quick note

Check out the 2 new flash book reviews I tacked on to the end of my last post, July-September 2016 books!

July-September 2016 books

I reread Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Classic.

My bookclub read Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling for July. It was a reread for me (I bought it from Barnes & Noble when it came out). Love her.

I read an online ebook called The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer. It's available for free online and is a retelling of the Hades & Persephone myth. Kind of creepy, scary, violent, and really good. Trigger warning for rape. 4/5

I read all of the Wonder Woman comics series by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang: Blood, Guts, Iron, War, Flesh, and Bones. The premise is, what if Wonder Woman's father was Zeus? Zeus disappears and the other gods and goddesses fight for his throne, and WW must band together with all of Zeus' other illegitimate offspring to save the last of Zeus' line. I love WW and I love Greek mythology, so I loved this series. The art is amazing and the storytelling is fascinating.  4/5

Guardians, Inc.: The Cypher by Julian Rosado Machain is a Kindle book I got for free from Amazon. It's about a teenage orphan boy who is drafted into a mysterious and shadowy organization then gets pulled into a fantastical conspiracy, finds out he is Special and has to save the world. You get it. Anyway this sounded like it had promise, but the writing quality was just not there, and the main character was very Gary Stu-ish. The characters were pretty flat (Grandpa and the principal were the most interesting and well-developed), and I just didn't feel invested in them or the story. It raced along at a too-fast pace and spent too much time on the boring and fake romance when I wanted to learn more about Guardians, Inc. and its Library. My least favorite thing was that this teenage boy who hasn't even finished high school is hired by this company to be an Assistant Librarian, which entails getting and checking out books to the Library's mysterious patrons. You have to have an MLIS/MLS degree to be a full-fledged librarian, and in order to be an assistant librarian, you'd have to have at least some college coursework in library science and a good amount of library experience under your belt, none of which the protagonist has. There are monsters and fauns (hoo boy, the dumbest, least accurate fauns I've ever heard of) and living gargoyles, but I could not believe or forgive this falsehood. There are sequels (OF COURSE, God forbid anyone ever write a standalone fantasy book for kids anymore) but I won't read them unless they end up being free on Amazon as well. Could have used a better editor, too. 3/5

My hands-down favorite books that I've read these last few months are Seraphina and Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman, which are set in your typical fantasy medieval world and have dragons and a love interest prince, but are otherwise refreshingly and fascinatingly unique. Seraphina is a musician with a secret, one that she does everything to protect. I don't want to describe the books more because spoilers, but they are SO GOOD and you should definitely read them. Seraphina was on sale for like $1.99 on Nook (and I bought it in paperback from Barnes & Noble because I loved it so much), and I borrowed Shadow Scale from the library. 4.9/5

I started this free ebook called Courtlight Series 1-3: Sword to Raise, Sword to Transfer, Sworn to Conflict by Terah Edun (I was on vacation in August, which is why I had so much time to read). I say started because I could not bring myself to finish it. The story had some promise (an orphan girl with mysterious origins is inducted into an academy for training to be a magical courtesan/bodyguard type thing), but it was just ridiculous. Extremely Mary Sue-ish, flatter than pancakes characters, weird "off" writing, etc.

I started another free Kindle book (romance novel meets ecosystem/small town drama?) and just could not finish it either. The heroine almost gets raped by her ex-husband, and her new love interest who saves her like demands she "repay" him, UGH. Why do women write and read this nonsense????

Milk and Honey is a book of poetry by Rupi Kaur that covers topics like abuse, love, relationships, sex, breaking up, pain, self-love, and feminism. I borrowed it from my sister. I'd seen quotes and poems from it on Tumblr but had not read the whole thing. I really liked this. There were many poems that resonated with me. Recommended if you can handle the aforementioned topics. 4/5

Continuing my terrible free ebooks trend, I read this historical romance called Hart's Desire by Chloe Flowers (*chanting* pen name, pen name, pen name). This was pretty formulaic (protagonists hate each other but are soooo attracted to each other, lust to love etc.), and I could not really tell what era it was in. There was a mention of a possible future war against the British, but America was used to describe the country? The War of 1812, maybe? It felt more 1700s but it's difficult to tell. Also, there was that cringy Nice White People thing where the plantation the girl lives on has slaves, but she and her love interest are nice to them while other white people are mean to them. I won't be reading the others unless they also become free and I'm really bored or something. 3/5

In case you're wondering why I'm reading so many romance novels lately, it's because I am always tired and don't want too much of a commitment when reading (the Seraphina books excepted). I never really care about romance novels or their characters or how they end. Junk food for the brain.

EDIT:
I completely forgot that I finished this Kindle book I started way back in April, The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley, in July. This was a decent mystery that alternatingly focused on Beatrice, a 17 year old secretary at a big bank in the 1970s, and Iris, a 22 year old architect (?) who is assigned to draft the layout of the abandoned bank building  in the 1990s. The mystery was pretty interesting and kept you in suspense. I felt that while Beatrice was written pretty well and sympathetically, Iris was an immature, naive girl who seemed more like a teenager than a college graduate. All that stuff about her crush/love interest was unnecessary and went nowhere. What I disliked most about this book was that there was no clean ending. We found out why the bank was closed, but the bad guys did not get their comeuppance and we found out that poor Beatrice is still in hiding, twentysome years later. 3.5 stars

ALSO, for some reason in April I completely forgot to review Dodger by Terry Pratchett (RIP). This was a fantastic book about The Artful Dodger, told pretty much from his point of view and redeeming Fagin as a wise and clever philosopher and grifter. He runs into some interesting people from literature (Sweeney Todd, anyone?) and history. 4.9/5 stars, highly recommended.

Mac & cheese dishes that are not actually mac & cheese

The name macaroni and cheese (mac & cheese or mac 'n' cheese for short) is, or at least should be, self-explanatory. However, it appears that most people forget the very first word in the name and proceed to throw together any type of pasta with cheese and call it mac & cheese. This, in my opinion, is wrong.

The following is a list of so-called "mac & cheese" dishes that, alas, were not.

• Evol Truffle Parmesan Mac & Cheese: this dish, while delicious, is made with tubetti pasta. Tubetti means "little tubes" in Italian. Macaroni noodles are also little tubes, but tubetti resembles uncurved large macaroni cut into even shorter (straight) tubes. Verdict: not mac & cheese.
• Lean Cuisine Marketplace Vermont White Cheddar Mac & Cheese: it just amazes me how brands will market their dishes as "mac & cheese" and then brazenly list the ingredients below the name, including the type of non-macaroni pasta in the dish. I mean hello??? That's like saying your brand's leather jacket is genuine leather and then putting 'man-made materials' underneath. This entree is made with cavatappi pasta, which is like if macaroni noodles were all connected into ribbed spirals. It does not count as mac & cheese.
• any boxed mac & cheese mix made with shell or character-shaped noodles: this one is especially frustrating because usually these are by Kraft, the gateway for most of us to the world of mac & cheese. Shells are not macaroni, and character-shaped pasta is cute, but neither type counts as mac & cheese. 
• Panera Mac & Cheese: literally small shell pasta in alfredo sauce. Not mac, and while technically their sauce is not alfredo but white cheddar, it is not the right color. They barely tried. Not mac & cheese.
• Chili's Pepper Jack Mac 'N' Cheese: First off, macaroni & cheese should not be spicy. This dish was hot enough that it was hard to taste the cheese, which is a minus in my opinion. Secondly, this is rotini pasta!! Rotini doesn't even look like macaroni in the least! At least tubetti and cavatappi noodles sort of look like macaroni noodles, if you squint a little. This outrageous insult against mac and cheese gets this star:

Here are some food blogger infractions: This cookbook writer on The New York Times whose recipe called for any type of pasta; Martha Stewart, who should definitely know better; Ina Garten, ditto (plus it sounds too fancy and kinda gross); this food blogger who was led astray by Kraft's shell mac & cheese; another using big shells; slow cooker big shells; medium shells; another "any shape"-er; this student who used PENNE and rightfully deleted the webpage; this hypocritical website; oh look another cavatappi recipe; several AllRecipes offenders whose recipes contain fusilli, big shells, mini shells, and rotini; and my personal favorite: this food blogger called Mac and Cheese Chick who made a knockoff recipe for Panera's mac (shells) and cheese using rotini!!! There are probably tons more but I got tired of looking for them.

So in googling pasta charts for this post, I realized macaroni (the type in boxed Kraft mac & cheese) has a different name in Italian, and probably the other types of macaroni noodles do as well. What does this mean for my pedantry? Well, since mac & cheese is an (I'm assuming) American invention, let's go with the English names for the proper pastas used in mac & cheese dishes. Mac & cheese dishes can be made with:

1. traditional macaroni noodles (like in the Kraft m&c boxes)
2. elbow macaroni
3. that big smooth macaroni that is just like elbow macaroni but a bit bigger

That is all. Thank you for your time.

Update: November 23, 2016
A few weeks ago I went to Panera and ordered their mac & cheese, and it appears that they have changed their noodles. They are short, very wide versions of macaroni noodles and are no longer small shells. I texted my BFF, who is basically a Panera expert, and she confirmed that the noodles indeed used to be small shells! It appears this blog post has brought about positive change. Bravo, Panera!

Opinions on: Names

(opinames. namepinions. opinameions)

source

Names should (depending on your values) hit that sweet spot where your child's name isn't ubiquitous but also isn't obscure enough that they never can find any personalized thing with their name on it. I was born in the late '80s and my name is Michelle. I've always been able to find personalized things with my name on them (unless they're sold out) but have never had to deal with the indignity of sharing a first name with a classmate and having to be known as Michelle R. My sister's name sounds like it would fit this category, but she rarely finds anything with her name on it.

Popular baby names lists should be perused, but for the opposite reason for which they are compiled: to show you what you should not name your child. Avoid giving your child any name in the top ten or, ideally, the top twenty. I personally have known at least eleven Jessicas.

Cutesy alternate spellings are to be avoided. To paraphrase a writer whose name I've forgotten, if you absolutely must name your child after the northwestern region of France, use the correct spelling, not Britany, Britney (only Ms. Spears can be named that), Britni, or any mutation thereof.

Unique names have their appeal, but decide whether you want everyone your child ever meets to demand an etymologic lesson. Just ask anyone with a rare or one-off name; they will tell you they are tired of having to explain their name to nosy strangers and deal with the "that's so unique!" and "what were your parents thinking?"-type comments.

Children should not be named after places, whether cities (Paris, Brooklyn, London, etc.) or countries. India is especially to be avoided if you are white. Hasn't colonialism done enough already? Why besmirch India's legacy and cultures by naming a spoiled hipster child after it?

Children should not be named after old-timey professions (Cooper, Mason, Chandler, Apothecary).

Don't Frankenstein names to create new ones. Some examples from Pinterest: Linley, Oakleigh, Saylor, Jaylee, Deagan, Adaley, Kanon, Brynlee, Kastyn. W T F

Do not use common nouns or adjectives as names (Apple, Bruin).

Avoid giving your child a name from a song, especially a popular, well-known song (Roxanne, Jolene, etc.). Probably the only annoying thing about my name is that people will sing "Michelle, my belle" at me from the Beatles song. I do not like it when people do that, although I do like the song.

Similarly, think before naming your child after a book you love. Some names are timeless and don't stick out (Jane, Elizabeth, Harry, Sam), but others fall into the faddish category (Katniss, Hermione, Atticus, Huck). It will be hard or irritating for your child to be constantly compared to their book character; they can never get away from it, because they are clearly named after a Harry Potter book or whatever. Take especially great care when choosing Shakespearean names. Imagine your child's disappointment when she discovers she is named after a girl who killed herself over a boy. Also, a lot of Shakespearean character names are weird (Hero, Hamlet).

Great care should be taken when choosing animal or fantastical creature names to name a human child. (I wasn't even going to put this but someone on Pinterest named their kid Griffin.) Plant names are typically easier, but again, be reasonable.

Surnames should not be used for first names. This confuses everybody. If you want to name your child something that ends in -son or -ton, don't. (Jason is acceptable.)

Faddish names of all stripes should be avoided.

Bible names are acceptable, as long as they are reasonable (see first opinion). Rebecca is fine; Joktan is not. Don't saddle your child with an obscure name in a dead language that no one can pronounce. It is the 21st century, and I think we can all agree that the Puritans were ridiculous.

For the love of everything, do not pick a random word from a language you don't speak for your child's name, especially if that language is from a culture you are not a part of. I have a friend whose classmate named her child Tarea (homework) after a trip to Mexico, only learning afterwards during a Spanish class what it meant.

Naming children after older relations is sweet, but you don't want your family tree to look like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. It gets confusing. If at least two other family members have that name, reconsider.

Try to choose a name that will yield the least possible amount of teasing. There currently exists no name that cannot be twisted into mockery by children, but try to minimize the vexation as much as possible. My own name yielded only minor "stuck in the well"-type rhyming.

If the only other people who share your child's name are retired and grey-haired, it is an old person's name and should not be given to children (see first and previous opinion). If a name is truly timeless rather than dated, you should be able to find people of all ages who have that name.

Consider that you are giving a human person their name. This is the name they will carry for their entire life (unless you do such a bad job they want to change it when they're older). Give them something worthy, not thoughtless or absurd or boring or commonplace.

 unknown provenance, via Tumblr

EDIT: Another thing to consider:

 

April-June 2016 books

I have been so lazy with reading lately. My brain is tired when I get home from work, so I procrastinate on my towering to-read list.

Miss Match by Catherine Avril Morris. Free Kindle ebook, early April
Another lame trope-y chicklit romance. I was pretty irritated that the leading lady's friends hired a "romance expert" to basically seduce her without her knowledge and consent, and the friends are never made to see how awful and inappropriate that was; instead, the protagonist apologizes to her friends for being mad at first! (She and the romance expert fall in love for real, of course.) I should stop reading taming of the shrew type stories. 3/5

The Lamp of Darkness by Dave Mason & Mike Feuer. Free Nook ebook, mid-April
This is Biblical historical fiction about Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel from the perspective of a young shepherd boy/musician that is told like fantasy, so I LOVED IT. The authors are rabbis so they definitely know their story and its historical context. This was so good I want to buy a physical copy as well as read the next book(s). 4.5/5

Kahlo by ?. Physical purchased book, lateish April

This is a biography of Frida Kahlo (forgot to get the author's name) with full-color illustrations of many of her paintings and sketches. It's in Spanish, so it took me a little longer to read. I bought this when I was in Mexico with my family at this fancy hotel/restaurant/store called Sanborns, and I read it throughout our vacation there. I wanted more of an analysis of her art and its themes instead of just a straight telling of her life story, but whatever. I got a good deal of that from a scholarly article I got off JSTOR ages ago about the Aztec imagery in Frida Kahlo's paintings, which I read on the plane on the way to Mexico. I was especially troubled at the lack of references, endnotes, or even a bibliography. Where did you get your sources from, person? What if we want to read more? 3.9/5

Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

 by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. "Gift" physical book, lateish April-early May

My mom bought this book "for me" (really so she could justify buying it to read), and I also read it during my Mexico trip after I finished the Kahlo biography. Cloud & Townsend are Christian psychologists who have written tons of relationship and self-help books separately and together, and I've read several of them thanks to my mom's buying habit. This one was good but a bit 2real at times (I had to fight back tears at the airport, which was kind of embarrassing. Luckily I was sick so I could blame that for the snuffling). 4/5

The Lake House by Kate Morton. Library book, early-mid May

My bookclub chose this book for May, and I thought at first that it was a book the Sandra Bullock rom-com was based on and was prepared for a chick lit book with some time-traveling. It's actually a sweeping mystery set in England that bounces between various characters' views and flashbacks in the "present day" (1990s), 1890s, 1930s and 1940s. I actually already read a book by this author, and I found both books super similar: they have a precocious bookish heroine with authorial aspirations who falls in love with an older guy who encourages her writing so she thinks he likes her back and kisses him and it's super awkward and she and we think it's one of the big mysteries but it isn't, a classic children's book (which doesn't exist in our world) based on a real girl and/or real themes in the book that somehow ties in to the mystery, spouses cheating on each other, mysteries centering around a particular well-loved house that is almost a character in its own right and is later abandoned due to said mystery, guilt, WWII, sisters and their relationships, flashbacks between characters and between the past and the present day, the present day is the 1990s otherwise I guess research would be too easy and the book would be over too soon, there is a historical protagonist and a modern protagonist who are intertwined somehow... Really a lot of similarities. She's a good writer so it puzzled me a bit that the books have so many similar elements. I liked this book way more than The Distant Hours since this one actually had a happy ending. 4/5

Wonder Woman Vol.3: Iron by Brian Azzarello, illustrated by Cliff Chiang. Library comic book, late June
I wanted to read a Wonder Woman comic since I don't think I ever had and I don't want to be a fake geek girl. I usually hate reading series out of order but this one was the first one the library had. Basically this series is, what if Wonder Woman's dad was Zeus? Fantastic. I ordered the rest from the library so I can read the whole series. 4.5/5

Hispanic Disney Princess, part 2

Here we go again.

Princess Elena of Avalor, a confident and compassionate teenager in an enchanted fairytale kingdom inspired by diverse Latin cultures and folklore, will be introduced in a special episode of Disney Junior’s hit series Sofia the First beginning production now for a 2016 premiere. That exciting story arc will usher in the 2016 launch of the animated series Elena of Avalor, a production of Disney Television Animation.

Remember my hit* post about Princess Sofia? I got all excited for a second that we were going to have a real Latina Disney Princess, but it turns out it's just a spinoff of Sofia the First on the Disney Channel. Elena does look 'more Latina', which yay for representation for brown girls (especially brown Latina girls), but you can't claim she's Latina since she's from a made-up country. Please read that post I wrote about Sofia for all my thoughts about giving us "Latin@" characters who are from a made-up world.
I am further annoyed by the "this fake world is inspired by Latino and Hispanic cultures around the world!" nonsense that I hate. Latin@s are not all the same; please don't lump us together. A ~*Latin-flavored*~ setting (when done by white people) is just insulting; there's better representation on a tortilla chip bag. I get that the amount of countries and cultures is overwhelming, but try to do better by us.
Although I guess you could argue that like half the white Disney Princesses are from made-up lands (Atlantis or whatever the mermaid city is called, wherever Frozen is set, etc.). So I guess what I'm annoyed by the most about this is that it's more of the same. They already did this to us with Sofia. Why aren't Latina princesses good enough to get a feature film? This feels like some "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" nonsense.

p.s. I am so excited for Moana!! PLEASE GO SEE MOANA; it needs to be super successful so that Disney will keep making movies about non-white people!


*not really

A list of authors I have met, so I don't forget

-Diana Pavlac Glyer, author of The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. I met her at LionCon in 2008, where she presented about her book and its topic. She told us that CSL basically rewrote parts of "The Lay of Leithian" because he didn't like how JRRT had done it, contributing significantly to the version we know today.

-the Fug Girls, who signed my copy of Spoiled. I've read their blog for years and am a member of Fug Nation, so Heather signed my book with "Hola, lover." á la her JLo parody posts. I heard them on a YA panel and met them at their signing at the 2012 LA Times Festival of Books.

-Pam Muñoz Ryan, who signed my copy of Esperanza Rising and the copy of The Dreamer that I bought after her talk at the 2013 Annual Frances Clarke Sayers Lecture at UCLA. I told her how I loved ER growing up but I don't think she heard me. My sister came with me because it's also one of her favorite books growing up, and she brought her Spanish copy of ER for PMR to sign. She was like, huh, there's a Spanish version? which I thought was weird because it's a book about a Mexican girl? Of course there is? There are Spanish versions of pretty much all books?

-Peter Sís, who signed my copy of The Dreamer at at ALA Annual Conference 2014 and said he really liked PMR, that she was such a nice lady. I told him how I loved his illustrations in The Whipping Boy, one of my favorite books growing up, but he was in signing mode and didn't really pay attention.

-Marissa Moss, author of the Amelia's Notebook books, which I loved so much growing up. I told her that as I chatted with her a bit at her Creston Books booth at ALAAC 2014 (it is the publishing company she owns!). She is super nice. I entered to win an Amelia doll and I think an Amelia books set, but I didn't win :/

-Kate DiCamillo, author of usually animal-centric books that I love. I actually had no idea she was going to be at ALA Annual 2014, but lo and behold she was next to Peter Sís. If I had known I would have brought my copy of The Tale of Despereaux for her to sign, but as it was I think I bought a copy of The Magician's Elephant and she signed it. I don't see it in my LibraryThing so I'm going to have to do some searching.

-Margarita Engle, who wrote a couple of award-winning books, one of which I read for a children's literature class. I met her at ALAAC 2015 where she signed a copy of Enchanted Air, her poem-memoir about feeling divided between her two worlds of LA and Cuba, and I'm mad because I didn't realize who she was until I read the back of that book. The booth worker didn't tell me who she was and if I'd realized I would have been able to chat with her about her books (I read and loved this one) and being Cuban! Ughhh

-Gigi Pandian, who signed her book Quicksand for me at ALAAC 2015. I hadn't heard of her but her book looked interesting.

-This doesn't count as "meeting" per se, but once a few years ago I was at a Christian concert, volunteering with World Vision. We were to don orange vests and go with child sponsorship flyers to the front of the auditorium/stage while the heartrending video about sponsoring children through WV played, crouch down in front of the first row so we wouldn't block their view of the video, then hand out the flyers after the video and the WV representative's remarks. I went to the base of the stage with the other volunteers and knelt on the floor, avoiding looking up at the people we were in front of since this was awkward already. When the video ended I straightened up, and I found I had been kneeling at the feet of Rick Warren.

When it comes to meeting celebrities and especially authors, I am very much of the Troy Barnes school of thought, which is why I never want to meet Neil Gaiman, as I would hyperventilate and pass out and that would be embarrassing for everybody.

January-March 2016 books

Orgullo y Prejuicio (graphic novel). Dec. 2015-Feb. 2016
My dad bought me a graphic novel version of Pride & Prejudice in Spanish, as a Christmas present. It's an ok envisioning; the speech bubbles' copying and pasting of text should have been edited a bit more closely, and I don't like how all the girls look 16 and all the guys look 40. The artwork was kinda cartoony, and more detail/accuracy could have been kept in the depictions of clothing, etc. 3.9/5

Bon Appetit by Sandra Boyd. early January
A Christian chick lit book about an American woman who moves to France to become a pastry chef in a culinary school. Great depictions of baking and food; this made me want to visit France so bad! I think this is part of a series, although it stands alone. 4/5

Epic by John Elderidge. early January
This is a reread I did one Saturday afternoon. I do love books that are like 'there's a spiritual reasoning behind loving fairytales/myths/etc.!' 4.9/5

Behind Lewis's Lions: Searching the Bible for C.S. Lewis's Lions by Mary Tilden. Jan.-Feb.
This was a free Nook ebook I was initially excited to read, but turned out to be kinda dull and repetitive. I did learn a bit about how the Bible portrays lions, but it's annoying to me when books are like "look up these 8 Bible verses!" without providing the text (I'm lazy, ok?). Plus she did that thing where she extrapolated too much from it, like, "see how the Bible portrayed lions like this? Lewis clearly was referencing/inspired by that when he wrote Aslan!!" Like, not necessarily. 3/5

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. mid February
I had heard good things about this book, but didn't get around to reading it until my book club chose to read it. This (library) book was really good but SO SAD. I'm talking major domestic abuse/violence situation as well as mean school bullying. Teens from different social backgrounds are thrust together in their high school, bond over music and comic books and overcome obstacles like cliques and fear of what others think to fall in love, set in the 1980s.  Like I'm glad? I read it, but it did a number on me emotionally. It ends on a happy note, I guess. 4/5

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. Mid-late March
I read and own Me Talk Pretty One Day and loved it, so I was excited when the next book my book club chose was this one (and lbr, we needed a lighthearted palate cleanser after E&P). David Sedaris is a great writer and very funny/outlandish, but I didn't like this book as much as MTP1D. I don't know if it was lesser in quality or humor, or if I just now have way less patience for privileged white men's opinions about stuff (especially about other cultures and/or race). I think the funniest essay/story was about Costco. 3.9/5

Batter Up by Robyn Neeley. Late March
The least substantial of all chick lit about a baker chick whose cupcake batter spells out the name of the person a bachelor is going to marry. I was interested in the magic stuff, but the author chose to focus more on the stale "bicker then fall for each other" and "quirky/meddling small town" tropes, which made it pretty lame and forgettable. 3/5

from a dream

they showed us the answer in a painting, unveiling it before all the assembled dead, and it made no sense at all to us (it somehow left us more confused than we were before we had been given an answer), but it helped us so much to have something to talk about, my aunt said

I see my grandmother in her room, all of us gathered around her bed, and I know I am dreaming
I try to wake up and return to the room; she is gone but the bed is still there; I am still dreaming

it is unsettling to dream dreams steeped in fantasy and fairytales, the dark rules-bound side of it, when it includes my relatives, some of whom are not dead and all of whom I know would not approve

Please talk me out of buying these

Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons Eye Shadow Collection

$49 for 16 eyeshadow shades ($3.06 per eyeshadow)

Reasons to buy: CHOCOLATE HEARTS PRETTY EYESHADOWS UGH!!! It's actually supposed to smell like chocolate!! $3.06 per eyeshadow is a pretty good price! Also if I bought it I'd accrue more Ulta points

Reasons not to buy: I already have an expensive eyeshadow palette I rarely use, plus enough eyeshadow singles, duos, trios, and quads to outfit an army/last me my entire life. I probably already have most of these colors. Plus I'm not the hugest fan of pink


Too Faced Love Flush Blush Long Lasting 16-Hour Blush Wardrobe
honestly these names are ridiculous/ly long

$36 for 6 blush shades ($6 per blush)

Reasons to buy: HEARTS!!! Plus blush is something I use every day, or at least every single time I put on makeup, because I am deathly pale. If I'm running late in the morning I'll slap on blush and run out the door, but I often neglect my eyeshadows because creating even a basic eyeshadow look involves multiple eyeshadows, eye brushes, and time. Even though I already have several types and shades of blush, I know I'd use this one. Each of these shades is sold individually in an adorable Polly Pocket-esque heart-shaped case for $26 (!), so $6 each is a pretty good deal! Plus if I bought it I'd accrue more Ulta points

Reasons not to buy: I already have a lot of blush, and $6 per blush is kind of a lot for me. I think the most expensive blush I currently am using is about $3. I also have no counter space in my bathroom.

Further reasons not to buy: Ulta won't let coupons apply to these! >>:(((((((

Reasons I miss school/college:

• learning fun/interesting new things
• get to choose classes that interest me
• interesting class texts/readings
• must carve out time for reading/writing (between work and chores/errands/gym I have no free time)
• around lots of people my age who are doing the same kinds of things as me
• built-in friend groups (classes, dorms etc.)
• great classmates/teachers (when you get them)
• extracurricular activities/groups
• cafeteria/campus cafes
• structure
• can schedule classes to have several half days or entire free days a week (even when I was taking five classes a quarter I was in class way less time than I spend now at work full-time)
• vacations, especially summer
• programs, especially learning abroad 
• campus life in general
• reason to buy school supplies
• you can wear whatever you want as long as it's not inappropriate
• familiar (I was in school from ages 5-24)

Reasons I do not want to go back to school:

• expensive (am already several $Ks in debt)
• homework
• exams and quizzes
• have to study 
• can't read for fun/have to read what's assigned/things that aren't interesting to me
• lack of motivation to actually do the work
• if actually going to school, would have to quit work ($)
• online programs mean missing out on 70% of what makes college fun
• PTSD from grad school; would rather slit own wrists than get a PhD at this point
• impractical (I would rather do regular college than grad or postgrad and there is literally no point)
• really I just wish I could go back to my college days but you can't step in the same river twice

Books read in 2015

I realize I forgot to write a post about this. I've been keeping track of my reads in a Google spreadsheet (previous years' readings have been tracked in Textedit table docs, but I needed something that I could access on any device and Evernote doesn't have very good tables formatting in its notes).

• Total books read in 2015: 40
• Total books that I started to read but didn't finish: 6
• physical books read: 21
• ebooks read: 19
• ebooks started but unfinished: 3
• physical books started but unfinished: 3
• Nook ebooks read: 10
• Kindle ebooks read: 2
• Other ebooks format (app/browser/Project Gutenberg type) read: 8 (due to my SFF class that had a lot of old books)
• books I liked: 18
• books I loved: 8
• books I hated: 1 (Frankenstein. I get why it's important but still hate it)
• books I disliked or found meh: 9
• books that impacted me strongly but I can't really say that I loved or hated them: 3 (I included Villette here and in Loved because I feel like it)

I wrote book reviews for almost all the books I finished. They can be found in my "book reviews" tag in the right sidebar. >>>

Last of 2015: flash book reviews

Cry of the Peacock by V.R. Christensen. Mid November
This was a Kindle book I got for free. It's a historical fiction story set in Victorian England about a girl being pressured to marry for what she'll inherit upon her marriage. The dialogue felt too modern, as were some of the characters' opinions on things, and some of the characters were cartoonishly evil. For the two main characters to get together, something has to be done about the people they're actually with, so the spares are magically paired off to each other in the end even though it makes no sense for them to be attracted to each other (well, the girl, anyway. She's so nice and the guy is such a douchey jerk that it's hard to see why she'd be secretly in love with him the whole time). This was otherwise good. 3.9/5 ***BREAKING: as of today, 1/8/16, the ebook is free on Amazon!***

I have this app (Appsgonefree) that tells me about the apps that are free that day, and one a while back was an ebook app of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It had interesting animations made from the illustrations, but the "page" background had that burnt/antiquated look that made it hard to read the black text sometimes. I would have been annoyed had I spent money on it, but for free it's fine. 3.9/5

Sorcery and Cecilia, or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Late November
I LOVED THIS. I had read an excerpt a long time ago but never got around to getting this book until the ebook version (I think Nook from Barnes & Noble) went free, and I pounced on it. It's historical fantasy set in Regency England, like if Jane Austen were more lighthearted and could do magic. Way more bubbly and fun than Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but along those lines (nothing about fairies tho). The two authors are because it's an epistolary novel: two cousins write letters to each other about a magical plot, cute annoying gentlemen, the Season, London, parties, fashion, and getting around their strict aunts. I highly recommend this. 4/5

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling. Mid December
This is an excellent book to read if you want to be immersed in grief because you cannot be best friends with Mindy Kaling IRL. It's a book of essays like her last book, so if you liked that/other "essays by famous people/comedians" books, you'll like this too. 4/5