Choices, choices

Which one should I choose?

Tomorrow is supposed to be one of those "never get out of bed, just curl up with a book" type of weather days.  You know, cooler, grey, and rainy.  

Which means I have big plans for the TBR pile.  I just need to decide where to start.

Here are some recent options that arrived at my house:

wow, no thank you. by samantha irby

From the back cover: Samantha Irby is forty and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her.  This the life of a Hallmark Channel dream.  She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles talking with TV executives/amateur astrologers while being a cheese fry-eating, slightly damp Midwestern person with neck pain and no cartilage in her knees who still hides past-due bills under her pillow.

The uproarious essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new bourgeois life.  Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most hysterical, relatable, and unflinching.

[Edited: read, enjoyed, reviewed. Read about it here.]

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

From the back cover: One minute, Katrina King is enjoying an innocent conversation with a random guy at a coffee shop; the next, a stranger has live-tweeted the entire encounter with a romantic meet-cute spin, and #CafeBae has the world swooning.  Going viral isn't easy for anyone, but Katrina has painstakingly build a private life for herself, far from her traumatic past.  Besides, everyone has it all wrong . . .That #CafeBae bro? He isn't the man she's hungry for.

With the internet on the hunt for the identity of #Cute CafeGirl, Jas Singh, bodyguard and possessor of the most beautiful eyebrow s Katrina's ever seen, offers his family's farm as a refuge.  Being alone with her unrequited crush feels like a recipe for hopeless longing, but Katrina craves the escape.  She's resigned to being just friend with Jas--until they share a single electrifying kiss. Now she can't help but wonder if her crush may not be so unrequited after all . . .

[Edited: read, devoured, reviewed.  Read about it here.]

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

From the inside cover: When Mouse's dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes.  After all, how bad could it be?

Answer: pretty bad.  Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is packed to the gills with useless garbage.  The would be horrors enough, bu there's more.  Mouse stumbles across her step grandfather's journal, which at first seems to be the ravings of a broken mind.

Until she encounters some of the terrifying things he described herself.  Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse has to confront a series of impossible terrors---because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they're looking for you.  And if she doesn't face them head-on, she might not survive to tell the tale.
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

From the inside cover: Acclaimed novelist Quan Barry delivers a tour de female force in this delightful novel.  Set in the coastal town of Danvers, Massachusetts, where the accusations began that led to the 1692 Salem witch trails, We Ride Upon Sticks follows the 1989 Danvers High 
School Falcons field hockey team, who'll do anything to make it to the state finals--even if it means tapping into some devilishly dark powers.  In chapters dense with 1980s iconography--from Heathers to big hair--Barry expertly weaves together the individual and collective progress of this enchanted team as they storm their way through an unforgettable season.  

Helmed by good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam) and her co-captain Jen Fiorenza (whose bleached blond "Claw" sees and knows all) the Falcons prove to be wily, original, and bold, flaunting society's stale notions of femininity in order to find their glorious true selves through the crucible of team sport and, more important, friendship.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

From the inside cover: Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller.  Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on her endless to-do list.  The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime.  At these meetings they're as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.

One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor's handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life.  James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn't felt in years.  But when children on the other side of the town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe Jame Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt.  The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind--and Patricia has already invited him in.

Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia's life and try to take everything she took for granted--including the book club--but she won't surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked take of neighborly kindness gone wrong.

Where would you start?  I think The Twisted Ones needs to be read in the full light of day--preferably outside and HOURS before bedtime--so I'll like start with Girl Gone Viral and then jump to wow, no thank you.

The Meg Lanslow series by Donna Andrews

What I think of during every Zoom meeting

Cheers!

Here's to you and getting through another week of a global pandemic.

In Illinois the Governor just announced that the K-12 students will not be returning to in-person learning for this academic year.  I'm sure most Illinois teachers were expected that, but it would still be like a gut punch.  

For me, in the Grades 13-16 sector, we have three more weeks of (online) instruction before finals weeks is here.  And this week, I've been proctoring exams via Zoom.  

On the bright side, I got to chat with all my students that I've haven't seen in over a month.  

On the down side, that's sooooo much Zoom.

So much Zoom.

Soo much.

Anyway, before I got Zoomed out, some of my online friends and I did a great Zoom hangout, and we didn't QUITE have enough of us to re-create The Brady Bunch opening shot when we were gallery view, but we got darn close.  And we had some great conversation and some much needed laughs.

And one of the things that came out of that hangout was a recommendation for mystery author, Donna Andrews.  Two of my friends (Hi, Karen and Deborah!) said they loved Ms. Andrews's books and that she was funny.

Dear book friends, Karen and Deb buried the lede.  Donna Andrews has a mystery series that has 26 books.  26!  TWENTY-SIX!!  

*clutches heart and fans self*

So I read the first one, Murder with Peacocks, and Deborah and Karen were right.  This was funny.  And fun.  And well worth reading.  So I read the second, Murder with Puffins , and I liked it, too. (There's a bird theme with all the Meg Langslow book titles.) 

You know how I love me a good series, and the Meg Langslow series IS a good series.  Meg is a blacksmith surrounded by a full cast of crazy family members.  There's her dad, a retired physician with a love of murder mysteries, a brother who accidentally designed a game called Lawyers From Hell when he should have been studying for the bar, a well-connected and gossip-attuned mother, and a nephew who is followed around by an egg-laying duck.  And THEN there are the assorted crazy cousins and neighbors.  I've read four of them so far, and I'll probably grab the fifth one this weekend.  And even though all the books aren't set in the same town, the cast of crazy characters seems to accompany Meg through out.

This is an amateur sleuth series without any over the top blood or gore, so if police procedurals are too much for you, but you still like a good whodunit, you should try this series out.

Plus there are 26.  TWENTY-SIX.  You know how many pandemic days you can wile away while reading 26 books?  So blessed many.

Building Your Tiny House Dream by Chris Schapdick

Screenshot from tinysiesta.com

I find the concept of tiny houses fascinating.  I love the idea of being to manage with less, and I really love the idea of being decisive enough to choose a minimal list of earthly possessions.  When I visit my parents in Sarasota, FL, I frequently walk by a strip of rental tiny homes, and then I daydream about living in one of my own.

But I basically need a clothes and shoe closet the size of most tiny houses, so a tiny house lifestyle really just isn't for me.

I could probably make a tiny house vacation work. I'm getting really excited about the idea of seeing some national parks, and I follow some people on social media who convert vans to houses on wheels for their travels. (Check out this video! So cool.)  So the idea of converting a van and taking that to see the national parks?  Let's just call that an awesome daydream while we're all grounded during this pandemic.

With that daydream in mind, I requested a copy of Building Your Tiny House Dream by Chris Schapdick from Net Galley.  I was given a free advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my review. (Here's a link to a review of his first book The Joy of Tiny House Living.) Chris is the owner of a tiny home manufacturing company.  And the pictures of his builds look so cool.

One of the author's builds.  Pic from: https://www.tinyindustrial.com/i-build-stuff.html

Chris's first book focuses on how to decide if a tiny house is for you.  As the title suggests, this second book is about how to build one. Overall, I found the book to be very thorough. Possibly even too thorough for me as it contains basic information on nominal sizes of lumber and safety tips that I'm already familiar with.

The book has step-by-step instructions with clear pictures included, but I did think that that occasional illustration or an annotated picture would have served the author's purpose better.  The book is meant to be accompanied by a code that will give the reader access to video tutorials, and I think those are going to be amazingly helpful. 

(I assume.  I haven't seen them.)

(Also worth noting--advance reader copies frequently have formatting errors that get corrected before the books go to press, and many, many of the pictures in the book loaded upside-down in the copy I downloaded which was super frustrating. I assume that will be corrected when the book goes to print.)

For me, because I'm so interested in camper van builds, the sections on electrical and plumbing were the most helpful.  The author has great descriptions of sink and toilet options.  (Who knew I'd every type that sentence?). I also liked the finishes (walls and floors) that the author chose, and I appreciated the information about how to choose good, lightweight options.

Overall, if you're fascinated with tiny houses and consider yourself a bit of a DIY-er, I think you'd enjoy this book.

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon (Extended Preview)

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I figure pandemic is a little like this.  Some things make us sad (cancelled plans), some things make us smile (kindnesses between neighbors), and some things break us open.  What we do after the break--how we change the way we see and the way we act--is what defines us.

We can't avoid the breaks of a pandemic (or any other trauma), but we can control how we live with the soft parts exposed and no hard shell to cover us.

My wish for us all is that after the break we know empathy and compassion.
And that we practice them both.

In the mean time, look what pandemic has done to me.  It has me blogging again.  I've been posting on my work site (gotta keep those college students organized and motivated), and I hacked back into my NetGalley account to get the advanced reader copy of the extended preview of The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon.

I was given a free copy of this preview in exchange for my review.  (The short version of my review? I NEED MORE.  The preview is just a tease, and I MUST know what happens next.  Must. Soon. PLEASE. Sooner.  Soonest.  Please, oh, please!)

The Boyfriend Project opens with Samiah Brooks having her own traumatic event.  She confronts her no-good, three (or more!)-timing boyfriend at a restaurant, and video of the incident goes viral.  Ouch.

How gorgeous is this cover?

Samiah responds with empathy; she befriends the other "other" women.
She also responds with determination.  She's going to focus on herself and her work.

And the very first person to responds to her with compassion?  The new hottie at work, Daniel Collins.  Everyone else has jokes and advice and questions.  But Daniel treats Samiah like a person instead of a news sensation, and that just takes Samiah's breath away. 

Well, the compassion and the cuteness.

And that's about where this preview ends.  We know that Daniel is on a mission, but we don't know what that is.  We know that Samiah has an annoying, troublesome work colleague who is BOUND to create trouble down the line, and we know that Samiah's new friends (the other wronged women) are sure to play a part in this tale.

Oh, and we KNOW WE NEED TO PRE-ORDER THIS BOOK. (Link here.)

So where are you these days?  Where are your sads, and your smiles, and your breaks?  Where are you employing your empathy and compassion?  And what are you reading?