These Books Among Us

For everyone to remember as we end this year: Not every year is going to be amazing or painless, but it’s your job to find the good moments . When life starts to feel a little rough, pick up a pen and write, read a book, watch your favorite movie, put on a song and dance, talk to a friend, meet a new person, take a walk, or drink some tea. If you need to, it’s okay to cry, just don’t leave. Live in the moment and do something that makes you happy. Know this: you are stronger than you think . You can get through the tough times, but you don’t have to do it alone. You are loved and you can love. When people tell you to stop standing up for something you believe in, you stand taller. You do not need their approval. But take care of yourself first. Be selfish sometimes , it’s okay, I won’t judge. Take your emotions and create something, it’s what you’re good at .

Hey All! We made it! It's the last Friday of the 2016! Woo hoo!! I hope you 2017s are kind to you! Sorry for not posting anything last week, I kinda completely forgot about it. I was a little preoccupied reading and trying to get into the Christmas spirit. (Spoiler, I never really got into the spirit) I am still trying to complete my self appointed reading challenge, but I only have two books left! One of them only has about 160 pages left in it, the other is about 350 pages. I've got this! Okay, so there may be some changes coming up to the format of the blog again. I may go up to posting more times a week because at the moment, I am all queued up until February and I want you all to get these reviews a bit sooner! I am also planning on starting a youtube channel! So some of these reviews will not be posted as text, but as a video now! I may actually move over to youtube permanently, but I'm not quite sure yet! Like I said, I have two more books to read this year...

Saga Vol 3 by My Rating: 4 Stars Date Read: 20 November 2016 Synopsis: From the Hugo Award-winning duo of Brian K. Vaughan (The Private Eye, Y: The Last Man) and Fiona Staples (North 40, Red Sonja), Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe. Searching for their literary hero, new parents Marko and Alana travel to a cosmic lighthouse on the planet Quietus, while the couple's multiple pursuers finally close in on their targets. Collects issues 13-18. My Review: Out of the three volumes I have read of this, I think this one is my least favorite. That being said, it's still amazing. The characters are getting more complex, there are more characters, in general, to learn about, and more story lines to follow. I really enjoyed meeting the author. He was a super chill guy. Until that thing happened. Honestly, Marco's mom just can't catch a break, can she? That was a rough three weeks for her. I'm keepin...

Saga Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist) (168 pages) My Rating: 4.5 Stars Date Read: 19 November 2016 Synopsis: From award-winning writer BRIAN K. VAUGHAN (Pride of Baghdad, Ex Machina) and critically acclaimed artist FIONA STAPLES (Mystery Society, Done to Death), SAGA is sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe. Thanks to her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana, newborn baby Hazel has already survived lethal assassins, rampaging armies, and horrific monsters, but in the cold vastness of outer space, the little girl encounters her strangest adventure yet... grandparents. Collects Saga issues #7-12 My Review: Here's another review that is 4.5 stars. I love Alana's obsession with that book. I feel like that is me on the page because I do the same thing: push a book at people until they begrudgingly read it and then tell me to piss off. Well, except for Marco, he liked it, but everyone else was so...

Saga Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist) (160 pages) My Rating: 4.5 Stars Date Read: 19 November 2016 Synopsis: When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. From bestselling writer Brian K. Vaughan, Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in this sexy, subversive drama for adults. Collects Saga issues #1-6 My Review: I am giving this first book a 4.5 stars, because, while I really enjoyed reading it, there were a few points where if got a bit too much for me. If you have read it, you'll understand what I mean. Also, like always, this is a spoiler alert as there will most likely be a bunch of spoilers in this review. So you have been warned. I can honestly say that I loved the relationship between the two main characters. T...

The Norton Anthology of Modern & Contemporary Poetry, Vol 1: Modern Poetry by Jahan Ramazani (1136 pages) My Rating: 3 Stars Date Read: 18 November 2016 Synopsis: Thirty years later, this innovative, cover-to-cover revision renders with fresh eyes and meticulous care the remarkable range of styles, subjects, and voices in English-language poetry. The newly titled Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry now available in two paperback volumes includes 1,596 poems by 195 poets (half of the poems are new), from Walt Whitman and Thomas Hardy in the late nineteenth century to Anne Carson and Sherman Alexie in the twenty-first. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry continues to be the most comprehensive collection of twentieth-century poetry in English. It richly represents the major figures, while also giving full voice to ethnic American poetries, experimental traditions, postcolonial poetry, and the long poem, eclipsing all other anthologies in sco...

Hey all! It's that time of the week again! Update time! I can't remember if I said this in the last update or not, but if I did, then here's a reminder! I'm up to two review posts a week now! Along with these little updates on Fridays, that means I'm up to three total posts a week! Woo hoo!! In book news: I am trying to read a total of seventeen books this month. So far, with only fifteen days left, I have read six. Here's hoping I can get this done! I think I will, but I'm not going to make any definite promises! I am currently reading Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett. It's a book about a girl who's mom goes back to this cult she grew up in and now the main character and her twin brother have to go find her and try to stay alive. I'm quite intrigued so far, though I'm only about thirty pages in, but it's pretty cool! I'm being cautiously optimistic, mainly because I have been burned before. The first fifty pages can be good, but...

Cress by Marissa Meyer (582 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Read: 14 November 2016 Synopsis: Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker; unfortunately, she's just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.   My Review: There's going to be spoilers in the review, so be warned. Marissa Meyer did it again! I have to say this  series is a lot better than I ...

Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch (86 pages) My rating: 4 Stars Date Read: 11 November 2016 Synopsis: Never has there been a book of poems quite like Gabriel, in which a short life, a bewildering death, and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch’s heart to our own, without sentimentality. From its opening lines—“The funeral director opened the coffin / And there he was alone / From the waist up”—Hirsch’s account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief. In propulsive three-line stanzas, he tells the story of how a once unstoppable child, who suffered from various developmental disorders, turned into an irreverent young adult, funny, rebellious, impulsive. Hirsch mixes his tale of Gabriel with the stories of other poets through the centuries who have also lost children, and expresses his feelings through theirs. His landmark poem enters the broad stream...

Hey All!! So, in case you did not notice this week, I am updating with reviews more regularly! Since I have a longer queue, I am going back up to posting a review on Monday AND Wednesday with the updates of Fridays! Woo!! Okay, so I am challenging myself to try to read sixteen books this month and so far, I have read one and three quarters. I am sure I will get it done, I just have to sit down and do it! The book I am currently reading is Winter by Marissa Meyer. I am in love with this series, mainly because of the characteristics of the women (thank you bad ass women figures) so if you have not read it yet, check it out! I have reviews posted already for three of the books, and my review for Fairest will be up soon! Other books on my to read list include: Stars Above, Shards & Ashes, The Wyrd Sisters, Shakespeare by Another Name (keeping some scholarly books in there), Blood and Salt, The Crown's Game, A Wicked Thing, Vanishing Girls, Reign of Shadows, Heartless, My La...

That This by Susan Howe (112 pages) My rating: 2.5 Stars Date Read: 11 November 2016 Synopsis: “What treasures of knowledge we cluster around.” That This is a collection in three pieces. “Disappearance Approach,” an essay about the sudden death of the author’s husband (“land of darkness or darkness itself you shadow mouth”), begins the book with paintings by Poussin, an autopsy, Sarah Edwards and her sister-in-law Hannah, phantoms, elusive remnants, and snakes. “Frolic Architecture,” the second section — inspired by visits to the vast 18th-century Jonathan Edwards archives at the Beinecke and accompanied by six black-and-white photograms by James Welling — presents hauntingly lovely, oblique text-collages that Howe (with scissors and “invisible” Scotch Tape and a Canon copier) has twisted, flattened, and snipped into “inscapes of force.” The final section, “That This,” delivers beautiful short squares of verse that might look at home in a hymnal, although their orderly appear...

Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein (134 pages) My Rating: 4 Stars Date Read: 6 November 2016 Synopsis: The MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions has awarded Tender Buttons: The Corrected Centennial Edition its seal designating it an MLA Approved Edition. 2014 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the original publication of Gertrude Stein's groundbreaking modernist classic, Tender Buttons. This centennial edition is the first and only version to incorporate Stein's own handwritten corrections—found in a first-edition copy at the University of Colorado—as well as corrections discovered among her papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Editor Seth Perlow has assembled a text with over one hundred emendations, resulting in the first version of Tender Buttons that truly reflects its author's intentions. These changes are detailed in Perlow's "Note on the Text," which describes the editorial process and lists the specific variants for the benefit...

Hello All!! I am so sorry I haven't posted an update in a while, but I've actually been pretty busy! I went home last weekend for Thanksgiving break and had a great time visiting with my parents, brother, and puppies! I even went to go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which I actually really enjoyed. The biggest thing I have been doing recently is finals! Classes are officially over, but next week starts finals week. Being an English major, however, means I do not have in class finals, just essays. I have officially turned in two out of three, but I still have to finish that third paper. I am hoping to get the first draft done by today so I can edit and have everything done by Sunday! Then the fun begins! (By the fun I mean reading and watching Netflix and baking) Speaking of reading, this month I have a goal to read sixteen books! I hope I will be able to, but I am making no promises as I still need to work on the typed edits for my book! Well, I think that...