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Friday Fun! (Help Me Learn to Relax!)
Hello my lovely readers!
You guys. I have a confession to make. I am absolutely horrible at relaxing. It’s true! I have this constant drive to be doing doing doing and frankly my anxiety level tends to be high. I mean, I couldn’t even handle the low-key pilates a trainer had me do at the gym. No. If it didn’t hurt and/or make me sweat, then it didn’t count.
I mean, I can’t even watch a movie unless I am simultaneously doing something else. While cooking I listen to an audiobook or watch a documentary tv show. While blogging I listen to a new cd. I am constantly going and doing something even when I don’t have to. I mean, I willingly drag my butt to three different grocery stores for the best quality and prices, which may sound reasonable until you realize that I don’t have a car and must tote everything on my back while walking or taking the T.
Oh and this week I was this close to starting some seeds going in my kitchen at 9pm.
Anyway, what I would looooove from you all would be some suggestions on how the hell to relax in a healthy manner, because fuck if I can figure it out. I mean when I tried yoga tonight I spent half the session trying to convince myself not to start a fight with the chick in the back row whose ujjayi breathing was too loud.
Saying I am high strung is putting it lightly.
So! Please pour in the suggestions. I’ll wait over here.
Oh and btw I don’t have a bathtub or trust me I’d be lounging in one at least once a week.
Book Review: Barefoot Season by Susan Mallery (Series, #1)
Summary:
Michelle ran away from mistakes made at home to the army, and now she’s coming home from three tours of duty to Blackberry Island in the Pacific Northwest. Her father abandoned the family when she was a teenager, but left his historic inn in trust to her. Her mother was running it until she died, and now Michelle is back to reclaim her inheritance. Only it seems that her mother may have not so much been running the inn as running it into the ground. Meanwhile, Michelle’s once best friend, Carly, thought she was working toward owning part of the inn only to be side-swiped by the fact that Michelle’s mother lied to her….not to mention the bad blood between her and Michelle. It’s a lot for anyone to deal with, but toss in Michelle’s PTSD and Carly’s single motherhood, and it seems impossible for either of them to ever truly get their lives in order.
Review:
I am not usually a chick lit person, but this one slipped in under my radar thanks to Harlequin’s new MIRA line (which is chick lit with some sex scenes). I’m glad it did, because I found the story relatable, heart-warming, and a welcome escape.
The plot is complex, which I think is evident from my plot summary. There is a lot going on. But it never feels forced or like too much. It simply feels like real life. Michelle and Carly both have a *lot* of shit to deal with and watching them deal with it imperfectly but understandably is an enjoyable experience.
Although both Michelle and Carly have their own romance plot lines, the story is really about healing their broken friendship, as well as their wounds from their individual painful pasts. I enjoyed this because the story shows healing happening alongside real life. Too often books either ignore the tough things or focus on them to the exclusion of real life.
Of course, being the mental illness advocate that I am, I was incredibly pleased to see Michelle’s PTSD come up and be dealt with in such a true to life manner. Michelle at first is mentally wounded and won’t truly admit it.
While she wasn’t a big believer in PTSD, she’d been told she suffered from it. So she’d listened to the counselors when they’d talked about avoiding stress and staying rested and eating well. (location 207)
Perhaps the most true-to-life part of the whole book is that Michelle takes a while to admit that she is not ok, even while those around her who love her are expressing their concerns to her. A lot of people have difficulty acknowledging a problem, particularly if they view themselves as strong and independent. Seeing Michelle realize that reaching out for help is stronger than suffering alone is honestly the best part of the whole book.
Although we do have a couple of sex scenes, I did feel that the romance was a bit….quick and forced for both women. However, this is the first book in a series, so perhaps their romantic relationships will be explored more in future books.
I also have to say that the title makes zero sense to me. It brings to mind summer, but that’s about all the relation I can see between it and the story.
Overall, this is a piece of chick lit with an intelligent perspective on PTSD in female soldiers and a dash of romance. Recommended to fans of the genre as well as those who enjoy a contemporary tale and want to dip their toe into the chick lit world.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Counts For:
Cookbook Review: Alive in Five: Raw Gourmet Meals in Five Minutes! by Angela Elliott
Summary:
Using mainstream ingredients and quick-fix instructions, Elliott seeks to show the intrepid new raw food cook how easy it is to incorporate vegan raw food into their everyday life.
Review:
I’m finally doing cookbook reviews! I’m afraid mine won’t be as in-depth as on some blogs. I simply don’t have the time to snap pictures as I cook and copy out recipes. But I will tell you the basics of how the cookbook is set up, how well it works, and whether I would recommend it.
I have no intention to go full raw food, but I did think incorporating some raw recipes into my week might help up my veggie and fruit intake. I also am a busy young professional so don’t have tons of time, so clearly the title appealed to me. So are these 5 minute recipes? Um. Not for me they weren’t. I’d say that on average the recipes took me anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to accomplish, and I don’t think learning the recipes or improving techniques would help with that. Five minutes is definitely an understatement.
The book is set up with a list of all the ingredients she uses, a suggested weekly meal plan, and then divided into your typical breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, desserts, etc…. categories. It is a convenient size, although you will need something to hold it open for you. It is wonderfully illustrated with gorgeous full-color pictures.
I selected a breakfast, lunch, and dinner to try out since snacks are best kept simple (in my book), and I’m not much of a desserts person.
Breakfast was a smoothie. Something I am incredibly skeptical of keeping me full. It consisted of freshly squeeze orange juice (TIME-CONSUMING), half a banana, almond milk, and ice cubes. It tasted surprisingly good, but did it keep me full? HAHAHA NO. I was hungry again by the time I got to work. So that was kind of a fail. Especially with all the effort that went into making it. Seriously, I think I expended those calories purely in squeezing out the oj.
Lunch was….a salad. A salad that did not taste nearly as good as my salads I usually make. Plus, I was bothered by the fact that she wanted half of your leafy greens to be iceberg lettuce when spinach and kale are so much healthier for you. I consider this salad kind of a fail. It did keep me full, though, and others might like the proportions and such better than I did.
Dinner was a raw avocado “soup,” which basically was a bunch of things blended in the blender. You guys. This did not taste like soup. It tasted like a good dip, so that’s how I ate it. It totally would score 4 stars as a dip, but as dinner it failed. Really. A lot.
The main problem I had with this book, then, was a) the recipes take way more than 5 minutes and b) I kind of like to chew things periodically. All of this blending made me feel like an invalid.
That said, the book is definitely not bad, it is just not my cup of tea. Others might enjoy the tastes and style better than I did, and it is well-organized. Plus others might be less irritated by the fact that the recipes take 10 to 15 minutes rather than 5.
Recommended to vegans with an openness to incredibly simple raw meals being integrated into their diets.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Book Review: In the Flesh by Portia Da Costa (Series, #5)
Summary:
Beatrice Weatherly is a virginal member of the Ladies Sewing Circle that so loves scandalous talk but now her reputation in Victorian English society has been soiled by scandalous nude photos that an ex-fiance sold on the black market. Since she’s already considered a scarlet woman, Bea decides to enter into a courtesan-style relationship with the fierce businessman and mysteriously secretive Edward Ellsworth Richie. Meanwhile their servants and Bea’s brothers get up to their own scandalous scenarios.
Review:
Yet again I requested an ARC that was surprisingly part of a series. Thankfully, the style of this series makes it completely possible to read them out of order with no confusion. Each book or novella is about one member of the circle, so I was not lost at all.
Let me be crystal clear here. I would not, by any stretch of the imagination, call this a romance. This is erotica. In fact, one of my GoodReads updates states that I’ve never seen this much sex in a book before, and I do read erotica from time to time. Generally one would find this a positive in an erotica, but personally the reason I like them is that they don’t fade out of scenes that happen in real life BUT THERE IS STILL PLOT MOVING AT A GOOD RATE. The plot here is minimal and is frequently dropped, hurried, or pushed aside in favor of yet another sex scene. And as for the sex scenes, they could have been more redundant, what with Bea being a virgin and all, but they still kinda are super redundant. She’s a virgin, she’s worried, will it hurt? But oh she can see his hard-on through his pants and she wants him to fuck her but no he won’t because he’s bringing her virginal self into it slowly and missionary position and oh my goodness orgasms and he won’t sleep in bed with her. Over and over again. Oh except she rides him once. I don’t know about you, but there’s only so much virgin I can take in my erotica, and this crosses the line.
Meanwhile, the main plot is incredibly bare bones and rushed. Everything happens in the span of a month from meeting to engagement. Plus there’s the super annoying mad first wife in the attic trope of Vicorian lit. Maybe. Mayyyybe the author meant this to be a sort of parody of Jane Eyre? I don’t know. But it doesn’t work really. It’s kind of insulting, actually, especially for a book that supposedly is pro women’s rights but then we have a first wife who went mad after being basically raped by her husband but it’s not his fault because he couldn’t stop himself.
o_O
Yeah, so, there is that. What saves this book from two stars is actually the subplot involving Bea’s brother and the male and female servant. They end up establishing a three-way relationship that is healthy for all of them and then move to the countryside to carry it on in peace. Now this is a fascinating little situation and leaves the door wide-open for all sorts of fun sex scenes, but we only get one with all three of them.
Le sigh.
My advice to the author would be next time to focus on the unique storyline instead of the one that’s sort of a rip-off from old Victorian lit.
And also not to make the main dude a rapist.
Overall if you’re open to lots of types of sex scenes in your erotica and have a certain affinity for Victorian clothes and virgin sex, then you’ll enjoy this read and certainly get the bang for your buck. (haha) All others should steer clear.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Previous Books in Series
A Gentlewoman’s Predicament
A Gentlewoman’s Ravishment
A Gentlewoman’s Pleasure
A Gentlewoman’s Dalliance
Book Review: Y: The Last Man: Paper Dolls by Brian K. Vaughan (Series, #7) (Graphic Novel)
Summary:
Our trifecta of heroes have successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean and are now on the seacoast of Australia. Yorick naturally insists on looking for his long-lost girlfriend in the drug-infested city of Sydney. Meanwhile, Dr. Mann gets wooed by the one-eyed sailor rescued from the pirate ship in the previous book. We also learn more of Ampersand the monkey’s backstory.
Review:
It probably comes as no surprise that I am still loving this series, although I am super-grateful to have one containing so many issues to be holding up so well! Although I’m not a big fan of the Dr. Mann being duped story, the other two more than make up for it.
Seeing Sydney torn apart by heroin provides a different scenario in this post-apocalyptic world. We’ve seen the women fall to violence, over-monitoring, and chaos, but we haven’t seen the self-medication reaction yet. The scenes with the women on heroin are sad and poignant. The perfect backdrop to Yorick’s story.
Naturally as an animal lover and animal rights person I love Ampersand’s backstory. Originally abused and destined for a research lab, his shipping got mixed up and wound up with Yorick to be trained to be a helper animal instead. How this ties in with Dr. Mann is disturbing and the perfect set-up for the next issue. After seeing all he’s been through, I really hope they find Ampersand the next issue!
Overall, the art and story are consistently good and in spite of being the seventh in a long series the storyline has not gotten out of hand or become dull. This is an excellent entry that will leave fans craving more!
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Previous Books in Series
Y: The Last Man: Unmanned
Y: The Last Man: Cycles
Y: The Last Man: One Small Step
Y: The Last Man: Safeword
Y: The Last Man: Ring of Truth
Y: The Last Man: Girl on Girl
Book Review: A Dog Named Slugger by Leigh Brill
Summary:
Leigh Brill recounts in her memoir her life before, during, and after her first service dog, Slugger, a golden retriever with a heart just as golden. Leigh had no idea her cerebral palsy could even possibly qualify her for a service dog until a similarly disabled fellow graduate student gave her some information. Her touching memoir tracks her journey, as well as the life of Slugger.
Review:
This was my first book borrowed from the kindle lending library, and it was such a great experience! I know people were skeptical that maybe only low-quality books would be available, but this one is absolutely stunning. I sort of wish I had bought it, just to support Leigh’s service dog efforts.
It’s difficult for me to describe what a pleasure this book was to read. It covers three areas that are a passion of mine–animals as beings worthy of rights, the experience of any type of disability and the extra difficulties that come with that, and the need for universal rights. Top this off with the fact that this is a memoir, a beautifully written one, and I was left nearly speechless. Leigh’s descriptions of learning to communicate with Slugger, Slugger’s unconditional love healing her heart, and the discrimination she faced in public areas with a service dog, they all left me feeling so connected to her. It’s impossible not to be touched by a story of how an animal changes a person’s life. But how an animal changes a disabled person’s life, a person with a disability that is less obvious than others, a person who other people have laughed at and neglected to help. It’s just yet another example of how powerful the human/animal connection can be when we let it.
Of course, this gorgeous experience wouldn’t be possible without talented writing on the part of Leigh. She manages clear, chronological story-telling without missing the opportunity to reflect on how various experiences affected and changed her. She strikes an eloquent balance between reflecting on her relationship with Slugger and talking about her experiences as a disabled person.
Overall, this is a beautiful memoir that eloquently discusses the companionship of animals, as well as the experiences of a woman with cerebral palsy. I highly recommend it to all, but especially to those with an interest in memoirs and disability studies.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle Lending Library
Book Review: The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura
Summary:
The narrator makes his living as a pickpocket in Tokyo. When the man who taught him the art, not to mention his only true friend, finds himself on the wrong side of the Yakuza, he sees the likely impending end to his own life. But can he run or are his heart strings tied to the city?
Review:
Nakamura is a best-selling writer in Japan, and this is his first novel to be translated to English. I’m a fan of the crime/noir novels coming out of Japan, and this one certainly didn’t let me down.
The narrator is everything you want from a criminal lead–sympathetic, dangerous, talented, handsome but not exceedingly so, trapped, creative. It is so seamlessly easy to jump into his head and move through his life.
The story is far more complex than pick-pocketing. We get a peek at the seedy underbelly of Tokyo, but also at the narrator’s poor, rural upbringing. We encounter everyone from the downtrodden son of a prostitute to the (apparently) leader of the Yakuza. It’s glamorous, dirty, and unpredictable.
The ending may turn some readers off. It is an ambiguous one, which I know some people don’t like. I love that kind of ending though, because it leaves me to ponder how I think things turned out. How I hope they turned out. And I didn’t feel at all cheated by it either. It’s well-supported, but stops just short of telling us everything.
Something did hold me back from completely loving the book though. I think it would have been better if we had met the narrator a bit earlier in his career to follow his downward trajectory more completely. It all felt a bit too sudden to me. I wanted to know the narrator and his relationship to his teacher better.
Overall this is a great piece of translated crime fiction that gives the reader a peak at the crime underworld of Tokyo. I recommend it to fans of both unique crime fiction and works in translation.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: NetGalley
Giveaway Winner: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga (US ONLY)
The winner of a gently loved audiobook copy of Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga courtesy of the publisher, MacMillan audio and determined by random.org is…….
Comment #4 Corey R!
Corey will be contacted for his shipping information today. Thank you all for entering!
Book Review: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Summary:
Hopefully anyone who’s read The Odyssey
Review:
I’ve taken to loading an audiobook on my ipod for those frequent times when I either have to walk from a T stop or am crammed onto a train with literally no elbow-room to hold onto my kindle. I was excited to see this on the shelf at my library, since I had decided rather spur of the moment to pick one up, and I do love Atwood. Plus, this is only three discs long, which is good for my audiobook attention span.
For me the story ultimately fails, although I don’t blame Atwood for that. The thing is, Penelope, to a modern woman, is kind of pathetic. It’s not easy to make her into a heroine we can root for, the way we can root for Odysseus. Ok, so he’s a womanizer and a liar, but he’s also brilliant and hilarious. The kind of guy you want to be friends with, but don’t want to date. Yet Penelope not only is married to him, but has never stood up to him. Even when he’s been gone for years and years fighting in a war. Atwood is a great writer, but that’s just not a situation you can fix. I completely get Atwood’s fascination with Penelope’s story, not to mention the 12 maids. I don’t think any woman can read The Odyssey
Penelope comes across as a woman who lived in tough times to be a woman, yes, but who never does anything really to fight the status quo. She can’t even bring herself to stand up to the elderly maid who takes the run of her household. Plus, she willingly puts her maids into situations where they are likely to get raped (indeed, do get raped) and then doesn’t stand up for them when her wayward husband finally comes home. Is it within character? Sure. Is it something that holds up as the main focus of a story? Nope.
I did enjoy Atwood’s modern take on the Greek chorus using the dead 12 maids. I appreciate her choice to include a chorus in the book, as well as how she played with different ancient and modern music styles. It even left me wishing the maids were the focus of the book instead of Penelope! Of course, interspersing music between chapters is something I’ve seen Atwood do before in The Year of the Flood
So what does this all ultimately mean? Atwood’s writing style is creative and pleasant as always, but the topic of the book just isn’t. I think the constraints of who Penelope is from such an ancient story placed a sour note on Atwood’s work that normally isn’t there. It’s an interesting exercise, but not one I found particularly enjoyable to read. I was more interested in it as an academic exercise. If you’re a fan of retellings of the classics, you’ll be intrigued by it.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Friday Fun! (Holy Busyness Batman!)
My lovely readers! Boy am I ever glad I gave you guys the heads up that things would slow down around here for the next few months. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I posted a Friday Fun. A couple of weeks?
In any case, my new job is AWESOME, and I am so blissfully happy that after years of struggling through school and in a bad economy that I wound up with a job in the field and area of librarianship that I wanted in the city that I love. I love my commute! I love my coworkers! I love my patrons! I love the view from my shared office! I love that I HAVE an office! I love that I’m getting to go to the Medical Library Association’s 2012 conference in Seattle!
But it is also a huge learning process and I find myself with a brain refusing anymore information by the time I hit the T at the end of the day. This means that all three of my nonfiction reads I had started before working at my new library, as well as during the first week, have hit the wayside. Cannot. Do. It. I need memoirs and paranormal romance and swashbuckling and FICTIONAL STORYLINES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I cannot read and attempt to comprehend things about evolution in a toxic world or why you should eat this and not that. Nope. Can’t do it. At least not right now. So, yes. I’m going to attempt to struggle my way through the three nonfiction reads I had started with a chapter a day. Beyond that, no more. I mean, I have to work on learning PHP for my new job. One can only handle so much nonfiction in one day. That said, I still want to do Diet for a New America, but I think I’m going to have to rework it somehow. Maybe make it a challenge instead of a project. That way I won’t feel bad if it takes me a while to get to the next book. I still intend to finish, buuuut probably not by the end of 2012 *snort*
Speaking of diet and health, I have discovered ZUMBA and it is AWESOME. I’ve always been a dancer from a very young age (before I got fat and unhealthy) and for some reason even though I’ve recovered my fitness, I was ignoring dance. No more! Zumba is basically dance aerobics only using Latin dance and a mix of Latin music and modern popular songs. (I think to date my favorite routine has been the one we did to I’m Sexy and I Know It. It involved showing off our guns). Anywhooo I love the Latin dancing because it is all hip shaking, but it’s also a great class to go to once a week because long-term cardio is still what is really difficult for me, but the class and instructor are just so dang FUN that I am bound and determined to make it through. And I do. I just also have at least one point in every class where I am certain I am going to die. Then we pretend to be roping a cow, and I suddenly am fine. ;-)
Happy weekends everyone! Tomorrow is my first day as a Saturday librarian, and I am mad excited. (Which seems to be my perpetual state of emotion nowadays).
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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