PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 19

For a book recommended by a friend, I read The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. It was recommended to me by several friends.

WARNING: Contains minor spoilers

O'Malley created a rich and complicated world with inventive characters, enemies, and abilities. It grabbed me from the first line "The body you're in used to be mine." It never stopped moving.

Myfawny (pronounced Miffany because Welsh) Thomas comes to in a park surrounded by bodies. A letter in her coat pocket begins to explain what is going on. Now she must figure out who she is, who wishes her harm, and how to handle her day job as an official at the Checquy, the secret agency that handles supernatural threats against Britain.

While this book seemed a bit daunting, it never felt long. I loved every page and nothing felt unnecessary or excessive. There's so many little details that helped everything click into place like the scarring on Myfawny's throat, Grantchester's concern with the residence decor, or the heart in a box. O'Malley treated the reader as intelligent and capable from the outset but never giving us more than we could handle.

I enjoyed the balance of live action and letters of Thomas past. We got a nice blend of Myfawny as she was and who she was becoming in a way that built more suspense and tension. If you don't mind the supernatural in your fiction, go out and read this right now.

The year is officially half over and I'm not even halfway done yet. It's 52 books if you count the trilogy and I've got a ways left to go. I seriously wonder if I'll be able to finish this.

May Shopfessions

Kickstarter
Little Free Library Kickstarter - $44
Rain of the Ghosts Audioplay - $25
Amber Skye EP - $10
MAE Graphic Novel - $50
Broken Frontier - $40

Books
BN - $13.70
BN -$31
Politics and Prose - $45

Clothes
Ruth Badass Ginsburg - $26.59

MISC
Nightwish album - $11.99
Inside Amy Schumer MakeUp song - $1.29
Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical - $5.04

Refunds/Returns
Hot Topic + $42.59
Sold Books + $25.88

I have learned I'm just as dangerous on Kickstarter as I am on other retail sites. Kickstarter has the added bonus of helping a cause or some cool media that might not otherwise exist. I wasn't sure if all of them would get funded but everything came through at the end.

The RBG was an oatmeal unisex tank that was on sale and the last tank top I'll need for summer. After RBG's glorious showdown about gay marriage, I wanted to represent. I'm waiting until I have income again before I get a Notorious RBG shirt.

One of my 2 BN runs were with a gift card and a coupon but it still wasn't great. I felt bad enough that I wound up returning one of the books. Progress? Politics and Prose was from a night with Neil Gaiman. I paid full price for Trigger Warning and Ocean at the End of the Lane but they were autographed. I regret nothing.

My friend got me tickets for the Nightwish concert and they're touring this album. I tried to hold out to get it with Viggle points but they hadn't stocked it in the store after a month so I caved and bought it. The worst part of it was that I got food poisoning and couldn't go to the concert. BF filmed over 30 minutes of footage so I didn't totally miss out.

As for getting money back, I got a Hot Topic return processed (finally) and got a check from selling some of my books. However, there was a con at the end of this month. Inevitably, I did some damage.

Awesome Con Haul
Zorphbert & Fred - $30
Never Have I Ever card game - $25
How to Train Your Dragqueen - $22
Don't Blink Tank - $20
Curls comic - $15
The Shadow of the Gauntlet by Casey Caracciolo - $15
Live Long and Suck It tee - $15
Pirate Eye - $10
Partholon by D. Krauss - $10

Baron Syndicate - $5

Total: $167

I had a cash budget of $120-130. I didn't keep exact track but my plan as to stop shopping when I ran out of cash. This worked reasonably well until I saw Never Have I Ever the card game. I wound up combining my gift budget with my personal fun budget and gave myself some wiggle room on my credit card.

I didn't need any of the shirts but they made me smile. When vendors remember you, it definitely motivates you to spend money. I am astonished by how many vendors remember me. D. Krauss saw me when I was getting worn out and let me chill at his booth for a while. I gave him some banana chips and we talked about dogs.

This brings my grand total of unnecessary spending to $402.14. Ouch. And I just got the wireless bill and my COBRA bills. This is less than ideal timing. I really need money. I've got to hit up that vendor who wanted a pair of my earrings.

Learn from Your Dislikes

The Benefits of Reading a Book You Don't Like has been making the rounds on the internet. It was insightful considering I've recently finished one of the worst books I've ever read. How a story is told versus what the story is are different things.

The 'Feminist' and The Cowboy could be very compelling prose in other hands. Alisa Valdes' writing style was too casual with a variety of irrelevant non sequiturs. The reason memoirists do that is to feel friendly and familiar but Valdes was trying way too hard. The tactic was painfully obvious and made the writing look cheap.

Another issue is that at no point does Valdes acknowledge that her idea of feminism is radical and extreme. Despite a personal reworking of what feminism means to her, she never makes it clear to uninformed readers there's different levels or other schools of thought. Thanks for perpetuating negative stereotypes Miz Valdes.

There are also a lot of things in her relationship that are clearly unhealthy. I'm still shocked that she can't see past the blatant manipulation of him being contrite about his infidelity but ending their relationship the second he has a reason. It made me appreciate that Christian Grey acknowledged he was screwed up.

This article gives me a reason to go back and reread Catcher in the Rye. It has to be a classic for a reason, right? I'll get to it someday, maybe, ever.

You can dislike something but if you can't articulate why, it doesn't help anyone. Lena Dunham is a very talented woman. Girls is compulsively watchable. I don't watch it because I find the characters to be insufferable narcissistic screw ups. I'm not devoting my limited TV to watching people I wouldn't tolerate in real life.

Experiencing things you don't like helps you appreciate the things you do like and it gives you a better vocabulary to understand why. There is a benefit to consuming media you don't like but not all media is inherently worth consumption.

10 Year Reminder I've Failed To Do Anything with My Life

My 10 year high school reunion is coming up in less than 2 weeks. I said back when I first heard rumblings about it that I wouldn’t go unless I was working. I’ve had one interview in 2 months. I heard a little bit from the agencies today but I’m not optimistic.

My job search has been so abysmal this time around that my plan is to move to NOVA in August and try to get a job at Costco. One friend said "Well, it's just until something better comes along." I didn't have the heart to tell her that by doing that, I've admitted to myself that I've given up on better coming along. Four years of college and I can go back to working retail. I feel like such a wunderkind.

In addition to my complete lack of success as a member of the human race, tickets for the reunion are also $60 a pop. You get a commemorative wine glass and part of it’s a donation but that’s still a lot of money for not a lot of party. It’s at the high school from 4-6 cookout style.

My unemployment payment is at a record low. I think the woman deliberately screwed me because I forgot to mention I got one week’s severance much like she forgot to ask. When she came back to talk to me about it, she treated me like I was deliberately lying to her. I genuinely forgot because unemployment took their sweet time getting in touch. By the time I finally heard from someone, that severance was gone.

I’m not interested in spending $60 or $120 I don’t have. I can feel like just as much of a failure elsewhere for free. My depression is making sure of that. It’s not the worst it’s ever been but I recently had a dream where I deliberately took an entire month’s worth of anti-depressants with the intention of taking my own life. That was new and it’s not good. Something has to change and soon.

A Graphic Year Week 21 or Not Little Endowed Red Riding Hood

This week’s graphic novel got pretty graphic. I read Grimm Fairy Tale: Myths and Legends from Zenescope comics. They’ve made their bread and butter by turning fairy tales and folklore into horror stories.

One of the characters in this story made her first appearance in the first Grimm Fairy Tale series. I’d read enough to know what they were talking about but dropped off early enough that I felt like I was missing some of the major plot that went into this. I stopped reading that series right before the storyline to a big twist.

It does well as a self-contained horror trade with a very stereotypical plot set up. Folks are stranded in a remote location by a storm, issues with the power arise, and something is picking them off. Despite the stock set-up, the villain is somewhat unique. The story ends in a way that makes it clear the story is only beginning.

One of my biggest complaints is that most of the Zenescope art is basically soft-core porn. There are lots of Jessica Rabbit type figures that are scantily clad but still manage to rip their clothes.  I’m curious about the stories they have to tell but everything is a perfect example of the hyper-sexualization of the female form in comics. My inner feminist killjoy has trouble reconciling that.

A curious read but I think I’ll do more delving from my library.

A Graphic Year Weeks 19 & 20

Week 19

New York Four was an enjoyable read and had great art. It’s a coming of age story of a young woman with sheltered parents, a rebel sister, and a new start at NYU. How does she deal with having friends, going to concerts, having a sister for the first time in a decade?

It was a compelling narrative that did a great job of using NYC as a character. I liked the various tidbits and intros about where the story was taking place in the city. The intro boxes with name, status, etc. were great. Informative and cheeky.

The friendship between the four girls seemed to develop instantaneously. I wanted to see more of where that came from and what went into it. Wood did something similar with sneakerfreak. I wanted to see a bit more of what went into that relationship.

I know there’s a sequel so I’m looking forward to seeing if it addresses the motivations and consequences of the sneakerfreak reveal. There’s also other drama the girls set up for themselves that I’d like to see played out. You leave the story know it’s not over yet.

Week 20

For this week, I but the bullet and started to catch up on Fables. The last 2 trades have had storylines that rip my heart out and made me grieve for the characters. I was afraid to see what Bill Willingham would do this time.

After the loss of the last two trades, this one wasn’t nearly as depressing. Rose Red has become a true paladin of hope and has started a new Camelot to find her agents of second chances. Lady Lake comes to answer questions about the fate of a beloved character and we get a peak into what I suspect will become the next battle of Fables.

This story did a good job of showing how many of the character before have grown into their roles such as Winter and Therese. We have new villains with Brandish and Duglas whose evils I’m sure we’ll feel in the coming issues. We got some answers about the fates of Boy Blue and Bigby and a few more questions.

The trade did an excellent job of developing new storylines, answering lingering questions, and introducing recent characters without losing focus. It also presented the beginning of the end. What ended Fabletown was not violence, blood, or magic. It was the freedom to finally return home. That is an ending I'm looking forward to reading.

As ever I was impressed with the art and even took a moment to appreciate how the borders changed with each character and location. Always a fine attention to detail with this series.

Summarizing what this season of The Bacherloette should look like

We'll open with 2 bachelorettes and Chris Harrison will pretend to feelbad even though it's his idea. The guys will get to choose the girl. This is a great twist even though we'd never do this to the bachelor guys.

We'll pretend to care about feminism by inviting Amy Schumer on for an episode. That should placate people until we slut shame Kaitlin for kissing all the guys even though Chris Soules did the exact same thing.

Because the 2 bachelorette plot twist can't generate drama for more than 2 episodes, we'll throw in a villain from Andi's. It will piss the existing guys off and bump up ratings.

That should work until Kaitlin is busted for having sex with one of the guys. ABC is owned by Disney and the only permitted reading material for contestants is a Bible so sex is bad. We'll slut shame her like crazy despite sex being a normal part of a healthy relationship. After we bust her like a teenager instead of a 28 year old woman, we'll make her admit it to all the remaining guys to add to the shame.

Let the degradation and feminist criticism begin.

Music: The Verge by Le Tigre