Life Reflections As I Turn 30

8:21 PM by TWoP Fan
Tomorrow is my 30th Birthday. Obviously that means I should reflect upon where I am and draw conclusions about my awesomeness or lack thereof.

Age: 30

Spouse: 1 Husband, Jeff. The Shawn to my Gus, the Hank to my Peggy, the Red to my Kitty.

Children: 1, Hannah. My reason for waking up in the morning, my sunshine.

Job: Grocery Merchandiser. Good pay, moderately good hours (as in I could use more), flexible schedule. And I like it. Good for now.

Education: BA in Psychology from Mesa State. Loved college, one of the best times in my life.

Goals Achieved: Ran a 5K. Lost 40lbs. Run for fun, on purpose. Graduated college. Married Jeff. Had a kid. Flew on a plane, saw the ocean, went to a foreign country (Canada counts!). Had my writing published and paid for! Got to write for Pajiba. Own our own home. Created a fabulous financial plan.

Goals Remaining: Pay off truck (5 months), Student loans (15 months) and house (10 years). Run a 10K. Run at least one race every year. Maintain a home my daughter can be proud to have friends come to. Be financially comfortable enough that we can do a little traveling with Hannah. Do some pen-and-ink published freelance writing. Stop worrying about what other people think. Make more friends. Be more outgoing.
Stop dwelling on things.

Reflections: Since meeting Jeff my life has been a series of adventures I could never have imagined and that now I can't imagine missing.

Hannah is everything i ever could have wanted in a child. She's smart, funny and kind. I hope she grows up to be everything she wants to be and more.

My life is very fulfilling and content. All I have to do is let it be.
Labels: , 1 comments

Five Things I Think You Should Know About

7:13 PM by TWoP Fan
1.  Flylady.com. Yes, it's a good housecleaning website, but it's so much more than that! I ignore most of the tips now, but what made it worthwhile was developing routines and a plan to managing my life. My house is now never more than 20-30 minutes away from company clean and I have the right amount of stuff for my house.

2. Sidereel.com.  A TV watching website that I am completely certain is legal. Big Love, Dexter, etc are all up the next day. Good quality stuff.

3. Pajiba.com. A movie review website with some of the weirdest and most original commenters I've come across. The reviews are smart, not pandering and there's enough stuff to keep you entertained for days. Also, the Big Love reviews are phenomenal.

4. SparkPeople.com. Using SparkPeople for fitness and food monitoring I dropped 40lbs in 9 months. Now I use it to check in. It's got everything; workout tips, fitness and nutrition articles, member blogs, forums, groups for different lifestyles and a multitude of other great features.

5. Getrichslowly.com. Best personal finance website I've read, hands down. JD is the owner and the main writer, but there's a few staff members on board now. The topics aren't just boring mutual funds and savings accounts, it's often real questions with real answers you can use. The commenters are fairly knowledgeable and there's a great feature called 'Reader Questions' where the commenters give you their best personal finance advice. If you can't find something useful there, you're not looking.
0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #8 – Over Her Dead Body by Kate White

1:41 PM by TWoP Fan
This is book number four of the Bailey Weggins crime series, book two of which was reviewed in my last CBR3 review. The outline is the same, smart sleuth Bailey finds herself in any number of improbable scenarios, yet comes out on top. On principle, these books shouldn't be good. And they aren't, exactly. They aren't literary classics, but each book has an interesting twist on the mystery and/or Bailey's life that brings a new spark to a familiar formula.

In this outing, our intrepid heroine has found a new writing gig at Buzz magazine, a scandal rag. The insider knowledge of the magazine industry is the unique angle this series takes and it's a pretty good one. As Bailey meets the staff and figures things out, so do the readers, which is a good way to keep a fourth book interesting. Bailey meets the requisite ragtag team of reporters and her new boss, Mona Hodges, who, despite the similar moniker, wishes she was half the woman Meryl Streep's Miranda Hodges was. She's mean and petty and soon, dead. Bailey stumbles across the body and decides that she must figure out who did it, as she hates to work with possible murders.

This book is less about the mystery than the magazine landscape and the murderer is easily guessed, and it's not a well-thought out mystery. Everyone is a suspect for no apparent reason, people do suspicious things for no reason, people jump to completely illogical conclusions for no reason. It's saving grace is that the writing is sharp and the story is entertaining and funny.

I live in a small town, so the whole idea of stumbling over a dead body every few weeks or so is a little unbelievable to me. Bailey takes it awfully well, and if she gets to a point where she's creating those bodies, it would definitely move this series to a whole new level.

Rating: No a re-read, but worth a glance. In the series, book three in the series is my favorite.
Labels: , 0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #7 – A Body to Die For by Kate White

3:29 PM by TWoP Fan
Kate White, who is the editor-in-chief of Cosmo, writes a series of 'cozies' (chick-lit mysteries) about Bailey Weggins, an amateur sleuth who works in the magazine business. A Body to Die For is the second in the series, but in this style of series, it doesn't really matter where you start. There's always a few identifying paragraphs to get you up to speed.

Bailey works for Gloss magazine, a Cosmo knock-off. She's a freelancer, with what sounds like an amazing contract. She also stumbles across dead bodies. A lot. Enough to where you think people would be a little concerned. Since Bailey is a true crime writer (of course she is), she obviously needs to investigate the murders she comes across, because it's not like we have people who are trained to do that very thing. Oh, wait.

She basically gets in the way, pisses people off, snoops in places she shouldn't and jumps to conclusions constantly. Normally this would be too much to take in a series, but Kate White's writing sells it. Yeah, Bailey is forceful and not nearly as clever as she gives herself credit for, but she's also witty, sarcastic and fun. She's an interesting person and she does interesting things. The secondary characters are never fully fleshed out, but serve as set pieces to set up Bailey's next move, like many other serials. However, a few characters move through the series with her, her boss at Gloss, Cat Jones, who is delightfully bitchy and her neighbor Landon, who is a delightfully spry gay man who cooks a mean dinner.

This mystery brings Bailey to the spa owned by a family friend. After Bailey arrives, a masseuse is murdered. Naturally. Bailey stays on at the spa to try and help figure out what's happening, so the business doesn't go under. The mystery isn't anything overly clever and the writer is clearly going for the twist ending that isn't so much of a twist as an ending that comes out of no where and makes no sense. Fortunately, Bailey's just cool enough that you're glad she doesn't die and it sets up enough of an end to make the next one look appealing as well.

Rating: Good for a beach read or a stormy night. It's not Dickens, but it's not Twilight, either.
Labels: , 0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #6 – Matched by Ally Condie

2:56 PM by TWoP Fan
Matched started with the concept of a new world where everything is perfect and there is not choice but perfection. It's a well-traveled idea, yet in the right hands a new world can take shape, such as in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. Unfortunately, while Matched is an interestiing idea and the beginning of the book starts with promise, the scope of the book is shallow and poorly executed.

Matched is a Young Adult novel, starting with the theme of love. Only in Society, you are Matched with your intended at a Matching ceremony where you receive a picture and get to eat decedent food that is chosen for flavor rather than nutritional value. Cassia is Matched to her best friend and neighbor, a surprising choice, but obviously the right one, as Society does not make mistakes. However, Cassia also sees another face on her Matchcard when she goes to view her Match card and Cassia seeks him out.

The novel tries to explore broad themes of what we are left with if things like poetry, art and music are regulated and chosen for us, but ultimately it is supposed to be a love story about a rebellious young woman. The story starts off drawing an intriguing place, but the story itself overshadows the characters, when the story tells us what the characters feel and why, rather than showing natural emotions and decisions of the characters. The love story rings hollow, because it's hard to see what specialness these characters hold for each other. The book shows a bleak, automated, grey society and that greyness permeates the story more than it should.

Rating: A good story idea, but it lacks vividness and realness.
Labels: , 0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #5 – Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

8:47 PM by TWoP Fan
Book 5:
Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Read: January 3, 2011

Mockingjay is the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy, which could have been narrowed down to two books with a decent editor. While the second installment was repetitive and didn't fully realize the feeling of revolution that permeated the Districts, this book is much sharper and stronger, though the first book is easily the strongest.

When we meet again our heroine Katniss, she's just been broken out of the arena from her second Hunger Games and she's being spirited off to District 13, the fabled land that no one really thought existed. As it were, District 13 is composed of a vast underground complex that allows for food, weapons and living quarters. District 13 has developed a regimented way of life that can only exist with hardword and sacrifice, nothing new to the refugees from District 12. Katniss is not a willing Mockingjay at first, working through layers of scars and wounds that are both physical and mental. Her anguish over seeing so much destruction and death weighs her down and gives her a painful reluctance to make the smallest connection with people. Seeing her drawn out by another Hunger Games survivor, Finnick, is both touching and tragic.

As our rebels delve deeper into District 13, they must learn the culture, adjust to being forced into a routine and live underground. The prose is sparse, but worded carefully, much like District 13 itself. The comparison between the false freedom of the capital with it's regulated 'choices' and District 13 with it's restricted freedoms is powerful.

The second half with Katniss becoming more involved in the war effort felt more forced. When Katniss moves into a more hands-on status as a soldier in the war, there is little of her feelings about what she is taking on, more of her being directed and moved. The spark that made her on fire seemed only an ember. Katniss couldn't sustain the mentality of a soldier or the show the discipline that she was expected to have as it pertained to her recovery, let alone a war effort. For the first half of the book she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, but it was a stretch that she suddenly could make herself functional to kill more people.

Gale was another problem for me. If her was supposed to be Katniss' soulmate, it failed miserably in execution. He was arrogant and dismissive and almost a caricature of a pro-war person. Peeta, on the other hand, became more interesting in this book by far. Any time he was at odds with Katniss, I felt like it was real emotion. I thought he made her a stronger, better person and Gale drew her down into the selfish person she feared she was.

Rating: A decent ending, although it felt rushed in places and less thought-out than The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games easily stands alone, but the other two books do add some nice details to the story.

*SPOILER* My least favorite thing in this book was the casual way that deaths were handed, especially deaths that would have had real consequences and would have had effects on many people besides Katniss. I felt like they were given a few lines and it brushed past it, almost as if it was more of for shock rather than a plot necessity. Because really, President Snow was evil enough. Killing kids wasn't necessary to make him more evil.

*END SPOILER*
Labels: 0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #4 – Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

8:52 PM by TWoP Fan
I read Catching Fire about a week after reading The Hunger Games and it definitely colored how I reacted it. The plot in this book seemed a little weaker and frankly, somewhat redundant. I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers, although I think that this book really added very little to the overall narrative of the trillogy.

So Katniss and Petra made it out of the games and now they are ensconced in the Victor's Villiage in District 12. Both of the familes have relocated and Katniss is coming to terms with no longer needing to provide everything for her family and with the nightmares that follow her participation in the hunger games.

I found myself wanting more description of Katniss coming home and putting her life back together. We don't get to see her return to her family and her district, which seems more pronounced, given the description of the Victory Tour and Katniss and Peetra reacting to the families of the fallen Tributes, which was beautifully written and quite touching. The allusions to the rebellion that brews underneath the surface are subtle and well played. I found much more interest in Peeta as a character this time around. I feel like he was given more depth, which served his arc well.

This book needed more time with Gale. Gale and Katniss can see each other more now and have some weak sexual tension. For her part, Katniss doesn't really seem that interested in Gale OR Peetra, save for liking them enough not want to see them dead. And hey, sometimes that's enough. I feel like Gale was the weakest of the characters. I understand his motivations and drive because of his past, but the character never expresses anything solid, making the reader piece together the emotional conflicts.

I felt that some of this book was really a revisit to the previous book and had me less interested. There were so many ways that this book could go and I feel like it took the easiest way to get to the next book. I was honestly a bit disappointed.

Rating: Not as satisfying as The Hunger Games, but an interesting read. Comparatively, The Hunger Games took one day to read, this took three.
Labels: 1 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #3 – Obsession by Karen Robards

8:33 PM by TWoP Fan
I've never read Karen Robards before. I kind of assumed she was a Danielle Steel kind of writer. You know, girl meets boy, girl and boy fall for each other until some embarrassing plot point drives them apart, boy and girl get back together in a predictable way.

I was pretty close. Just toss in a contrived mystery and you've got the formula.

Now, formulas exist for a reason. They generally work. This one really wasn't terrible as books go, but it there was no heart to it, and no real voice. Our protagonist is Katherine, who lives a normal life until she is the victim of and break and enter where her friend is killed. While she's in the hospital, she doesn't recognize her face or her clothing. Interesting, right? Aren't you going, oooh? Then she meets a doctor, who seems familiar but she can't place him and all her instincts say to run away from her boyfriend Congressman and her life. So she does. She goes on the run with the doctor and for awhile it's entertaining. It gives enough detail to make you wonder where it's going, but soon you can see where it's going and it's not that great. The ending is predictable and the 'twist' ending isn't really. It's surprising in the fact that you saw it coming and then thought, 'No, that would be stupid'. And it was.

It could have been a stronger book with better writing. The characters are bland, don't really do anything interesting and the protagonist never really gets past mild anxiety after being repeatedly shot at, chased and run down. Shock doesn't really translate well to a novel, especially one that's not strongly written.

Rating: The best way to tell if it was good it to see how long of a review it gets. This is one that can be skipped.
Labels: 0 comments

TWoP Fan's CBR-III Review #2 - Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

7:14 PM by TWoP Fan
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of short stories by Stephen King, who is the most prolific retired writer ever. I feel like King does better with short stories. At this point in his career, his editor seems to have trouble telling King when he's been too wordy or too folksy, and he's often both. When he gets into a short story, he seems to have a much better internal editor. On top of that, he seems to be much better at finding the end point to his stories, rather than abruptly stopping or wandering off point to find his way back twenty pages later.

The first story is “1922”. It's your basic man marries wife, has kid, murders wife, gets haunted. It's the perfect setting for King's sayings he's always dragging into his EW column, which are annoying as all get out unless they are well-set into a story. Fortunately, it works well here. The story evokes the rural setting and the desperation of a man in a hard life that's never going to get easier. It's an easy read, not unforgettable, but a nice way to spend some time. He does give the main character the middle name of Leland, which was the name of the evil proprietor in Needful Things, which is my all time favorite King novel. Just an FYI.

The second story, “Big Driver”, is a bit different than the usual supernatural horror. This is about the real horror of a woman attacked and left or dead and what it does to her in the aftermath. It's hard to describe without delving into spoilers, but it is very raw and surprising. King does a nice job with female characters and this story feels real.

"Fair Extension” was an interesting concept that I think hits the mark. A man makes a deal to extend his life at the consequence of a man he hates, who is also his best friend. It's an exploration in jealousy, revenge, betrayal and the idea of getting what we deserve. Can we ever really be happy for someone we love who seems to have so much more than we do?

"A Good Marriage" was my favorite story. It's a simple story of when a wife discovers that he husband of nearly thirty years has a side she's never known about. It's well done and the discoveries are grisly and believable. It's more about what the wife discovers about herself rather than her husband. I was a little hesitant to sleep by my husband that night. Really, what do I know about that guy?

Rating: Fine stories, but not King's best. Also, read Needful Things. Trust me.
Labels: 0 comments

CBR 3: Review #1: The Hunger Games

1:34 PM by TWoP Fan
Book 1:
The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Read: December 19, 2010

I've actually been avoiding reading The Hunger Games for a few months now. I'm one of those people who when everyone says 'Oh my god, this book is so good, you have to read it!', I avoid reading it. Maybe I have too high of expectations and I don't want to be let down. Or find out that the people I consider friends have horrible taste. It was a poor decision this time, because The Hunger Games was phenomenal.

I'm a big believer in reading books from different genres and for different age-groups and audiences. I've read some great and some terrible Young Adult novels. The Hunger Games is written well, the language is concise, but descriptive. The world that our heroine Katliss lives in is vivid, but it's not so wordy that you get lost in the description and lose the plot. The first thirty or so pages were so bleak that I almost gave up on it. I wasn't really up for a book about starving children forced into gladiator combat with no hope of survival. After the reaping, the book really picks up. The story is that our world collapses and it is redrawn into 12 Districts. Every year each district draws two tributes (kids) that compete in a fight to the death call The Hunger Games, that is televised. It's has all the glorification (and sponsors) of our Olympics. The Hunger Games are to remind the people of the country of how lucky they are to live their meager lives without the Capital making it worse. It sounds goofy and ridiculous and in the hands of a less author it would be. Collins infuses the material with life and fleshes out details of characters and setting that make everything overwhelming with emotion and realism.

The preparation for the games and the look into how the Society works is fascinating and well-drawn out. Everything seems futuristic, but not to a point where it is too unbelievable for the story. The characters are interesting and they are developed well, for the most part. I enjoyed the fact that Katniss wasn't romantic about the past or the future, that she was practical, resourceful and cold. It's just how someone who had to scrape together meager amounts of food for her family to subsist on would be. Her sister Prim was just as sketch of a character, but she is more a part of Katniss than an actual person to the story. Peetra, the baker's son and Katniss' fellow tribute from District 12, is written as one of the few good characters and without the moments of rebellion or anger, it would feel forced, but it doesn't. The romantic point of plot isn't overly forced, though I felt that Gale, Katniss' hunting partner in District 12 needed to be given more time if he was going to work as a potential partner for Katniss.

Overall the setting is inventive, the characters are real and resourceful and the plot and pacing are clever and quick. Don't let the YA stamp fool you. Read this book.

Rating: A must read.
Labels: 1 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)