Relativity by Cristin Bishara (3.5 stars)
After moving cross-country with her dad and in with a stepfamily she barely knows, Ruby is burdened by all the losses she can’t change. Her mom died in a car accident when she was young, and now she’s lost her best friend and secret love, George. When her scientific curiosity is piqued by a mysterious tree near her new house, she discovers it’s a portal to nine alternate universes. As she finds surprises in each one, she feels more and more driven toward the perfect universe – one where her mom is alive and she and George are together. But she might lose them all in the process. This was a refreshing story, and I liked how unapologetically smart Ruby is. Get it, girl.
God’s Creatures: A Biblical View of Animals by Susan Bulanda (4 stars)
I downloaded this book months ago when it was a Kindle daily deal, and now that I’m dealing with the sudden loss of my cat, I was interested enough to read it. This is a pleasant, well-researched summary of everything the Bible says and implies about animals. Bulanda has a lot of good insights that I hadn’t heard before, and a lot of reassurance about God’s care for and value of His creatures. I found it really comforting and will probably reference it again in the future.
Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline (4 stars)
I read this for the Red Couch Book Club (but, as usual, too late for the discussion). I knew it would change my perceptions about the fashion industry in ways I might not like. Cline examines our society’s growing addiction to fast fashion and ever-lower prices, and shows us how it’s affecting the whole world. She illustrates the decline of quality clothing over the past hundred years and goes into Chinese sweatshops and Dominican fair-trade factories. Overdressed is a more engaging read than I expected, but it’ll make you uncomfortable. I was already trying to be more mindful about my clothing purchases and this gave me a big push.
Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols (3.5 stars)
At fourteen, Leah decided flying was her ticket out of the trailer park. Now eighteen, she has her first pilot’s license and is still working at the same small airport. The kind man who taught her to fly has died suddenly, leaving behind two grieving sons to keep his aviation business together. Grayson, the more rebellious of the two, has always intrigued Leah – but he threatens to fire her if she won’t date his brother Alec, no questions asked. This novel is a (slightly disturbing) love story, but it’s also an unflinching look at the realities of serious poverty, and how much ambition and luck you need to get out of it. I’m slowly reading all of Jennifer Echols’ books and continue to be impressed by her range.
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (4 stars)
Two years ago, on her family’s private island, something terrible happened to Cady. Ever since, she’s been crippled by severe migraines and has lost most of her memories of that summer. When she finally returns to the island, her two favorite cousins, and her true love, she’s determined to piece the mystery together. That’s all anyone should know about this going in. I’ve heard so much hype about it that it couldn’t possibly have lived up to my expectations, but I was hooked and duly impressed.
The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2 stars)
It pains me to say so, but with each Moon book, I’m wishing I’d stopped at Life As We Knew It (which is still amazing). This fourth volume is the bleakest yet. Little brother Jon, now seventeen, lives in a safe enclave with his stepmother and half-brother, while the rest of the family lives as slave laborers in a neighboring town. The entire story is a Lord of the Flies-esque downward spiral of class warfare, inhumane treatment, and horrific deaths. I do think we need occasional reminders that we could all turn savage under the right conditions (so we won’t), but this was so awful that I almost gave up on it. There are glimmers of hope, but in their world, they wouldn’t be enough to keep me going. (Apparently Goodreads agrees.)
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor (4 stars)
When she was ordained in the Episcopal Church, Barbara Brown Taylor envisioned a long, fulfilling life of ministry. With fatigue setting in after about ten years in an urban congregation, she takes a church in rural Georgia. But even in a peaceful town, her soul becomes increasingly troubled and exhausted. This is the story of how a woman in love with God and His Church ends up with more questions than answers, and has to deconstruct her faith to find it again. I recommend it to anyone in professional ministry or any believer feeling disillusioned. If nothing else, you’ll find reassurance that you are not alone.
Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love by Anna Whiston-Donaldson (4 stars)
I reviewed this here.
The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey (4.5 stars)
When we left Cassie at the end of The 5th Wave, her rebel alien boyfriend had blown up the aliens’ military compound, allowing her to escape with her brother, her high school crush, and their platoon of child soldiers. The bulk of The Infinite Sea centers on Ringer, one of the platoon who goes on a scouting mission from their new “base” and ends up in one impossible situation after another. This sequel didn’t grab me quite as much as the original, but it was compelling and ended with a twist I thought about for days. Well played, Yancey.
Books for October: 9
2014 year to date: 63
4 Comments + Posted in: book reviews
On October 1, my second niece was born! Since my sister and I are very close, I’m thrilled and emotional about a second generation of hermanas. When Niecy was born, Debra and Lance lived much closer. But now that they’re an eight-hour drive away, it was too complicated for me to be there for this baby’s birth. Instead, I flew down to Dothan last weekend for a good visit with the whole gang.
Since Niecy is no longer alone in niecehood, from here on out her name on this blog will be what she happily calls herself: Fifoo. Fifoo is now maturely calling Debra “Mom” and pushing her baby doll in a swing. She seems excited to be a big sister (unlike her mother, who at almost the same age asked when our parents would be taking our little brother back to the hospital). I realized this trip that I have to start being careful with my influence, because she picks up whatever Mom and Aunt B do! She was quick to notice my new tattoo, prompting a discussion about how it was okay for me to “draw on myself” because I’m a grownup.
I didn’t think any baby could possibly be chiller than Fifoo was, but Baby E has accomplished it in these four weeks of her life. She only cries when she’s hungry, and is totally content to be held and look around for the rest of her conscious time. I spent several happy hours this weekend cuddling her while Debra and I watched Gilmore Girls.
First on the agenda for this visit was the church fall festival. Debra made these amazing Care Bear costumes out of felt and terrycloth jumpsuits! I just put together a felt tummy for myself that morning and put my hair up in “ears.”
We took Fifoo to an event at the mall to get her picture taken with Disney princesses and other characters. In the end, she only consented to one photo with Doc McStuffins, but we had fun and counted 31 Elsas while we waited in line.
We also went to a church chili cook-off at someone’s farm.
On my last day, we went to the Dothan Botanic Gardens to see an exhibit of creative scarecrows. My favorites were the Ice Bucket Challenge scarecrow, an impressive Shrek and Fiona with pumpkin heads, and an unintentionally hilarious “Dreams Do Come True” scene featuring a little girl looking into her future as a headless bride. I mean, I’m assuming it was unintentional… otherwise that’s some dark stuff for a kids’ scarecrow display!!
Spending a few days with these guys was good medicine. I’ve been overextended and a little depressed lately, but at Debra’s I felt happy and relaxed, ate well, and slept better in a house with a newborn than I do alone with one hyper cat. I was sad to leave, but thankfully we’ll see each other again at Christmas!
3 Comments + Posted in: family, travel
Once a year, Hollywood Housewife does a linkup where you document the minutiae of your daily life for one day. I participated last year and thought it would be fun to do so again! Although the action was ongoing on Instagram, I saved up my pictures for a blog post – mainly to keep people from unfollowing me en masse.
6:21 am: Stumble out of bed after snoozing four times. Yes, my alarm clock is ten minutes fast. I started that in high school, and now my sense of Morning Time is too messed up to go back.
7:00 am: Makeup drawer, unedited! I continue to dream of a real vanity.
7:15 am: Coffee and my current go-to breakfast smoothie: one frozen banana, coconut milk, almond milk, almond butter, flaxseed, honey, and a dash of chai spice. My dislike of eating the same things too often doesn’t seem to extend to breakfast (or what passes for breakfast on a weekday). I’ve stuck with this smoothie for several months now. While drinking it, I enjoy my daily few minutes of the Today show. The Orange Room is usually my cue to get out the door.
7:30 am: As it happens, today is the day I’m getting a new roof! The workers arrive at 7:00, and by the time I leave, giant chunks of my roof are flying off. I feel sick watching this and am glad I don’t have to be at home during the process.
Morning commute: time, temperature, and tunes.
8:00 am: Arrive at work. Constants: my bird of the day calendar, and the dry-erase board I live and die by. My work centers around the sale of hotels and I have to be able to reference deadlines easily.
10:30 am: On weekdays, I usually wear glasses until around lunchtime, then put my contacts in for the rest of the day. It’s my compromise of my eye doctor’s “four days a week” contacts recommendation, and so far everything is fine!
12:45 pm: Lunch: a very exciting Lean Cuisine and my current favorite drink mix. I don’t eat in every day, thankfully.
1:00 pm: Hey look, it’s a beautiful day outside!
1:50 pm: Almost done Putting In Work at the fitness room. Fall Out Boy’s “The Phoenix” is rocking my running world this week.
Outfit of the Day! We had a jeans day today. This combo of skinny jeans and wedges, which I haven’t tried before, makes me feel inexplicably perky and cute.
3:00 pm: After about a month of insanity, my inbox is pretty light at the moment.
5:00 pm: I wore my favorite jacket in to work last week, and have forgotten to take it home every day since because it’s so much warmer when I leave. Today I finally remembered! No more shivering in the mornings!
5:45 pm: My yoga class (which recently switched to Wednesdays after seven years of Thursdays) got canceled, so I had time to go to Caroline and Matt’s to meet their new baby boy! He’s adorable, and I can’t wait to be his cool Aunt B who lets him eat too much ice cream and stuff. ♥
6:30 pm: HEY THERE, NEW ROOF! I can’t believe they did the whole thing in one day and didn’t leave a trace. It looks fantastic!
7:00 pm: Dinnertime for Peach and me. I can’t bear to have salad again, but I need something fast, so I throw together Edamame Rice Bowls (er, Bowl). From memory! I’ve gotten terrible about cooking real food for myself and want to get back on track soon.
Dinnertime reading: For some reason my Kindle won’t download either the new library book or the Netgalley I’ve sent to it, so I flip through the new Elle that just arrived. Of the MANY magazines I never subscribed to that arrive at my house on their own, Elle is my favorite. I LOVE the gray-and-pink dress and the cutout top on this page. Keep dreaming, me.
7:45 pm: Real life: time for Peach’s daily dose. She seems a little bummed today, but perks up later.
8:00 pm: How many vacuum cleaners does a one-human, one-cat household need? I splurged on the Dyson Animal two years ago when the Hoover started making a horrible noise, then ended up keeping the Hoover anyway because the Dyson wasn’t cutting it on carpeted areas. Full disclosure: I have a THIRD, handheld vacuum for upholstery. This is me.
8:30 pm: Lately I’ve gotten accustomed to streaming Spotify in the shower. I just bought a converter to plug my phone into my iPod speaker, but my protective phone case is too thick on the bottom for the plug to work properly. Result: LIVING DANGEROUSLY.
9:00 pm: Crafty Hour in front of the Grizzlies preseason game! I had a craving for a hot cup of tea, so I’m enjoying some Earl Grey sent to me by Erin, and a cookie.
10:45 pm: Wrapping up my day in the usual way: stretching, my main man Jimmy Fallon, and what I’ve started referring to as “Peachy Adoration Time” (she pounces on me the moment I head for the bed).
Thanks for following along!
8 Comments + Posted in: life lately, linkup
My life has been a nonstop flurry of activity since I was a little girl. I honestly can’t remember a time when I wasn’t hustling from one thing to another, and don’t know how to live any other way. I probably would have been content to read, draw, write stories, and ride my bike on my own every day of my childhood. Instead, I dreamed and contemplated in stolen moments between ballet, T-ball, Girl Scouts, and church involvement. When I started marching band at fourteen, I was allowed to drop most other things, but band was so all-consuming that it didn’t make me any less busy. At home, my family ragged on me when I spent quiet time in my room, or wanted to be alone for a while. I was supposed to be outgoing, do and experience as much as I could, participate in family life. Quiet down time – or rest – equaled laziness and social awkwardness. Meanwhile, kids at school gave me a hard time for being more interested in books than in talking most of the time. Because I didn’t know any differently, I viewed my introversion (though I didn’t even know to call it that) as a flaw to overcome. The price of the overcoming was constant mental and physical exhaustion. One memorable day, I came home from practice, went to bed at six PM, and slept straight through to the next morning. But it never occurred to me (or anyone in my life) to question or change anything.
I don’t share my story angrily or to cast blame. My parents had good intentions and succeeded in making me a more outward-facing and well-rounded person. But I was in my late 20s before I understood the type of recharging I’ve always needed was not only legitimate, but also shared by about half of the population. Needing unstructured stillness to sort out my thoughts and feelings, needing not to be doing something and around people all the time, didn’t mean I was a lazy weirdo. It meant I was an introvert. I read Quiet and other introvert-power manifestos and felt validated. I learned to listen to myself and to scale back… a little.
But too often, I’m still that girl who powers through until she involuntarily collapses into bed at six PM – and now I’m the one making myself do it. I love people, going out, and being involved in as many things as possible, but sometimes it’s not what’s best for me. I struggle to see free time to myself as a valid choice instead of a lack of options. The harder I push myself, the more my mood, health, and creativity suffer. But I have innate Fear Of Missing Out and can’t seem to accept my own limits. After a lifetime of playing an extrovert, I don’t always know how to turn it off. I’m unsure whether I’m acting out of my true self or my conditioning, or how different they really are anymore. Being where the action is energizes me… for a while. Then I hit my limit and want to go home. Being at home by myself is relaxing… until loneliness takes over. I can flip from give me some space to no one loves me anymore in a second.
Introvert Shame, with its shoulds and oughts, is entrenched in my heart. It’s powerful, and singleness makes it worse. Singleness means I have to actively seek out and maintain community, because I won’t find it in my home, and it usually won’t come to me. However, I’m really thankful for my friends who stay friends even if they don’t see me frequently, who can be happy hanging out without going out, who also think an occasional night on my patio talking over a bottle of wine is a good time. Especially when they’re willing to hike out to my house in the burbs to do so.
Singleness also means that if I’m not out there and on as much as possible, my singleness could be my own “fault.” The dating scene is an extrovert’s game, in which seeming boring is one of the worst fouls you can commit, and I’m only capable of sparkling effusively for so long. Eventually, I burn down to the metal wire of me. It’s an ongoing battle to believe that what I am at the core is enough, since it’s actually not enough for some people. I try to convince myself the right person will see me even if I’m not the go-to life of the party. And even if no one ever sees me, somehow that’ll be enough too.
I’m still figuring out how to respect and honor my inner introvert. Every time I think I’ve got it under control, I have another little crash and burn that proves otherwise. It’s a long road, and if you’re walking it too, I salute you.
12 Comments + Posted in: personality, singleness
On September 8, 2011, Anna Whiston-Donaldson’s two kids went out to play in the rain with friends. Her twelve-year-old son, Jack, fell into a flooded, fast-moving creek and did not survive. Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love is an account of the accident, the aftermath, and Anna’s grief process over the following year or so as she lived out every mother’s nightmare, trying to put herself and her family back together.
If you’ve ever unexpectedly lost someone precious to you, you will relate to and feel validated by Rare Bird. Anna is despairing yet hopeful, faithful yet furious, and she doesn’t sugarcoat any of it. She perfectly illustrates how deeply it sucks to be a walking cautionary tale, to be the tragedy inspiring everyone around you to hold their loved ones closer (which is one of my lasting emotional imprints from my divorce). I’m thankful for her honesty, not only in admitting to her own raw emotions but also in talking about mystical experiences that might sound a little crazy to those who haven’t passed through a deep valley. I got chills as she described Holy Spirit-y things I’ve never talked about much, and felt reassured even years after the fact. I also nodded along with her words about how loss changes relationships, and you may be surprised by who does and does not show up for you – a side effect that doesn’t get much press.
Rare Bird is wrenching – I felt wrung out when I was finished and even cried on a plane reading it. But it’s also a beautiful story of a remarkable boy and his remarkable mother, and I was glad to bear witness with them.
Rare Bird is available now in bookstores and online. You can also find Anna at her blog, An Inch of Gray.
Recommended for: Anyone who’s experienced loss, or who wants to help and understand someone who has.
See also: Invitation to Tears by Jonalyn Fincher and Aubrie Hills; Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman
I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review program. I was not required to write a positive review, and the opinions I have expressed are my own.
2 Comments + Posted in: book reviews, grief