Simone and Her Books

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  • The Two Lila Bennetts by Lisa Steinke and Liz Fenton // Review

    The Two Lila Bennetts by Lisa Steinke and Liz Fenton // Review

    Have you ever read a novel and asked yourself questions about how the author went about writing it? Well, that’s how I felt after finishing this book and luckily, I got the chance to meet Lisa and Liz and discuss the book with them.

    My real life book club received this book from Lisa and Liz and we decided to make it our July book. Over the weekend, Lisa and Liz invited us to their book launch party where we got to meet the authors and talk about the book. It was so excellent because Lisa and Liz decided to run the event like a book club meeting chatting about the book, its pros and cons, and getting really deep with how their process looks like. No topics were off the table and I left the event feeling like I knew these authors better than before.

    43236278The Two Lila Bennetts follows Lila Bennett, a criminal defense attorney in LA who is bad ass at her job. Perhaps a little too bad ass as she’s helped many suspected criminals walk away innocently. She’s also the villain in her own life having an affair with her best friend’s husband and really not being a great partner to her own husband. She’s got a lot of secrets she needs to keep and she’s not ready to reveal them all despite her feelings about them.

    But when Lila is kidnapped by a mysterious person in a black ski mask, her life splits creating a “Sliding Doors” style story where one side she’s captured by someone who is determined to oust her and the other side she’s free but still being chased to tell the truth.

    The two sides of this story will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat while you piece together who the kidnapper might be. You’ll draw info from the “captured” side and from the “freed” side to see how Lila’s truly messed up her relationships with the people around her. Lila was a very difficult character to like mostly because she’s such a villain in her own life. I wouldn’t say she had the ruthless personality you would imagine a criminal defense attorney to have, but it definitely seemed like she saw opportunities in her life for her own advancement and she took them without any remorse.

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    I honestly felt the suspense in Lila’s “captured” chapters and her “freed” chapters felt like a redemption story. I loved how Lisa and Liz juxtaposed the two sides of this story creating a mega thriller that uses two kinds of thriller tropes. First being a forced redemption where she’s captured and forced to not only face the secrets and lies she’s told, but also watch as the people affected are told. The other felt more like Lila learning on her own that redemption is possible and requires her to be brave and face the ugly truth.

    Lisa and Liz’s writing is great as well. This was my first book from the duo and I loved how the story flowed so well between the two narratives as well as the two authors. It’s obvious that they’re passionate about what they do and create really intriguing stories that capture readers attention.

    In the end, her two split sides meet very different endings and the book makes you really think whether or not Lila’s actually changed. I think this is the best part. The question that the book leaves at the end may come off a little confusing, but after hearing that Lisa and Liz intended to keep the ending open-ended for interpretation made it a bit more interesting!

    I received a copy of this book from the authors for free in exchange for an honest review. My opinions have not been influenced by the publisher or the author.

  • Reading Update // Slumpsville

    Reading Update // Slumpsville

    Hello! My name is Simone and I’m the Mayor of Slumpsville. Earlier this week, I was in a pretty bad reading slump. If you’re not aware of what that is, a slump is when you try to read a book but the words are just words and it’s tough for you to get to the next page. You’d rather be checking your phone than reading your book. You’d rather do anything than pick up a book. And this was me.

    Slumps happen to all of us. We all marathon a whole series and then don’t want to look at anything else for a while. We read that big tome and it burnt us out. If you’re me, then you’re reading books for work that aren’t the best books.

    The only remedy for a slump? Time. I know many people suggest watching tv or doing other chores or taking a walk or catching up on something else, but the truth is that all you need is time. When we go into a slump, I like to think my brain is tired and there’s no other way to combat exhaustion than just letting it go and enjoying my time away from books.

    But then Wednesday I started a quick contemporary YA called HOT DOG GIRL by Jennifer Dugan (review to come) and that did the trick. This is why I love to keep a good mix of books in my TBR. If I’m in a bad slump, I don’t want to read something big and heavy with lots of themes or character development. I want something quick and easy and fun and my last read was the perfect combination. It wasn’t the most prolific piece of work I’ve ever read and it didn’t need to be. I always have tons of fun reading something light and it did exactly what it needed to do.

    Now that I’m back on course, I’m finishing up THE TWO LILA BENNETTS by Lisa Fenton and Liz Stenke for my book club this weekend, and about to start an epic fantasy that I’ve been dying to read. I needed to do some work and read some priority reads, but I’m finally ready. Can you guess what I’ll be reading?

  • Reading As Meditation

    Reading As Meditation

    Have you ever tried to meditate? Every time I try to meditate, the instructions are usually the same:

    1. Take a minute to sit comfortably in a quiet spot
    2. Close your eyes
    3. Focus on the breath going in and out
    4. Empty your mind
    5. Do this for five minutes or an hour

    I can get myself in the comfortable seated position in a quiet spot. I can close my eyes. I can focus on my breath, but when it comes to do it for five minutes to an hour and emptying your mind that’s where I hit the snafu.

    Meditation doesn’t encourage you to push yourself. If your brain doesn’t want to empty or if you find yourself more interested in figuring out dinner plans than on your breathing, that’s okay. Meditation says that if your thoughts wander, all you have to do is mindfully return it to the breath. The breathing is key in meditation because focusing yourself on breathing in and out actually helps you empty your mind.

    Which makes me wonder if reading is a similar form of meditation. I read somewhere that reading is almost like a forced meditation. You’re not actively sitting down to meditate, but you’re about to pick up a book and put all your energy to focus on the story. I don’t know about you, but when a book is good and you’re sucked into the story then it feels like everything else in the world falls away.

    You forget about dinner. You forget about running errands or going to the gym. All you want to know is whether or not the hero makes it to the end or the couple gets together or the issues within this small family get resolved. All you care about in the moment you’re reading is how the book will end.

    And when you think of it that way, it is a sort of meditation. Mind you, reading isn’t really emptying your mind but trading one thought for another. However, I found that reading does allow me to enter into the present and that’s one of the goals of meditation. I think my all-time favorite evenings would be a glass of wine, some candles, and a book I’m dying to read or happily devour in one sitting (that’s where the romances come in). When I sit down to read and all I can think about is how the story moves forward, how the characters develop, how I’m totally shipping two characters and their relationship goals. When you’re in a book, you’re IN it.

    I will say that reading might not work all the time. There are moments in our life when the invading thoughts or stress are too overpowering to withstand a bookish evening. Make sure to always check in with yourself. If reading isn’t for you, then maybe meditation will work for you. If not, there’s always a little Netflix.

     

  • Wilder Girls by Rory Power // Book Review

    Wilder Girls by Rory Power // Book Review

    I went into reading this book imagining it was going to be the Lord of the Flies for girls, but it’s really not close to Lord of the Flies aside from the fact they’re quarantined to an island for 18 months with no idea if they’ll ever get off.

    42505366Here’s more about Wilder Girls:

    I’m going to start recapping the book by first explaining the strange circumstances. There’s an all-girls academy on this little island off the coast of America. At some point prior to quarantine, the girls were infected with some strange disease. They don’t know much about it and neither do the people in charge or the government, so that’s what left them to quarantine them there. The disease itself is crippling. For some girls, it kills them right away. For others, it mutates their bodies taking away their vision, their limbs, their tongues. One girl even grew a second spine that sits outside of her back. The other part is that it affected the island itself. Animals have gone blood thirsty and vines have a mind of their own. No one leaves the safety of the school and the girls are also taught to fight against whatever monsters exist outside the school’s grounds.

    So now that you know what’s going on outside of the story, it’s also about three girls who live in the same dorm room and are the best of friends. When one of the girls goes through more mutations from the disease, she’s put into an infirmary room to recover. When one of her best friends notices that she’s disappeared from the infirmary, the girls start to panic as they take matters into their own hands and explore the treacherous island meanwhile all hoping that a cure will come any day now.

    This story is so atmospheric bringing a sense of the isolation, fear, and friendship between these girls. If you’re into thrillers, female friendships, and adventure, then this is the book for you. Trigger Warning: This book does depict some pretty gruesome scenes as well as loss and grief.

    This book had me running the gamut of emotions. I was scared because the monsters and the disease are absolutely frightening. The ending was also super scary and while I don’t want to give it away or spoil it, just know that the fear runs throughout the novel. It’s so excellent in its horror portions.

    But the other part of this book is the female friendships. Oh goodness. I feel like our real-life female friendships are based off a mutual understanding of one another and our situations. We find camaraderie with other women because they’ve been through something similar to what we’ve been through and that’s exactly what happens here except the circumstances are more life-threatening than say my life.

    There’s no catty girl who despite all the changes is still catty. The girls in this book are all friends because they’re all dealing with the deaths of their other friends, the mutations in their bodies, and the utter isolation of being quarantined to your school. And imagine being in that state for 18 months without seeing or speaking to your family, without setting foot off the property. Without any cellphones.

    The bond between the girls either platonically or otherwise (there’s some LGBTQIA+ representation in this book) is so strong. It makes you consider how you and your friends became so close and appreciate that friendship a heck more.

    I will say that the most surprising part of this book was the ending. I don’t want to give it away, but once the girls find out the truth about the outside world I started to cry. You will feel so much for these girls, hoping for the best for them. You hope that they see the end of their misery or the silver lining amongst the mutations. I literally threw this book across the room because it was upsetting me so much.

    All in all, a tremendously beautiful read for this debut author. At certain points, I found myself a little bit bored or just reading to get to another girl’s perspective, but pretty much at the halfway mark this book really takes off. I will most definitely be reading more from this author in the future.

     

  • Reading Update // July 12, 2019

    Reading Update // July 12, 2019

    Captain’s Log

    Stardate: 07122019

    Ok, I’m just being a little silly there, but I love my little reading updates. I feel like I can disappear for a week and then come back and be like “what’s up, here’s what happened to me this week and why my blog’s been so silent.”

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    This week, I was occupied reading a pretty big novel. It was about 700 pages and dedicating my time to a book that book requires a lot of factors. I was asking this on Instagram the other day what are the requirements you need to get into a big book and many people had some amazing responses. I’m always fascinated with reasons why people read certain way. For example, there were a few folks who said they only read big books. WOW! Others talked about prepping the big book with some smaller reads before it so you don’t feel like you’re spending too much time with the big book. I’ll have to write this all day and give you a proper blog post about it, but this week has really got me thinking about big books and why we read them. I also figured out a way that really helps digest a big book slowly without feeling like you’re spending too much time on it.

    But now that I’m done reading the big fantasy book, I kind of want to read another big fantasy. I don’t know about you, but when a genre fails to deliver what I’m looking for in a read, I tend to just marathon a few books within the genre to find something that blows me away. Since I was unhappy with the book I just finished, I figured why not read another big fantasy or a fantasy that’s been tried-and-true good; a book that has a lot of positive reviews and everyone has loved.

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    So I decided my next big fantasy read will be The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. If you’re not aware, he’s one of the best adult fantasy authors. I mean, the man finished Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series after he passed away, so he must know what he’s doing.

    The Way of Kings is the first book in his Stormlight Archive series. It’s close to 1000 pages long, which for the most part isn’t an issue with many of the reviews I’ve read. No one’s complained about the length, which makes me think this book moves. And if the pace is good, then 1000 pages doesn’t seem so bad. I don’t know how my poor little hands will feel after holding a book of this length in them for long periods of time, but that’s a bridge I’ll cross when I get there.

    However, before I can even start this book, I need to read three more books. I’ve got two book club reads, some promotional books to read, and not a lot of time left in July. Wow, it’s already mid-month? I think this will be my short TBR for the next couple of reads:

    The Two Lila Bennetts by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

    The Music of What Happens by Bill Konisberg

    Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

    I think this weekend I’ll be finishing up The Music of What Happens and Devil in Spring because I’ve already started them. Then I’ll dedicate some time to The Two Lila Bennets and hopefully I’ll be able to start The Way of Kings after that.

    Phew, the rest of this month is going to be a doozy! What will you be reading this month?

     

  • Worth the Hype? Recursion by Blake Crouch

    Worth the Hype? Recursion by Blake Crouch

    I saw so many people post about Recursion over the past few weeks that I knew I needed to read this book ASAP and share my thoughts on it. Hyped books worry me sometimes because when a ton of people like the book, it sets your expectations much higher than you would have if there wasn’t any hype at all.

    High expectations + a new read you’re not sure if you’ll like = possible big mess

    So I usually hold off on reading books with tons of hype, but I thought it would also be cute if I read the book and shared whether or not the hype was worth the read. Let’s see if Recursion is as good as everyone says it is.

    42046112The story itself is pretty complicated. I’ll try my best to sum this up without 1) spoilers 2) confusing you. Basically, it follows Barry, an older investigative officer who just tried to talk a woman off the ledge of a building. She suffers from False Memory Syndrome aka FMS, where two lines of memory are inundated in a person. One is the life she had been living up until that moment and then the second is an alternate life she doesn’t remember living but somehow those memories are just as real as the life she knows she lived.

    It also follows Helena, a scientist who is on the brink of finding what she hopes is a cure for Alzheimer’s. Since her mother’s diagnosis, she’s been determined to find a cure and help her mother regain some of her memory before the disease takes over completely. When she was about to run out of funding from Stanford on her research, she meets Marcus Slade, your Elon Musk for all intents and purposes who believes in what she’s doing and funds the rest of her research.

    As Helena makes strides in building a machine that lets you relive your own memories, she’s pushed to her scientific limit when they make a discovery that allows users to travel back to their own memories. However, the consequences of reliving these memories becomes clear as it not only affects the person traveling, but the people around them. And as Helena’s machine falls into the wrong hands, she and Barry team up to find how to stop the machine from ending humanity as we know it.

    TW: Suicide, mass genocide, and anxiety-inducing existential life questions

    Before I start this review, I wanted to explain what “recursion” means. Recursion (in a scientific and mathematical sense) is a computer programming technique involving the use of a procedure, subroutine, function, or algorithm that calls itself one or more times until a specified condition is met at which time the rest of each repetition is processed from the last one called to the first. This definition basically explains what happens in this book.

    This book reminded me a lot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind except without all the sad “I’m deleting all my memories of my former lover” feelings and instead traveling to that point in time and reliving that moment. It’s like if Joel realized the catalyst moment of their relationship falling apart, going back to that moment, and saying the right thing to keep them together. If that makes sense.

    It’s not your average time travel book. If you wanted to understand the time travel here, I would say it’s like layers of timelines. They’re all stacked on top of each other and come together at the point where you jumped. It’s not like how they do it in Back to the Future. It’s not like Austin Powers and his time traveling movies. This takes the current concepts of time travel and throws it out the window.

    Blake Crouch actually does a very good job at explaining the mechanics of this world. He really takes the “science” of science fiction and writes really great action-filled fiction using it. On many levels this book reminded me of Dark Matter except traveling through time instead of dimensions. While I wish there was more science behind how all of this worked, I guess it really doesn’t matter because science won’t be able to really explain what happens.

    You will keep reading this book despite how confusing the science may seem. It’s like you want to know what happens every time someone gets into the deprivation chamber and travels. You want to know where they go and what they do and what happens. I think Blake Crouch does a really good job with the suspense in that effect. You’re always wanting to know how the world has changed and how it’s affected the people around you.

    Speaking to that, I really loved how this didn’t exist inside a vacuum. The butterfly effect of changes affected everyone involved. People were living with dual sets of memories. Some people remember their own deaths, which is something I don’t know if I can handle. Barry and Helena lived multiple lives trying to find a way to destroy the machine, but every time they jumped it affected everyone around them. I really loved that aspect because it made it feel real.

    And in Blake Crouch style, there’s always a little emotion. Barry goes through an emotional rollercoaster all throughout this novel whether it was reliving the death of his daughter or helping Helena find the solution. Barry and Helena’s emotional states were really what drew me to this story because they felt so real. And in a story where there’s very little reality, you need this to hold on to and remember that this is real human connection.

    The only thing I had an issue with is the repetition. I mean, the book needs the repetition because they relive years of their life over and over again, but at some point I felt like it was a little too much. I think many of the jumps they made back to the same moment in time could have been summed up in a paragraph or two.

    So is this book worth the hype?

    Yes, I like to think so. It’s an action-packed novel with a scientific bend to it. The science isn’t too difficult to understand and fits into the definition of “recursion” very well. It’s definitely one of those books you’ll sit down to read and suddenly find yourself devouring. It doesn’t hesitate with its start and the action keeps going until the very end. It also has human and emotional elements to it which I like to think brings a sense of reality to a story that steeped in science fiction. Is it a read right away book? No, not necessarily. However, it is a surprising read and if you liked Blake Crouch’s first book, Dark Matter, then you’re going to like this one just as much.

    I really hope they turn this book into a graphic novel or a movie. I’m hoping more for the latter because it would be excellent on the big screen. I can only imagine Bruce Willis playing Barry and like Jennifer Aniston as Helena. Super visual and extremely plot-driven, this book will leave you wondering if you could go back and change any regrets you’ve had, would you?

    I received a copy of this book from Crown Publishing for free in exchange for an honest review. My opinions have not been influenced by the publisher or the author.

     

  • The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman // Book Review

    The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman // Book Review

    For some reason I’ve been on a LA-settings kick. First it was The Friend Zone and now The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

    42379022._sy475_It’s the story of Nina Hill; your introverted reader who works at the independent bookstore in your neighborhood and fills hers nights with fun activities from trivia night to hot yoga. However, Nina is alone. She loves to be alone and lived most of her life that way. With an absent mother and no clue who her dad was, Nina’s adapted herself to enjoy the moments she spends alone. That is until her father’s lawyer finds her and tells her 1) she has a father 2) he just died.

    Suddenly, the life Nina lived is filled with a family she’s never met. It also turns out her dad was a complicated man leaving behind a few ex-wives, tons of kids and grandkids, and a little extra for Nina in his will. But can Nina really handle a whole new family when she’s been alone all her life?

    I really wanted to like this story and for all intents and purposes I did like it. I read the whole book. I was engaged and interested in what happened to Nina. The setting was in LA in a neighborhood I’ve been to and a bookstore I’ve actually shopped at. It was the perfect storm of cute reading and yet, it was just cute.

    While I was reading, I made my notes in my book journal and a few possible outcomes for the story. Sadly, none of my theories actually came to fruition and I was left a little disappointed. In hindsight, I think I asked too much from this book and set my expectations way too high.

    I want to emphasize that this book is cute. Lots of cute little scenes and tons of cute feelings for Nina, her friends, and her family. However, I didn’t think there was enough conflict. I thought having found out that you’re a part of a fairly well-to-do family would raise some more suspicions between the family and Nina. I thought that having a love interest would bring some heat to the story, but all of it just felt meh. Everything seemed to resolve too quickly. Nothing seemed like a struggle. I also felt like even Nina’s internal struggles with her personality were a little too quickly resolved.

    I think the one thing that really brought this book home for me was the fact Nina was so much like me. Honestly, I think a lot of readers will see a ton of themselves in Nina because she’s exactly us. She’s the overthinker, the reader, the organized force who has to write everything down otherwise she forgets. She’s the awkward shy person who isn’t afraid to tell a guy she doesn’t want to hang out with him tonight. She reminded me a lot of me and really drove the story for myself despite its flaws.

    But overall, a super cute read for the summer. I think I’ll be reading more Abbi Waxman in the future and gauging what her other writing is like. Will you be reading The Bookish Life of Nina Hill this summer?

    I received a copy of this book from Berkley Publishing for free in exchange for an honest review. My opinions have not been influenced by the publisher or the author.

  • Why I Love (Some) YA

    Why I Love (Some) YA

    For a very long time, I’ve been shamed for reading YA. I would only buy books on my Kindle so you couldn’t see what I was reading. I only shared my reads with close friends I knew wouldn’t judge me for reading YA. I talked even less about them online to avoid trolls asking me why an adult is reading childrens’ books. People would purse their lips at me, judge me for my questionable taste, and guilt me for reading books that brought me joy. Why? Because I’m too old to be reading Young Adult books…or so they believe.

    Recently, I started watching this new (to me) anime series called Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s the story of a fifteen year old boy who somehow is roped into piloting a larger than life mech that defeats evil monsters that attack their town. In watching this series, I realized that a lot of what I like about anime reflects in many of the YA novels I read.

    There were a few things I noticed. First off, a lot of anime is centered around teenagers who are put into both ordinary and extraordinary situations. Some are romantic, some are just contemporary stories, and others are genre stories running everywhere from horror to fantasy. They all face struggles with their world be it learning how to use giant robots or learning who you are deep inside.

    Secondly, they are short. They only last about a season or two before becoming cult classics within the anime community. I imagine YA stories (outside of the Epic fantasies) are very much the same.

    Finally, they read like YA. While they may not have the same tropes as YA novels do, the experiences and the reactions feel very much like an anime. The impulsivity, the secret keeping, the love stories; they all feel like YA stories.

    When you’re a kid and you grow up with certain things, those kind of remain with you. I loved shows like Sailor Moon and Vampire Princess Miyu because they were impossible stories happening to average people; specifically girls. I always imagine that I’ll get my super powers one day and that feeling sticks with you regardless of your age. So when I found YA novels, it was like reliving that dream again. I could imagine a world where super powers exist and fighting battles and learning about yourself in the process.

    As an adult, there are certain standards arbitrarily set saying that this is the life you have to live. You have to raise those kids. You have to make that money. You have to be responsible and there’s just no time for enjoyable things. And to that, I say hooey. There’s no magic fairy that comes down at you when you turn 25 that says “time to get those kid dreams out of your head, you’re too old for that now.” These are self-imposed thoughts. These are what society has told us is the right way to live your life when you reach that threshold. But if you live for yourself and live how you want, you find much more enjoyment in an existence that’s as fleeting as a butterfly’s life.

    I believe in the concept that you’re never too old to do anything. Going back to school and getting a degree, bungee jumping off a 100ft bridge, or finally publishing that novel at 60. The world is too big and life is too short to limit yourself because you think it’s not adult.

    Where in any book did it say that once you hit adulthood you have to let go of everything you loved about childhood? Does that mean eating Firecracker popsicles in the middle of summer is considered too young? Does that mean going on rollercoasters is too young? Does that mean learning a new trade or diving into your personal emotions is only reserved for those who haven’t fully lived life yet?

    I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being an adult and reading YA. For some folks, it’s about the nostalgia of being young and others an escape from the reality of their lives. We shouldn’t shame adults for reading YA especially when a lot of stories feel less like books for children and carry some very big messages.

    I think the one thing that anyone can get out of YA is stories most adults are too afraid to share. These are the stories inspiring so many young people to take action, to care, and to find out their true selves. What’s so wrong with reading books like that?

    If you’re a YA reader and maybe a little too old for the demographic, raise your books up loud and proud. The days of what it means to be an adult are long gone and while people can argue that until they’re out of breath, one thing is still true; you can read whatever you want. No one can take that away from you.

     

  • The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez // Book Review

    The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez // Book Review

    The story is simple. Boy like Girl. Girl likes Boy. Girl’s dog likes Boy. Girl has a medical issue that’ll keep her from having children. Boy wants to have a “baseball team” of kids. Well, I guess the story isn’t that simple.

    The Friend Zone is about Kristen and Josh. Kristen is a young entrepreneur creating fun dog accessories for smaller pets. She and her pooch, Stuntman Mike, live in a little apartment in LA. Josh is a young guy who just moved to LA after being in the military. He’s a firefighter who’s best friend, Brandon, is about to marry Kristen’s best friend, Sloan. But because of Kristen’s reproductive issues and Josh’s want for a big family, she believes it’s better that they just remain friends. Sadly, no one told Josh this news and they begin a pretty tumultuous relationship where they try to be friends with benefits, but we all know that doesn’t work.

    I related a lot with Kristen. While I don’t have infertility issues or the level of OCD she has, I do feel like I’m never good enough. I don’t know if you can chalk it up to my upbringing, but I can tell you now that when you don’t think you’re good enough, you are down on yourself a lot. I spend a lot of my time convincing myself that everything’s already; that not everything needs to be perfect. I have to remind myself that what I’m doing is enough and more than enough. I overcompensate a lot. And I felt a lot of what Kristen felt even down to the professional career as a pianist (which would have never happened for me, it was just something my mom pushed for).

    I think the biggest theme in this book (and also a note from the author) is Kristen’s reproductive issues. I have friends who suffered from tumors and nodes in their uterus with painful cramping and constant bleeding. I’ve seen coworkers take days off or go home early hinged at the waist and doubled over because the pain is so bad. I’ve seen friends cry because of the pain and go home because they aren’t having fun. It’s debilitating. Their lives aren’t the best lives especially with the slew of medical issues and it literally getting in the way of them doing anything. Kristen’s issues are so bad that she’s been considering a hysterectomy for most of the novel to reduce the amount of cramping and bleeding she does monthly. I thought it was amazing that Abby Jimenez brought this up. I haven’t read a book like this (with mostly all the books I read as two very healthy human adults with their body parts in full working order) and it gives the story a level of trouble the two need to work out.

    While the book starts off funny and sweet like most rom coms, it does get super serious towards the end. I don’t want to give it away, but get ready to cry. I had to put this book down 100 pages away from the end because it was too intense. I was on the verge of tears and reading the last 100 pages were pretty hard for me. Even knowing that the book is going to be sad didn’t give me enough time to prepare. I got blindsided and whoa, it was intense. I almost considered whether or not this move was a good one on Abby’s part. Did it make sense with the rest of the book? I think the jury’s still out on that one.

    But overall, such a sweet story. I love a good friends-to-lovers without the added sarcasm between the two characters. The writing wasn’t the most sophisticated, but it was visual and conveyed all the emotions. I think I ran the gamut of emotions throughout this novel, so you won’t ever be bored.

  • No Books Necessary: Dancing Towards Self-Care

    No Books Necessary: Dancing Towards Self-Care

    When I used to work in a big corporate office, I would dance A LOT. We had this little room that was designated for meditation, but it was a rumpus room. People legit took power naps in there, so I was definitely going to dance in there. With abandon. I just loved going in there after having a crappy conversation with my manager about my performance (which was always good, she was just high maintenance) and dance it out. I’d put on some Robyn and let her dance me into oblivion for 15-20 minutes.

    It was a great workout that left me feeling so much better about whatever issue I had. It exceeded the feeling I would get from walking and to be honest, I need to walk for about 30-60 minutes before I’ve come to terms with whatever’s bothering me.

    Fast forward to today and I’m still dancing, but with a different purpose. Reading is a great way to unwind and let yourself be immersed in a story, but have you ever tried to read a book when you’ve got a million thoughts in your brain? For me, my thoughts almost get so big I can’t focus on my book. It’s just me reading a bunch of words strung together. I can’t immerse myself in a story when I’ve been thinking on my career, writing my blog, or working on another book for work. It’s exhausting to be a freelancer and sometimes books just won’t do it for you.

    Lately, I’ve been doing these dance breaks where I set up my camera, put on a bop that I’ve been obsessed with, and really just dance it out. I usually do these before I jump into a read because 1) I’ll be spending a ton of time on my butt 2) I can’t read when I’ve got some heavy issues weighing on my mind.

    The dancing lets me remove myself from what I’m dealing with. It clears my head. Someone told me once that physical activity really helps for people who are super stressed and I totally believe them. Putting effort into dancing allows me to focus on one task and doing it well. I mean, doing it to the best of my abilities. I’m not formally trained and I always stumble and make goofy faces or do something stupid. It’s not about me being good at dancing; it’s about me using my body to release all the stress and tension I’ve got going on.

    It really gets me cleared up before I head into a book. I can immerse myself in a book and come back to the issues later and it doesn’t ruin my read. Sometimes self-care doesn’t mean taking a bath and wearing a face mask. For some people, self-care is the act of focusing on one task and doing that to the best of your abilities. Perhaps it’s cooking or gardening for you and for me it’s dancing and working out. I love that I gave myself the space to explore what self-care works for me and now I can use it not only to dance away my troubles, but also dance myself into a better mood.

    What’s your favorite form of self-care?