Friday, December 8, 2017 / ,

Rapid Fire Book Tag

A random book post has been called for and I have seen this book tag going around and thought it would be fun. So, here we go for great books and bookish habits in this Rapid Fire book tag. Prepare yourselves. Ready, set...



 Physical Book or E-book?

Physical book. It just feels right.

 Paperback or Hardcover?

Honestly after many years of questioning- paperback. Not only do they make my wallet happier, but carrying it around and seeing how I've read it over and over just makes it feel like more of an experience. More mine.

 Online or In-Store Book Shopping?

In store. I find that I second guess myself less for some reason and it feels so satisfying to walk out with a good stack of new stories. Plus, just being around the books makes me feel better.

Not going to lie though, getting a book package in the mail, even from myself, is always awesome.

Trilogy or Series?

Series. I want to live with characters I love for as long as the story will allow. Usually I also find that a trilogy just doesn't so certain worlds justice.

Hero? Or Villain?

After reading great anti-heroes and The Darkling... Villains. Especially well written ones.

A Book Everyone Needs to Read?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern- oh, or The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons come to mind.

Recommend an Underrated Book?

The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly



 Last Book You Finished?

I just reread A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. It is a book that my book lover heart loves dearly.

Last Book You Bought?

I was going to buy The Glass Eye today, but I didn't! So hmm, The Secret History by Donna Tartt I think.

Weirdest Thing You Used as a Bookmark?

I am a corner ripper when in need. Most of the time it is an unneeded piece of paper, now page marker.

Top 3 Genres?

Fantasy, All Romance, Historical Fiction

Borrow or Buy?

I'm a book buyer. It had been a problem after reading out my high school library. I am trying to borrow more though when I am not sure if a book is going to be a new favorite, or try to use my kindle more. My bookshelves have ran out of room!


Used Books: Yes or No?

YES. I love used books as much as new. They have a story with the story. Once, I bought a used copy of The Thorn Birds while out of town. When I got home, I found out the original owner had their address on the inside. The book had returned to its hometown with me!

Characters or Plot?

Characters. Plot is definitely needed, but a good book is characters that make me feel like when I open it up to read, I am home.

Long or Short Books?

Loooonnnnnggg. As long as each page keeps me turning.

Long or Short Chapters?

Shorter. I just have begun to notice this.

Name the First Three Books You Think Of:

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
The Siren by Tiffany Reisz



Books that Made You Laugh or Cry?

The characters in Tiffany Reisz's Original Sinners books always make me laugh.
Cry? It takes a lot for a book to make me cry. Get emotional however, recently probably The Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante. They remind me of a good friend and myself in odd ways.

Our World or Fictional?

Nooo. This question. It depends! Fictional...no reality. I. Don't. Know. If I could jump into a book though, if that is what the question is asking, I would.

Audiobooks?

Never listed to one. I always thought they would be great on a long car ride though.

Do You Ever Judge a Book by its Cover?

Sigh. Yes. Especially if it is to be displayed on my shelf. It took me forever to finally read Elena Ferrante who I love because of the covers.



Book to Movie or TV Adaptions?

I love film, but I must say TV, especially if it is a beloved book series. Game of Thrones and Outlander really showed how well book to TV could be done.

 What is an Adaption better than the Book?

Either Girl, Interrupted which was losely based on the memior, or the Mockingjay films. The book needed to be fleshed out and as well capturedas the film.

Series or Stand-Alone?

Series.


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Wednesday, November 1, 2017 / ,

What You Want

All you want is for him to look at you. Ok, strike that. Touch you– No no no this is all wrong...yet also completely correct? So let's make this big. Let's make this broad and thematic like all the fancy people do.

All you want is everything.


The big sha-bang as we like to say. Sometimes with a little more emphasis on the 'bang.' There is nothing wrong with that. Not one bit. Until you start to question yourself. That is the pebble that is yanked loose before suddenly a waterfall of leftover deadbeat worries and fears and wants that make no sense burst forth. Most of the time, because the answers to each of those things, is right in front of our faces.

Getting to know someone after all, it takes time. More time if you think they are a jerk right off the bat when they spill a cup of cherry soda on your lap and then try to cover it up discreetly not with a napkin, no, but their own hand. Luckily sometimes, the person you meet is someone who's hatred of mornings is ruined when they have to crack a smile after screwing up the game two truths and a lie by telling not one, not two, but three truths. No lie to be found within his history of random stories and cello playing.

It sort of feels like a moment that was meant to happen, and for once, those moments that take place usually only in stories are what you want.

You want to be a story.

You want to be folded up between pages and arms that drape across shoulders and are bound tight like the hand that seemed to fit perfectly, swinging over broken crunched leaves until suddenly...it doesn't. And those eyes. They look at you like a wall of color. But they don't see past the word. That laugh, like lyrics, are off key.

And all you want is something.

A spark of across the page before the chapter ends.

And all you want is nothing.

So you get nothing.

Before all you want is for him to look at you. Ok, strike that.

All you want is everything.

When everything is so hard to find.


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Tuesday, May 16, 2017 / , , ,

The Red

Usually when I am in a reading rut I stay there. I stay there and mope, or read really terrible online romances to fill the void of whatever it may be on that particular day. Something soft. Something sweet, and usually pink.

Well, now all I see is Red.

And I am quite pleased about it.



Never make a promise you don’t intend to keep… 

Mona Lisa St. James made a deathbed promise that she would do anything to save her mother's art gallery. Unfortunately, not only is The Red painted red, but it's in the red. She soon realizes she has no choice but to sell it.

Just as she realizes she has no choice but to sell it, a mysterious man comes in after closing time and makes her an offer: He will save The Red if she agrees to submit to him for the period of one year.

The man is handsome, English, and terribly tempting...but surely her mother didn't mean for Mona to sell herself to a stranger. Then again, she did promise to do anything to save The Red...

Let me begin by openly admitting that I will read anything Tiffany Reisz writes. Novels, series, novellas, saucy short stories of all shapes and sizes. I would probably read her grocery list and wonder at what kind of cereal she is fond of. Tiffany Reisz is part of my soul now, if that is not a totally creepy thing to say...I sound a tad bit off my rocker, don't I?

Apparently this new erotic (and I found out just before beginning to read) paranormal novel, The Red, is rubbing off on me.

Tiffany did warn me though when I began and announced such on Twitter about how excited I was to get my hands on another one of her erotic, light on the romance, works. She replied to me with, "It's insane pornography. How you like that sort of thing!"

All I can say is why yes. Yes, it is absolute filth, and thank you.

"Art should be dangerous, you know. It should say something to society that society doesn’t want to hear." -The Red, Tiffany Reisz

It was also somehow absolutely beautiful in a type of story telling that somewhere inside me I really needed as of late. My soul filled with great stories is telling me this as I type.

I can easily see now why in her Original Sinners series, sweet cinnamon bun Mick from The Angel was willing to trade covers in the bookstore for it. The Red is a book of sexy filth that made my week. Who would have thought that days after reading a straight up erotica that I would still be thinking about it? From the art, the plot that lead me on to the very end, and of course the sex scenes that were vivid and situations for all to enjoy while reenacting famous paintings, The Red made me wish I had an art gallery to save.

It also really made me want to meet our main character Mona's mother who previously owned the gallery. She sounds awesome.

Tiffany- or shall I say, Mistress Nora Sutherlin from the Original Sinners, outdid herself with this intense and wonderful erotica that still managed to hold a strong story line that promised to reveal a one sinful and captivating end. Of course I am not too surprised.

This was a novel that I went in knowing not a whole lot but the words Red, Erotica, and Art. I loved it as I sat down and read it deep into the night even after my kindle beeped of how its battery was low. There was nothing stopping me on this mysterious and slightly weird journey of Mona and all the stories of The Red that swept me away into its pages and famous paintings tied in a red velvet bow that only now makes me question if such wonder was only a dream.

Or something greater.

I'm going with greater.



The Red by Tiffany Reisz is being released on July 11, 2017 from 8th Circle Press.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2017 / , ,

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

And my first book of the year was All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood. I should preface this with pretty much going into this book after seeing it on a trusted books instagram-ers page and only slightly reading the summary. It sat in the my goodreads 'to read' list for a while before I couldn't stand it anymore and got for myself as I birthday present in its hardcover beautiful glory. And now I have read it and I am a bit blown away.

“I love you. I love you all the way.” 
― Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things


So yes, it was a very good pick for my first book of the year. Phew.

From the moment I picked it up, it was yet again another novel I thought I would read a bit of before putting it away for the night and getting some writing done. That did not happen though. Nope, I read this stunning story of hardship and the harsh reality between love, family, and life under the stars all the way through before I reached the last page. And still, I wanted more even the story concluded with all I could have asked of these broken characters. More of Wavy, Kellen, and so many other characters that we dove into the minds of through different point of views that made this book truely magical. This coming from someone who isn't a big fan of multiple point of views when I get into a character. Impressive.

“Summer had so many tricks. The nights lasted longer than the days, even though the angle of the Earth’s axis meant that was impossible. The night couldn’t be longer, but summer made it seem that way. Summer sneaked time for me, taking a minute from February, three minutes from English class in March, ten whole minutes from a boring Thursday in April. Summer stole time to give me another hour under the stars with Kellen.” 
― Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

This novel of course, if you know anything about it and the relationship of characters is not your average coming of age novel or romance. The moral intrigue and interesting way of characterization is what really rounded this story. Throughout, I was questioning the morality and wonder of it all. It had me squirming in some parts with its lovely prose and rooting for the story in others as I remained captured the entire way through.


“Your family is real, but mine isn't? Real people with real feelings, but my family isn't real to you. You think. I'm a character. A story. Those women you talk about. Not real people to you. Stupid women. I'm real. I'm as real as you are. My family is real like your family.” 
― Bryn Greenwood, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Though never in such a situation as the characters as well, I couldn't help but relate to them in the smallest ways. From Amy in the first chapter needing to feel as if she belonged and was more. Wavy and her loneliness that simply became apart of her. Even Grandma who baked the cookies with soft middles, I related to in tiny ways of being unique. Each of them constantly keept me engaged and FEELING.

It seems like it is all about the feels for me, guys. And this book had it as well as plot and a fresh story as different as its characters with light and dark woven throughout like the stars in the sky Wavy and Kellen admire in the late summer nights as they tried to form the love and family they have always wanted and needed together.


As you all know if you saw my previous post, the first book of the year I feel means something to me. It is as if it has a small touch on how my year will go. With this novel, I can only hope it means greatness for my own. You know, if I ever have time to write with all these fantastic books popping out at me.

Of course, I will never be angry at that.

What was everyone else's first reads of 2017? I hope they were amazing.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2016 / , , , ,

The Hating Game

I certainly did not hate this book. Not one bit. After seeing it all over bookstagram, and it having a wonderful cover, I knew it was on my to read list. What I didn't know when I picked it up before dinner to start reading the beginning was that I would be up until almost 2 a.m. reading it and then lying in bed thinking about it after and through the next few days of my life, because yes, it was that wonderful.


I have a theory. Hating someone feels disturbingly similar to being in love with them. I've had a lot of time to compare love and hate, and these are my observations.

Love and hate are visceral. Your stomach twists at the thought of that person. The heart in your chest beats heavy and bright, nearly visible through your flesh and clothes. Your appetite and sleep are schredded. Every interaction spikes your blood with adrenaline, and you're in the brink of fight or flight. Your body is barely under your control. You're consumed, and it scares you.

Both love and hate are mirror versions of the same game - and you háve to win. Why? Your heart and your ego. Trust me, I should know. - The Hating Game, Sally Thorne

First diving in, I was thinking. yeah, this is pretty good, though I was still worried that maybe the hype was too high. But then suddenly- this book hits me. And there was no stopping the fantastic wonder page by page I read with joy.

When I reached the last page and felt it between my fingers while reading, in my head I was thinking over and over. Please not be the end please not be the end. Alas, turning the page, it was. I want more. Yet, it was magnificent.

Seriously, I am still thinking about it a good week and a half later and have no plans on ever stopping until Sally Thorne writes another novel. Even if it distracts me from other books including my own writing at times. Because I will ponder and whimsically sigh over this story. And also because, as I mentioned, I will be waiting buy the next novel in waiting. Sally Thorne already has my auto-buy trust. If my love for The Hating Game, cuddling up in bed with it ALL night, and already telling you that I would buy her book without even looking at the summary or cover doesn't show you the severity of my love for this novel...I don't know what will.



I want to know what's going on in your brain. I want to juice your head like a lemon. -The Hating Game, Sally Thorne

The book was what romance should be, and what I very much appeared to need when I sat down with The Hating Game. It should be, being that it is up with my very top favorite books of the year...or even ever. I know, that right there is a HUGE statement. It deserves it,

With the steam and banter and characters that gave the plot line a complete rom-com feel while being so relatable. Or if it wasn't, I at least would want to make it be. Publishing house, paintball, sexual tension and all! Lucy and I are practically the same person anyway. We like books, red lipstick to go with out near matching sense of style- we are even the same height! All I would need to do is track down a Joshua to play the hating game with.

Perhaps Sally Thorne knows where I can find one...

While I wait, I am just going to reread this one again. Or maybe a few times.



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Wednesday, December 21, 2016 / , , , , , , , ,

Favorite Books of 2016


This is it everyone. It is time for me to figure out what books I LOVED this year since lets face it, they are the main thing I love in general.

2016 was an interesting reading year for me. As I finished up my final year in high school and moved onto my first semester of college, my reading habits have also seemed to change drastically from how I remember my young high school self reading about a book a day and still getting all the work and writing done. I tip my hat to you, past me, I don't know if you were as good of a procrastinator as I think you were or what, but I wish I still had that kind of skill. School work now has been taken up by my writerly crisis moments that appear every few weeks and writing...I am getting writing my novel in wherever I can so maybe one day I will be on a list like this. Maybe. Trying to be positive, but I know my luck isn't that good. But onward!

According to Goodreads I have read about 80 new to me books this year, not counting my MANY rereads that always take place when I am missing an old favorite.

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas



The Queen herself has done it again and this is my absolute favorite book of hers so far. I thought that the Throne of Glass series was going to undo me. But my my was I mistaken as we continue through the world hat first intrigued me and does further as the threat of war, love, intrigue and so much else happens because this book is awesome. Possibly a favorite of ALL time. High praise. But this book is worth it. Feyre as well after all may very well be one of my favorite characters as well, strong and feminine with great banter between who? The fabulous, the one hell of a high lord, the delectable Rhysand!

...I want a Rhysand.

I have to wait for him though. Wait and wait for May 2017 for the next book. A Court of Wings and Ruin, where are you? I have already read A Court of Mist and Fury at the very least six times over and over and I don't see the reason why I should stop as I mark my favorite pages and gush to random friends who have no idea who Rhysand is or this book or what I am even talking about as I squeal.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness



A Discovery of Witches was fantastic. The first book was my favorite though it was a very well put together trilogy and I am pretty sure Deborah Harkness will be on my to read if she ever comes out with another book because this one was so intelligent with the combination of history, science, and magic that intertwines with our characters. I know that I will always have some witchy and vampire love in my heart since that is what got me first reading to begin with.


The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly




These books have made me a Jennifer Donnelly fan. I first read her book Revolution back in middle school, but know I remember why I loved her writing so much. Dramatic? Sure. Romance? Absolutely. Set in Jack the Ripper era? Sounds good to me as I travel back in time and suddenly want to run tea shop of my own. Though I am pretty sure it would be a lot less difficult than sitting around sipping tea and reading this massive novel all day long.


The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath


I have heard this book referenced so many times, and now...now I have finally read it after finding myself a copy in a used book shop. If I can count this as a sort of classic, I will. It may very well be my favorite classic ever if that is the case as I now am stocking up my Sylvia Plath collection overall from her diaries to poetry. The story is so reflective and the prose gorgeous. Overall, I do think that this book hit me at a very good point in my life as well when I needed this novel- a thing that I have heard a lot when it comes to people reading this one. It just sat really well since I read it when I needed to. If you have been putting this one off as I have, it is time to change that.


Men at Work Series by Tiffany Reisz


I really enjoyed these books. My first ever Harlequin books that I did once look at on the shelves of convience stores and go "eh..." sort of look like cheesy books even more awful than those ones with Fabio on the covers. Let me tell you, Tiffany Reisz knows what she is doing here. The three Men at Work books including Her Halloween Treat, Her Naughty Holiday, and One Hot December that were released through this past Fall made me laugh and enjoy every page and sexy bit. Harlequin Blaze...you have a new customer. Tiffany...well you had me from the first time I read anything you write. As usual.


Colleen Hoover


All of her books?
Sure, why not...


Yes, 2016 is the year I jumped on the Colleen Hoover bus and read all of her books. I feel like it was so long ago that I read Hopeless as my first book by her since it was free on e-book last January. All caught up now, I need whatever book she is concocting in that heartbreaking romantic brain of hers. I almost forgot to put this on the list, but I figured, yes, Colleen Hoover and her books (especially Slammed and the most recent It Ends With Us) deserve to be here.


milk and honey by Rupi Kaur


It has been a big year for me in the poetry genre. I have loved poetry and followed poets including Lang Leav and sexy poetry writer that spoke to my soul from Micheal Faudet. One of the stand out poetry books this year though- you may have heard of it- it's Milk & Honey. Rupi Kaur out did herself with this collection and now I follow her on social media as well. A high honor I assure you. This collection is full of prose, illustration, and simple lines of poetry that make me want to page back through it once and a while.


The Hating Game by Sally Thorne



Oh my. Oh my. This book. The Hating Game is a last minute addition to this list because it is fighting for my top top spot of both best debut ever and greatest novel of 2016. Seriously, if I could go back to last night before dinner and tell myself to savor it, I would. Even though it would obviously not stop me from doing exactly what I did, which was stay up until 2 a.m. to finish it in one sitting. The romance and the dialogue sets this book apart as well as its humor. A rom-com, but better. I want everyone to read this one just so I can gush about it. I can see now why bookstagram has fallen in love with this book and characters.

I have now too.



So that is it for my favorites I have read in 2016. I feel like I should have more, but these are the fabulous few that stood out in my heart. Happy new year, and happy reading!

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Friday, September 23, 2016 / ,

Camping Under Starlight


So, Me and Roommate wandered around club day before she had Bio review decided it would be a good idea to go camping...tomorrow. They left at four. An email would go out at some point later in the day. It was all quite impromptu. So impromptu that I had to go and slightly beg the adventure education coordinator, Jill, for both a backpack and two sleeping bags for us by admitting our lack of preparedness. Before being let out into the wilderness of course, probably exactly what she wanted to hear. 

I must have done a really good job, because she wouldn't let me out of her office after the promise that she would let me borrow both the pack and sleeping bag before asking, "Do you have shoes?"

I looked down at my heeled feet. "Yes."

Allison when I told her this exchange still to this day asks me if I have "shooes" whenever she can. Though I could tease her just as well since we both quite possibly were going to look ridiculous having never been tent in dirt camping before (of course to the group I was very experienced. Backpacking? Rock climbing? I had done it all). Plus, I was not the one that came back with bug bites that turned out to be poison ivy on my stomach. Jill was excited for me. I was excited. On Thursday night, the only person I needed to get a little more enthused as well was Allison. She was still twirling around in stressed out la-la land for assignments that hadn't been fully handed out yet. 

This was life though. Time to live instead of scower over papers. Time to see outside the walls of the dorm room and to the stars.


Leaving late, a quality I have found runs rampant in university functions, which is horrifying to your lovely blogger here and her near impeccable punctuality, we arrived at the campsite in the dark. Five tents and nine of us total, it left three hammocks for a few. One that was quickly taken by myself. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to love this hammock, and spoiler I did, even if I did nearly sweat to death under the makeshift tarp made from the cover a tent, attached to the ground by twigs. I did my best. At least I was hidden from all bugs compared to my hammock resident beside me that looked like she was a midnight snack. I could only hope that if it did rain, it would help in that respect as well. 

As we set up, new pal and British exchange student for the year Josh looked at all the stars that we did see. The smog and light was not a problem out here for me to stare upon as well in awe. "Ah, guys. The stars are out, it isn't going to rain."

Anything said in that accent would make me feel better about my not so much tarp. It was at least up compared to the two laddered hammocks, hanging the chord above the top hammock, they let their true tarp lie on the ground, unneeded as we crawled into our camping beds. Lying in my enclosed hammock, I couldn't see the stars or the possibility of daddy long leg spiders coming for me off the tree (a good thing), but I could hear the deep hum of a ukulele- or excuse me, small guitar playing with an accompaniment of leaves rustling and the cliche chirp of crickets.

Goodnight, Worthington State Park. I cuddled my flashlight, phone, and sweatshirt close to my chest, releasing a breath. Creating my own story as I promised myself this year, maybe I could actually do that. 


The thunder rumbled through the trees as rain fell against my poor-man's tarp at around four in the morning.

"Oh crap," Lucus said suddenly from the top hammock, swinging out to the beat and patter of raindrops. 

Struggling to put the tarp up over the two hammocks, lighting there lighting, Casara went to each tent as she said Jill would, repeating, "Butt in the dirt, feet on the ground." Most of her commands met with the blurry eyed tent sleepers mumbling, "I am just going back to sleep."

Peeking my head out, I asked if they needed any help, feeling the cool rain finally on my hand. Rain that was not leaking or dripping into my hammock at all. They were both fine, she asking me if I wanted to run to the car for the rest of the night. 

"I am alright. I mean, I am not getting rained on." Honestly, I had to say it aloud. It was a miracle as I tucked myself back in, flashlight gripped for the hours to come. The risk of getting wet much higher if I dared try to make run for it anyway. Nestling in, I fell asleep eventually to wake to the smell of banana pancake batter and the joking calls to Josh mimicking his accent.

"Oh, the stars are out! It can't rain!"


Loaded up with power bars and water (mine plain, the boys hyped up on Tang), we hiked up through the afternoon to sunfish pond. Stepping over rocks watching for snakes which we quickly maneuvered around, I mused my father's rhyme he taught me that he learned while overseas in the army: "Red on black is a friend of Jack. Black on yellow is a deadly fellow." 

All the way to the pond, the view of spectacular. As was the boys swimming while I dipped my toes in to the luscious chill. It was as close to a shower as the weekend would get. Not that it would do too much more. Still had another night to sweat off the two peanut butter cup s'mores I would eat later sleeping in the hammock. 


As we walked back, a state park officer stopped his car, looking at a half naked and soaked John. "What are you guys up to?"

"Uh," John looked at us, down at himself. "We went for a swim...were we not allowed? Because we didn't see a sign or anything."

The officer stared before nodding, "It's hot out so I understand, but technically you aren't supposed to."

"Oh."

"So, for the future don't, alright?"

Lucus made fun of John the same way we all did everyone else at some point during the trip. This though apparently was no the first time that they had to ask for forgiveness rather than permission through John. That is better though sometimes. Because LIVING.

And we did live a little more than usual that weekend. I convinced Allison to go and enjoy. And we did. Living, achieved. At least for a few days. Through bugs and Egyptian rattlesnake card game played by flashlight, but doubt I would know how to ever again. Like rummy. We had won over this weekend. At least to ourselves with new stories and memories to be forged, adding a few to our checklist I hope never ends.

Adventures after all, they are meant to be taken and only leave footsteps.





Of course I also took plenty of photos for us all.
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Tuesday, August 16, 2016 / , , , , ,

The Sweet and the Bitter

Recently I have devoured the novel that is Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. And when a book is good, I feel it my duty as I devout reader to let the world know and almost spoil them. It is all in good means of course, I just get really excited and tell them each major plot point, character, and how I felt about it whether they understand what is going on or not up until the end where I usually am quite polite in asking, "Do you mind if I spoil it just a teensy weensey bit?" A fabulous librarian I talked to quite often luckily didn't mind at all since she was a rebel who liked to read the last few pages of a book first anyway.


Don't worry, I will try not to do as such a disservice on here. It is much better going into this read blind if you were on the fence. I will though let you know though if you need some extra umph to get this pretty pink hardcover in your hands, that the prose is some of the sweetest I have ever read in a full length novel, even though the end left me bitter for more.

Seriously, what happens next to Tess? Does she become the writer people have seen her as? Is she based off of Stephanie Danler at all more than the server experience? The world may never know.

“Any business transaction—actually any life transaction—is negotiated by how you are making the other person feel.”  -Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

Yet here I am still am, going to be asking such questions and wanting to meet Stephanie to both praise, and get to know the lovely woman who wrote such a raw story. This book, that somehow had the power to keep me turning pages just to see what was going to happen, rather than for a killer ending we see in many strictly laid out novels.

This one felt like life.

A feature that I think is what a book that sticks with a variety of people needs. A sense of perpetual reality in all the excitement of meeting possible true love or running into an epic fantasy battle. A sense that we all have scars from living- and this is the story of how living brought them about one hit at a time whether they be visible or not.


In a worn down world full of dreamers and those who want to break them down, it is nearly inevitable after all.

I think that is how I most related to Tess in this novel, though I also felt that on some level whether it be in the most minute detail, anyone could see a bit of themselves in this last minute coming of age story. Tess is someone who wants to be optimistic but ends up simply falling into a pattern I am familiar with, and not just because I have a more light experience with waitressing but because my thoughts are so much grander than reality that also deserves to be expressed. Her thought process brought such a strong voice throughout that stuck to me and my mind until the last page. 

It was full of prose and beautifully tortured in some other parts that had the most lovely lust filled undertone that made each word my very own treat that books have always been for me. Especially such surprises as this book was.

I toted it around wherever I went for two days straight, and not just to show it off.

It is these books that make me think. These books that make me question myself most specifically as a writer while that positive self in the back of my mind is telling me instead, to let it inspire. To let such beautiful bound books turn into action of being present. To sit myself down and fall forward into words that do not like to not fall into place right away either. 

As this book showed and will continue to as it stays in my mind for some time to come though, I have to start somewhere since life evolves and I may need to choose if I would like to with it no matter how many messy mistakes follow me without reminder. Whether it all takes me on the road where I planned or not.


“Not being able to swipe into the subway when people are backing up behind you. Waiting for him at the bar. Leaving your purse open on a stool with a mess of bills visible. Mispronouncing the names while presenting French wines. Your clogs slipping on the waxed floors. The way your arms shoot out and you tense your face when you almost fall. Taking your job seriously. Watching the sex scene from Dirty Dancing on repeat and eating a box of gingersnaps for dinner on your day off. Forgetting your stripes, your work pants, your socks. Mentally mapping the bar for corners where you might catch him alone. Getting drunker faster than everyone else. Not knowing what foie gras is. Not knowing what you think about abortion. Not knowing what a feminist is. Not knowing who the mayor is. Throwing up between your feet on the subway stairs. On a Tuesday. Going back for thirds at family meal. Excruciating diarrhea in the employee bathroom. Hurting yourself when you hit your head on the low pipe. Refusing to leave the bar though it's over, completely over. Bleeding in every form. Beer stains on your shirt, grease stains on your jeans, stains in every form. Saying you know where something is when you have absolutely no idea where it is.
At some point, I leveled out. Everything stopped being embarrassing.”          
-Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter 


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Sunday, July 3, 2016 / ,

Experience Tells the Story

Experience is what makes writer well-rounded. And I don't mean the unpaid get your name out there into publications, experience. I am talking about the one of a kind breathtaking, risk defying, random moment experience. That is what makes a writer as well rounded as a college applying high schooler tries to be after taking a few too many intro of art classes. 

The way a writer can simply write in wise detail of the world, is something that I have begun to think of on my own as I further sink myself into the wonderland of it. I have picked and prodded pieces of random topics, and I am beginning to see that the amount adventure or experience that the writer is able to divulge is a large indicator of if I continue to read. Whether the article be the simplest idea about how decadent their fettuccine alfredo was on vacation, or if they discovered a new species of plant in the amazon. It has always been there in front of me when authors are suddenly just as fantastic of an essayist or a whimsical blogger. These little moments of caught words, well they might as well be the next great work of prose. Thought, emotion, it is all there. Years I have seen and wondered as I read like people watch Netflix. How do they it?

They have stories.


While I have to scower to cut out every "you" in an essay that I want to relate in, I see now that the essay of a past— a story is yelling at me once and for all to just use "I." To show that I believe I deserve to be heard and not let myself mumble the overused excuse of "I don't like to talk about myself," or that it is hard to. I am already a writer, everything is difficult anyway! Might as well take out an odd fear from my brain and leave some room for fear of freshwater fish. 

"It is an epidemic with women your age. A gross disparity between the way they speak and the quality of thoughts they are having about the world. They are taught to express themselves in slang, in cliches, sarcasm- all of which is weak language. The superficiality of the language colors the experience, rendering them disposable instead of assimilated..." -Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter

To talk about myself and how I am standing, or rather typing here today, I mean to be a character in an all too real story. To express the tiniest thoughts in the strangest of purple prose if I so shall please when it makes sense to me and my mind. Maybe that is how I will relate, not to you all- or at least not all the time, but to myself. That is how the writers do it after all. They weave themselves into a story all their own to somehow chat with a point and wit. They are like the most dramatic of coincidental heroes who still don't know the reader is still reading, because of them. Because of how they see and breathe each day in like the most prominent of short story climaxes that makes even me want to pack up a threadbare backpack and somehow climb the mountains of Europe.

Instead of textbooks and theme studies to help understand, they have themselves to draw from. When reading their piece, they might as well be the wise magic holder that you nod at with every word being taken in.

That is kind of experience to have. Experience that takes chance whether it be to wander, wonder, or both. Those two W's on my to do list each and every day since it means that I am living for a reason. Even if I do push away that same reason that screams the need to write my own stories of everyday in my journal so that I don't forget instead of jotting down the good bits so that I can abuse them in the future. 



Right now, I need those stories. I wish upon a star that I had more stories, period. Stories that mean something enough  to resonate and elaborate on life and utter being, rather than the constant simple entertainment my fictionalized novels are privileged to be. They give joy and emotion. My own life I hope, emotion and thought.

In this moment though, I have nothing. I question if I ever will have those stories that are more than first kisses in a cemetery, that I will have experiences that are not meaningless to everyone but me.

I want somethings out of nothing, yes. But I also desire to write something out of things. Things like me and around me that deserve not to be forgotten. Even if they may need a little face lift.

So here, maybe you'll see it.

Let's make some stories.


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