Two Bluestockings

Aarika's unruly TBR Shelf   This is a hard one for me to write. I have commitment issues and when I committed to this, I didn’t realize how committed I was going to have to be.   Some lady in one of my Facebook book groups was like, “Okay, I am going to be doing the 52 books challenge in 2021! What fun it will be to pick 52 books off my TBR pile and shorten the stack.” And in my mind, I was like oh. I could totally do this. It won’t be so hard. My husband laughed at me. My TBR pile laughed at me. It took me two days of stress and staring at my TBR shelves to pick 52 books. 52 books is A LOT. These are the books I have decided to conquer:   Slyvia Day has her Crossfire series. I started it at the beginning of COVID. Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. Now I have two books left in the series. 1. Captivated by You 2. One with You   Kendare Blake has her Three Dark Crowns Series . I started these in the middle of COVID. They are pretty good, but I have commitment issues. ...

               Reyna Favis plunges us into the mind of our narrator, Fia, as she flees from a seven-year-old ghost boy. Just as she is about to make her escape, the ghost boy grabs her hand. Trying not to cause alarm in the man with her—who can’t see the boy—Fia tries to shake him off. When the boy refuses to let go, she attempts to blast him with her mental powers. Enter Zackie, a psychopomp who has taken the shape of a search dog. (Don’t know what a psychopomp is? I didn’t either. It’s a mythical creature who ferries the dead to the next life.) **Spoiler alert, psychopomps don’t like it when you fight their babies.**             Favis is laying the groundwork for a series in this book. Her characters are fleshed out well, so you don’t feel like they’re lacking. However, there are allusions to pasts that aren’t fully revealed. Fia doesn’t know who her parents are, and her foster par...

I am not the self-help one in the group. I personally avoid my feelings and emotional self as often as I possibly can. My mother laughs at me because I hate being alone. The silence is loud. And silence is good for your mind to be like: "Hey. Let’s discuss all the things you have shoved in these boxes in the basement." (I hoard unpleasant things in my brain. I admit it! Jayna, don’t even try to psych me!) That being said, this book is a little similar to the relationship book He’s Just Not That Into You (yes, it is also a movie). That is the only self-help book I read because I wanted it, and I loved it. This book seemed like it would be well suited for a younger audience, late middle and high school ages. It has no sexual context to it, but is about the reader--written in a generic ‘she’ pronoun to correlate with the author’s gender/preferred pronoun--learning how to move on and let go of those relationships that many teenagers find themselves in. The vicious cycle of ...

This book came to me during an incredibly busy week. I opened it up, scanned the first few pages, and said, "This is not for me." It had a lot of references to men feeling emasculated if their wives worked and women being fake to keep the peace. I almost put it down, but I'm glad I didn't. (First, you should know that my specialty is researching women's mental health, which is why I react so strongly to these implications.) Thankfully Lomazoff-Marron is also not a fan of such things either, because her women not only rose from the ashes of their lives, they came back stronger and more authentic. The book begins with Jonathan and Meredith Perkins. Jonathan is painted as the hard worker with "business acumen," whose business is booming. Meredith is the art history major turned housewife, who attempts to find contentment in decorating her house. Enter federal agents, who arrest Jonathan for fraud and embezzling. The Perkins' world crumbles, and Meredith...

Summary:                André is the Best Big Brother is a story dealing with the transition of family growth. The book begins when André wakes up the morning his new baby sibling is coming home. At first he is excited, but when André begins to struggle with this new change, his parents must guide him through his confusing emotions. When his mother offers to let him hold the new baby, things change once again for André and he is able to find new ways in which they can interact as a family. In André is the Best Big Brother young readers will see André cope with the various emotions children often experience when a new sibling comes home. André can help guide children through the confusing emotions of jealousy and insecurity to the truth that when a family grows, so does love. Review:  As a librarian and a lover of children’s literature there are several things I look for when I pick up a children’s book. I am a firm believer that you shou...

No one prepares you to walk alongside your spouse as they suffer from any sort of long-term illness. You receive an overwhelming amount of information, the stress keeps you from sleeping, and somehow, you are supposed to continue doing the day-to-day activities like you are 100% fine. Enter Armored by Dawn F. Landry. This book is the memoir of Dawn’s journey alongside her husband, Daran, as he battled (and beat) cancer and as he recovered from a massive stroke. It is a testament to their faith, their passion to encourage others during their own trials, and their resilience. In this book, caregivers will find advice on how to advocate for those in their care—how to make sure that they are supported and encouraged during their illness. There are tips for setting boundaries and providing emotional support. Best of all, there are tips for organizing all the information from the various health professionals that they deal with. (Dawn even offers free printouts for y...