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 ...

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...

This is one of those things we all do. If you read a lot of books, you have come across a book you just could not finish. And let me tell you, I loathe this. I wish I was one of those people who could power through a book that doesn’t grab them, but I am not. These are five books that I could not finish, no matter how hard I tried. 1: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is the most recent I was unable to finish. And I tried, believe me. Jayna gave it high praise and Jane Eyre , by Emily's sister Charlotte, was great. So I gave it a go. I made it 10 pages in and HAD TO STOP. It felt like my brain was coming out of my nose, and I needed the feeling to cease and desist. I apologize to anyone who loves this book. Classics are just not for me. They are too formal. Why do you have to talk to me like I am your grandmother you only see on holidays because you want the inheritance? 2: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King is one I hate to say. I love Mr. King’s book, but this book does no...

          I do not have the poet's soul that Aarika has, so I was quite nervous to read this book. Shiva contacted us via email, and he struck  me as an extremely warm individual, which also makes it difficult for this critic. Aarika says I have no soul--she has also not seen me ugly cry over Old Yeller .          Shadow: Unparalleled Waves of LIFE was intended to be part of a collective effort between Shiva Vangala and his cousin, Satheesh Kotoju. They wanted to write and publish with the pen name SanthuSnehama, however this dream ended when Satheesh died unexpectedly in 2019.           The book is very short, clocking in at 16 poems. It is beautifully illustrated, and each poem has its own black and white illustration that helps to convey its meaning.          When read with the knowledge that this was to be a collected effort, you can feel a spectrum of emotion...

  Cory Cowley is on her way to great things. Even though her review fell to Aarika, and Aarika has had the majority of contact with her through her review process, I have found Cory to be a very interesting person. She seems to be such a queen of darkness on her Instagram, so I will admit that I chuckled to find that she is really a giant nerd. I don’t know what I expected. The Queen of the Night? Maleficent, the dark fairy from Sleeping Beauty ?  We reached out to her with some interview questions, because she is fast accumulating a cult following. She’s breaking into Amazon’s top 100 Horror books as well, which is no surprise if you read over the reviews, which reinforce Aarika’s glowing review. (My favorite: “Heaven and hell have similar addresses.”) Someday, I’ll write up a transcript of what Aarika said during the week we did this review. It looked a lot like: “Jayna. Jayna. JAYNA! OMG! THIS BOOK!”  With the introduction out of the way...I present to you the exclusiv...

                This post has to come with an advisory of sorts. I’m about to talk about my very private mental health, which is uncomfortable for me, but the year 2020 is helping me feel braver. I will be talking about postpartum depression. If you have it, please seek professional help. After you do that, come back here for some amazing books that can also help you. ……… After the birth of my second child, I went through a deep depression. I didn’t say a word about it for two years, even though there were at least six months that my brain felt like it was on fire and I wanted to die. I didn’t know what it was, and, because I didn’t know what it was, I internalized it as a fundamental flaw. I convinced myself that I was the problem. I drew up schedules, I prayed to be more organized, I cried over the messes…it wasn’t pretty. Turns out, I’m not the only one who internalizes that guilt. Freed, Chan, Boger, and Tompson (2012) noted that one ...

Welcome to the first installment of "Coffee Break Thoughts" with Aarika. During this coffee break, Aarika had to consider the following questions: Which character do you think should have survived his or her story? Which character would you kill off? The One Who Should Have Lived: Aarika Baxter Manager, Reader, Mom, Coffee Villain This one is for Queen Maas... Queen, I am coming for you! Bring back our Sam! He did not deserve the death he was given. He was a pure soul whose only crime was loving and adoring our super vain and egotistical Celaena. He showered her with love and attention, hopes and dreams, a future without death and blood, and you took that away from us. I understand why he needed to die. I do. I understand why you destroyed my heart and my commitment to the pure cinnamon rolls in your books. But Sam?! He is the reason the books happened. I get it. But it's still not fair. Give him back to us! We're not okay! You have caused us all to need therapy and w...