The Hobbyist: A Crafting Round-Up

February 18, 2020 Comment : 1

I am one crafty lady – and I mean that quite literally today. While I don’t think I’ll ever get the honor of appearing on Making It (though I dream of it regularly), that hasn’t stopped me from trying to learn a whole bunch of handy skills…and amassing quite the collection of hobby books. Y’all thready for this?

Embroidery

Embroidered Life by Sarah K. Benning
The Embroidered Art of Chloe Giordano by Chloe Giordano
Thread Folk by Libby Moore
Hoop Dreams by Cristin Morgan

Macramé

The Year of Knots by Windy Chien
Modern Macramé by Emily Katz
Macramé at Home by Natalie Ranae
Macramé 1 & 2 by Fanny Zedenius

Paper Flowers

The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers by Livia Cetti
Crepe Paper Flowers by Lia Griffith
The Fine Art of Paper Flowers by Tiffanie Turner
Paper to Petal by Rebecca Thuss

Weaving

Welcome to Weaving 1 & 2 by Lindsey Campbell
On the Loom by Maryanne Moodie
The Woven Home by Rainie Owen
Weaving Within Reach by Anne Weil

Non-Books *gasp*

The Crafter’s Box
Creative Live
Masterclass (More on this adventure soon!)
Skillshare

XOXO

Love Yo’Self: A Self-Help Round-Up

February 11, 2020 Comments : 2

With all these lovey-dovey posts before V-Day (which is totally blowing up my TBR), I want to switch gears to talk about loving yourself. *cue girlish giggles*

The term “self help” kinda makes me want to harm myself or others, but it’s a lot easier to say than 20+ word version I usually tell myself to avoid saying those two words in succession. I blame it on a shiny new decade, but this year I found myself actually making resolutions. So gross. This is a very long way to say: this year I made some personal goals of investing in my wellness/spirit/skills/knowledge/awesomeness/damn self with the written work of others – and I’ve actually been putting effort into it. I know, I am surprised, too.

Here’s a selection of books that didn’t make me want to roll my eyes until I perished. Maybe next year I’ll be able to admit I even liked them 🙂

On being vulnerable…

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
To be fair, I only read this because of work book club (which I helped found) where we read a great many professional titles that are dryyyyy like saltines. This was the first in a long line of books that didn’t make me want to cheat and just look up a summary online. If you want to dip a toe in with Brené, scope out her Netflix special.

On therapy…

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
I vote skip the book, and watch her TED Talk.

On self-help books…

How to Be Fine by Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer
I’m quickly realizing this is becoming a post of me telling people to skip the books, but seriously, skip this one. It’s a compilation of this duo’s podcast By the Book – which is VERY much worth checking out.

On not giving a fuck…

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight
I think this will forever hold the record of most f-words in a single book I’ve read. But in terms of a book that actually made me reconsider a behavior and put some changes in place, this one takes the fucking cake.

On being exhausted all the time (and a millenial)…

The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen
This is a much longer version of the original article on Buzzfeed. And you guessed it, read the article and only go on to the audio if you want more of the interviews that formed this piece.

On banishing doubt…

You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
Damn straight I am. And so are you. Fin.

On being present…

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
I read this because Oprah talks about it a lot (and it was a daily deal). I think I preferred listening to Oprah and Eckhart chat about its lessons on Super Soul conversations – just a little more personal and practical that way.

On being like Pooh…

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Ok, the Pooh thing is a whole other book, but I’ll never be able to separate Winnie and Taoism, and that’s fine by me. Look for the John Minford translation specifically; it’s got lots of extra poetry and interpretations that dives deeper into each writing.

On philosophy…

Out of Your Mind by Alan Watts
This is what started the whole self-help-athon. Actually, it was this recording that through happenstance came into my life sometime last winter. It shook me down to my bones.

On being fat, feminist and fabulous…

Shrill by Lindy West
This book has some truly polarizing content, aka it earned me at least one unfollow on Goodreads because I liked it. If I learned anything from Lindy and this book, it’s haters gonna hate and I’m too busy crushing it to care. There’s also one mega bonus that comes along with this book, the show! It’s the absolutely BRILLIANT and has 100% more Aidy Bryant than the book. Seriously, stop reading and go watch it.

XOXO

Short and Sweet: Hot and Hammered by Tessa Bailey

January 7, 2020 Comments : 3

Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey
Published by Avon on June 11, 2019
Pages: 400
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
three-half-stars

A brand new romantic comedy from New York Times bestseller Tessa Bailey!
Georgette Castle’s family runs the best home renovation business in town, but she picked balloons instead of blueprints and they haven’t taken her seriously since. Frankly, she’s over it. Georgie loves planning children’s birthday parties and making people laugh, just not at her own expense. She’s determined to fix herself up into a Woman of the World... whatever that means.
Phase one: new framework for her business (a website from this decade, perhaps?)
Phase two: a gut-reno on her wardrobe (fyi, leggings are pants.)
Phase three: updates to her exterior (do people still wax?)
Phase four: put herself on the market (and stop crushing on Travis Ford!)
Living her best life means facing the truth: Georgie hasn’t been on a date since, well, ever. Nobody’s asking the town clown out for a night of hot sex, that’s for sure. Maybe if people think she’s having a steamy love affair, they’ll acknowledge she’s not just the “little sister” who paints faces for a living. And who better to help demolish that image than the resident sports star and tabloid favorite?
Travis Ford was major league baseball’s hottest rookie when an injury ended his career. Now he’s flipping houses to keep busy and trying to forget his glory days. But he can’t even cross the street without someone recapping his greatest hits. Or making a joke about his… bat. And then there's Georgie, his best friend’s sister, who is not a kid anymore. When she proposes a wild scheme—that they pretend to date, to shock her family and help him land a new job—he agrees. What’s the harm? It’s not like it’s real. But the girl Travis used to tease is now a funny, full-of-life woman and there’s nothing fake about how much he wants her...

*****

Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey
Published by Avon on January 14, 2020
Pages: 384
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
two-stars

New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey returns with a unique, sexy romantic comedy about a young married couple whose rocky relationship needs a serious renovation.

Rosie and Dominic Vega are the perfect couple: high school sweethearts, best friends, madly in love. Well, they used to be anyway. Now Rosie’s lucky to get a caveman grunt from the ex-soldier every time she walks in the door. Dom is faithful and a great provider, but the man she fell in love with ten years ago is nowhere to be found. When her girlfriends encourage Rosie to demand more out of life and pursue her dream of opening a restaurant, she decides to demand more out of love, too. Three words: marriage boot camp.
Never in a million years did Rosie believe her stoic, too-manly-to-emote husband would actually agree to relationship rehab with a weed-smoking hippy. Dom talking about feelings? Sitting on pillows? Communing with nature? Learning love languages? Nope. But to her surprise, he’s all in, and it forces her to admit her own role in their cracked foundation. As they complete one ridiculous—yet surprisingly helpful—assignment after another, their remodeled relationship gets stronger than ever. Except just as they’re getting back on track, Rosie discovers Dom has a secret... and it could demolish everything.

*****

I think a lot of readers will love Tessa Bailey’s Hot and Hammered series. I just don’t happen to be one of them. There are very hot tamale sexy times and a sufficient amount of girl power moments, but ultimately the weird pet names and hyper-masculine alpha male leads left me finding more to dislike than like in both books…and I didn’t even finish the second because I was over it. If you give these a try, particularly the second one, and feel strongly I should have kept going, hit me up 🙂

XOXO

Anticipated Releases: January & February

January 1, 2020 Comments : 3

January 7

Nineteen Love Songs by David Levithan
Chosen by Kiersten White

January 14

Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera

February 4

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

February 11

Postscript by Cecelia Ahern
Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams

XOXO

Best of 2019

December 30, 2019 Comments : 4

Instead of the full questionnaire I usually do, I decided to do my own version of the Goodreads Choice Awards for books I read in 2019. My only modification to that tried and true set of genres is that I’m not splicing out Young Adult – the only YA I read this year won or lost in its primary genre category fair and square.

Fiction

The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

Mystery & Thriller

Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

Historical Fiction

Circe by Madeline Miller

Fantasy

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

Romance

Twenty-One Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks

Science Fiction

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Horror

Summer Frost by Blake Crouch
(We all know I didn’t read any actual horror this year, but this was by far the creepiest thing that crossed my path.)

Humor

It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) by Nora McInerny

Non-fiction

Infinite Wonder by Scott Kelly

Memoir & Autobiography

Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness

History & Biography

A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs by Ben Garrod

Science & Technology

How To by Randall Munroe

Food & Cookbooks

Magnolia Table by Joanna Gaines

Graphic Novels & Comics

Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

Poetry

Crush by Richard Siken

Debut Novel

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Middle Grade & Children’s

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Picture Books

The Fate of Fausto by Oliver Jeffers

With that, I wish you a very happy new year, and many great reads in 2020!

XOXO

Three Things I’m Loving: Thanksgiving Edition

November 28, 2019 Comments : 3

This year, I find myself truly in the holiday spirit…and I don’t just mean that I’m hungry. And because it’s Thanksgiving, I’m serving up Three Things the proper way, with an extra helping.

I am thankful for my job that provides for all my needs and wants. I am grateful it has made me an even badder bitch than I ever thought possible and is lighting the way for the kind of human I want to be. Keep pushing me, I know there is more to be done.

I am thankful for my little apartment and the neighbors whose names I still don’t know, but nonetheless greet me with a warm smile no matter how crazy my hair looks very early in the morning or the fact my dog is likely pooping on the flowers. I am especially grateful for one neighbor who understands Friday afternoons are for dance parties and instead of hating me for terrible music, once knocked on the wall and asked me to turn it up so she could dance, too. Now, I just turn it up by default.

I am thankful for my family who are friends, and my friends who are family. Life simply wouldn’t be as joyous without you in it. I’m grateful for our laughs and our cries, our high fives and our hugs. Know that it is my sincerest pleasure to share gifs inappropriately early (or late), to mark emails as critically important if they include cute baby animals or good sales on that thing I know you’ve been wanting for yourself, to smile as I drop a surprise package off for no good reason other than I love you. If we’re apart this hallowed day of turkeys, I miss you.

Lastly, I’m thankful for books. It is, after all, the reason I’m here writing. I’m grateful that you filled my head with impractical dreams of worlds with dragons and happy endings despite all the odds. Thank you for letting me be alone while also making me feel not alone at times when I needed that. Thank you for this new path at an old dream where I get to read lots of brilliant things and write less brilliantly about them, even though it isn’t what wound up being what keeps the lights on. Thank you for being my go-to conversation starter: Hey, whatcha reading?

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving – and a great many things from today until the next to be grateful for.

XOXO

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

November 27, 2019 Leave a Comment

The Toll by Neal Shusterman
on November 5, 2019
Pages: 637
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
two-stars

From New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman comes the thrilling conclusion to the Printz Honor–winning series Arc of a Scythe.

It’s been three years since Rowan and Citra disappeared; since Scythe Goddard came into power; since the Thunderhead closed itself off to everyone but Grayson Tolliver.

In this pulse-pounding conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe trilogy, constitutions are tested and old friends are brought back from the dead.

DNF at 35%

Compared to the previous two installments, the pacing and plot of this book is seriously lacking. For a friggin finale, I need you to BRING IT. It’s too long and dare I say, boring. Instead of honoring and bringing the story’s foundation to a close, The Toll veered off course into a mundane allegory of the current political/religious state. If it had been halfway decent in its execution, I probably could have stuck with it. Alas, it was a total disappointment. *womp womp*

I truly don’t know how to address this next bit without stepping on a PC bomb, but I’m going to do it anyway because it wound up being a major sore spot for me throughout what I read of the book. There is a new kind of gender identity introduced, which I have (probably insensitively) dubbed Weathersexual. While I am absolutely, 100% all for more inclusivity in my books this fluidity based on whether there are clouds in the sky was so absurd that it seemed like a joke. The whole thing 1) came out of the blue (yes, I made a weather pun), 2) didn’t add anything to the narrative other than confusion as to who was being referenced, 3) the fact that it likely isn’t a joke somehow makes me feel more offended by its frivolity, and 4) seems purely to satisfy some imaginary checkbox of including a token “Other” group. Now, I will fully say, this series requires a lot of buying-in to the world, but not for a single second was I ever on-board with this weird turn of characterization.

XOXO

Short and Sweet: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black

November 25, 2019 Comments : 6

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Published by Little, Brown, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers on January 2, 2018
Pages: 384
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
four-stars

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

*****

The Wicked King by Holly Black
on January 8, 2019
Pages: 336
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
four-half-stars

You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.

The first lesson is to make yourself strong.

After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.

When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.

*****

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
on November 19, 2019
Pages: 300
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
five-stars

He will be destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.

Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.

Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.

Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics.

And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity…

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy.

*****

I improperly judged these books before reading them due to their YA designation (and my repeated struggles with anything YA as of late). I am prepared to eat crow. These are excellent fantasy books that happen to have a young batch of protagonists, who occasionally suffer bouts of hor-monstrous feelings.

While each book seems to have the same slow-paced start and are lacking significant character development, the plot and world building is awesome. The twists are oh so twisty and the ending of each book just made me crave the next all the more.

I’m semi-glad that I waited to read these until I could binge all three together, because the waiting between installments would have been sheer torture. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little bit that I missed out on this awesomeness over the past few years.

Have you read these? And if you did, my most important question is, where you as creeped out by Cardan’s tail during *certain* scenes?

XOXO

Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks

November 19, 2019 Comments : 5

Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks
Published by St. Martin's Press on November 19, 2019
Pages: 352
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
five-stars

"Radical, extraordinary, and profoundly human." - Taylor Jenkins Reid

1. Daniel Mayrock loves his wife Jill…more than anything. 2. Dan quit his job and opened a bookshop.3. Jill is ready to have a baby. 4. Dan is scared; the bookshop isn’t doing well. Financial crisis is imminent. 5. Dan hasn’t told Jill about their financial trouble. He’s ashamed. 6. Then Jill gets pregnant.

This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances—he wants to become someone.

1. Dan wants to do something special. 2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary. 3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure. 4. Of living in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband.

Dan is also an obsessive list maker, and his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life.

Reasons I love this book

I just do, and I think other people will, too.
It reminds me of two of my most favorite books: High Fidelity & The Lover’s Dictionary.
It is utterly unexpected, authentic, fresh, funny, and deep.

Reasons this book is like High Fidelity

The lists
The very wry humor
Struggling small business owner (borderline anti-) hero
I inexplicably knew I was going to love it from the first page

Reasons this book is like The Lover’s Dictionary

The unusual, diary-esque formatting
Truth bombs abound
The sad, but still somehow hopeful, tone
I inexplicably knew I was going to love it from the first page

Reasons I’m a bad ~~little~~ reviewer

Outstanding review books: 40 (shit)
Overdue AND outstanding review books: 31 (double shit)
Cookies stress-eaten trying to figure a way out of this mess: 3, peanut butter

Additional thoughts on reviews

If more books were formatted as lists, I might actually finish them by the deadline and write more listy reviews.

That’s a lie because I’m a garbage person.

Yes, I realize all of these sections are different formatting. Welcome to how I felt having OCD and reading 352 pages of lists that do not have precisely the same formatting. (Cue evil laughter…and also eye twitch)

Reasons you should read this book