Simone and Her Books

2016 Brooklyn Book Festival: Recap

September 20, 2016

Over the weekend, I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival for the first time ever. Whenever going to a festival or a convention, I always set myself up with an itinerary of events and panels I want to check out. Then the reality of the event sets in and I never do everything I plan to do.

I didn’t stay the entire day, but I did see the Jacqueline Woodson “Best of Brooklyn” panel and walk around to all of the vendors to see what they’ve got going on. I did a lot of walking around and even talked to a few vendors. I think my favorite part about this whole journey was the sharing my passion for books with other like-minded people. Even a recluse like me needs to get out.

Jacqueline Woodson is an amazing bad ass writer of diverse fiction. I only got the chance to go to one panel and it was the Best of Brooklyn: A Conversation with Jacqueline Woodson. If you’re not a fan of YA and you’d like to read her work, check out Another Brooklyn. It released this year and most definitely on my #tbr.

The conversation mostly was about the intricate layers of a city and how that helps shape the person you become. Another Brooklyn is supposed to be about the city you don’t see. It’s like the inception of metaphors. The city within a city. You can land in any part of Brooklyn and find yourself immersed in a different world, but the reality may change for the people who actually live it.

I wanted to ask Jacqueline Woodson if she was somehow influenced by the political movements stirring up over the past few years (ex: #weneeddiversebooks or even #blacklivesmatter). Unfortunately, I learned I’m a huge fangirl nerd that can’t call up the courage to ask someone I admire a question.

My favorite thing she said was about how she’s a slow reader. She said slow readers are people who are more analytical; taking into consideration the way the writer wrote. It’s research and will help with becoming a better writer. I don’t know if I’m a better writer, but I do know now that I can read at my leisure without feeling like a dope for going too slow.

Anyway, that’s all for now. See you next year, #bkbf
Book Review: P.S. I Like You

September 20, 2016

Summary (from Goodreads.com) – While spacing out in chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk and added a message to her. Intrigue!

Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters—sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only, who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out…

Rating: 5/5

My thoughts-

Going to be honest with you, I didn’t really feel interested in this one. I’d received this book in my Owlcrate and I’ll be honest, I judged the book by its cover and to me, the cover read as cheesy and predictable. I didn’t have high hopes for it, but I still gave it a shot.

Living in the city and living on the subway line that I take everyday, I’m greeted with an abundance of readers enjoying everything from one of the books in the Harry Potter series to the works of Kafka. And to be honest with you, it’s downright intimidating to walk on the subway with a book cover the likes of this one.

“But Simone, you should be proud of the book you’re reading. You should be proud to be amongst one of the readers who actually read.”

You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to lift my head up from the intimidation, but then I get that glance from that one pseudo-intellectual that is book shaming me for reading YA and I crawl back into my introverted shell of shame.

But I persevered and I sat on my commutes to work and back completely encroached in this novel. Although you can argue that the story itself is overplayed and it’s just that old high school trope, but the reality is that sometimes you need to remember what it’s like to be a kid and what it was like to fall in love.

Lily Abbott is the kind of character I can resonate with. I was the girl that sat in class and instead of paying attention wrote poetry and thoughts in a journal I carried with me all the time. I was listening to obscure punk bands and sitting with the less popular group of friends. While I never exchanged letters and never really dated anyone outside of the occasional blind date, I resonated with her. I resonated with the entire story.

You can’t help but to feel good and even at the end when I thought everything was going to go south, it didn’t. My cold heart warmed up reading this book and I’m so surprised by every YA novel I pick up and how detailed and emotionally stirring they all are.
I love the Fall and my 2016 Fall TBR

September 19, 2016

It’s mid-September and the cool breeze of autumn started to settle amongst the crevices of the city. Soon it will be so cold you need several layers to sit comfortably in your home before the landlord decides to turn on the heat.

Fall must be the designated season for reading. It must have something to do with going back to school and opening new notebooks and fresh pens and buying books for class. It might have something to do with the cool weather and cuddling in close with a good read.

I thought I would prepare myself for the cozy comforts of Fall with a few books to nourish my heart and my mind. I’ve never planned out the books I’ll be reading and I know I won’t be reading all the new books that just released because I’m always behind with what’s trendy (in my book life and my real life). So here’s a quick list of some of the books that sound interesting to me and I’d love to read this Fall:

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoingtraces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indelibly drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.

Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson

Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of place: as the only child on a film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, the sole clinically depressed member of the cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in California, and one of the few former child actors who has never been in jail or rehab. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of Melrose Place, to losing her mother at a young age, to getting her first kiss (or was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe trip, to not being “cute” enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the story of one young woman’s journey from accidental fame to relative (but happy) obscurity. But they also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and figuring out who you are and where you belong. Exquisitely crafted, revelatory, and full of the crack comic timing that has made Mara Wilson a sought-after live storyteller and Twitter star, Where Am I Now?introduces a witty, perceptive, and refreshingly candid new literary voice.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Running into a long-ago friend sets memories from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them.

But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion.

32 Yolks by Eric Ripert

Before he earned three Michelin stars at Le Bernardin, won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Chef, or became a regular guest judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, and even before he knew how to make a proper omelet, Eric Ripert was a young boy in the South of France who felt that his world had come to an end. The only place Eric felt at home was in the kitchen. His desire to not only cook, but to become the best would lead him into some of the most celebrated and demanding restaurants in Paris.

Shrill by Lindy West

From a painfully shy childhood in which she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her big body and even bigger opinions; to her public war with stand-up comedians over rape jokes; to her struggle to convince herself, and then the world, that fat people have value; to her accidental activism and never-ending battle royale with Internet trolls, Lindy narrates her life with a blend of humor and pathos that manages to make a trip to the abortion clinic funny and wring tears out of a story about diarrhea.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and left crippled by the kidnapping of a valuable team member, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city’s dark and twisting streets―a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of magic in the Grisha world.

Swear on this Life by Renee Carlino

When a bestselling debut novel from mysterious author J.Colby becomes the literary event of the year, Emiline reads it reluctantly. As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.

Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.

I wonder if within the three months of Fall I’ll be able to read all of these. Will I give up at some point? Will I want to move something to the next season? Will I end up reading another book from my endlessly growing pile of novels? I think it’ll be interesting to see what I end up reading even if I planned it all out ahead of time. I guess my interest in a book just comes with my mood (who would have thought?)

I do know that I will be enjoying the cool breeze and a warm cup of tea as I go through these. What does your Fall look like?
Every place a book and every book in its place

September 16, 2016

There’s no need to finish reading books that you only got halfway through. Their purpose was to be read halfway. So get rid of all those unread books. It will be far better for you to read the book that really grabs you right now than one that you left to gather dust for years.

I’ve never read The Art of Tidying Up because I honestly don’t hold a lot of things for sentimental reasons. If I had my way, my entire apartment would look completely different, but when you live with someone, those rules change. You make compromises and sometimes those compromises become a part of you that you didn’t know existed.

When I was younger, I was very organized. A place for everything and everything it’s place. I still believe in that. Even in the chaos of my living situation (I live with my boyfriend), there’s a place for everything and everything it’s place. This is why I never let my boyfriend clean or put away the dishes.

The one part of my life where I feel completely chaotic is books. I have books everywhere. I don’t think I can describe to you the severity of the issue. I have only one bookshelf that is three rows deep with books. There are books holding up my couch right now because we broke one of the screws when we first got it.

I even have a book sitting next to me.

Something about this quote really resonated with me. I look down at the books surrounding me and I’ve somehow created a fortress of paper and ink. It’s a beautiful fortress, but living in the city doesn’t allot you a lot of space. There needs to be a purge.

Perhaps Marie Kondo is right. If books had a purpose, they are either there to be read or to sit on your shelf. I have so many books I’ve told myself that I would read and eventually let go because I know deep down in my heart that I won’t ever read it. When I first bought it, it seemed like a good idea and that was the extent of my relationship with that book. If only a relationship with a book can be lasting and eternal.

However, I think the quote can be used in any situation when it comes to books. If you’re reading and you stop halfway, then that’s where your journey ends. When you feel guilty for not finishing a book because you just didn’t like it, well, that’s the journey you had with that book. It feels more sane and less stressful to believe that buying a book and having it sit in my TBR pile for years is a sign that that was the extent of my journey. It brings me joy to watch it collect dust, but now the joy is knowing that perhaps someone else will pick it up and their lives will change.

I’ve got to clean my bookshelf.
Book Review: One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

September 11, 2016

If this can afford me anything, it’s the feeling I had when I was younger and believed that he was my true love.

Summary (from Goodreads.com) – In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

My thoughts – I love, love, love this book. If you’ve ever experienced heartbreak and sadness, you will know that feeling from this book.

I’ve never experienced the loss of a husband or a spouse or a boyfriend to something extremely tragic. I’ve lost them because they wanted to lose me. And even though that sadness of not being wanted is different than that of being wanted but completely impossible, you still feel the loss in the same way. Pain is pain. I’ve dealt with that kind of pain before, but my favorite part of it (if you could have a favorite part) is that I learned from it.

“Good things don’t wait until you’re ready. Sometimes they come right before, when you’re almost there. And I figured when that happens, you can let them pass by like a bus not meant for you. Or you can get ready. So I got ready.”

Taylor Jenkins Reid lovingly wrote a story of both being lost and then being found. It’s not just about who you love and that defining you, but how you can shape yourself through the process. Her character, Emma, is an insecure high schooler who through the process of being loved found a secure place to be in her life, Then through the process of falling out of love, found the person that she wanted to be. If you could learn any lesson from a book like this it’s that the loss of love isn’t the end of life.

I think the only flaw to this book (and honestly, a personal preference) is that it got super sappy at the end. I love love stories, but I think the lesson was learned before the final page:

“Maybe, if you’re the kind of person who’s willing to give all of yourself, the kind of person who is willing to love with all of your heart even though you’ve experienced just how much it can hurt . . . maybe you get lots of true loves, then. Maybe that’s the gift you get for being brave.”

::SPOILER ALERT::

Reading this book was like watching the final rose ceremony on the Bachelor or the Superbowl. You have your favorites and you want one of them to win. But who will Emma choose? My money was on Sam.

The reason being is that Sam is a new chapter of her life. She had lost Jesse, endured that pain, and through that struggle she found herself. Circumstances would have probably been different if Jesse was alive, but sometimes life can throw you into the lion’s den to see if you’ll survive.

“When you love someone, it seeps out of everything you do, it bleeds into everything you say, it becomes so ever-present, that eventually it becomes ordinary to hear, no matter how extraordinary it is to feel.”

Sam represents the new life she’s built for herself post-Jesse. He was familiar in that he reminded her of the person she was in high school, but also different because they created a life together. Like soldiers returning from war, some people are changed for good and Jesse and Emma were both different. That life they had died when Jesse was presumed dead.

I keep rambling, but the ultimately moral of this story is that sometimes you can’t go back home. Time moves on and if you don’t move with it, you might just miss everything.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has lost love and then found love again and those who are hopeful that love will eventually find them.
I stopped reading Sweetbitter and this is why

August 30, 2016

I’ve read a lot of coming-of-age stories in my lifetime. I’m still reading a lot of coming of age stories because at 31, I don’t know if I’ve actually “come of age.” I don’t think I will ever stop reading them or never not want to pick one up. However, there’s some stories where I start to lose focus or empathy for the main character and their troubled post-graduate life. Currently, that book is Sweetbitter.

In a nutshell, Sweetbitter is a novel by Stephanie Danler about a young woman who moves to New York City after college. She finds herself an apartment, gets a job at a restaurant, and contemplating what her next move will be. It sounds like your typical story of growing up and experiencing growing up in the big city.

I picked up this book at my bookstore a few months ago excited to read something about food, the restaurant industry, and a side of growing up. When I first read it, I was swept away by the language and the writing skills Danler uses to portray her character. The descriptions of the food and how it tasted to her character and the depth of knowledge that some of her characters had was a beautiful amalgamation.

However, this book wasn’t the story I thought it was going to be. Instead, it felt like I was reading the typical Girls story where they don’t know what they’re doing, don’t care about the job they have, and therefore don’t have the competency to do the job right.

It reminds me of this scene from Girls where you watch Lena Dunham’s character break down a box at a law office she’s working at part time. I get that coming right out of college and moving to a big city is tough. I did the same thing. After college, I moved into my first apartment in the East Village with no assistance from my parents. I made a lot of junk meals and worked in customer service. I wasn’t sure what my plan was going to be and that was fine. I used my intuition and brain to learn to adapt, pay my bills, and actually have some money leftover at the end of the week to go out at night. It’s not a romantic life and not something that we should be praising as interesting or heroic. It’s just a temporary blur of time where no one knows what they’re doing.

I don’t relate to girls like Lena Dunham’s character or the main character in Sweetbitter because while I was wondering what I want to do with life, I didn’t spend my time clumsily serving food and not understanding that when a guy didn’t like me, I should continue to pursue them. It’s not innate in me to act this, but I do know that there are a ton of post-graduates living in Williamsburg going through the same thing. I know this because I live in Williamsburg. Hah, that might also be the reason why I’m so determined not to like this book.

I don’t want to bash this book. I think that many people will enjoy this story and I’m in the minority of people who huffed, said “another one?” and promptly put the book down. I don’t like stories about people who come to New York, transplant themselves in Williamsburg, and then do nothing but drink and do drugs and live a “lifestyle” instead of a life.

I put down the book halfway through. I hate doing that, but I realized that I wasn’t really invested in knowing what happens to the main character here. Perhaps the story gets better. Perhaps she finally pulls up her boots and does her best with the situation she’s given. Perhaps I need to be more forgiving of the world and their faults. I’ll never know what happened and to be honest, I think I’m ok with that.
Book Review – The Summer Games: Settling the Score by R.S. Grey

August 21, 2016

As I may have mentioned in a post a few weeks back, I’m slowly introducing myself to Romance novels. I haven’t decided what exactly I’m interested in, so I’m trying a little bit of everything. Mostly, I’ve read contemporary romance; where the story is set sometime in the present. There’s less heaving bosoms and quivering members as I recall assuming when I was a kid. I started with Colleen Hoover (which I can’t tell is either New Adult or Romance, but that’s OK) and now I’ve moved onto the subject of this review.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com) – As an Olympic rookie, Andie Foster has spent far more time in her cleats than between the sheets. For 21 years, her Friday nights have consisted of blocking shots rather than taking them. But now that she’s landed in Rio, she’s ready to see for herself if the rumors about the Olympic Village are true:

• The athletes are all sex-crazed maniacs…
• The committee passes out condoms like candy…
• The games continue long after the medals have been handed out…

As Andie walks the line between rumor and reality, she’s forced into the path of Frederick Archibald, a decorated Olympic swimmer and owner of a sexy British accent–too bad he’s unavailable in a way that “it’s complicated” doesn’t even begin to explain.

In other words: off limits.

It doesn’t matter that he has abs that could bring peace to the Middle East and a smile that makes even the Queen blush; Andie fully intends on keeping her focus on the soccer field. But the Village is small. Suffocating. Everywhere Andie goes, Freddie happens to be there–shirtless, wet from the pool, and determined to show her a whole new meaning of the phrase “international affairs”.

Rating: 4/5 stars

My thoughts – When I heard that R.S. Grey was coming out with a new book this summer, I figured I’d start from the beginning of this series (even though each book is standalone and you don’t have to do that, but I’m that kind of person). Little did I know that I would be reading this while watching the actual Olympics taking place in Rio. It was extremely serendipitous!

What I loved the most about this book was that it wasn’t forced. Yes, there was some controversy and maybe you’ll feel that falling in love during the Olympic games is difficult, but when I see some of the real-life couples in the Olympics, I guess it’s definitely possible to fall in silly love with someone so quickly.

“I liked peanut butter. Peanut butter never got another woman pregnant. Peanut butter never made me cry. Nobody cared if you were photographed in a club with a jar of Jif.”

The story’s description doesn’t drag or have lulls. Honestly, it felt like a cohesive story from beginning to end with details that make sense with what is going on. I’m happy to finally start reading a true romance with a real plot and what feels to me like real people. I really don’t like it where everything just conveniently comes together because the author pushes the story forward. R.S. Grey takes her time to ensure that there’s a good plot, good characterization, and a sexy story to keep you warm on these hot summer nights.

“She was already gone though, weaving through the party as fast as she could. She was putting as much distance between us as possible, building on don’t until it wasn’t just a word, it was a wall.”

I don’t really have a lot of negative things to say about this book. If I could say anything, I think the only unbelievable part has got to be that Freddie is both an Olympic swimmer AND some sort of royal in England. One or the other is believable, but to me maybe both is a little overkill?

I know I’m harping on the reality of this book when I read high fantasy and science fiction, but even in those stories, there needs to be this humanizing aspect. Doctor Who even has a humanizing aspect making his companions human and keeping him accountable for the drastic decisions he makes.

Other than that, beautiful story and it ends with such a happy ending. Well, there are some other happy endings throughout the story, but you got to laugh.
Book Review – Finding Audrey by Sophia Kinsella

August 18, 2016

Ahhh young love. Nothing cures the deepening hole of depression like knowing that someone’s got a crush on you.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com) – An anxiety disorder disrupts fourteen-year-old Audrey’s daily life. She has been making slow but steady progress with Dr. Sarah, but when Audrey meets Linus, her brother’s gaming teammate, she is energized. She connects with him. Audrey can talk through her fears with Linus in a way she’s never been able to do with anyone before. As their friendship deepens and her recovery gains momentum, a sweet romantic connection develops, one that helps not just Audrey but also her entire family.

Rating – 3/5 stars

My thoughts – I don’t have a degree in psychology, but my day job requires me to understand the workings of the human brain. The “lizard brain” as Audrey mentions in the book is a little walnut shaped thing that sits somewhere around your neck. This tiny guy is what other people call your “flight or fight” response. They call it the “lizard brain” because it’s a part of the brain that’s existed since we were cavemen hunting and gathering our food. It’s what tells us to run from the dinosaur that’s coming to attack you.

Not only does it give you the survival skills to stay alive, but it also perceives fear. Perceived fear is so different than actual fear. It’s what your brain is telling you is dangerous even though most people don’t know that to be dangerous.

And fear is more than seeing a rabid dog or falling out of a plane. It can be as small as someone yelling at you for doing a bad job or if you work in customer service like I do, it could be someone not happy with a response you sent them. For someone like Audrey, doing a bad job could mean that the end of the world is coming.

“The trouble is, depression doesn’t come with handy symptoms like spots and a temperature, so you don’t realize it at first. You keep saying “I’m fine” to people when you’re not fine. You think you SHOULD be fine. You keep saying to yourself: “Why aren’t I fine?”

While I didn’t rate this book as high as I hoped I would, I liked it nonetheless. I think the faults for me were around the writing choice and the plot. While the story is about a young woman living with a newly diagnosed mental illness, there’s a lot of preoccupation on her brother and video games. I feel like it almost takes away from the actually finding of Audrey and focuses on how to make six million dollars playing video games. Perhaps it’s because it shows the pre-occupation of a mother who wants to know that her kids are doing well. But it comes off as manic and clingy and not really attractive to me in terms of stories.

The writing itself is written in the point of view of Audrey. While it seems like Sophia Kinsella took the time to write in what would be the vernacular of a 15-year-old teenager, it just comes off fake. I read The Shopaholic series a couple of years ago and I don’t remember the writing coming off this way. It’s possible that I wasn’t paying attention. When you’re in college, you’ll do anything to get a break from the academic reading.

What I appreciated the most from this book is the ability to talk about mental illness. Having mental illness is definitely hard to detect and when it is detected, hard to admit to yourself that it’s real and that you should seek help. There’s so many great stories coming out highlighting that mental illness is a real thing. It’s like a cancer. You think it goes away, but then it creeps its ugly head up on you. You think you’re done with it, but then you relapse into the darkness that your brain is so apt to walk towards.

While flawed in some other ways, I think Finding Audrey does a good job showing people who may not already suffer from mental illness some idea of what it’s like. It takes patience and understanding. It’s knowing that sometimes you won’t get to hang out with your friend and not making a big deal out of it.

“But, Audrey, that’s what life is. We’re all on a jagged graph. I know I am. Up a bit, down a bit. That’s life.”

With a little bit of elbow grease, you’ll see your friends and family members come back to life from the brink of mental illness, but know that there isn’t a cure for it all. Just always be aware. It’s always going to be around and the best you can do is give that person a hug.
Let’s All Stop Being Book Bullies

August 11, 2016

At work, my coworkers and I bonded closely by sharing our mutual love of Harry Potter. We’ve all made plans at one point in our lives to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We hope to read the books to our kids and have them obsessed with the fandom as well.

Sadly, there’s only one person on my team that doesn’t like them. She’s only read one book and made up her mind that this isn’t something for her. She’s just not a fan. She didn’t even know a Wizarding World of Harry Potter existed until we recently told her that it existed.

Our initial reaction is always the same, “what! how can you not like Harry Potter?”

The person takes a moment to explain why they don’t like Harry Potter.

At this point in the conversation, there’s always a fork in the road. Some people will turn and ridicule this person for not liking Harry Potter and never reading the books. Others will be accepting of the fact and move on to another topic.

I’m not a fan of “book bullying.” Basically, it’s when you look down at someone because they read a genre or a kind of book that you don’t like. Or they don’t like a type of book that you love.

Books provide a unique perspective to the way we look at life. If you’re like me and look at numbers all day, you want to do something creative. I like to read books and write about books. I like them to be diverse and different, but sometimes I read what everyone else is reading. It allows me to think in different and more creative ways and it’s because books show you many different ways to think, perceive, and grow.

I recently came across a situation that I’ve encountered a number of times and I want to address it here. It’s important that people understand that not every book is going to be the book you want to read. However, that doesn’t give a person license to bully them for not liking something they love.

You might be wondering if a book bully slaps your book out of your hand and musses your hair because you’re reading it. It’s not. It’s the constant repetition of phrases like:

“How can you not read that book?”

“You’re totally crazy for not liking it. It’s a classic!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! It’s like an essential read!”

“OMG YOU HAVE TO PUT THAT ON YOUR TBR NOW. NOW! NOW!!!!!”

You might think this isn’t bullying because someone isn’t getting pushed around and told they’re an idiot. However, it instills a sense of fear and embarrassment when the book they don’t like is up for scrutiny. It makes the person feel like their taste is bad. Their likes are bad. They, themselves, may also feel bad.

Humans are extremely unique creatures because they can think for themselves. They can create their own opinions and thoughts. It’s impressive the number of books you can read about Shakespeare all expressing a different take on Romeo and Juliet. So, why can’t that existence be prevalent in reality?

We should foster a world where books are objective points of life and the subjective reader likes it or not. If anything, we should foster a world where these kinds of conversations are debated and everyone comes out of it with a different perspective.

So let’s hug out our differences, understand that our first reactions may not be the best when it comes to these differences, and take a step back and know that we can always learn something new from each other.
Book Review – It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

August 10, 2016

Just keep swimming.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com) – Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

Rating – 5/5

My thoughts –

Trigger warning

I don’t like being the person that spoils stories, but I feel like if you have certain emotional triggers, you should be forewarned about this book. It’s a beautifully written book and I think it’s important for people to read, but make sure you have a glass of water or a distraction at your side, perhaps even your pet or your kid before you read.

There were a few points throughout this book where I can literally feel my eyes start to water and a flood of emotion about to release, but I managed to somehow avoid those situations. This book makes me want to talk less about the book and more about something women face. I’m sorry if you came here for a traditional review and instead got my political rant.

Naked truth? I have this fear that men somehow will harm me. When I’m walking down the street by myself at night. When I’m standing in an elevator with someone. If I’m going to be traveling to another country. Even if I knew that person, there’s this terror that he could try and harm me in some way.

“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”

I don’t want to be the person that pins men against women. I don’t even want to be the person that says all men are inherently bad people. They’re not. However, I’ve always been afraid of men because of their physical power over me; because there might be the slight chance that the person I’m talking to is someone who abuses women.

I remember when I was a kid, my mom was one of those parents that always showed up late picking us up from things. Soccer practice. Violin lessons. You name it. One night after confirmation class with my pastor, I was waiting outside with him for my mom. The entire time I stood there, I stood in utter fear that he could try and do something to me.

Anything.

He could hit me. He could abduct me. He could rape me. All I could do was hope that my mom’s car would finally turn the corner into the church. I mean, I thought this stuff with a man of the cloth. In my head, it didn’t matter if you wore some religious robe and read the bible and did well with God. In my head, he was a predator and I was some innocent prey.

“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”

I’ve been really blessed and lucky to not see my worse fears come to fruition, but I know that it’s real for some other people. And when it’s made real with people you love or supposed to love, I can’t even imagine that sort of pain.

And Colleen Hoover imagines that for you. By putting the book in the point of view of Lily, I can feel every single ounce of pain she felt. I read her thought process. I also told myself that if a man ever hit me, I would immediately leave them. But how do I weigh out the good times from the bad? How do I trust it won’t ever happen again? How do I know if he still loves me if all I can feel is anger, frustration, and pain?

Also, I can’t imagine the kind of life Ryle lives. He’s strong. He can be the best in his field. He’s so capable of loving someone, but he’s so walled up in the anger and frustration of his childhood. If this book was written in Ryle’s perspective, we might be reading a completely different book.

But from Lily’s perspective, I feel like I can see and feel how that kind of complicated relationship would be so confusing to a woman. I don’t think women who stay with abusive men are weak. They deserve a fucking medal. I do think that it’s not healthy for them to stay and that confuses the point with me. What is the right thing to do? Is there no right or wrong? What do you do when you have certain obligations or what do you do when you’re so scared of the unknown?

“Just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you can simply stop loving them. It’s not a person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.”

I have so many thoughts. I wish I can learn more about the subject, but at the same time I hope this book will provide some perspective to those who don’t believe that women can stay and that there’s hope at the end of the story. Please read this book. Please read this book if you have some bias about women who stay in abusive relationships. Please read this book if you’ve been abused in a physical, mental, or emotional way. Situations like this shouldn’t be left swept under the rug. If we expose it, maybe we can save more people.

/rant