PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 27 or This Means War

For a book that came out this year, I read Ernest Cline's Armada which came out this month. I'm in a FB group for this challenge and was able to sort of read along with someone else in the group. I'm waiting for him to wrap up so we can discuss without spoilers.

I was worried going in. Most of the themes Cline used in his story were so common in science fiction, they've become tropes. I liked the originality of Ready Player One but wasn't sure it could be replicated in such a common plot. Cline managed to pull it off. He made reference to all of the other stories that told similar tales but, I think, managed to make this his own.

It was as clear cut as 'must destroy aliens.' I was glad Cline managed to make the story deeper and more complicated. I can't say too much without spoilers but the plot has layers and big reveals that would put Shyamalan to shame. It also ended on such a note that I expect this is the first in a series. It could stand on its own but there's definitely more story here. Now that the biggest overused plot elements are out of the way, I want to see where this story can go.

I absolutely enjoyed this but it didn't have the same magic as his first one. I spent the first ~50 pages wondering if this was going to be a repeat of his first book (holy fan boy there's some overlap). After that I was worried it would be a repeat of the same story we've heard several times over. It was hard to relax and get into the story.

Once Cline was able to grow beyond the somewhat hackneyed set up, it was incredibly interesting and worth the read. If this becomes part of a series, the second book will definitely be better. It wasn't a sophomore slump but I hope his next work will be better.

July Shopfessions

Kickstarter
The Secret Loves of Geek Girls - $49
Elysian Springs - $20

Clothes
Skull sweater - $35
Two Dresses and Leggings - $107

Books
BookOutlet - $26
Amazon - $43
The Reading Room - $23

Music
Jillian Aversa - $10
zircon - $6

Makeup
Bite Duo Lipstick - $12
Makeup Forever Lipstick Shade 51 - $20
Sephora Eyeliner Shade 12 - $13

MISC
Shipping - $9.95
Hot Topic - $54.81

Returns/Extra Earned
eshakti - $39.45
PoshMark - $32
Sold books - $25

I found out about the Kickstarter from BuzzFeed. I've been trying to avoid Kickstarter but they seem to find me.

I wanted some more work dresses so I used a discount code for Torrid and shipped it for free to my local store. The sweater? See Poshmark below. Can't sell without seeing what's for sale.

Book outlet had given me a $5 off coupon so I got several books I'd been wanting to get my hands on. The Reading Room offered me a 40% off + free shipping code the same day the author of one of my favorite books drops a new title. I'm actually reading it now along with someone else as part of the PopSugar Challenge.

I tried 4 different bookstores to find Living Well, Spending Less by Ruth Soukup before I gave up and got it on Amazon. I added some other things to get the free shipping. I really hope Ms. Soukup can help me in not spending any more.

As for makeup, I figured out how to work everything that wasn't mascara after the age of 25. In a few short years I've escalated to the point where I can't be left unsupervised in Sephora. I stopped by to pick up a few basic pieces to build my nonexistent face collection and this resulted in a few impulse purchases. From Amazon I ordered 3 lipsticks, 2 of which were for costumes.

I don't have a good excuse for Hot Topic. I wanted a smaller backpack for the weekend and the necklace was perfect for a cosplay Boyfriend and I do.

My grand total of unnecessary stuff for July? $359.76 Ouch. Another month confirms what rubbish I am at not spending money. For almost all of these I can hear a voice in my head saying "Excuses, not reasons." With a regular rent check to go along with my cell phone, COBRA, and car insurance bills, it has become very clear to me that I need to do a lot better than I've been doing.

At least I've gotten better at counteracting my spending habit. PoshMark was a recent discovery via a Hello Giggles article. One woman managed to pay off her student loans with the site so I decided to sell clothes that didn't fit or I didn't need. I bought a sweater but I've culled my closet once again and have several pieces that will hopefully earn more than the $0 I was getting with them sitting in my closet unused.

Earnings for July? $96.45. That counteracts the spending total to $263.31. With the new budget I'll have to be on, that's still too much but I'm hoping a budget app will help me really see where my money needs to go, not just where it doesn't need to have been.

Peeping Tina

I saw this article posted on FB and holy comment section Batman. People had a lot of opinions about this one.

The Cliff notes version is that two women were seated behind a couple at a baseball game. The two women saw the wife sexting "Nancy" who was really a guy named Mark. The women took some photos of her sexting and wrote a note on the game program telling the hubby that she's probably cheating and gave her number if he wanted the photo of the sext.

The main opinion that was floating around was that people need to mind their own damn business. I don't 100% agree with that sentiment because if it was my relationship and my exposure to disease, I'd want to know. I don't care who is telling me or how they found out. The two women telling hubby about the sext wasn't wrong. Splashing it all over the internet, however, was.

The entire internet just became privy to a very personal saga for a couple that could be easily discovered with a few more details. We already know the city and 'Nancy.' This is not something that the couple should have to deal with publicly.

There are also a lot of things the public doesn't know because we're not in the situation. The biggest one that came up in the comments was that hubby might be abusive. That, among other possibilities, seem doubtful based on what we, the public, know.

Hubby is abusive and wifey is looking for a way out
I am highly skeptical that a woman who is being hit or manipulated would be bold/stupid enough to sext a man with hubby three feet away. Most normal women in not-horrible relationships wouldn't risk being found out that easily.

Possessive partners also tend to keep close tabs on the social media and messages that their partner sends. Why send them with him right there when he'll probably check your phone later? Why risk the potentially dangerous consequences of being found out?

The couple is poly or in an open marriage
Those relationships thrive on communication and honesty. The second someone starts keeping secrets, it all goes to hell. If they're relationship wasn't monogamous, why is Mark saved as Nancy?

Nancy is her writing partner and they were working on a romance novel
I was reaching for this one but given the number of people I know who write fiction or fanfic, this is not the stupidest someone has come up with for this.


Anyone who has never looked at someone else's text is full of crap. Whether accidentally or on purpose, it has happened. I was doing my morning shuffle off the train I ended up seeing someone reading an email from Laura. I have no idea what the email was about. I only saw the name but I wasn't trying to see anything.

I found one brilliant thing on some humor site where a woman complained to her friend that a guy kept spying on her texts while she was on the train. Her friend had her delete all the past messages and they went back and forth pretending to plan a hit until he got freaked out and went away. I tried to search for it but holy crap the internet is depressing.

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 26 or Mega Great

For Graphic Novel I read Strong Female Protagonist by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag. I've been experiencing a lot of graphic content this year and I'm absolutely loving it.

I have fallen behind on my Graphic Year challenge but I plan on playing a good game of catch-up so it will balance out (so help me gods). Normally my Graphic Year books get devoured in one sitting after work or on the weekend but Strong Female Protagonist was different.

SFP was long enough and detailed enough to require coming along with me on my commute. I got so invested in the story that I completely devoured it in a day. I want more! If they need to do another Kickstarter for the next volume, I am so in!

It's a variant on the 'world abruptly gets superpowers' plot device. It focuses on Allison or Mega Girl who has super strength, invulnerability, and killer jumping abilities. Allison was Mega Girl for a long time before she realized that saving the day wasn't saving the world, just maintaing the status quo. She unmasks on live TV and tries to lead a semi-normal life.

One of my favorite things about this was the little footnotes on almost every page. "The dog's name is Buster. He's a good boy." and "It actually was her stress ball from home." were so fun. It gave you extra insight into the characters, their lives, their thoughts, and were just funny asides.

Toward the end we realize just how human Allison is with her relationships to other people. At the end we finally meet her little sister and discover some things about her friends that definitely reveal more story to be told. I can't wait to see what else is in store for Mega Girl.

Men Write Women Write Women

I looked at several of my favorite books and I realized, a lot of them are written by men. Many have strong, well developed female protagonists and male authors. People have been making excellent arguments for reading female authors or a more diverse author pool in general but I think exposure to excellent female protagonists is just as important.

I'm not saying men can write women better than women themselves or this list would be a lot longer. Men writing women is not easy as noted by The Atlantic. Tor has an excellent piece not only on writing women well but creating a more gender balance narrative as a whole.

The reason this thought occurred to me was that when I think of well written characters that I have loved, these are the books that immediately spring to mind.

The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
The Checquy Files by Daniel O'Malley
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The idea behind encouraging consumption by female authors is that it strengthens their voice and increases opportunities when their publisher sees that they do well. When I think about female authors with excellent female protagonists, I think:

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

These are just a handful of personal favorites and is not meant to be in any way comprehensive. I'd love to hear more about what female characters you love and who created them.

Music: Girls Chase Boys by Ingrid Michaelson

Princesses and Zombies

This post was inspired by this BuzzFeed article where Lily James, or live-action Cinderella, guesses which princesses would survive a zombie uprising. I wanted to call a lot of BS on who survives and why.

Snow White - Very unlikely
She is a naive and helpless the entire story. She only survives on the charity of others. If she can use that animal camaraderie on getting violent predators to attack zombies, she could make it. Otherwise, Snow will definitely need that glass coffin back.

Aurora - Die, early
Much like Snow, she exists to be pretty, naive, delicate, and useless in emergencies. Even the fairies charged with her care would be pretty useless. They can't make a cake or dress. How are they going to come up with a battle plan?

Ariel - It Depends
Mermaid Ariel would be fine. Zombies would decay in the water and those that didn't float or decompose would be stuck on the bottom. Merpeople aren't bound by gravity. They can move the same way fish do and would have the luxury of being able to be just out of reach while they slaughter zombies.

Human Ariel would be zombie chum the second they breached the palace walls. She's a wayward teenager with no clue about the world she's living in and, much like the others, is naive and useless in combat.

Belle - Likely
She would be useless in physical combat but her father's an inventor and she reads nonstop. At some point she had to stumble across nonfiction and get some decent ideas about how to protect herself. Her combat skills are weak so without backup she'd be a liability. If Adam is still a beast and his staff still inanimate, they'd be pretty unstoppable. A zombie can't eat a candle or dresser. If everyone's human, things might get dicey. Her odds are good, not great.

Jasmine - Very Likely
A princess with access to her own army, in a hostile environment to zombies, with a genie, a magic carpet, a tiger, and a hubby with intimate knowledge of the streets? She's got this. Even if she's solo, the palace walls are sturdy enough to give her time to think of a back-up plan.

Pocahontas - Lives
Friend of nature and hunter, she would become a complete badass. She knows the land and can probably call in a few favors with bears and wolves.

Mulan - Lives
Cosplays  a man in the Chinese army and no one notices? She could walk among zombies with the right camouflage. She's also a kick-ass soldier who could slay some shambling dead without breaking a sweat.

Merida - Lives
A strong, fierce, independent archer, Merida would lose that teenage angst very quickly and become a better shot than Daryl on TWD.

Tiana - Lives
Tiana is no stranger to hard work and doesn't have time for other people's stupid nonsense. She'd become Michonne PDQ in that situation.

Rapunzel - Likely
We're back to sheltered and naive but Rapunzel had enough spunk to get out of several sticky situations. If she's in the tower and/or has the hair, she'll do OK. She can hoist herself up a tree with the hair and swing down a la Tarzan with a frying pan if the zombies start to cluster. However, I have doubts about her lasting long term. If it's after the haircut, maybe no so much.

Anna - Even Odds
Sheltered her entire life, Anna is completely clueless and only moderately useful when the wolves start attacking. If she had to fight her way through a zombie hoard without Kristoff or Elsa to help, she'd probably wouldn't make it. If someone was around to watch her back and train her, she'd make it by the skin of her teeth.

Elsa - Lives
A master of ice and snow, Elsa could readily create an army of snowmen to take on the ones she couldn't freeze and shatter on her own.

Making My Poshmark

I found out about Poshmark from Hello Giggles. Since I've been purging stuff, I've got a big pile of clothes in good condition just taking up space. I tried listing some items on Poshmark and I've already sold one dress.

It's very driven by social media so I've got to log in regularly and play the game. The downside of playing the game is looking at other people's listings and finding things I want. I bought a sweater someone had so I kind of broke even on the dress I sold.

According to the website, the more you list, the more you sell so I'm hoping to get more items listed by week's end. I've already learned if you lower the price of something or edit the description, it will renew interest. Send me good juju so I can get these clothes to people who want them and make a little bank in the process.

Life Is Happening

Things are changing but somethings appear to be staying the same.

First, the good news: Boyfriend and I got the apartment we applied for. We will be moving in next month. I've already started the process of moving some of my things into his apartment since I'm over there a lot. It's not like I'm going to read all 600 of my books in the next month and a half.

Since I've got the challenge, I'm fishing from a somewhat small pond. This doesn't mean I haven't found ways around it. Both Jen Doll and Courtney Robertson's book weren't originally planned but I realized they worked for those categories. That came in handy since I had nothing for 'love triangle' on my own.

It's going to be a big change for both of us but we're excited. I feel like my life has been on hold since college and I'm done waiting. I'm ready to get started.

The bad news: The best lead I had on a job fell through. A friend submitted my resume to her boss for a temp-to-perm position at her job. I spoke with Boss Lady on the phone last week and she was very nice. We got on well and she told me she'd let me know next week. I heard back yesterday. A candidate applied with the ideal experience for a new project they've got.

She couldn't hire me and I could tell she genuinely felt bad about it. They're keeping my resume on file but it's not a huge company and a position would have to open up. I can't bank on that. I applied for a few position already this morning (thanks insomnia) but I don't want to set my future rent payments on maybe.

When Boyfriend and I get back from the family trip in August and get moved in, I'll apply at Costco. What do you do with a BA in English? Not a helluva lot it turns out.

Current Music: Drop Dead Cynical by Amaranthe

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 25 or Something to Chew On

It was an easy choice on which book to revisit from my childhood. I found it going through things for the move and couldn't say no. For the first time in probably 20 years, I reread Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett.

Since it is a children's book, it's driven by the art as much as anything else. Ron Barrett did a great job including the title in a weather forecast on a TV.

There were eggs hanging from trees, a buck with food in its antlers, a roofless restaurant, and a birthday party ruined by brussel sprouts. As the weather takes a turn for the worst you see skies full of T-bone steak clouds, a man trapped under a hamburger, doughnuts rolling after people in the street, and a tomato tornado where someone is reading Gone with the Wind. 

One of my favorite scenes was the sail boats of bread and cheese as people fled the town. You can see a storm of subs and, I think, meatballs or grapes behind them. It was hard to tell.

This is one story that will always hold up for me because it's so simple and silly. I recently discovered that it's part of a series so I'll definitely be including the other books on the list of things I'll have to get my future kids.

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 24 or Exploring Mean Streets

For the bottom of my to-read list, I grabbed an anthology I've had since 2010 and haven't managed to read. Mean Streets contains 4 novellas from popular series by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski. 

Each story could stand on its own and communicated the rules of its world. However, the Dresden story would not have made much sense to me without a vague knowledge of those characters. The other 3 stories worked very well as independent entities. 

I definitely want to explore Green's Nightside. The only thing that bothered me about that story was that I had a hard time visualizing it in my head. The physics and rules of the world were a bit fuzzy but it was part of what made it interesting. Richardson's Greywalker has definitely had more intense adventures but this tale was very personal and character driven. Both are worlds I think are worth more investigation (pun slightly intended).

Sniegoski's tale of angels, ancient races, and grief didn't grab me in the same way as the others. I have no doubt it's a compelling series and the creatures that came from biblical myth are interesting but I'm not as excited about it as the others. 

I enjoyed these tales but this is one of the few anthologies that had no tale I was interested in revisiting. I'm trying to get more of these anthologies from the library since I don't want to part with them because at least one tale will resonate with me too much. If they're borrowed in the first place, I won't have the desire to hang on to quite so many of these.

What Depression Really Looks Like

People who have never been depressed like to call suicide "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." What they don't understand is that it doesn't feel temporary while you're living it. It feels like it will never stop. 

Steven Fry says the depressed "get overwhelmed by the monstrosity of being" and looking into "a futureless future." He is exactly right.

You feel so remarkably pointless, like the world would be wholly unchanged without you in it. It is not a better place for having you in it and might be improved without you. 

Would anything be different today if you didn't get out of bed? Would any major crisis happen if you failed to leave the house? Would there be any consequences at all?

You seriously doubt that many people would miss you. After 6 months, you assume most everyone would be fine.   You do not doubt how replaceable you'd be. Frankly, you think some people might be happy to be rid of you.

You don't understand why these thoughts aren't normal.

The 'futureless future' is just a continuation of the existence that brought you to this dark place. You are incapable of imagining any improvement to your situation. It is almost literally more than your mind can fathom.

You just want to curl into a ball of misery and be left alone, hoping it goes away. Sometimes, you even enjoy the misery at its worst because at least it means you're feeling something. It's a change of pace from the numb exhaustion of pretending to be OK.

You can even be OK, at least for a while. You can smile, you can laugh, you can enjoy things but depending on how close you are to the edge, it doesn't take much for it to all disappear.

Nobody likes dealing with a depressed person. Talking to us about why, on a global level, our problems aren't that bad doesn't register anything but guilt. If you can't talk away cancer, why should you be able to talk away a chemical imbalance that takes away our ability to feel joy?

The most isolating feeling is when your friends are right there and none of them have a clue how much you're drowning in this. You pull yourself together because you don't know how to explain this feeling to people who have so little wrong in their lives, let alone in their own brains.

Telling them how you really feel runs the risk of finding out a truth you might not want to know: when your going gets tough, they will be the first to get going. 

You don't trust most of the people in your life to hear any for help as anything more than a shout in the void. Because the friends who do care can't make you feel better, eventually you start to make your friends feel pointless. You stop reaching out to them so at least you can pretend it's your choice when your alone. 

I've had some version of this existing within me my entire life, including childhood. It's severity fluctuates but it has never been completely gone. 

Destructive or harmful things are appealing to me more than ever. The people I want to talk to about these desires is the smallest it's ever been. 

I think the moment that scared me the most was when I had a dream where I took an entire bottle of prescription antidepressants with the intention of ending my own life. According to the Internet, killing yourself in a dream means a desperate desire to escape your waking life. Where do you escape when you have no where to go and the thing you're trying to escape is your own life, your own brain?