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No NaNoWriMo This Year: Working on A Different Sort of Writing Project

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Remember how last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo and wrote about my experience? Well, I’ve decided to change things up this year.

I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Instead, I’m going to be working on a different sort of writing project. Something I’ve been meaning/wanting to work on for some time now, but have kept putting it off time and time again.

There’s this story I’ve been working on since I was in 7th grade. I’ve had this story stuck in my head repeatedly, picturing how it’ll all turn out and what it’ll look like completed. I’ve made various drafts of the first couple chapters, both handwritten and typed trying to decide how to continue moving it forward.

The problem is I’ve always gotten stuck at some point with it. I just couldn’t find the right words to continue the story, couldn’t decide what I wanted to happen to my characters next. So I’d stop, telling myself I’d continue with it on a later day. But I’d end up not going back to it at all despite its continued presence in my mind.

This is the story I want to write instead of participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I want to write this story because I feel like its calling to me. It passes through my mind on a daily basis, asking to be written.

So I want to take up the grueling, difficult task of completing this story. I don’t know yet how long this’ll take me to finish. But it’s something I want to do because I hope to one day have it published. I want to be an author one of these days and I think this story could possibly be my way down that path.

Unlike with my story The Swan & the Crow, however, I won’t be publishing any of this story on my blog for you to read. I don’t want to do that because I don’t want the story itself online before I can get it published.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear anything about it from me as I continue working on it. I’ll try the best I can to continuously update you all on how it’s going, and whenever I finally finish it, I’ll be letting you know that too.

Right now, I can also tell you what it’s about in the hopes you’ll be interested in reading it if I’m able to get it published. I’m still working on a few kinks with the title and all so my synopsis will be pretty brief.

When Derek, a young high school boy goes to get his younger sister a birthday present, he gets more than what he bargained for. When he notices a mysterious necklace that not even the store owners were aware they had, he’s curious about it and buys it to wear later. Once he puts the necklace on, however, Derek begins to transform into a being he only thought existed in fairy tales. Having to adapt to the transformation, Derek makes friends with an unlikely ally who helps him adjust to the changes in his body just in time for them to have to work together to defeat an unexpected enemy.

I hope this story sounds like something you’d read and I can’t wait to continue working on it to see where it’ll take me.  

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Book Review: When She Woke

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Rating: 3 stars

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of the not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated, and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned but chromed and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love. 

When She Woke is a really powerful story. A story that makes me question the world Hannah lives in as well as my own society.

Chroming people depending on their crime is an interesting idea to think about. Especially because in this book, I feel like each color choosing for a crime is symbolic. Red for murder is obvious in the sense that murdering someone involves blood being shed while blue for rape represents a sense of innocence being lost. I think the idea of chroming people in general is interesting because it would make it easier for us as a society to know who’s committed a crime. We’d be better able to protect ourselves from people we don’t know who could hurt us. But at the same time, I see it has serious issues too. It would be another form of racism where people who’ve been chromed will have to deal with people trying to hurt them because of their past actions. It would create another society for people to continue hating each other. But at the same time, society would be safer because we’d know whose committed crimes and justice would be served. Either way, it’s an issue you ponder as a reader when reading this book.

This book also makes me question faith. I’m not a highly religious person to begin with because I believe everyone should be able to believe in whatever they want without someone judging them. Not everyone has the same faith and I think everyone has a right to practice their religion without fear from others perceiving them in a negative light. In When She Woke, Hannah had her own doubts about what she believed in whenever she became a chrome. Life changed for her and she found she couldn’t feel God’s presence anymore. She also realized that she missed out on so much in life because of her faith and how it perceives women. While I enjoyed reading this aspect of the book, it definitely makes me question religious institutions and the way people act towards others in the name of their faith. While I believe religion is important, I don’t think it should be considered so important that you completely disregard another person and treat them ill because of their actions. If anything, that’s when a person needs religion the most. It’s because of the way people act towards others in the name of their faith that I don’t care as much about religion as others. And this book brought that to the surface to me in ways I didn’t expect.

I enjoyed reading this book because like the two issues I’ve mentioned above, it brings a lot of interesting conversation to the table. Conversations about issues like crime, abortions, faith and racism that while uncomfortable to talk about need to be discussed. I enjoyed reading this book because these issues were included in the story and made me think.

However, there were also some aspects of When She Woke I wasn’t pleased to see. I wasn’t happy that they made faith such a huge part of this story. While I understand that Hannah was once a very religious girl, I feel like they really enforced it too much sometimes. Especially because it seemed like almost everyone in this society was religious in some way even though that’s not at all how everyone in our world acts. I felt like reverends in the story like Hannah’s lover were given celebrity status in the story for being so indoctrined in their faith. While it gave me hope that things with chroming wouldn’t be too bad, I also felt like it was trying to force a message about faith on people too.

Another aspect of this story I wasn’t happy about was the way in which Hannah becomes saved. I found so many plot holes with the whole thing, especially near the end of the story when Hannah is left to travel to Canada on her own. Especially because so much could’ve gone wrong with her traveling alone. I also just didn’t understand why this organization was only helping women who’d gotten abortions instead of helping every chrome who wanted to repent their crime. I guess I just expected more from this besides Hannah going to Canada to reverse the change. Maybe something along the lines of her and the organization stopping chroming from being legal. I guess I feel like the story isn’t finished being told and that more should’ve been written.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading When She Woke. It was a very powerful story with a lot of things for the reader to talk about. It just didn’t necessarily have enough explained in the plot for me to give it a higher rating. But I did enjoy the book as a whole and recommend it to anyone interested in reading something like this.

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If We Were Having Coffee: A Misfortunate Event

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Hello everyone! How’re you all doing today? These past two couple weeks have been… interesting to say the least.

If we were having coffee, I’d pour my heart out to you about them. As this is oddly enough my thirteenth coffee post, it’s unfortunately going to be a little full of bad news. Just to let you know though, this bad news doesn’t pertain to my blog and you guys in any way. I just wanted to let you know that before I continue.

The reason I haven’t been posting as much lately is because I have a lot going on here at home. On Tuesday last week, my Mom and I came home to a disaster in our house. The septic tank in the toilet in our upstairs bathroom cracked, resulting in a leak that did some water damage to our upstairs bathroom, the living room floor, and the crawl space below our house, which just recently had new insulation put in. This damage means we have to replace the flooring in our living room and bathroom, which has severely impacted our living space.

Because of this damage, a lot is going on here at home in order to get our house back into working order again. We’ve had to rearrange our living room space so we could have somewhere to sit down besides our bedrooms as well as cleaned our house the best we can because of the mess the demolition process caused. The only thing really left to do is get our contractor started on replacing everything that was damaged so we can have our living room and bathroom space again.

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The toilet that caused it all. The only picture I’m going to show because my Mom doesn’t really want me posting about this everywhere. Once everything has been fixed, I’ll be posting more pictures in the future.

But because of this situation, I just haven’t had as much time to write. All of this going on at home is constantly on my mind even when I have free time I could be using for writing. I also don’t have as much space to write anymore, which sucks but is something I’m adapting to in my own way. I’ve decided to seclude myself in my room whenever I want to write at home or in the library at school whenever I’m waiting to go into work. I think this’ll work better for me anyway because I’ll be able to write undisturbed. But now that the initial shock over this leak is over, we are adjusting just fine to our new surroundings. Just need to get the bathroom and living room space fixed up, hopefully looking even nicer than it did before. I’ll continue as my weeks progress to let you know how it’s all going.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you things at work are just as crazy as home. The week this all went down, there was a catering dinner I was helping out with for two nights. During this dinner, there were apparently some issues going on between some of my coworkers that resulted in one of our coworkers quitting. These issues occurred apparently as soon as I left to help out with the catering and have just caused more trouble than its worth.

Having that coworker quit has reminded me of why I’m not content working here. While I don’t mind the work and the people I work with, our managers aren’t exactly what I’d call the best at managing their employees. Especially when issues like this arise and when certain employees don’t handle their responsibilities correctly, resulting in other employees having to pick up the slack. While I don’t personally have issues with the managers, the way they handle their work responsibilities doesn’t always sit well with me. Especially when employees let them know again and again about certain issues and instead of handling them they just don’t talk about it.

But enough about work right now. How about talking about something happier, like let’s say my writing or books I’ve been reading? If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished reading The Dark End of the Street, which the review of can be found on my blog. I enjoyed reading it, but I think I’ve read it before because a lot of the short stories felt so familiar. So now I’m reading another book called When She Woke. Unfortunately, I’m dealing with the same problem because all of the character’s names sound so familiar to me, even though I don’t really remember most of the events going on. But I’m still enjoying it anyway because it’s an enjoyable read.

I’ve also finally completed the fourth chapter assignment for Creators Academy, which can be seen here for those interested. I’ve been struggling with this one for a long while because I just didn’t know what I wanted to write about. Well, that’s not necessarily true. I knew I wanted to write about Harry Potter in some capacity. I just didn’t know what about Harry Potter I wanted to write about. Luckily, I was able to figure something out in order to write this story, even if it was talking about the series in a news story way. I know this piece wasn’t at all what I was expecting to write, but I’m happy with it anyway because I haven’t written a news piece since being in college so it felt nice to do it again.

If we were having coffee, I’d also like to mention I spent these past two weekends with other people I care about besides family. Last weekend, I spent Friday night at my best friend’s house because my Mom wanted me out of the house while dealing with the mess that’s become our home. While at her house, I had a much needed sleepover, which included watching movies and sleeping in a comfy bed. Just getting to spend some much needed girl time, catching up on life with each other and just enjoying each other’s presence. During the sleepover, I was able to get some much needed sleep along with go with my best friend walking at one of the parks near us. This walk was something we’d talked with each other the week before about starting to do every Saturday morning.

But that didn’t end up happening this past Saturday because my best friend hasn’t been feeling well lately. I know she gets sick a lot though so I already knew we probably weren’t going to be seeing each other because of it. But that was okay because another friend of mine wanted to spend the day with me. So yesterday, we went park hopping once again. Like all of the other times, it was a lot of fun despite how hot it gets here. We also went out to eat at a Korean restaurant for lunch, which was so delicious I brought some home with me to eat for lunch on another day.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that while there’s been some misfortune going on with the house, I feel like things afterwards have finally settled down for me. I hope in the weeks to come I’ll be able to write a little more and that the mess with our house will be fixed and I’ll be able to use my bathroom again. Hope your all doing well this week and are having a wonderful weekend as we get close to the beginning of a new month and season.

 

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Book Review: The Dark End of the Street

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Rating: 3 stars

In one fast-paced story, a strong and aggravated man considers the pretty woman at the bar while he fingers the knife in his pocket. But what becomes of his prey when they move to the bedroom? In another tale, a man remembers the victim of a ghastly murder who visited the same hair salon as he does. And a Don Juan of a protagonist has a hobby of marrying vulnerable women, getting access to their bank accounts, and then robbing them blind.

But there is much more to this collection than dark-haired vixens and crimes of passion. Some stories are brooding, some twisted; some bring righteous satisfaction, some linger in the back of your mind. What is truly on display is an impressive collection of literary talent: a group of some of the best writers we have, weaving fresh and memorable stories from a pair of classic themes. Taken as a whole, they are a rare treat for fans of great fiction, whether it’s high literature, good old-fashioned suspense, or anything in between. Original black-and-white art by artist/author Jonathan Santlofer completes this innovative, exciting, and irresistibly intriguing book—a true literary gem.

This collection of stories was an okay read. I enjoyed reading these stories because none of them were too complex for me to understand what was happening.

Each story told from a different perspective, this collection of stories about crime and sex were very intriguing. I found them to be enjoyable because I wasn’t sure what to expect. As someone who enjoys reading fictional stories about crime, I found these to be interesting enough for me to read.

I also enjoyed reading The Dark End of the Street because none of these authors were familiar to me. I felt no familiarity with any of the authors mentioned who were a part of this collection. I found that to be a nice thing for me because it made reading all of these different short stories interesting. It allowed me to read these short stories with an open mind, something I might’ve not been able to do if I were familiar with any of these authors.

I enjoyed reading this too because they are stories about crime and sex. As someone who enjoys watching shows like Criminal Minds and Law & Order Special Victims Unit, reading about these type of crimes is just as fascinating. Especially when the perspective is from someone thinking about committing a crime that doesn’t pull through. Or reading a story about someone witnessing a crime that gets told from many different people who weren’t there. These type of stories fascinate me because they are appalling, different and make me wonder about the world we live in. I also see them as a way of keeping up with the way people act in society and a better way of understanding people. While criminal acts aren’t something to gawk at, they are definitely a way for us to better understand the people surrounding us.

While I did enjoy reading The Dark End of the Street, I also felt a sense of déjà vu when reading these stories. When I first opened up the book to read the first story, I felt like I already knew what was going to happen, almost as if I’d read these stories before. This feeling continued throughout even when there were stories I wasn’t sure I read before.

This feeling made it difficult for me to read these stories because the element of mystery was gone. I couldn’t enjoy these stories quite as much because I already knew what was going to happen. I don’t know if it’s because I already read this book before and didn’t realize it, but it definitely hampered my ability to enjoy it. I couldn’t react to the stories with a fresh perspective and the sense of mystery and surprise that comes with reading stories like this was gone. Instead, I wasn’t at all surprised by the events that unfolded, just disappointed that I could find them to be so predictable.

Despite this feeling of déjà vu, I still enjoyed reading The Dark End of the Street. But it did hamper my ability to enjoy these short stories to their full potential.

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If We Were Having Coffee: Another Hard Day’s Work

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Good day everyone! I hope you all are doing well this weekend and have had another wonderful week.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it’s been another good, busy week at work. I forgot how busy our café gets, but it’s nice seeing all of the students again. Nice seeing familiar faces and becoming acquainted with some of the new student body. It’s nostalgic in some ways to me because of the times when I was at Columbia College.

Being on campus in this capacity makes it hard sometimes because I do miss college. I miss the environment I was accustomed to during my last four years of schooling, the learning, and all of the different discussions about texts in my classes we had. But at times, I don’t too. I don’t miss the amount of effort I put into getting my work complete, the amount of hours I spent working when I wished I could’ve spent more time with the small amount of friends I’d made at Columbia College. I reflect on these things, a little wishing I’d done things differently. But also knowing at this point I can’t turn back and that things worked out the way they were supposed to.

College made me realize how hard I have to work at things to get what I want out of life. As a student, I’ve always struggled with keeping my grades up to good standards. So I’ve always had to work at getting good grades, even when other aspects of life tried to hold me down. College made me appreciate my work ethic and helped me improve it in order to chase after my dreams.

So while I might not necessarily be content with my job, looking at it through this lens has helped make my life a little bit easier. Made me want to continue doing well at my job despite all the difficulties and stress I’ll continue to face while I’m there.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you there’s something I forgot to mention last weekend. I briefly realized it after posting last weekend’s coffee post. I know I’m late to the party in mentioning this because you all have probably already noticed it, but I’ve changed the look of my blog. It’s something I’d been meaning to do because I was discontent with the way it looked. I wanted to make it look more personal, more like something I would want to check out. Something that looks close to the way I want my blog design to look in the future.

So far, I really like it. I think it definitely looks more personal, is easier to grab a reader’s attention, and easier to access. Plus, it looks more personal to me too and I can’t seem to look at it enough. It’s very close to the way I want my blog design to look, minus a few little things here and there that can always be tweaked to my liking. But I definitely think it’s an improvement in comparison to my previous look of my blog. I definitely have an easier time seeing all of my other posts with it and think it’s very welcoming to every person who decides to visit. But what all do you think? Do you like it too? Or are there some ways it can improve? If you have the time, please let me know because I’d love some feedback on what all I can do to make my blog better.

Speaking of my blog and writing, I hope I’ve been doing a better job of keeping my blog updated with new posts. Now, I know I’m not going to always be able to write and publish something new for you all every day. But I do want to continuously keep my blog up to date as frequently as I can. Write as many posts to be published as I can whenever I have the chance. So I’m hoping that’ll continue in the weeks to come and that you’ll continue coming back to check out my posts.

If we were having coffee, I’d let you know I finished reading Nelly Dean this week. I found it to be a much more enjoyable read than I was expecting. Since it’s based off of Wuthering Heights, I wasn’t sure if I’d really enjoy it or not since I didn’t enjoy reading that book in college. But I did end up liking it just because of the way the narrator of the story portrayed the characters and the experiences she faced while living in that household. And now that I’m done reading that book, I’m starting to read The Dark End of the Street, which is a set of fictional stories about crime and sex and how they both go hand in hand. It’s been pretty good so far, though I’ve been facing some serious déjà vu while reading these stories. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I really feel like I’ve read this book before. Mostly because the stories I’ve read so far just seem very familiar to me for some reason. I don’t remember for certain if I have or not, but I’ll keep going and see what happens.

I would also tell you I’ve also been continuing to watch Pokémon Minecraft videos. I just finished the first series of the ones I was watching last night and started on another I think I’ll enjoy. It’s the same Youtuber, but a little different than the previous ones I was watching. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy it as much as I did the other ones, but only time will tell.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you my older sister recommend an amazing podcast to me called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. It’s about looking through the chapters in the series as if we were reading a sacred text, like the Bible and other texts people tend to read in that way. But the two speakers in this podcast are taking each chapter in Harry Potter and having an open discussion about them with regards to a theme they follow and how they as readers can relate to what’s going on in the story and that particular theme.

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From what I’ve listened to of the podcast so far, it’s been nothing short of amazing. I’ve only listened to two of the podcasts, but what I’ve heard gives me hope that the discussions will continue to be more enlightening to me and continue opening me up to love reading Harry Potter more with each passing day. So I hope that as I continue listening to this podcast that I’ll continue enjoying Harry Potter as much as I have in the past.

I would also briefly like to mention my best friend and I are planning on going on walks together Saturday mornings. She had messaged me yesterday night while I was walking with Mom about going to one of the parks here and walking together.

We had briefly talked about doing something like that whenever we had gotten together for the cystic fibrosis walk a couple months ago. It was something we thought would be a whole lot of fun to do, but then never really talked about it again afterwards until yesterday. Since I enjoy walking and she’s been wanting to do more of it, when she brought it up yesterday, I was really excited about it. While Erin and I are really close friends, we don’t always hang out together very often. Mostly because her health isn’t always the best or because I was always working on weekends so I didn’t really get to see her as often as I’d have liked. So when she messaged me about this yesterday, I was really excited because it would give both of us the chance to hang out together a little more often than we normally do and now gives me something else to look forward to on weekends.

I would say I’ve had a good week, all things considered. Hope you all have been doing well and can’t wait to hear about what you’ve been up to this past week.

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Book Review: Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights

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Rating: 4 stars

Young Nelly Dean has been Hindley’s closest companion for as long as she can remember, living freely at the great house, Wuthering Heights. But when the benevolence of the master brings a wild child into the house, Nelly learns she must follow in her mother’s footsteps, be called “servant” and give herself over completely to the demands of the Earnshaw family.

But Nelly is not the only one who finds her life disrupted by this strange newcomer. As death, illness, and passion sweep through the house, Nelly suffers heartache and betrayals at the hands of those she cherishes most, tempting her to leave it all behind. But when a new heir is born, a reign of violence begins that will test even Nelly’s formidable spirit as she finds out what it is to know true sacrifice.

Nelly Dean is a wonderment of storytelling and an inspired accompaniment to Emily Bronte’s adored work. It is the story of a woman who is fated to bear the pain of a family she is unable to leave, and unable to save.

As someone who detested Wuthering Heights after reading it for an English Literature course at my college, I decided to give this book a try to see if it would be any better. Despite how much I didn’t enjoy this book’s inspiration, I found Nelly Dean redeemed the characters for me.

Told from the perspective of one of the servants at Wuthering Heights, this book truly depicts the plot of the original in a way that makes the story and characters seem not so terrible. This book made me view the characters in a different light, even sympathizing with some of them. I found myself better understanding Healthcliff’s predicament and why he hated most of the Earnshaw descendants so much.

Hearing this story from the perspective of Nelly also put a different twist on the story from what you hear in the original. You better understood her view of the following events that unfold as well as the part she plays in it. You discover secrets originally hidden in the original storyline and how important a role servants play in great houses like Wuthering Heights.

Another reason I enjoy this story so much better than Wuthering Heights is because of Nelly’s character. I sympathized with her so much while reading this book. She dealt with a lot of struggles with the Earnshaw family but yet still stayed at the house despite her life circumstances. I understood why she was conflicted to leave her service with this family despite her own mother leaving them behind.

The writing style of this story made it more enjoyable too. I like it because the story is told in letter format, though it doesn’t necessarily follow the style of a letter with each chapter. But you know all of the events being described are addressed directly to Mr. Lockwood, despite none of the letters being sent out. I find this to be interesting though, considering Mr. Lockwood is the narrator of the original book. So in many ways, I felt like Case did a good job of making it seem like he was passing the torch of telling the story to Nelly.

While I enjoy this book much better than the original, I still think a majority of the characters are awful. This book slightly lessened my dislike of the characters, but not by much. It definitely made it easier to sympathize with all of the characters by making them seem more human, but I still don’t like these residents. While I understood Nelly’s conviction to stay there, I also had moments where I thought she should leave them. I feel like her staying there just allowed the pain she experienced to never heal. I get being with a family that feels like your home, but I felt like it was unhealthy and caused her more harm than good. Considering she could’ve gotten a position somewhere else, I just didn’t see why she stayed for so long when she wasn’t happy.

But overall, I enjoyed reading Nelly Dean very much. To the point where I’m actually considering giving Wuthering Heights another chance.

 

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If We Were Having Coffee: Off to Work We Go

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Hello everyone! I know it’s been awhile since I’ve done a coffee post. But I hope you all have been doing well these past couple weeks.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I went on a mini writing hiatus. I honestly can’t remember the last time I wrote on my blog besides my two recent book reviews. I know I definitely haven’t done one of these posts in a while, that’s for sure. This hiatus wasn’t planned or intentional, just sort of happened and I went along with it. Actually felt nice taking a little bit of a break from my blog for a little while. But at the same time, it’s good to be back.

I miss writing. Whenever I do it, I’m always enjoying every minute of it. But at the same time, I have to be in a certain mindset to do it. I could go more into that here, but I think I want to do a post about it instead. I think it would be a fun post to write too so I think that’s what I’m going to do.

Speaking of writing, I haven’t done too many more posts for Creative Academy either. Mostly because I’m trying to figure out what I want to write about for the next lesson. I have a couple ideas in mind, but will just have to wait and see what happens.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve officially started back to work. This week was my first full week back at the dining hall. Most of the first couple days was spent setting up our café for Wednesday’s opening. But also put in some hours helping on the line and register downstairs too. And so far, it’s been pretty good. I’m trying to be more positive about things in life, work being one of them because I don’t always like my job. It’s not the place I want to be, but it’s better than being unemployed. So I’m trying not to be the way I was when I was at work last year. I think requesting to have weekends off this year will go a long way towards me not feeling quite as discontent there. That along with trying to leave all the work negativity where it belongs: at work. I think just having this type of outlook on work will benefit me there in the long run because I won’t be bringing all of that negativity with me home. We will just have to wait and see if it works, but right now, things have been going well with it. Friday I didn’t work dinner shift because we had some serious storms going on here. The power went out around campus and everything and they figured they wouldn’t need me. We had this type of weather last year where we were out of work for almost a week and I don’t live close by so they wanted me to get home safely. So this weekend came to me earlier than expected, but not going to complain because I felt like I needed it. But so far, things at work have started off pretty well. Fingers crossed they continue to be that way for me in the days to come.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve finished several books since I’ve last done one of these posts. All of the reviews for the books I’ve recently been reading can be found on my blog. But the book I’m currently reading now is called Nelly Dean. It’s a book based off of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a story considered a classic by many but a book I myself just didn’t enjoy in my English Literature class at college. But the good thing about this book is that it’s told from the perspective of a different character than the original, making it more of an enjoyable read for me. It’s also helped make the characters in the classic more relatable to me and actually like them a lot better. So even though this book is about a cast of characters I originally didn’t particularly care for, I find myself starting to warm up to them a little bit now.

Along with reading Nelly Dean, I’ve also been playing video games a little less frequently. I started playing Transistor the other week and have been playing it a little less due to situating myself at work and been interested in playing Minecraft again due to one of the YouTubers I watch who did some videos of playing a Pokémon world in the game. I haven’t started playing yet due to wanting to finish watching these videos, but I know I’ll be playing some of it again soon in the near future. Will probably be doing a post about that too once I start back on it.

Other than all of the above mentioned, I haven’t done too much. Just settling back into work, attending my best friend’s son’s birthday party yesterday, and going to work on another job application today. Hope you’ve all had a good week and can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to!

 

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Book Review: Modern Lovers

Modern Lovers Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

From the New York Times‒bestselling author of The Vacationers, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college—their own kids now going to college—and what it means to finally grow up well after adulthood has set in.

Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring.

Back in the band’s heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adults’ lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed.

Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

I found this book to be a comfortably light read. A book to be read whenever you’re in no hurry to read anything else. Part of the reason is because the cover of Modern Lovers is very cutesy and comforting that it made me want to take my time reading this book.

The book as a whole is okay. I enjoyed the storyline because it was simple. The problems the protagonists encountered were pretty one dimensional because they were fixed very easily without given another thought. This book was a pretty simple read, something I didn’t have to give too much thought to.

I also enjoyed reading Modern Lovers because of the multiple points of view. Throughout the book, each chapter is from the perspective of a different character. I enjoyed having all of these different perspectives because even though these characters were pretty simple, it gave the reader a better insight into each of their lives.

I also like that it is a coming of age story. As the three band members in the story are getting older, their children are becoming adults, trying to figure out what they want to do next in their lives. I really enjoy reading these type of stories because they show contrasts between the two generations very well.

However, there are also some things about this book I didn’t absolutely love. For one, I feel like all of the characters in the story are pretty flat. In Modern Lovers, you get the tiniest of character background of everyone, but it’s not enough to heavily contribute to the story.

I also didn’t particularly like that none of the conflicts in the story were really solved. If anything, I felt like all of the conflicts in this story were just pushed to the side to deal with later. Or handled in a way most people wouldn’t. A perfectly good example is Zoe’s marriage. Neither one of them ever actually had a conversation about why their marriage was getting bad. Then all of a sudden, it was good again. While the different conflicts in the story were interesting, I don’t agree at all with the way any of them were handled. It was unrealistic because that’s not how conflicts between adults are handled. When you have issues with someone, you talk about them and work together on how those issues can be resolved. You don’t just pretend like there are no problems and hope they go away on their own.

I was also disappointed that the story didn’t talk a bit more about their band. I was hoping we’d hear more about the inner workings of the music industry during the time. Instead, we were given a couple brief flashbacks about the mysterious fourth band member who became famous before she died. While I didn’t mind hearing more about Lydia and how her death impacted the rest of the members in their current lives, I wanted so much more from this part of the story but felt like I never got anything substantial. Just that they formed together during their college years and then disbanded one day.

While I found the simplicity of this book to be quite enjoyable, at the same time I was also hoping the storyline in Modern Lovers to be a little more complex and the characters to have more of a personality. But despite these issues, Straub crafted a wonderfully written simple story that made for a good light read.

 

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Book Review: All Is Not Forgotten

All Is Not Forgotten Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

In the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut everything seems picture perfect.

Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, prefers to pretend this horrific event did not touch her perfect country club world.

As they seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town – or perhaps lives among them – drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.

I thought this book was a pretty interesting read. It definitely didn’t turn out the way I expected, but it was worth every minute I spent soaking up the content.

The issues talked about in All Is Not Forgotten are pretty controversial. For starters, Jenny Kramer, who this story is about, gets raped at a party. Everyone in their small town knows about it and is scared because they don’t know who did it. But then, when her parents find out about the incident, they want her to take this drug to make her completely forget it ever happened. So within the first few pages of the story, we as the reader are given two controversial topics: rape and drugs. Then, we are introduced to the narrator, Jenny’s psychiatrist Dr. Forrester who tells us about how he wants to help Jenny get her memory back from that night. This made the book even more interesting to me because the narrator’s unique perspective in the tale gave me a better understanding of memory recall and other psychological terms and how mental illness played a role in helping Jenny with her memory. I found all of these topics interesting to read about in this book because they are very controversial and rarely talked about that I wanted to get a better understanding of these issues and how they all connected. It helps that I find psychology interesting too so I know that made me even more interested in finding out what happened next.

I also enjoyed reading this book because I found the point of view to be very interesting. In most books you tend to read, the story is told from the point of view of the main character because they are the ones mostly involved in the action throughout. But in this story you get the perspective of the psychiatrist Jenny and her family goes to see, whose view on the subject is obviously very different from the families because of his psychological background. I find it interesting because he’s the narrator you don’t expect but also he tells the story in a way for the reader to get a good understanding of what’s going on and why certain characters are acting a certain way. He’s pretty much in the head of all of the characters so the information you get from him is what he’s been told by his clients.

However, if I’m being honest here, Dr. Forrester is definitely not my favorite character. While I know the information presented to us is reliable, I still question the narrator’s perspective on what happened. Even though we know who committed this vile act, I still believe the narrator is pretty unreliable because he took some questionable actions in the story. While I understand why he did those things, those actions made it even harder to trust his character and actually made me dislike him even more. If I’m being honest here, I actually wanted him to be found out so that for once he got a taste of his own medicine.

The reason Dr. Forrester is my least favorite character in All Is Not Forgotten is because he’s a big douche. While his perspective in the book adds a good insight into the story, he comes across as being very arrogant. When explaining everything to the reader, he treats us like a child, which is something I really can’t tolerate. He also just acts like he’s the only person in the story who knows exactly what’s going on and who did it, which really gets on my nerves and frustrated me. Part of this arrogance comes from that he thinks he’s the best psychiatrist in town just because he seems to be the only one people there come to for their needs. So while I enjoyed reading this book because the content kept me interested in wanting to find out what happened next, Dr. Forrester’s character sometimes made it hard for me to want to continue reading.

Another issue I had with this book was the ending. I felt like the author choose an easy target to be the rapist in this story. While it made sense for this character to have committed the crime, I think the path the story was on before was a whole lot more interesting. I think having that person actually been responsible would’ve really made the story a whole lot more interesting to me because I could definitely picture him doing it. I also think it wouldn’t frustrate me quite as much because this character being the rapist just continues to feed Dr. Forrester’s big ego, which I honestly think needed to be taken down a couple pegs.

While I enjoyed reading All Is Not Forgotten, both of these issues made me enjoy the book less. But despite these issues, I thought this book was a great psychological read and find it to be a great segment into reading about more controversial topics.

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