Dear Sunday: The Conference

Dear Sunday is my weekly post participating in the Caffeinated Book Reviewer series. This week I'm also doing a brief Stacking the Shelves and have also linked up with tyngas reviews.



This past week was busy with:

• coffee shops, 
• having a group of friends over to my new place for the first time, 
• singing,
•  going out to my favorite local restaurant, a place that decided that adequate lighting is overrated and keeps the lights so dim it's hard to see the food,
• drive-in movie theaters with friends, bundling up with a sleeping bag because it was cold in July what is this world we live in,  
• skyping with friends
• and also look at those hot air balloons that were flying outside of my apartment!

whew. 

Talk about a great and busy week! Perhaps that list is apology and explanation enough for my lack of posting? 

This coming week will be no slower. I leave today for a biophysics conference-- it's a smaller, more local one than the one I flew out to San Francisco for. Tomorrow I will be giving my first talk at that conference-- I've only ever done poster presentations so fingers crossed my talk goes well! Then at the end of the week I'll be flying out for a leadership summit for the Christian Graduate Student Fellowship that I'm involved with at my university. 

Whew. 

Oh look! A rare photo of myself! 

But more importantly look at my book! Record of a Spaceborn Few came out last week and my preorder came in and I'm SO EXCITED. This is literally the first book I've ever preordered and it's so pretty I kind of understand this whole book buying thing that all the other bloggers do. 

SO PRETTY

I'm not gonna lie not much went on last week:

• Dear Sunday: Settling In
• Top Ten Tuesday: 5 Book reading memories 
• featuring three AMAZING books and two so-so ones but all with MEMORIES
• sorry for all the shouting today

I'm not gonna lie there isn't going to be much here:

• Historical Fiction Mini-Reviews
• I'm only going to promise one post this week because I've basically already written this one and I haven't packed for my trip or for my other trip OH and also I need to grade exams because final grades are due OKAY I'll stop now 

That's it for me! I hope you have an amazing week however calm or crazy your schedule is at the moment! 

Top Ten Tuesday: 5 book-reading memories

This post brought to you by the Top Ten Tuesday series over at That Artsy Reader Girl! 

Have you ever looked at a book you've read and the memory of where and when you read it is almost more vivid than the memory of the book itself? For this week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt I scanned through my Goodreads bookshelf and picked out five books that I have distinct memories of reading. Bonus points, three of the five are AMAZING books that you need to read today.

   Pies and Prejudice by Ellery Adams || 3 stars 

This was a so-so murder mystery which fell flat in a lot of ways BUT one afternoon while I was listening to the audio book I embroidered this piece so something good did come of it. 

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones || 2 Stars

Once again a not-so-great book. I heard about this through someone's blog and well...kind of hated it. The novel had some really problematic issues with consent and also the main character was super annoying BUT! One night while I was reading this I got a SOS call from my friend: her brand new car had stopped working in a parking lot and she needed help. I drove over mainly providing just moral support as, after turning it off and on again, her car worked, I kid you not. 

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen || 5 Stars

Ahhh now we are on to the AMAZING books. I'm the janitor for my church and one afternoon after cleaning I had a small break before praise team practice started so I snuck upstairs to one of the rooms that had a bunch of couches and read this book for a while. 

The Witches of New York by Ami McKay || 5 stars

Have you ever started a book and realized, within just a few pages, that you have stumbled upon something great? That's what happened to me with this book; I started it in a dark parking lot on New Year's Eve and knew immediately that I had found a new love. 

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde || 5 stars

I had wanted to read this book for a while and so when I found in my local library's bookshop for 50 cents, I was pretty pumped. My family and I were about to go on a cruise and loaded up on ALL THE BOOKS. When I wasn't seasick, I read this amazing novel. Jasper Fforde is just brilliant, that's all there is to it. 

That's it for me! What about you? What are some of your book reading memories? 

Dear Sunday: settling in

Dear Sunday is my weekly post participating in the Caffeinated Book Reviewer series.



I moved into my shiny new apartment last week and have spent this whirlwind week unpacking and settling in. This beautiful lake borders my new complex, and I've enjoyed walking around it.

Last week I mentioned I was in a little bit of a reading funk and I thought I had found the PERFECT book to get me out of it: Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

Well. My current feels about that book are summed up by this xkcd comic:

So it's not going well. Maybe I'll get into it the more I read? It's a really highly rated book but seriously I think the xkcd quote is a direct line from the book.

• Dear Sunday: The Move
• Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite short stories/novellas
• Horror or Rom-Com? || The House on Foster Hill : A review

• Top Ten Tuesday: I remember reading these books! 
• yeah no I'm still brainstorming the title for this week's prompt
• like the prompt is rather interesting-- books were you strongly remember where you were/what you were doing while you read them
• but the title is still a work in progress
• Mini-Reviews
• turns out I have read some books recently (?) so here's a mish-mash recap of some of the historical fiction books I've been reading

That's it for me! Thanks for stopping by and let me know: are you reading any amazing books right now? This funk is starting to take hold...

Horror or Rom-Com? || The house on foster hill: Review

The House on Foster Hill by Jamie Jo Wright

Genres: Mystery, Lite-Horror, Romance, Historical Fiction

One Two sentence book summary: After the death of her husband, Kane moves to the middle of nowhere to restore a dilapidated old house, but the ghost of her past refuse to die. A hundred years prior another woman, Ivy, is caught up in the mystery when a dead girl appears in a hollowed out tree outside of the house on Foster Hill.

One sentence review: The author tries to fit every genre into one story and fails at doing any of it justice; she goes for shock value over authenticity and there are better books out there.

Let me explain! ((Get ready for a lot of caps because I have ALL the FEELINGS))

The biggest fault I found with this book is its oscillating and unstable tone. The author can't figure out what type of book she wants to write. Romance? Horror? Murder mystery? She tries her hand at all of them at once and the result is a splattered mess with rom-com lines that follow horror scenes. The genres crash together like dissonant notes as she struggles to find her voice.

Instead of crafting a story it feels more like the author is throwing SUPER SAD things in to make it a SUPER SAD story because it's SAD couldn't you tell by the SAD THINGS? It felt like I was being hit over the head with the SADNESS and not actually getting to know the characters in an authentic manner.

The plot is a little sketchy and at times pretty unbelievable. Once again I felt like the author was going for shock value as opposed to something authentic. One thing that I did like was how seamlessly the author melded the character's faith into the story. Often times if a character is Christian then once they pray EVERYTHING works out PERFECTLY because GOD and while yes, that is a possibility, there is also the possibility that your prayers will go unanswered and that is where the true test of faith lies.

This romance iS ~pRoBlaMatIc~. The author wants it to be cute but it is NOT HEALTHY. Basically you have this super traumatized woman dating her therapist (who, by the way is a PERFECT character who does EVERYTHING RIGHT all the time and could we be more boring) and that's supposed to be okay? Also we're dealing with some love at first sight and personally that always bugs me. Like. No.





At this point you might be wondering "wait...why did you keep reading it?" and yes, this novel has its flaws, but that doesn't mean it was a horrible reading experience. The writing felt choppy and sometimes read like the first draft of my novel-- lots of telling with no showing, if you've ever received that writing advice it is the HARDEST and most important piece of advice ever.

And yes the romance was PROBLEMATIC but also like, it had its cute moments. And the plot was a bit eye-roll inducing, but hey, I did want to figure out what explanation she was going to pull at the end (even if I knew it wouldn't be satisfying).

Overall: This was an okay book. It wasn't a bad reading experience but...it wasn't a great one either. If you love murder mysteries or lite-horror then maybe give this a go? I hate to say don't read a book because this is just my opinion but honestly there are better books out there.


What about you? Have you read this book? Do you also hate it when the author tries to fit every genre into one story?

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Novella/Short Stories

This post brought to you by the Top Ten Tuesday series over at That Artsy Reader Girl! 

Happy Top Ten Tuesday on a Wednesday! This week's post will be full of little rebellions as I'm trying something new-- asking YOU about YOUR favorite novellas and short stories.

Weird right? You see I don't really read novellas and short stories-- but not because I carry some weird bias against them. I never hear about them, they never pop up on my Goodreads, they never make it onto my ever-growing TBR list and so...I never read them.

So let me start by mentioning my two favorite books that fit this week's category and then go on to plead you for your recommendations.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor || Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee

This books are amazing which is a stroke of luck for me because they also happen to be the only novellas/short-stories on my 'read' Goodreads bookshelf....

Which brings me to the next part of this post: help me add some diversity to the books I read by telling me about your favorite novella or short story/anthology. 

I know with book blogs we tend to gleefully shout our opinion into the void of the internet but my goal for this post is to do less shouting and do more listening. Did you write a whole post for this week's prompt? Comment below with the link! Do you have a favorite novella you want to recommend? Please do! Have you read Binti or Conservation and want to fangirl over how amazing they are? ME TOO.

Dear Sunday: The Move

Dear Sunday is my weekly post participating in the Caffeinated Book Reviewer series.

It's (almost) happening! Logistical complications mean that I don't actually get to move into my new apartment today, as planned, but rather tomorrow. Silly lady booking every silly trailer in the silly U-haul store... 

But that's alright! What's one more day? I'm not gonna lie, the hotel life is pretty suite (yeah no I regret writing that almost as much as you probably regret reading that). 

I was at the library yesterday to get some grading done (oh the glamorous life of a grad student) and I wandered down the aisles looking for my next read but couldn't find it. Have you ever been in the mood where you want to read but then nothing sounds like what you want but then you don't know what you even want? That's currently my reading life. Any suggestions for a book to get me out of this funk?

I took things a little slow last week to ease myself back into the swing of things!

• Dear Sunday: Why I took a hiatus 
• Top 5 books in 2018 (thus far)

Hopefully this will all happen even with the move...*fingers crossed*

• Top Ten Tuesday: short stories/novellas
• I'm going to attempt a different spin on this topic this week.....stay tuned!
• Horror or Rom-com? || Review: House on Foster Hill
• yeah. get ready for this review. 

That's it for me! I hope you are having a great, relaxing weekend :) 

Top 5 books in 2018 (thus far)

This post brought to you by the Top Ten Tuesday series over at That Artsy Reader Girl! 

When I saw the prompt for this week I wasn't sure how many books I would be able to rummage up. My reading life took a huge dip recently and I wasn't sure if I had read that many amazing books in 2018. A quick trip through my Goodreads shelves showed me just how wrong I was! Here are five 5-star reads I discovered this year.

Lyrical Masterpieces

The Witches of New York by Ami Mckay || Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

click on the images to go the reviews and read my ravings

Innovative Sci-Fic

Sleeping Giants by Sylvian Neuvel

I somehow forgot to write a review for this book?? Let's just say on page one I wanted to put it down because it has such an unusual format-- told almost exclusively in interviews and that's not really my thing. However I'm really glad I stuck with it, as it was a brilliantly thought out sci-fic novel. 

NONFICTION

    

The Lost City of Z by David Gramm || 52 Loaves by William Alexander

Can we take a second to appreciate the fact that two non-fiction books made it on my best reads list?!
Who am I.
I'm telling you, this nonfiction reading challenge has completely changed my reading life. I started 2018 feeling like reading nonfiction books was this massive chore I never wanted to do. But then I discovered that nonfiction can actually be pretty great?!


Whew! That's it for me. What about you? What are some of your top 2018 reads thus far?

Dear Sunday: Why I took a hiatus

Dear friends:

It's been a while. How does this thing even work again? *taps on microphone*

Ah yes. Okay. So in case you haven't noticed, I took a little, ehm long break from blogging and the real surprise is that it had nothing to do with blogging. I didn't get tired or uninspired or anything like that.

 In order to understand my absence let me tell you a bit about myself: I hate spiders. As in can't-stand-always-find-someone-else-to-kill-them, hate spiders. Small spiders I can deal with, but when the get to be the size of my palm (or a little smaller) well, then, I'm out.

In light of this fact let me tell you something else that happened: I had a (minor) brown recluse infestation in my apartment. They would appear on my living room wall, on the wall near my bed, on the other wall in my bedroom-- well, you get the picture.

Twelve giant poisonous spiders in 4-5 weeks. Did I mention that brown recluses are poisonous spiders that are really hard to spray for? Ah, well, yes.

After a few weeks it became apparent that this spider issue was going to be an ongoing issue until winter and after trying to just live with it for a few weeks I made the decision to move apartments. It became impossible to enjoy my apartment knowing that it wasn't a question if I would have to kill another giant spider but when and where.

And while some people could totally live with that situation, I decided discretion was indeed the better part of valor, and made the decision to move.

So that move has been consuming most of my time-- I forgot all the annoying laundry list of tasks moving entails. Renter's insurance, forwarding addresses, utilities-- it's been busy over here. Add to that the yearly family reunion which takes place around July 4th and I have not had a spare moment to devote to blogging.

But all of that is about to change! Well, I mean, I still am dealing with the minutia of moving, that won't change. But the lack of time (will hopefully) change soon. The new complex I'm moving into is, well, actually certifiably new in that they aren't finished building it yet. While I'm waiting for the construction to be done, the complex is putting me up in the hotel they own. It's a super fancy (to me) long-stay hotel with a little kitchenette and maid service and free breakfast and I may never want to leave.

Being stuck in a hotel should give me ample time to get back into the swing of things around here! I'm really excited to blog again-- not only did my blogging suffer during the anxiety-filled-spider-filled-time my reading life also took a huge hit. (I didn't finish one book the entire month of June??)

Anyway that is my short  explanation of my sudden, rather long complete absence from the blogging world. I hope you all are well and I hope you don't have spiders ;)

:Thanks for reading!

Dear Sunday is my weekly post participating in the Caffeinated Book Reviewer series