her mother’s doorstep three years later. Her mother and father are still divorced and remarried, and her mother is as crazy as ever. In mythology, Cassandra was the prophetess whose true prophecies were not believed. This Cassandra is an unreliable narrator, not because she is drunk or damaged, but because she has a secret agenda of her own that she doesn’t tell anyone (including the reader). The other narrator is Abby Winter, an FBI forensic psychologist who worked the original disappearance. Of the two, Cassie is the more interesting. Some good twists.

Read if: You like dysfunctional family dramas and unreliable narrators.

Unraveling Oliver (Liz Nugent, 272 pp., August 22). I started to hear some buzz about this book around the beginning of September, but I was disappointed.  The story is told in flashbacks by Oliver and those he has had contact with over his life. That was not the disappointing part – the structure worked super well. The characters themselves, however, were archetypes with little depth or complexity. Oliver has some kind of personality pathology, probably narcissism with a dash of antisocial thrown in, and that’s about all you need to know about him. His wife is the bad stereotype of a librarian (she’s actually an artist, but not that kind of artist – you know, the vegetarian kind with dyed hair. The dowdy kind who wears cardigans and is a poor driver.) The older French woman? A winemaker, wise in the ways of food and sex. An aunt is a spinster sister, unattractive and not good with children. And so on.

Read if: Construction satisfies you more than character.

The Golden House (Salman Rushdie, 380 pp., September 5). Did not finish. This sounded like a winner: from Salman Rushdie, winner of the Booker of Bookers for Midnight’s Children and set in New York with a loose allegory on Trump. I got about two-thirds of the way through it, and finding that I was not getting the momentum that some readers reported halfway through, I moved on to better things. The story is told from the perspective of a twenty-something American man who becomes intrigued (to say the least) with a family from an initially unnamed country that moves into his affluent neighborhood. The widowed patriarch is Nero Golden and his three sons are Petronius, Lucius Apuleius, and Dionysus. Nero is meant to be the Trump allegory, which you can tell because sometimes he says things like, “On the upper floors I can get a terrific deal . . . So, a great deal. The best deal in town.” My main problem with this novel was voice. I got bogged down in a conversation between the narrator and Nero about guns that didn’t indicate the speakers, and I couldn’t tell from their voice who was who. Both of them sounded like the elderly foreigner. I quit not long after that.

There were beautiful nuggets, to wit:

Life and death are both meaningless. They happen or don’t happen for reasons that have not weight, from which you learn nothing. There is no wisdom in the world. We are all fortune’s fools. Here is the earth and it is so beautiful and we are so lucky to be here with one another and we are so stupid and what happens to us is so stupid and we don’t deserve our stupid luck.

If you read it: Let me know how it turns out.

Sing, Unburied, Sing (Jesmyn Ward, 285 pp., September 5). I honestly don’t know how many stars to give this book. Like others in this crop, it was told from the viewpoint of several characters. The center of the book is Jojo, a Black teenager living in abject poverty in the rural South. Unlike Unravelling Oliver, this book has rich, emotional characters. The language is swoon-worthy. So why not an immediate 5 stars? THE GRIM, PEOPLE. SO MUCH GRIM. Beautiful grim, but still.  There was also an element of the supernatural that did not work 100% for me. Ward just won a MacArthur Genius Grant, and I’m betting this will be on a lot of literary award short lists.

Read if: You love beautiful language and can handle grimness.

The Dark Lake (Sarah Bailey, 400 pp., October 3). I am always skeptical about books that promise that they will satisfy fans of Tana French (the Dublin Murder Squad series), but this one fits the bill. Set in a small town in Australia, this debut effort is told from the (sole) perspective of detective Gemma Woodstock. A teacher from Gemma’s alma mater, her former classmate, has been found dead. It falls to Gemma and her partner to expose the victim’s life while protecting their own secrets and negotiating their own complications. Like the Dublin detectives, these cops are real people with real flaws that sometimes get in the way of their jobs. A great page-turner and nearly big book. I’m looking forward to more from Sarah Bailey.

Read if: You can’t wait for the next Dublin Murder Squad. No, seriously.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (Bryn Greenwood, 406 pp., paperback release October 3). Another nearly big book that I loved. The novel tells the coming-of-age of Wavonna from her perspective and those of her relatives, teachers, and the biker mechanic who is ultimately her savior. Wavy’s parents cook and take methamphetamine, and she is often left to her own devices. Wavy is damaged – she can only eat alone, preferably out of the garbage; she doesn’t talk much; and don’t try to touch her. When Kullen finds her trying to maintain the household and care for her mother and little brother, he has to do something. Can an adult biker mechanic and a young girl – and later, a young woman – be soulmates? Bryn Greenwood will make you believe they can.

Read if: You like your grim counterbalanced with unlikely but sustaining love.

The Immortalists (Chloe Benjamin, 352 pp., January 9, 2018). Last but absolutely not least, this novel asks, what if you knew the date of your death? Four bored young siblings decide to visit a medium who can (and does) tell them the exact dates of their death. The youngest, Simon, has the earliest date:

It’s the prophecy, too, something he would very much like to forget but has instead dragged behind him all these years. He hates the woman for giving it to him, and he hates himself for believing her. If the prophecy is a ball, his belief is its chain; it is the voice in his head that says Hurry, says Faster, says Run.

All of the siblings are affected by the prophecy and what it says to them. They take risks or avoid them to the point of paralysis; they make plans or discard them; they look to the future or the past. Varya, the eldest: “it was evident in Simon’s spirits, in Daniel’s tendency toward anger, in the way Klara unlatched and drifted away from them.”

Read if: You think you would like a mash-up of San Francisco in the 70s (think Tales of the City), magic shows, a meditation on duty to others, and another meditation on connection, all in a family saga.

#bookreview

[sentrava]

Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different

Winter tends to be my favorite time to catch up on my reading. From the week of Thanksgiving until midway through January, everyone in the tourism industry seems to disappear—it’s as if conference season is over, their budgets have been planned for the following year, and they’re taking a very lengthy hiatus. I took the opportunity over the holidays and my birthday trip to Puerto Rico to whittle down my 2019 book list, just a smidge.

Here’s everything I’ve read in the past couple months in case you’re heading on a Spring Break or summer trip of your own soon and looking for a good vacation read of your own.

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror by LaRue Cook

I’m at that point in my career where so many peers and friends are publishing books, and I can barely keep up with reading them all. But when a friend sent me a link to LaRue’s book, I bumped it up the chain and immediately ordered the paperback instead of waiting for the Kindle version to drop. LaRue and I started as writers at the UT paper, The Daily Beacon, on the same day; I was 20, he was 18, halfway through his freshman year. We immediately became journalist friends, and I was soon promoted to features editor, he one of my most reliable writers. He later went on to be the editor of the paper after I graduated.

Our lives ran parallel for years; I worked a stint at Entertainment Weekly, and he took over the same job a year or two later. He and his girlfriend at the time, another of my close college pals, moved to NYC in my final months there before moving to California, so I got to spend some time with them as my neighbors while he was getting his feet wet in sports writing for ESPN. But then, he dropped off my radar. He was never on social media back then, despite being younger than me, and I often lose touch with people I can’t track via Facebook and Instagram. I now know that’s partially because he was going through his version of an existential crisis, and after a decade with ESPN, he quit, moved back to Knoxville and became an Uber driver. While doing this (and driving more than 5,000 passengers around town), he wrote a book—a memoir told through the parallel lives of his passengers. A read that covers so many topics in the span of 234 pages: racial inequality, sexual orientation, faith and religion, his own infidelities. It’s always weird reading a memoir by someone you know, as it feels a bit like your peeling back the layers of their soul. I’d love to write something similar someday, but am not sure I’d ever be able to approach it with such honesty as LaRue did. This is a great book for anyone looking for a non-fiction read that examines how losing your pillar at a young age—in this case, LaRue’s dad at 15—can go on to shape a person’s identity as a young adult.

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais

I’m still shook by this book. You know that it’s a powerful read if you’re still thinking about it two months later. I started and finished this book at the beach in less than 24 hours, and man, it was some heavy stuff.

Taking place in an 18-month span during the height of apartheid, Hum chronicles the lives of two very different heroines—a nine-year-old white girl whose parents are slain and a 50-year-old black woman who came to the big city to track down her rebel daughter caught up in the Soweto Uprising—and at the heart of the story, impresses upon the reader how no matter the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our religion or where we were born, no one is any greater or worse than the next human (and that good people do bad things and bad people do good things). Particularly poignant during the racial inequality happening still today, this book really tugged at my heartstrings and should be on everyone’s must-read list.

All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

I love me a good mystery, and All the Missing Girls is in a similar vein to Gone Girl and every Mary Kubica book I’ve ever devoured. It starts off with Nicolette, a 28-year-old teacher who had fled her small Appalachian town after high school to move to the big city, returning home to care for her ailing father—and confronting the ghosts of her past, specifically the disappearance of her best friend. Not long after she arrives, another young girl goes missing, and Nicolette makes it her mission to figure out what happened to her—and if it is indeed linked to the same missing girl from a decade prior.

Contrary to what other reviewers have written, I found the pace of this book quick and engaging, and those who like suspense will likely find it entertaining. The only thing I didn’t really care for was the erratic storytelling style in which the author kept jumping a day back in time to set the stage. It made it a bit confusing to piece together the timeline on the reader’s end. Overall, though, I’d read this book again and give it four out of five starts if I were still rating my reads.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

We’re never really told what exactly is wrong with Eleanor Oliphant; we just know from the opening lines of the book that she’s different. And that difference takes us through her life in a deadbeat job with no friends or family to call her own, a curious character who becomes overly infatuated with a rockstar she’s never met, to the point where she begins to stalk him, both at gigs and at his own home, and even thinks he’s her boyfriend.

Socially awkward Eleanor is always saying the exact wrong thing, and she’s never even aware she’s the butt of everybody’s jokes in the office. A chance encounter, however, brings her close to a coworker who she previously had written off as uninteresting: She falls into an unexpected friendship with Raymond when they come to the rescue of an older man who has fallen in the street and needs to be taken to the hospital. This book isn’t so much plot-driven, as it is about character development, and Honeyman is a master of that particular trope. Peculiar and uplifting despite its somber undertones—alcoholism, mental illness, child abuse—Eleanor Oliphant was one of the most unexpectedly endearing books I read in the past year. The cadence of Eleanor’s narrating takes a bit of getting used to, but once you insert yourself into her mind, reading in her voice becomes second nature.

The High Season by Judy Blundell

The premise of this book—an artist and gallery curator, Ruthie, dealing with a separation who longs to keep her life in a sleepy Long Island coastal town in one piece when everything around her seems to be falling apart—made me think this was going to be a beach read (or maybe the fact that it was actually set on an island did that). But it was a bit, well, sleepier than that. It took nearly halfway through the book until I even knew what it was really about: Ruthie’s failed marriage, her career crumbling at the hands of her board and coming to grips with everything changing around her, including the loss of her home and her daughter, who is midway through high school. There was a socialite aspect to this book I kind of liked when the Hampton set arrived in the North Fork for the summer; it brought a little Sex and the City edge and scandal to what was dragging on as a mundane novel to that point.

In the end, this book was fine; not great, not terrible. I liked the art gallery aspect of it; the fact that SVV and I are part of so many groups and on various art boards these days made the book a bit more relatable. If I still gave ratings, this one would get two-and-a-half stars: very slow in parts, but enough of a story to hold my interest till the end.

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillroy

The Wedding Date is, hands down, one of the worst books I have read ever. I am still shocked it got such positive ratings on Good Reads and Amazon—does no one read for content anymore?! I stuck with it kept waiting for the plot to develop and … nothing. In the opening pages of the book, Alexa meets Drew in an elevator, then soon after agrees to be his fake wedding date to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The two fall into an on-again, off-again romance, and there’s just no storyline AT ALL.

I never read any of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, but I imagine it was a lot like this: heavy on the sex scenes, light on the content. No thanks, not my jam. It’s a shame, too, as this could have been a powerful tale about interracial relationships and the trials faced by both side, but instead it was just plain garbage.

When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger

If you loved The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll be happy to see that Lauren Weisberger is back many years later with another follow-up tale that chronicles Miranda Priestley’s assistant Emily Charlton as she navigates life’s changes after her time at Runway. (Side note: Somehow I must have missed the second in the series, Revenge Wears Prada? Anyone read it?) Emily is a fixer, an image consultant of sorts for the Hollywood set, and when her career starts to falter, she takes a job in Greenwich, Conn., trying to help a former supermodel navigate a scandal involving her senator husband while also suffering life in the suburbs.

I’ve read every other book of Weisberger’s, and while none can compare to Devil, this one is satisfying for anyone who loved the original.

Crazy, Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

I’ll admit that I had no desire to read this book until I saw the movie trailer. Then, I immediately signed up for it at my local library, but was approximately 368th on the list, no exaggeration, so it took ages to land in my inbox. And when it finally did, it was worth the wait—nothing at all like I expected.

Rachel Chu is a professor at NYU whose boyfriends Nicky invites her back to Singapore with him for his best friend’s wedding; little does she know, his family is basically Singapore royalty. Despite the fact that she’s Asian-American—she never knew her father, but her mother was a Chinese immigrant—many members of Nick’s snobby family doesn’t give her the time of day, particularly his mom who is out to destroy their relationship. What follows is a fascinating look into how the upper crust, the social-climbers for whom dropping a cool million on a pair of earrings is an everyday occurrence, live—private planes! private clubs! private islands!—in one of the world’s most extravagant, over-the-top cities. One of my dear friends is a Singapore native, and I fact-checked much the book with her—she says it’s very accurate to the 1% there and even knows the families upon whom the book is based.

I then watched the movie on a recent flight and was equally pleased by it. I suppose next up I’ll be reading the second and third installments of this trilogy—please tell me they’re as entertaining as the first?

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

You know the kind of book you think is going to end one way, then midway through, you’re hit with a whammy and completely left off-guard? That’s The Last Mrs. Parrish to a tee. Amber Patterson is a con-artist who weasels her way into heiress Daphne Parrish’s world of excess by becoming her friend in Single White Female fashion—later going as far as trying to become her, attempting to take over her husband and her home. The book ping-pongs between narrators, both Amber and Daphne, and there’s really no way to tell you anymore of the plot of Amber’s metamorphosis into Daphne without spoiling any of the zingers, of which there are many. Go. Read. This. Book!

I’m really, really hoping The Last Mrs. Parrish gets made into a movie starring (or produced by) Reese Witherspoon.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Oh my, I LOVED This Is How It Always Is. I didn’t know what it was about in the slightest, but so many people recommended it, that I immediately requested it from the library. Based on Frankel’s own experiences with having a boy who early on began identifying as a girl, this book chronicles a set of five brothers, the youngest of whom always felt different. When this feeling becomes evolves into exploration—wearing dresses, putting on makeup, playing with dolls—his parents begin to realize it’s more than just a phase. So they take steps to letting their son become their daughter by moving across the country and completely resetting their lives.

At the root of this story is the message that all families have issues, all families keep secrets—it’s how they choose to deal with them that sets them apart.

**********

Currently I’m reading The Paris Secret and A Gentleman in Moscow, neither of which have really grabbed my attention, but I’ve also got Bad Blood, Becoming, Pete Buttigieg’s Shortest Way Home and Far Away and Further Back, a memoir by my friend Holly’s dad. I guess it’s a non-fiction kind of reading month over here!

What have you read and loved so far this year?

Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

[waynebomberger]

Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different

Winter tends to be my favorite time to catch up on my reading. From the week of Thanksgiving until midway through January, everyone in the tourism industry seems to disappear—it’s as if conference season is over, their budgets have been planned for the following year, and they’re taking a very lengthy hiatus. I took the opportunity over the holidays and my birthday trip to Puerto Rico to whittle down my 2019 book list, just a smidge.

Here’s everything I’ve read in the past couple months in case you’re heading on a Spring Break or summer trip of your own soon and looking for a good vacation read of your own.

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror by LaRue Cook

I’m at that point in my career where so many peers and friends are publishing books, and I can barely keep up with reading them all. But when a friend sent me a link to LaRue’s book, I bumped it up the chain and immediately ordered the paperback instead of waiting for the Kindle version to drop. LaRue and I started as writers at the UT paper, The Daily Beacon, on the same day; I was 20, he was 18, halfway through his freshman year. We immediately became journalist friends, and I was soon promoted to features editor, he one of my most reliable writers. He later went on to be the editor of the paper after I graduated.

Our lives ran parallel for years; I worked a stint at Entertainment Weekly, and he took over the same job a year or two later. He and his girlfriend at the time, another of my close college pals, moved to NYC in my final months there before moving to California, so I got to spend some time with them as my neighbors while he was getting his feet wet in sports writing for ESPN. But then, he dropped off my radar. He was never on social media back then, despite being younger than me, and I often lose touch with people I can’t track via Facebook and Instagram. I now know that’s partially because he was going through his version of an existential crisis, and after a decade with ESPN, he quit, moved back to Knoxville and became an Uber driver. While doing this (and driving more than 5,000 passengers around town), he wrote a book—a memoir told through the parallel lives of his passengers. A read that covers so many topics in the span of 234 pages: racial inequality, sexual orientation, faith and religion, his own infidelities. It’s always weird reading a memoir by someone you know, as it feels a bit like your peeling back the layers of their soul. I’d love to write something similar someday, but am not sure I’d ever be able to approach it with such honesty as LaRue did. This is a great book for anyone looking for a non-fiction read that examines how losing your pillar at a young age—in this case, LaRue’s dad at 15—can go on to shape a person’s identity as a young adult.

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais

I’m still shook by this book. You know that it’s a powerful read if you’re still thinking about it two months later. I started and finished this book at the beach in less than 24 hours, and man, it was some heavy stuff.

Taking place in an 18-month span during the height of apartheid, Hum chronicles the lives of two very different heroines—a nine-year-old white girl whose parents are slain and a 50-year-old black woman who came to the big city to track down her rebel daughter caught up in the Soweto Uprising—and at the heart of the story, impresses upon the reader how no matter the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our religion or where we were born, no one is any greater or worse than the next human (and that good people do bad things and bad people do good things). Particularly poignant during the racial inequality happening still today, this book really tugged at my heartstrings and should be on everyone’s must-read list.

All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

I love me a good mystery, and All the Missing Girls is in a similar vein to Gone Girl and every Mary Kubica book I’ve ever devoured. It starts off with Nicolette, a 28-year-old teacher who had fled her small Appalachian town after high school to move to the big city, returning home to care for her ailing father—and confronting the ghosts of her past, specifically the disappearance of her best friend. Not long after she arrives, another young girl goes missing, and Nicolette makes it her mission to figure out what happened to her—and if it is indeed linked to the same missing girl from a decade prior.

Contrary to what other reviewers have written, I found the pace of this book quick and engaging, and those who like suspense will likely find it entertaining. The only thing I didn’t really care for was the erratic storytelling style in which the author kept jumping a day back in time to set the stage. It made it a bit confusing to piece together the timeline on the reader’s end. Overall, though, I’d read this book again and give it four out of five starts if I were still rating my reads.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

We’re never really told what exactly is wrong with Eleanor Oliphant; we just know from the opening lines of the book that she’s different. And that difference takes us through her life in a deadbeat job with no friends or family to call her own, a curious character who becomes overly infatuated with a rockstar she’s never met, to the point where she begins to stalk him, both at gigs and at his own home, and even thinks he’s her boyfriend.

Socially awkward Eleanor is always saying the exact wrong thing, and she’s never even aware she’s the butt of everybody’s jokes in the office. A chance encounter, however, brings her close to a coworker who she previously had written off as uninteresting: She falls into an unexpected friendship with Raymond when they come to the rescue of an older man who has fallen in the street and needs to be taken to the hospital. This book isn’t so much plot-driven, as it is about character development, and Honeyman is a master of that particular trope. Peculiar and uplifting despite its somber undertones—alcoholism, mental illness, child abuse—Eleanor Oliphant was one of the most unexpectedly endearing books I read in the past year. The cadence of Eleanor’s narrating takes a bit of getting used to, but once you insert yourself into her mind, reading in her voice becomes second nature.

The High Season by Judy Blundell

The premise of this book—an artist and gallery curator, Ruthie, dealing with a separation who longs to keep her life in a sleepy Long Island coastal town in one piece when everything around her seems to be falling apart—made me think this was going to be a beach read (or maybe the fact that it was actually set on an island did that). But it was a bit, well, sleepier than that. It took nearly halfway through the book until I even knew what it was really about: Ruthie’s failed marriage, her career crumbling at the hands of her board and coming to grips with everything changing around her, including the loss of her home and her daughter, who is midway through high school. There was a socialite aspect to this book I kind of liked when the Hampton set arrived in the North Fork for the summer; it brought a little Sex and the City edge and scandal to what was dragging on as a mundane novel to that point.

In the end, this book was fine; not great, not terrible. I liked the art gallery aspect of it; the fact that SVV and I are part of so many groups and on various art boards these days made the book a bit more relatable. If I still gave ratings, this one would get two-and-a-half stars: very slow in parts, but enough of a story to hold my interest till the end.

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillroy

The Wedding Date is, hands down, one of the worst books I have read ever. I am still shocked it got such positive ratings on Good Reads and Amazon—does no one read for content anymore?! I stuck with it kept waiting for the plot to develop and … nothing. In the opening pages of the book, Alexa meets Drew in an elevator, then soon after agrees to be his fake wedding date to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The two fall into an on-again, off-again romance, and there’s just no storyline AT ALL.

I never read any of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, but I imagine it was a lot like this: heavy on the sex scenes, light on the content. No thanks, not my jam. It’s a shame, too, as this could have been a powerful tale about interracial relationships and the trials faced by both side, but instead it was just plain garbage.

When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger

If you loved The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll be happy to see that Lauren Weisberger is back many years later with another follow-up tale that chronicles Miranda Priestley’s assistant Emily Charlton as she navigates life’s changes after her time at Runway. (Side note: Somehow I must have missed the second in the series, Revenge Wears Prada? Anyone read it?) Emily is a fixer, an image consultant of sorts for the Hollywood set, and when her career starts to falter, she takes a job in Greenwich, Conn., trying to help a former supermodel navigate a scandal involving her senator husband while also suffering life in the suburbs.

I’ve read every other book of Weisberger’s, and while none can compare to Devil, this one is satisfying for anyone who loved the original.

Crazy, Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

I’ll admit that I had no desire to read this book until I saw the movie trailer. Then, I immediately signed up for it at my local library, but was approximately 368th on the list, no exaggeration, so it took ages to land in my inbox. And when it finally did, it was worth the wait—nothing at all like I expected.

Rachel Chu is a professor at NYU whose boyfriends Nicky invites her back to Singapore with him for his best friend’s wedding; little does she know, his family is basically Singapore royalty. Despite the fact that she’s Asian-American—she never knew her father, but her mother was a Chinese immigrant—many members of Nick’s snobby family doesn’t give her the time of day, particularly his mom who is out to destroy their relationship. What follows is a fascinating look into how the upper crust, the social-climbers for whom dropping a cool million on a pair of earrings is an everyday occurrence, live—private planes! private clubs! private islands!—in one of the world’s most extravagant, over-the-top cities. One of my dear friends is a Singapore native, and I fact-checked much the book with her—she says it’s very accurate to the 1% there and even knows the families upon whom the book is based.

I then watched the movie on a recent flight and was equally pleased by it. I suppose next up I’ll be reading the second and third installments of this trilogy—please tell me they’re as entertaining as the first?

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

You know the kind of book you think is going to end one way, then midway through, you’re hit with a whammy and completely left off-guard? That’s The Last Mrs. Parrish to a tee. Amber Patterson is a con-artist who weasels her way into heiress Daphne Parrish’s world of excess by becoming her friend in Single White Female fashion—later going as far as trying to become her, attempting to take over her husband and her home. The book ping-pongs between narrators, both Amber and Daphne, and there’s really no way to tell you anymore of the plot of Amber’s metamorphosis into Daphne without spoiling any of the zingers, of which there are many. Go. Read. This. Book!

I’m really, really hoping The Last Mrs. Parrish gets made into a movie starring (or produced by) Reese Witherspoon.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Oh my, I LOVED This Is How It Always Is. I didn’t know what it was about in the slightest, but so many people recommended it, that I immediately requested it from the library. Based on Frankel’s own experiences with having a boy who early on began identifying as a girl, this book chronicles a set of five brothers, the youngest of whom always felt different. When this feeling becomes evolves into exploration—wearing dresses, putting on makeup, playing with dolls—his parents begin to realize it’s more than just a phase. So they take steps to letting their son become their daughter by moving across the country and completely resetting their lives.

At the root of this story is the message that all families have issues, all families keep secrets—it’s how they choose to deal with them that sets them apart.

**********

Currently I’m reading The Paris Secret and A Gentleman in Moscow, neither of which have really grabbed my attention, but I’ve also got Bad Blood, Becoming, Pete Buttigieg’s Shortest Way Home and Far Away and Further Back, a memoir by my friend Holly’s dad. I guess it’s a non-fiction kind of reading month over here!

What have you read and loved so far this year?

from Camels & Chocolate: Travel & Lifestyles Blog http://bit.ly/2Ghl547

[carlsonknives]

OUTDOORS | 12 Of The Best Bits Of 2017 – A Year Of Heartache, Hope & Happiness

2017 proved to be another amazing year, but one that came very close to ending in tradegy after my mum was left fighting for her life.

With a long term relationship ending, and a new one beginning, it’s been a year of change, but of positive change.

I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors and feel more connected to the natural world that I have done for a very long time.

Here’s a summary of some of the best and worst bits of 2017.

January 2017 Urban walk with friends on New Year’s Day

I love finding hiden gems like Walton Park amidst a bustling city

We kicked the year off by going for a bracing new year’s day walk with friends in Liverpool. The 4 mile walk was just what we needed to clear our heads after a night of partying and it was the perfect start to what turned out to be the year I spent more time outdoors than I’ve done since I was a carefree child.

A New Year’s Day Walk Around Walton Park in Liverpool

February 2017 Facing fears in Delamere Forest

This was a pretty big deal for someone with vertigo and a lifelong fear of heights!

OK so to most people Go Ape isn’t exactly the pinnacle of daring adventure, but for me, with vertigo and a lifelong fear of heights, it was a big deal. A couple of years ago I’d have simply turned an opportunity like that down without a second thought, but when I was approached to try out the classic treetop adventure, I immediately said yes.

Once I’d got over my terror, I loved it, though I must admit to liking the zip wires more than the walking across wobbly high things! It just goes to show that having a positive ‘yes’ mindset can reap rewards and it felt like I’d truly started the year as I meant to go on!

A Day of Adventure at Go Ape Delamere Forest, Cheshire

March 2017 Glamping with the whole family

Some of the quirky glamping accommodation at Glamping Thorpe

In March we stayed at one of the quirkiest glamping sites we’ve ever been to! We slept in a converted horse box, whilst my sister stayed in a stunning shepherds hut and the whole family got together for a party at the fantastic Glamping Thorpe in Oxfordshire.

Ultra-Quirky Glamping For Couples & Groups at Glamping Thorpe in Oxfordshire

April 2017 Exploring northern Cornwall

Padstow harbour in Cornwall

In April we headed down to Cornwall and stayed in a gorgeous lodge at Juliots Well. We explored Padstow and despite an ankle injury, managed to make it up to Tintagel for some breathtaking views.

We also visited the magical St. Nectans Glen, marking the first of many waterfalls that I’d visit during 2017.

The Perfect Spring Weekend Break at Juliots Well, Plus Out & About In North Cornwall

May 2017 Bucket list Indian Ocean diving

Snorkeling in the Indian Ocean on my bucket-list holiday

In May I went on a bucket list holiday to the Indian Ocean where I swam with sharks, spotted lionfish, stroked a moray eel and cried my eyes out when I saw a Mata Ray. The trip was everything I’d hoped it would be and more.

Discovering the Stunning Biodiversity of the Maldives

June 2017 Solo Scottish road trip and mountain summit

Nearing the summit of Ben Lawers on my first solo hike

Soon after I returned from the Maldives I embarked on a solo road trip to Scotland. I glamped on my own close to Loch Tay, and did my first ever mountain walk on my own.

Having attempted the walk the previous year, we’d had to turn back due to blizzard conditions and deep snow so this time I was determined to reach the two summits of Beinn Ghals and Ben Lawers. The weather at the base was sweltering and came as a shock, and I found the walk demanding, but I did it, and confidence wise, it did me the world of good!

My Scottish Road Trip – Kayaking on a Loch & Standing On Top Of Mountains

July 2017  Camping with friends at Cae Du Wales

Camping with friends at my favourite campsite

We love Cae Du campsite in Wales and this year we were lucky enough to return with a big group of friends for several glorious sunny days in July. Living all over the country and with our own demanding lives, it’s rare that we get to spend so much quality time with our friends, so our camping trip felt like a real treat and also gave me the chance to review a funky new tent.

5 Nights Camping In The Stunning New Star Canopy Bell Tent from Boutique Camping

August 2017 Critical illness

Mum on her way to recovery on the Intensive Care ward

In July my mum was rushed into hospital, and I stood in horror beside her hospital bed watching the stats on her monitor plummet as her lung function completely ceased and she lost consciousness. It was a harrowing experience, but after nearly 2 weeks in Intensive care, mum was finally well enough to come home.

I will never be able to express the graitute I feel for the team at Stafford hospital who battled for over an hour to save my mums’ life, nor the team that looked after her whilst she was in intensive care at Royal Univeristy Hospital Stoke.

We have always been a close family, but this Christmas feels like the biggest gift we’ve ever been given.

Spending all day every day in a waiting room, the rollercoaster of being told to give up hope then glimpses of improvement took it’s toll on us all, and I for the sake of my own sanity, I sought a few hours away from the hospital in order to be alone with my thoughts out on the water.

Me kayaking at Astbury Mere in Cheshire

A Moment Of Reflection Kayaking Out On The Water – Time Outdoors During A Crisis

As mum started to get stronger, towards the end of August I once again set off on my own, this time for a long bank holiday break down in Cornwall. I stayed in a stunning yurt at The Fir Hill and booked a wildlife spotting boat trip and went on a sea kayaking adventure. Sea kayaking is something I’d always wanted to do, and I loved every second of it and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Kayaking off the coast of St. Agnes in Cornwall

Exploring The St Agnes Coast With Koru Kayaking, Trevaunance Cove in Cornwall

September 2017 Walking in Wainwrights footsteps

Near the summit of Catbells having done my very first Wainwright walk

I had fully intended to visit the Lake District well before September but had such a busy year, the opportunity didn’t arrive until late.

Autumn camping trip at Castlerigg Hall campsite, Cumbria

We decided a bit of Autumn camping was in order, and returned to one of our favourite campsites, Castlerigg Hall, and whilst in the area we did our very first Wainwright walk.

Hawse End to Catbells & Camping in Cumbria on the Autumn Equinox

October 2017 Discovering walking in the Lancashire Moors

Walking on the Lancashire moors for the first time

After the amicable break up of my relationship earlier in the year, by this time I had someone new in my life who not only shares my passion for the outdoors but also writes about the outdoors and is a keen walker and ecologist.

Slowly the sorrow I naturally felt at the end of my previous relationship was replaced with a new found sense of happiness, and we wasted no time in spending as much time outdoors as possible.

Our very first walk at the start of October took us up into the Lancashire Moors as we walked from Brinscall up to Great Hill.

Brinscall to Great Hill – Walking In The Lancashire Moors

November 2017 Discovering there’s more to Snowdonia than Snowdon

Aber Falls in Snowdonia

We booked a luxury weekend break with Under the Thatch and stayed in a stunning Victorian cottage in Snowdonia.

Inside the beautiful cottage in Snowdonia

We chose the property mainly based on it’s location and we managed to get two great walks over the weekend, including a walk at Newborough Warren and Llanddwyn Island in Angelsey, as well as a lovely circular walk to Aber Falls in North Wales which took us through some magiacl ancient woodland, to two enormous waterfalls and then onwards towards the North Wales coast providing us with expansive views of Angelsey.

Walking Aber Falls, Wales, 7.42km Circular Walk

December 2017  Snowy canal winter walk in Wheelton

Lock number 59 in Wheelton, Lancashire

During a weekend which saw much the UK blanketed in snow, we headed up to Leyland in Lancashire for a weekend break, and found ourselves by chance in an area that was almost completely free of snow.

The light was stunning thanks to the low winter sun, cloudless skies and reflection of the bright white snow. The simple joy of walking on a cold but bright and sunny winters day never gets old for me; there’s something so life affirming about hearing the crunch of snow underfoot and the warmth of the sun on your face.

A Snowy Winter Canal Walk in Wheelton, Lancashire

Finishing 2017 on a high

I’m finishing the year happier than I’ve ever been and confident that whilst next year is sure to throw up it’s own challenges, I’ll be able to face whatever comes my way. I wanted to ensure that 2017 was all about prioritising my own wellbeing, saying yes to more fun travel and adventure opportunities, no to more freelance work and spending time outdoors, and I feel like I’ve done that.

Looking forward to 2018

In 2018 I’m looking forward to more camping, walking and I’d love to do sea kayaking again. I also want to try climbing outdoors, to finally master SUP, and I’m keen to snorkel or even dive off the coast here in the UK. Finally I’d also really like to get back up to Scotland again, and we are currently planning a week long Scottish road trip for some time in 2018.

Here’s to you

I wish you a very happy new year, and would like to take a moment to say a big heartfelt thank you to all of the team here at Camping with Style, my family and friends and to you the readers for your going support.

Happy 2018!

Shell x

The post OUTDOORS | 12 Of The Best Bits Of 2017 – A Year Of Heartache, Hope & Happiness appeared first on Camping with Style Camping Blog | Activities • Glamping • Travel • Adventure.

Original Source http://www.campingwithstyle.co.uk/outdoors-12-best-bits-2017-year-heartache-hope-happiness/ For the best knives to use whilst camping check out Carlson Knives http://www.carlsonknives.com/

[edc-creations-blog]

Debut author J. Nichole

Freshmen Fifteen

Sophisticated Sophomore

Summer Fling

Grown & Sexy Senior

In Love 101, we meet Laila a student at Lee University, a Historically Black College & University in Tallahassee, Florida.  Throughout the series,  Laila tackles the challenges of finding new friends, and a new love.  Each book in Love 101 chronicles the progression of her college experience, and ultimately her relationship with the man who snagged her freshman year.

Reviews for Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101: Book 1) 35 Amazon Ratings of 4.4 or 5.0 Stars Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101: Book 1) 5 Star Review “I loved the book it reminded me of my freshman year LOL… I hope there is a part 2 to see what the characters have been up to.”

Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101: Book 1) 5 Star Review “This was a quick page turner about a young woman entering a new chapter of her life. We not only got a chance to take this journey with her but we were also able to catch a glimpse at the supporting characters embarking on their own journeys of self discovery. There were plenty of life lessons sprinkled throughout the book. It also included humor and of course love. I recommend this book to anyone who remembers what it was like to be young, dumb(kidding), and down for fun. I’m eagerly awaiting the next book to see what the Lee University students are up to. P.S. Something tells me we haven’t heard the last of Courtney.”

About the Love 101 – New Adult Series After releasing Freshmen Fifteen, book one of the Love 101 series, the feedback J. Nichole received was that the book left readers wanting more!  What happened to Laila and Chris?  What becomes of Laila’s best friend, Tanya?  Although Love 101 was not in the plans, J. Nichole wanted her readers to feel satisfied with their investment into Laila’s life.  So with that, J. Nichole went back to her desk and didn’t emerge until she completed Laila’s story.  With the series, readers can follow Laila from her first year in college until she walks across that stage four years later.

Excerpt: Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101) by J. Nichole He stands up and slowly wraps his arm around my waist as he starts dancing, and I feel his muscles tense as he moves.  I’m going to ignore how inappropriate this is, he gets a pass this time. I cock my head up and say, “Well, hello there.”

“It’s about time I get a chance to get close to you.”  He stops dancing and stares me in the eyes with a playful smile.  Staring back, I take note of each of his features.  His eyes are slightly darker than hazel and his goatee is perfectly trimmed. “I hope you are having fun tonight.  I have to go, but let me give you my number so you can call me.”

“Your number? I don’t even know your name, nor do you know mine.”

“Oh, I know your name, Laila.  But I apologize.  My name is Chris, Chris Clark. Now like I said, let me give you my number.”

How does he know my name?  I pull my phone out and begin entering each number as he says it. As I press Done, he takes my phone and presses the call button. When he hands my phone back, I look at him sideways and say, “You didn’t have to take my number, I would have given it to you.”  Sexy, but cocky.  I’m not sure about this one.

“You’re right, but like I said, I need to run.  Promise me you will call me when you make it back to the dorm.”

I don’t make any promises, but I give him a gentle smile.  He kisses my cheek, then walks away, leaving his scent of sweat and cologne behind.  I turn to Jennifer and Nicole, who are standing with big goofy grins on their faces.  I shake my head a couple of times.  Never would I have imagined I would have met Mr. Sexy like this.

( Continued… )

© 2017 All rights reserved.  Book excerpt reprinted by permission of the author, J. Nichole.  Do not reproduce, copy or use without the author’s written permission. This excerpt is used for promotional purposes only. Purchase Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101) by J. Nichole https://www.amazon.com/Freshmen-Fifteen-Love-101-Nichole-ebook/dp/B06XP9635Y

    Freshmen Fifteen is the first book in the Love 101 series by debut author J. Nichole.  Genre: African American Romance, New Adult.  Freshmen Fifteen is the first book in the Love 101 series, by debut author J. Nichole. Each book tackles another year of Laila’s university adventures, important friendships, and romantic entanglements.  This series is intended for mature, new adult audiences.

Sophisticated Sophomore (Love 101) by J. Nichole Laila Jackson survived freshman year at Lee University, a historically black college and university in Tallahassee, Florida. Now summer is over, and she’s signed up for another grueling course load.

Luckily, Laila has the perfect distraction from her studies! She and her boyfriend, Chris, are closer than ever. Together, the two of them survived the machinations of Chris’s unstable ex-girlfriend, Courtney—but she’s not done with them yet.

While attending a football game with Lee University’s rival, A&T, Laila is surprised by the appearance of an old acquaintance. Throughout high school, Laila always had a crush on Josh, the brother of her best friend, Tanya. She thought he never saw her as more than Tanya’s friend, but their chance meeting changes her mind!

Suddenly, Laila is in the middle of a love triangle. Josh is finally interested in being more than just friends, but she and Chris have worked hard to build a solid relationship. Courtney’s meddling further complicates Laila’s relationships.

In this second book in the Love 101 series, Laila faces difficult new challenges. She’s no longer a naïve freshman, but she still has a lot to learn when it comes to matters of the heart.

Summer Fling (Love 101) by J. Nichole J. Nichole’s third Love 101 romance joins rising junior Laila Jackson as she tries to move forward from a wrecked relationship.

Laila doesn’t understand the reason behind her breakup with her boyfriend, Chris Clark. She truly, deeply loved Chris, and he left her with no explanation. She is hurt, confused, and humiliated. Her friends advise her to stay single for a while.

That’s easier said than done. Laila thought she would be too busy working at a summer internship for the What’s Happening Jacksonville magazine to meet any men, but she meets two almost immediately. Isaiah is an old acquaintance and alum of Laila’s school, Lee University. Dante is a football star with a flair for the dramatic.

Laila’s also still thinking about Josh. During sophomore year, he told her he wanted to be in a relationship. Laila knew it wasn’t fair to either of them to make Josh a rebound from Chris, but she still has deep feelings for him.

As Laila tries to decide between three different men, Chris comes back into the picture. Can Laila get closure from their painful breakup, or does Chris have one more surprise in store for her?

Grown & Sexy Senior (Love 101) by J. Nichole In this, the final chapter of J. Nichole’s Love 101 series, Laila Jackson graduates from Lee University and starts her new career as a journalist. As senior year winds down, she must make tough decisions and discover what—and whom—she truly wants in life.

Laila is caught between two incredible men: Josh and Chris.

Josh was her first crush. He patiently waited for her as she tried to sort out her feelings. He always knows just what to say to make Laila feel better, and he wants her to move back home and marry him. Does she want to be his bride?

Chris was Laila’s first everything else. He was the first man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And he always put her first too. Even their confusing and devastating breakup was a result of the evil scheming of Chris’s ex-girlfriend, Courtney. Chris thought that leaving Laila would keep her safe from Courtney but soon realized he couldn’t live without her. Can she live without him?

Laila will have to draw on all the wisdom she has earned in the past four years to decide which path to take—and which love to choose.

#Sophisticated, #Sophomore, #SummerFling, #GrownAndSexySenior, #AfricanAmerican, #Fiction, #NewAdult, #TeenRomance, #YoungAdult and #WomensFiction

Why Freshmen Fifteen? by J. Nichole

The ‘freshman fifteen’ is an infamous term to describe the weight you gain your freshman year of college.  Unfortunately, for me, it was accurate.

I attended Florida A&M University, a Historically Black College & University (HBCU) in Tallahassee, Florida.  When the idea of Freshmen Fifteen popped into my head, it was only right that Laila have the same challenges I faced of dealing with the sweltering heat of Tallahassee.  But Lee University, is purely fictional.

Where did the idea come from?  I’d like to think God planted the seed.  It happened one day while I was commuting to work.  Before sitting down to write it, the only other book I authored was Journey After School, a non-fiction book for graduating college students — I guess I have a special place in my heart for college-aged adults.

Being an IT major I didn’t particularly need to write much in college, and working in my career field I probably write even less than when I was in school.  But I have always loved to read.  Reading hundreds of books through the school year to earn Little Caesar’s bucks… does anyone else remember those or was it just me?

In high school, my interest in books peaked when I read The Coldest Winter Ever.  The book that turned me into an insomnia-reader.  Sister Souljah captured me from the first page and didn’t let me go till I was finished.   I was even reading in the back of a classroom when I was supposed to be listening to the lecture.

I love other creative art forms as well, I binge watch Netflix… currently watching Frankie & Grace.  And ratchet music, is my guilty pleasure.  I still rock out to Knuck if you Buck! But it’s something about reading that will always take the highest place in my favorite things to do list.

With Love 101 I hope to create other insomnia-readers, I hope that with the first page of Freshmen Fifteen when you first meet Laila, you won’t put it down until you know how her college career ends in Grown & Sexy Senior!

Freshmen Fifteen (Love 101) by J. Nichole In Love 101, we meet Laila a student at Lee University, a Historically Black College & University in Tallahassee, Florida. 

[lukecmurray]

Advice On A Friend’s Goals: Tighten The Feedback Loop

I good friend of mine sent me an email that asked: 

“...I was wondering if you'd share with me your list of goals and categories that you use to shape them every year? This is an area I want to continue to grow in and continue to be influenced and guided by in my life.  I think goals and objectives are increasingly more important as I get older and I want to continue to practice this in my life...Attached is <the goals> I have for this current year.” He then attached a Word doc with some goals. 

As I started responding to his email I realized that my advice would likely be universally relevant. 

Okay, so, I'm sitting at the kitchen table in this baller ski-in ski-out mansion here at Winter Park and am too sore to hit first chair (or maybe any chair) after yesterday - thank you, Mary Jane - so I'm going to take a good chunk of time to really answer this in detail.  But I want to reiterate my first original, brief response to this query <I sent a brief response to his email a couple weeks ago>:

"The biggest question i have is - are you using a system to track all this stuff and then refining that system (not just changing the goals) as you get more feedback about which planning styles work and which do not?"

I call this concept "tightening your feedback loop".  And if I were going to write a 'big idea book' right now, this would be the core concept:  

what system you use in any part of life improvement is not as important as the consistency with which you use any system and the rate at which you can change it to be more effective

What I have done a bunch over the years and what I think many people expect, is that if you spend enough time finding the 'perfect system' then you can just say “Okay, I'm good, I've got the system that is going to work for me based on these assumptions I've made during this not-in-real-life brainstorming session” and then they go out into the world and, as the philosopher Mike Tyson says: "Everyone's got a plan, until they get punched in the face."

So, it's totally important to have a plan. But even more important is that you have a plan to revise your plan as you get repeatedly pummeled by a guy that wants to eat your children.

So, this feedback in relation to your specific goals would be:

You have 21 'personal' goals for the year, 46 total, and from that list I know the status of maybe 4 of them <he had updated progress on three of his goals from the list, and another one, I knew about from being his friend>.  And if you were going to actually update this to reflect the status of each of them, it would be a pain in the ass, and something you wouldn't do often enough to have a tight feedback loop on.  Maybe being able to glance at this and know how you're doing on each goal isn't important to your personal system (which you would know if you were evaluating your system as much as the goals in that system) but it would certainly decrease the mental burden of quickly reviewing them all if you had them color-coded by progress, or chunked in to categories better or something. Which brings me to my second piece of feedback on your structure.

It's too much. 

I remember taking a list like this to <a mutually known and respected leader> when I was probably 19. It filled up a full page, single spaced, of goals for just the next semester. And his feedback was:

Simplify. A lot.

And after reading a million books and talking to everyone I've ever known for longer than 5 minutes about goals (and tracking my own for 15 years) I've never received or given the advice or 'learned the lesson' that "you should/I should have made my goals/system more complicated"

This, again, goes back to the feedback loop advice. The more simple it is to 'review your goals' from a mental burden standpoint, the more likely you are to do so, which will mean that you'll be able to test it in the reality of getting punched in the face, and then change it to make it more effective. 

Back to 19 year old Luke’s goal list. Guess how often I read through that entire piece of paper and then used that list of 9,481 things I was going to get done in the next 100 days to guide my progress?  Yeah, probably three times. The day I finished the list, the day I shared it with <the leader> and then at the end of the semester. Not a very tight feedback loop.  

I've gotten better with this over the years, but the more I've refined my processes, the more I've come to believe that a 'quick and dirty' but more frequent high level -> mid level -> immediate review is 100x better than a less frequent but super deep and thorough review.  I used to do a review q 3 months, but again, would look at it and be like "man, I didn't pay enough attention to these/forgot about a lot of them". Then I would do a monthly review that would take me at least a few hours, so I either didn't do it, or if I did, I pulled so much 'analysis' from it that there's no way I would be able to act on all the 'lessons for next month'.  And next month I'd again feel like "Geeze, I didn't try to apply any of this stuff".

Which finally brings me to answering your original question:

What is the system I'm using now:  "share your list of goals and categories that you use to shape them every year?"

So in the context of my advice above, I'm going to first share my goals (along with how I came to them - a nod to the importance of the system/series of lessons that led me to pick them above all others) as well as my goal tracking and revision system, my feedback loop, which, again, is more important than the goals themselves.

* Taken from the concept of "Keystone Habit" coined by Charles Duhigg in his book "The Power Of Habit". Also, the question from "The One Thing" What's the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?.

** I've learned this from I've got the idea of this concept from both Tucker Max and Tynan, who have said different versions of this.

I’ll post these next two parts of the email in my next two blog posts.

first draft: 2/9/17

posted: 2/9/17

time spent: 7:11am - 9:57am

image credit: me

[allenmendezsr]

Ultimate Ebook Creator Amazon Kindle Mobi Epub Word PDF

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/ultimate-ebook-creator-amazon-kindle-mobi-epub-word-pdf/

Ultimate Ebook Creator Amazon Kindle Mobi Epub Word PDF

 Buy Now

    Hello there! My name is Nitin Mistry and I would like to tell why I created the Ultimate eBook Creator (UEC)…

Back in February 2011, another very cold Canadian winter day, I was sitting watching TV with my wife and our two boys. My wife had just finished working on her first recipe book but she looked frustrated. I asked her what was bothering her.

She told me she just finished her recipe book in Microsoft Word format and she tried to publish on Amaozn KDP several times, but KDP kept rejecting her eBook, saying there were formatting errors she did not understand!

She told me that if she could earn some extra money selling her eBook then maybe she could take more time off to spend with the boys. She told me, she had tried many different software, both free and paid, but nothing seemed to work. Trying to publish on Amazon KDP was so near impossible!

Then she said “honey, you create software in your day job right? Then why can’t you create a simple ebook writer/creator that I can use to create and publish my ebook?” At that time I knew nothing about Amazon KDP or Kindle devices. The next day, I decided to do some quick research into creating ebooks and what was available on the market.

After a few days I decided to help my wife fulfill her dream (and to earn some brownie points – if you know what I mean 😉 ). That’s when my Ultimate eBook Creator was ‘born’ and the rest is history.

Fast forward to today… UEC has been an incredible success! UEC has helped over 3000 authors publish their eBooks on Amazon and other platforms! The sales from UEC have enabled my wife to quit her day job to be a full time mom to our two boys and a children’s book writer. She has published two recipe ebooks and over 40 children’s ebooks on Amazon KDP using UEC and earns a nice passive income.

How to Self-Publish your eBook Many people have a dream of being an author and wonder how to go about publishing an eBook and specifically how to self-publish on Kindle, Barnes & Noble, iBookStore, Smashword, Lulu. Well I have some really good news for you. All you will need is the Ultimate eBook Creator – which is probably one of the best eBook creation software on the market today. You can write your eBook from scratch using the built in professional WYSIWYG editor or, if you already have your content in a text file or word document, then you can literally import all your content into UEC, organize your content into chapters and sections and have your e-book published in less than 30 minutes (depending on how large the book is). UEC is probably the only e-book software you will ever need! It takes care of all the complex formatting and automatically generates your “Table of Contents”, so all your formatting headaches are gone! You can generate for Kindle (MOBI), Barnes and Noble, iBookStore, Smashwords, LULU.com (EPUB) or generate an MS Word document or even a PDF document!

Why Kindle eBook Formatting is not easy? Did you know that 95% of the people who manage to publish an eBook for the Kindle never sell a single copy. It’s not their content. Most of the time the author has probably spent hours, even days or weeks writing the eBook. So why do they fail! Well it’s the final step … Formatting the eBook! Formatting your eBook to satisfy the rules for Amazon KDP is not easy! All you have to do is Google search the phrase “Kindle formatting issues” and you’ll see what I mean. Poor formatting results in bad customer experience, and even worse, puts your book on Amazon’s poor quality radar and they will warn or even remove your eBooks from Amazon KDP! This is one of the main reasons why there are so many eBook formatting services online. Most charge a monthly fee of $27 or more. Just imagine paying $27 per month! That’s a lot of money! Not with UEC. Because with UEC you only pay a onetime fee and get lifetime of free updates! UEC is so easy to use! It takes care of all that complex formatting, so you can focus on the content which is what you like to do! The Ultimate eBook Creator takes care of all the complex XML, XHTML, HTML5, CSS and all other format related techie nerdy stuff that you can just don’t need to worry about!

How to Publish on Kindle UEC makes it super easy to publish on Amazon Kindle devices. It’s almost like painting by numbers! In fact the Ultimate eBook Creator comes with a step by step guide which shows you how to publish your UEC generated Kindle e-book (in .MOBI format) right into Kindle. In fact I gave my 16 year old son a project for summer. He wrote his eBook using the UEC eBook software in 2 days and had it uploaded into Kindle on the third day. Here’s the book if you are interested – NBA Trivia. He is making between $300-$500 per month on this book alone!

Get Your Book Accepted On Amazon KDP the First Time! Getting your eBooks accepted on Kindle, iBookStore, LuLu, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble is probably one of the most difficult tasks you will encounter. Don’t believe me? Just do a simple Google search on say “iBookStore formatting” and you will read tons of blogs and stories about people struggling with the iBookStore. Here’s the process. You upload your book using a service like lulu.com. Wait 3-4 weeks to get your eBook validated. If there is even one error, your eBook will be rejected! But here’s the kicker. They DO NOT tell you ALL the errors at once. Then you fix that one error and submit again. Wait another 3 weeks to see if your eBook got accepted. This goes on and on until you fix all the eBook errors… PAINFUL!! Not with UEC though. I have so many UEC customers who email me back and say “Hey Nitin, my eBook got accepted the first time! And I only had to wait 4 hours!”.

Publish to iBookstore, Smashwords and LULU the First Time! If you think publishing to Amazon is hard, wait till you try the other platforms! I have had so many customers tell me that UEC is probably the only software available that publishes to Apple’s iBookstore, Smashwords.com and LULU.com the first time. You see UEC compiles 100% perfectly validated EPUB files, so no need to spend money on services that do this for you.

Never worry about eBook Formatting again! Here’s the good news. Ultimate eBook Creator takes care of all the complexities of formatting your eBooks once and for all. This is because UEC creates your eBooks from the ground up and generates 100% clean and lean XHTML code – unlike Calibre that tries to convert a Microsoft Word document with all that junk formatting hidden characters that make your eBooks look like c***! I hope, you know what I’m trying to say! Even though your eBook formatting may seem to look ok XHTML code it creates is really bad and bloats your eBooks with junk code that increases the size of your eBook. Amazon KDP has a 50MB limit and other platforms have a maximum size limit too. Your eBook will be rejected if it exceeds the max size limit!

Creating Adult Coloring Books UEC has built in templates to help you create Adult Coloring Books. Once you have your designs ready, UEC has built in tools to automatically bulk insert all your images at once onto alternate pages and format them to be center aligned. Learn more…

Creating Interactive eBook is Easy! The latest eBooks that are selling like hotcakes are INTERACTIVE eBooks! With the Ultimate eBook Creator, you can now easily create Interactive eBooks. Quiz books, children’s books, puzzle books. The list goes on and on.

Do You Really Want to Read the Kindle Publishing Guide? Without UEC, you would need to read and understand the 100s of pages of documentation to get it right. If you GET IT WRONG and your book can be rejected because it will fail the MOBI/EPUB validation!

If you get it wrong AND somehow manage to get through the Amazon’s evaluation process, people who buy your book will not only leave HORRIBLE reviews and ask for an immediate refund! Seriously the worst thing that can happen is getting a bad 1 star review. I would rather Amazon reject my book, than getting a 1 star bad review. The review will REALLY effect your sales. Trust me I’ve been there!

Adventure Path eBooks UEC can create simple Interactive eBooks. Here’s an example of a sports trivia interactive eBook that my son created on Amazon KDP – NBA Interactive Trivia.

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Multiple Language User Interface UEC user interface supports the English and German languages. In the future French and Spanish will also be added. Remember I am not talking about the spell checker which supports more than 80 different languages!

Multi Language Spell Checker UEC has a multiple language spell check built in. So whether you write your book in French, German, Spanish, Italian and many more (around 80 other languages) – UEC’s got you covered!

MAC Users? Ultimate eBook Creator is a Microsoft Windows Desktop Application (Windows 10,8,7). However it will also run very well on a Mac computer provided, you have a PC emulation software installed – I recommend Parallels. In fact I have many customers who use a Mac and they tell me UEC runs perfectly on the MAC with this Parallels PC emulator.

UEC CD-ROM Now Selling on Amazon I am very excited to let you know that UEC is now selling on Amazon on a CD-ROM. Click Here to Purchase CD Version from Amazon.com.

After Sales Support I am very serious about serving my customers and I will always try and help as much as I can. I answer support questions usually within the hour or sooner. But of course even I need to sleep, and then I answer the next day. Here’s what my customers say about my support Click Here ….

60 Days Money Back Guarantee You have a 60 day 100% no quibble money back guarantee. If you are not happy with the UEC for any reason, just email me within 60 days and i will refund 100% of your money! After refund, the software will be deactivated and so will not work any longer.

FREE Lifetime Software Updates! Here’s another guarantee. You only pay a ONE TIME FEE – but you will get FREE lifetime of updates! This means all the new features I add to UEC such as embedded audio and video support will be free for all customers!

Over 3000 eBooks Created with UEC on Amazon KDP I am so excited and proud to tell you that collectively my customers have used Ultimate eBook Creator and published over 3000 eBooks on Amazon KDP and other platforms such as Barnes & Noble, iBookstore, Smashwords and more. Here is a very small sample of eBooks published!

Ultimate eBook Creator Features

System Requirements

Built in Pro Editor like MS Word

eBook Generator

MS Word Conversion Tools

PDF Conversion Tools

Writer’s Studio

Customer Testimonials

Lisa Orban – Indie United Publishing House

System Requirements This software application is ONLY for Microsoft Windows For Mac users read this.

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