I have meant to read some Jules Verne for many years, because his books are classics (though they were intended more for boys, originally). In the latter half of the 1800s, Verne wrote prolifically on his Voyages Extraordinaires series (he was French) and those fifty-four novels (and novellas) include Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,…
I have been to three “readings” lately, at local bookstores. If you haven’t been to a reading, I suggest that you go to one and make sure to buy a book while you are there. Readings are interesting and cool and they are in danger of becoming extinct if people don’t show up, just as…
I have often considered reading ARCs—advance reader copies—to review, but I have stayed away from this in the past because 1) I have two self-published books and reviewing other self-published books felt like a conflict of interest and 2) I really don’t want to be honest about a bad book from an emerging author. I…
Yeah, I did it. I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Why is this remarkable (as in, worth remarking on)? Firstly, I hate zombies and don’t tolerate much gore. Secondly, this is not writing of the snootiest caliber, which you may have noticed I have tried to embrace to an extent—as long as it’s notable…
The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick is, yes, one of those books that appeals to readers by using a title and premise that are them, relatable. “Book people” is in the title. And it’s about, well, book people. Liv Green is about to be an empty nester. She married and had kids…
By which I do not mean stuck writing a book. I mean stuck reading a book, which happens with much more frequency to me and probably to you, as well. So, what do I do when I’m “stuck” in the middle of reading a book? My husband has picked back up reading. We started our…
I’m pretty mad at the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy. The main reason? It is a point-for-point retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Why on earth did Pamela Aidan write it as a trilogy? Did she think she knew better than the queen, Jane Austen? There is absolutely no reason why she took three books to say…
(This is like the longest book review I’ve ever written. If you want the short of it, you could just read the first and last sections.) Finding information about Maggie Stiefvater is not as straight-forward as I would have expected in this day and age of digital TMI. But she seems to keep a pretty…
It is April 11, which means I am arriving at Camp Nanowrimo eleven days late. This is a virtual thing, so no camp counselor is looking down over their nose and clipboard at me, tapping their pencil on the page. I knew I was going to miss a few days of camp due to spring…
I don’t know what I think about online classes. There’s a part of me that thinks this is the future for a lot of people and more power to them, but there is also this little, snobby voice in the back of my head that’s like, “That can’t be good or even half as quality.”…
This a continuation of the movies and shows I am watching during the writing of a YA trilogy. However, in the spirit of recent awards shows, I have decided to include my favorite movies and shows of 2022. By “of 2022,”, I mean I watched them in 2022. They may be 100 years old (they…
And another book that I added to my TBR because it came up under “NDE”s but has nothing to do with NDEs. Not its fault. It ended up being Printz-award-winning YA, so I can learn from this reading experience while writing YA myself. I could also have just enjoyed it. But did I? We Are…
And I started writing this post in November. I want to finish it now, but it contains some timely content. I am going to leave it as it is and put this little note of explanation at the top. It’s November, so Republican or Democrat, right? Wrong. Who cares! It’s Nanowrimo and writers are writing-in…
I’m going to commit to you that this is the last Pride and Prejudice retelling review I will do for a little while. I have been reading a few other things, but they are mostly series (which I finish before I do the review) and nonfiction (which takes me much longer than fiction). But I…
I was recently helping my daughter with one of her college application questions—okay, it wasn’t that recent; it was a few months ago. But when I was done helping her edit said question, I jotted down a note to blog about what I had learned from the experience. I haven’t needed that note until now…
Kinda yikes. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev was a confusing read, for me. Sure I was actually confused sometimes (I’ll get to that in a sec), but what I mean is that I both enjoyed it and disliked it simultaneously, all the way through. Much like the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and…
Even since I decided to own that hikes and walks in nature help me unfurl story snags and otherwise come up with writing ideas, I have been spending one morning per week (usually Thursday) on a hike followed by the afternoon at a coffee shop (actually putting words on the page). I have a usual…
I was going to bunch some of these Pride and Prejudice retellings that I am plowing through lately together, but decided that was silly. I have the usual amount of stuff to say about each one, so here we go. First, I read and reviewed Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice recently and it coincided with…
It’s been a minute (more than a month) since I went to Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities for a week-long writing residency. If you’ve been around, you might recognize that place or even that sentence, because it was my fourth residency there (and my fifth residency (and one fellowship) total). What could I…
Here’s the thing: in the spirit of no spoilers, I fear the marketing and reviews of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James are so cautious that they don’t adequately warn a reader what they are getting into. This is not a romance. This is not a light-hearted coming-of-age story. The blips out…
the starving artist 