Top Ten Chunksters

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Thistle

It’s a freebie topic this week, and I’ve decided to focus on chunksters. I’ve read quite a few chunksters in my life, and some of them are right up in my favorite books. In no particular order, here are some of the best of them:

book-an_american_tragedy_theodore_dreiser1. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser – This book is over 1000 pages long, but feels so much shorter, and the story is soooo good. I’ve read it twice and loved it both times.

2. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo – This was one of the most intimidating books I’ve ever gone into, but MAN it was good. Especially on audio. I didn’t even mind all the weird tangents on nunneries and the Paris sewer system.

3. The Host by Stephenie Meyer – So, so, so much better than Twilight. Really.

4. pretty much all of Brandon Sanderson’s adult chunksters, including the Mistborn Trilogy, Elantris, the Stormlight Archive, and Warbreaker – What can I say? The man is simply a genius novelist.

5. Insomnia by Stephen King – I’m not a huge fan of King, but this one is a book I’ve read many, many times over the last 15 years.

6. East of Eden by John Steinbeck – I liked Grapes of Wrath better, but that one isn’t long enough to be considered a chunkster, and this one was still very good. Cathy still creeps me out.

lady audley7. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon – This is another of those books that feels much shorter and faster than it really is.

8. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway – My favorite Hemingway is The Old Man and the Sea, but that one’s tiny. This one is much longer, and not quite as good, but still very powerful.

9. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart – I read this one ages ago, back in early high school, and still adore it.

10. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – Brilliant book, brilliant audiobook, probably going to be a brilliant TV show whenever that comes out.

What are your favorite chunksters? Have you read any of mine?

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 10 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Writer-Brain

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_0393I doubt there are many people reading this blog that don’t already know that I write fiction, but just in case: I write fiction! I’ve been writing fiction since I was old enough to hold a pencil, focusing on short stories until I moved to novels about nine years ago. Often, people will ask me how I come up with the ideas for my books. My standard answer is that I find inspiration from dreams and misheard song lyrics. That’s true, but only in the narrowest sense. Writer-brain isn’t necessarily linear.

Take, for example, a thing that happened to me yesterday. I haven’t been writing much this year. I’ve been working steadily (but very slowly) on a second draft of a novel all year, and I’m only about ten chapters into it. Studying and family-stuff have taken priority this year. Consequently, I have a lot of fiction currently in my brain. There are three manuscripts that I would love to get second drafts written for at present time. Trying to choose which of those three to work on this year was agonizing. I was not in any way looking for something new to work on. Yet.

But then yesterday, I walked to the library with Jason and the boys. I had a few audiobooks on hold to pick up, and after I checked them out, I sat in the common area on the second floor where we always meet once the boys grab their 10,000 weekly mangas. I looked off to the rows of books, and saw a title of a YA book I’d never heard of before: Isla and the Happily Ever After. Actually, “Isla” was the only word I could read from where I sat, and it immediately brought to mind Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” that I listened to in my childhood. And that’s where writer-brain kicked in.

All of a sudden, I had a fully-formed general outline for a novel that could either be a YA allegorical fantasy or an adult literary magical realism book, depending on the characters and the fleshing out of said outline. I opened my iPhone (yay for technology!) and jotted down a brief bullet-point list of the plot-arc. My expectation at that point was to transfer the notes to my writing notebook when I got home, and let the story develop at some later date, when I didn’t currently have three manuscripts I was trying to get to.

Um, no. All of a sudden, the characters from the new novel came to life, one by one. I began to see them and learn their roles in the story, their lives before the story. As we left the library, Jason asked me if I was okay, because I was just staring off into space, not seeing the world around me. Yes, I was okay. I was writing. And I “wrote” all the way home. For half an hour, I dragged a cart of books behind me, eyes glazed, not seeing or hearing a thing except what was in my head. By the time I got home, I had four characters mostly developed, with names and backstories and entry-points into the novel. I wrote out their notes at home…and continued to learn more about them as I wrote…and now I have another novel that is largely fleshed out and screaming at me to begin work on…

Writer-brain. Lovely even when inconvenient. Sigh.

So now I have four books I want to be working on. I won’t be abandoning my current manuscript, but I also won’t stop developing the notes for this one. If I’m lucky diligent, I’ll finish the current draft and develop this new story completely before November, when I can use NaNoWriMo to write my first sloppy-quick-draft of the new book, to help me fully develop story/characters before writing a much-better second draft at a later date.

Does this help explain how writer-brain works? Um, no. I think instead, it simply illustrates how difficult it would be to really answer the question of “where do you come up with your ideas?” I don’t know where. They just come, and turn me into a zombie for a bit as my brain takes the spark of inspiration and turns it into something usable. The end.

Posted in Writing | Tagged | 6 Comments

The Precious One, by Marisa de los Santos (audio)

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Thistle

preciousWhen Taisy was almost an adult, her family fell apart when her father left her mother and additionally disowned her and her twin brother, Marcus. Dad then married his mistress and had a new child, Willow, whom Taisy has only seen once, in infancy. The new family is everything Dad wanted, and Taisy – now in her mid-30s – has done her best to leave these scars in her past. When Dad calls out of the blue and asks her to come stay with him, everyone’s lives start to unravel.

The Precious One is told from alternating points of view. First, we have Taisy’s story, in dealing with her past for the first time in seventeen years. She has to confront the childhood friend she betrayed. She deals with jealousy with regards to the new, perfect family. She’s on a mission to discover the truth about her dad’s past. Then there’s Willow, who has been thrust into public life, unprepared, for the first time after the heart attack that brought about this whole series of events. She feels betrayed by having to attend private school (instead of the homeschooling she’s had her whole life). She’s worried about Taisy and why Dad wants her to come. She feels guilty and responsible for Dad’s heart attack.

This was exactly the story I needed right now. I’ve loved Marisa de los Santos since discovering her books all the way back in my first year of blogging, in 2008. Her books are comfort-books for me, delicately written, addressing many topics in a subtle and competent way. I never feel like they are over the top, or tackle too much, or moralize. She knows exactly how to write characters to make them very real. This book was exactly that, and I loved it so, so much.

One personal note: I’d started listening to the audiobook of Middlemarch before this book, and decided I wasn’t quite in the mood for it. Then it turned out that Middlemarch was a huge thematic element in this book and that the text gave away pretty much the entire story. So if you don’t like spoilers and you haven’t read/want to read Middlemarch, you might consider doing so first. For me, I don’t mind spoilers with this particular book, and now – thanks to The Precious One – I’m looking forward to going back to my audio of Middlemarch in the near future.

Performance: The audiobook is read by Arielle Delisle and Abby Craden. The performance didn’t detract or enhance the book in any way for me, to be honest. I’m not generally a fan of the way audio narrators read teenage voices, so the Willow sections were a bit much for me, but that didn’t diminish the book the way a bad performance would have. It just wasn’t particularly noteworthy, either.

Posted in 2015, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Top Ten Authors I Want to Meet

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Thistle

I’ve met a few authors here and there over the years, but there are some I’ve still never met (and some I can’t meet, not without going to the grave first…). In no particular order:

BrandonSanderson1. Brandon Sanderson – I was supposed to meet him at an event this winter, but stupid snow canceled it. Grr.

2. Oscar Wilde – because he would just be awesome to hang out with

3. Maggie Stiefvater – Her twitter stream makes me smile on a daily basis.

4. Laini Taylor – I adore her imagination and her pink hair.

5. Erin Morgenstern – I’d love to tell her in person just how much her book changed the way I saw the world.

zilpha6. Zilpha Keatley Snyder – I’ve written to and received a letter from this author, but would still love to meet her in person, as she was so influential to me as a child.

7. Tom Perrotta – Ditto on being influential, plus his hometown is only one town over from me!

8. Sylvia Plath – if only it were possible…

9. Diana Wynne Jones – I’d ask what happens to Howl next.

10. JK Rowling – Because while I’m not sure we’d be BFFs or anything, who wouldn’t want to meet one of the most influential authors of the current generation?

Who’s on your list?

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 9 Comments

Sunday Coffee – The Next Great Adventure

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_0336It’s been a long time since I posted on my personal blog, Boston Blooming. The reasons for this are twofold. First, the blog’s original intention was to catalog my family’s move from San Antonio to Boston, from the time we decided to move, all through the moving process, and then the adventures that unfolded once we were up here. After the move actually happened, I didn’t have much to talk about, especially after I reopened The Zen Leaf and began talking about books here. Eventually, I just had no reason to keep writing there. Which leads me to the second reason:

The Boston adventure has not worked out for us. I’m not going to go into great detail about the failure, to which there are many contributing factors. I will say that it was decided very early on that we would be moving back. As in, only about two to three months after we arrived. That decision has not changed in the months since.

So now, we are working on a reverse move – back to San Antonio. We’re working on a living situation (should be closing on a house on 6/15!), getting the boys back into their old schools, booking a rental truck, etc. Jason will be telecommuting for work – really good news, that he gets to stay with his job instead of changing – and we will be leaving for Texas at the end of June, after the boys are out of school.

I won’t say that everything about this move is wonderful, because that would be untrue. There are things that each of us will miss, but there are also many things to look forward to. Each of us have different mixed feelings about the situation. While I won’t discuss anyone else’s feelings, as those are private to them, I’ll say that for my part, I’m mostly looking forward to moving back home, to being back among familiar faces and places, among family and friends. This year has been a particularly difficult one for many of us, and the support of nearby family and friends will lift a little of the burdens we currently shoulder.

My apologies for the vagueries. I don’t wish to get any more personal than that. Over the upcoming couple months, I will likely be a bit sporadic here, due to both busyness elsewhere (packing, cleaning, etc) and due to actually being in transit (then of course unpacking, etc). Wish us luck!

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 24 Comments

Forever, by Maggie Stiefvater

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Thistle

foreverSpoiler warning: Spoilers from the previous two books, Shiver and Linger, but none from this book.

In this conclusion to the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, the wolves have come under heavy scrutiny. More death has led to more anger, which in turn has led to people trying to pass through laws to kill off the pack with helicopters and sharpshooters.

Like I said in yesterday’s review, I have a difficult time remembering what all happened in this book versus Linger. Some if it is a blur, having read them both pretty quickly and back-to-back. I think I have a fairly good idea, though, and will split this review into two sections, good and bad. Let’s start with the negative.

Bad:
– Olivia’s conclusion (or lack thereof)
– Shelby’s conclusion (or lack thereof)
– the disease’s conclusion (or lack thereof)
– Cole’s conclusion (this time no lack! just felt a bit too easy)

As you can see, my only real issues with the book is that some things seemed to be unresolved. This isn’t to say they weren’t addressed. Instead, they were addressed, but in a way that seemed to just slide the problems out of the way instead of actually dealing with them. That’s never my favorite thing. Despite that negative, though, this was my favorite of the three books, because:

Good:
– Stiefvater’s humorous writing started to become very apparent in this book.
– The characters became more three-dimensional.
– Grace’s conclusion felt appropriately ambiguous.
– There were real consequences to drastic actions.
– That includes death.
– I generally enjoyed the move from supernatural love story to environmental tale about hunting wolves with helicopters and sharpshooters (which does happen!).

In other words, the book sort of diversified, in character, tone, and theme, and it became far more balanced than previous books (especially Shiver). Overall, I enjoyed the series, more with each book. It didn’t live up to the Raven Cycle, but I honestly wasn’t expecting it to, and comparisons aside, this trilogy stands up very well on its own.

Posted in 2015, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged | 3 Comments

Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Thistle

lingerSpoiler warning: This will give away spoilers for the first book in the series, Shiver, but no spoilers from Linger.

In this follow-up to Shiver, the roles have reversed. Sam is human, and Grace can feel the wolf trying to break out of her. For the first time, she’s getting sick, and some of the wolves are dying. There are new wolves around, and one of them – famous rock-star Cole St. Clair – is an incredibly volatile person who may blow everyone’s cover.

I read Linger and Forever (book three, review to come tomorrow) back to back, so I honestly have a hard time distinguishing what happens in each book individually. Therefore, I’m just going to list a few things that I loved and a few things I disliked that may or may not be specific to Linger.

1. Cole is awesome. I don’t really like him as a person, but he and Isabel both brought this book to life in a way that Sam and Grace as narrators never did.

2. There’s still too much love-story emphasis, but not as much as the previous book. Better.

3. I was surprised, but not unhappy, that certain characters didn’t really show up again, or at least very little.

4. I was also surprised by the transition of Grace’s parents, especially her dad.

5. The scientific study aspects were very interesting. Another point to Cole.

6. I never really got much out of Sam and Grace’s relationship, which seemed idealistically unrealistic. Cole and Isabel’s dangerous flirtation was fun, though.

Okay. I think that’s all without going into spoilerific territory. The last thing I want to note is that this book was an improvement over the last in character, pacing, and depth. Spoiler alert for tomorrow’s review: Forever improved even more.

Posted in 2015, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Top Ten Books I’ll Probably Never Read

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Thistle

There are a lot of books I doubt that I will ever read, but I think these ten make up the ten I’m least likely to read unless forced to by a class…

1. Finnegan’s Wake, or anything else by James Joyce, because ugh. Also, because this word appears on Page 1 (hyphen added by me): “Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonn-thunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk” Yes.

finnegans-wake-James+Joyce2. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, because fifteen years after seeing the movie, I still wish I could burn it from my memory.

3. The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, because it’s an “incomplete epic poem” and all three of those descriptions make me cringe.

4. The Aeneid by Virgil, which to be fair I may or may not have already read in college, which shows you how much I enjoyed it, if I read it, and/or how strongly I’ve avoided coming in contact with this book in the time since. Though really, anything of this kind would be avoided.

5. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, which to be fair I’ve actually read 95% of, stopping only about thirty pages from the end because I just didn’t care how the book turned out. I’ve never once in the fourteen years since then been tempted to go back.

neuromancer6. Neuromancer by William Gibson, because me and drugs do not mix.

7. any of the Sherlock Holmes books/stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because I think Sherlock himself is an a$$.

8. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, because every time I’ve tried to read something by her, I’ve passionately disliked it…

9. Maus Part II by Art Spiegelman, because Part I didn’t work for me, and I never felt the need to read on.

10. Don Quixote Book II by Miguel de Cervantes, for the same reasons as Maus Part II. This is despite Book II sounding like it would be far more interesting and engaging than Book I.

What’s on your list of absolutely not? And are there any of these you think I should bend on? Even if it’s not likely to convince me? Ha! 🙂

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 17 Comments

Sunday Coffee – April Showers

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Thistle

IMG_0217April can pretty much be split into two categories, book-wise. First, there was the four books that I read that were written by Maggie Stiefvater. Then, there were the four books not written by Maggie Stiefvater. It was an accidentally Stiefvater-heavy month, between re-listening to The Dream Thieves and reading the entire Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy.

For the first time this year, though, my favorite read of the month was not nonfiction. Neverwhere took that honor, made even better by attending a lit conference with my friend Stephanie where she discussed the book at some length. I did have some nonfiction in the mix, too, and both – a PTSD memoir and a history of the world through Islamic eyes – were very good. Actually, I enjoyed all of my books this month, and y’all? That’s pretty fantastic. I love it when that happens!

April was also a super-busy month for me. Between Easter, four mini-vacations during spring break, having Stephanie come to visit twice, and meeting with various friends for dinners and lunches, I didn’t have much time for anything else! I got much less done on the school-and-writing side of things, though I’m surprised that I got as much done as I did. Two more chapters added to my manuscript, plus some edits and revisions on earlier chapters. And in my paralegal studies, I finished all the assignments for my contract law substantive course (essay, employment contract, exam) and passed with a 99%, woohoo! And I almost managed to get through the next level of my Rosetta Stone Spanish (should finish soon).

Then there was, of course, my personal project of the month, Operation Girly-Girl. I wrote the other day how that came out.

To be entirely honest, April had so much stuffed into it that it’s still a blur to me. I have yet to truly gain some perspective. I probably traveled, socialized, and read way too much. I certainly didn’t study or write enough! But in the end, I really enjoyed all the things I did, and while I’m looking forward to some downtime in May, I don’t regret anything I pushed myself to do in the last month.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 4 Comments

Operation Girly-Girl

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Thistle

I mentioned a few weeks back that I was doing a personal project in April that involved “dressing up like a traditionally-gendered girl” every day this month. The project was meant to focus on two things that I would very rarely choose to outfit myself with in normal life: dresses and makeup. More details about the reasons for this project both in the post linked to above and the comments of that post.

Now, the month is over, and here is what I learned:

Dresses
26 springI flat-out hate dresses. I only managed to wear a dress or skirt about a third of the days of the month. Maybe. Every single time, I hated it. They are just so inconvenient to wear! I have to think about where my legs are positioned all the time. I’m limited in my mobility because of my clothes. There are no frickin’ pockets, and in the rare case that there are pockets, they weigh down the dress and make it even more uncomfortable. I hate wearing my fitbit under my dress. I hate trying to coordinate the right leggings and shoes. Dresses and skirts just make me so irritated and frustrated! I can wear them for a nice dinner or concert, or like a costume, but otherwise, please give me jeans, shorts, capris, cargo pants, exercise clothes, corduroys, tank tops, sweatshirts, pajamas, anything else! Pic to the left was my favorite dress/skirt outfit of the month, and even that outfit was partly composed of clothes I would normally wear with jeans/pants, and got irritating to wear after about an hour.

Verdict: Dresses and skirts are pretty and fun to look at and/or try on, but absolutely do not work as actual pieces of Manda-clothes.

Makeup
32 paint your petI have to say, this one surprised me. I’ve never worn makeup. Never. I was allergic to it as a child, with extremely sensitive skin, and therefore never learned how to wear it. I went through a phase of hate-it-because-I-couldn’t-wear-it, then a long period where I didn’t wear it on pure principle. I preferred people natural, sans makeup, and only liked makeup when used as costume-fodder (natural costume or otherwise). Before this project, I’d only worn makeup twice in the last decade – once at my sister’s wedding in the Middle East (done by a Palestinian salon), and once for a Halloween costume (2013, flapper).

Needless to say, I expected makeup to irritate the snot out of me. I expected it to mess with my skin. I expected to be annoyed with things like itches on my eye-shadowed eyes that I couldn’t scratch. I expected to get tired of the time it took to put the stuff on in the morning. I expected to think I looked like a clown all month.

NH selfieBut…but…I didn’t. That picture above, with the kitty-paintings? Tinted sunscreen, mascara, eye shadow, and lipstick. Ditto the selfie on the left. All very light, all barely noticeable, and honestly? I like the way it brings out certain parts of my face. There were only two days this month I didn’t wear makeup, and I can honestly see myself continuing to wear it going forward. I like the way it smells, I don’t mind putting it on, I enjoy playing with colors and trying new things, and I do actually like the way I look in it. Total shocker for me. I never would have expected this in a million years.

So that’s all. My project. With very unexpected results. Only don’t expect me to start wearing skirts and dresses any time soon. I am sooooo glad to be back to my normal clothes!

Posted in Personal | 22 Comments