To disconnect is to relate
At least to me
Far off from a touch of reality
Is where my mind needs to be
Reality Dwindles
Discord Nurses
Discord splits and digs deeper
until it takes root.
The family tree grows
to nurse rotten fruit.
Nothing but fake smiles.
Members hidden in disguise.
No one truly happy
Hearts decaying with flies.
Book Event
Tonight, I attended an event with Meet Cute Romance Book Shop to celebrate the launch of Accidentally in Love by Danielle Jackson.
The two other authors in discussion were Nikki Payne, who is an anthropologist who also writes romance books, and Denise Williams, who is the author of I hate you and its sequel, I Still Hate You.
The three authors started off the discussion with a few icebreakers. One of the icebreakers asked where one would tell someone to visit and what they would tell them to do from where they are from. Denise said she would tell someone to go to the fair but not try fried butter because it isn’t good for you. But then she started to describe what fried butter is, and Nikki started laughing and told Denise that she is not, not selling it because she made it sound so good.
They then talked about the similarities their female heroines have in their books. Danielle noticed that each of their main characters has a work life and has experienced burn-out or close to burn-out at some point. Denise agreed that her main characters are highly focused on their work because that is how she is. She also believes it is an excellent way to show that character’s passions aside from the romance. Nikki added to the conversation, saying that she never mentioned the word burn-out in her book but that it is what happened. That it is something that happens very often for a lot of women. But that love can help people burnt out by giving them a different perspective and showing them how to move to achieve a different kind of agency and reach what they were really working to achieve.
The next topic was family. Danielle said that she loves having family in books, especially parents, to cause trouble, give tough love, provide support, and to show relatable characters, and use parallels with their past lives. She uses parents and family as a great entry point in understanding characters and their motivations. Denise uses siblings a lot more in her writing to show different perspectives and world views. She explained that she loves to play with the sibling dynamic and that for her it gives interesting dialogue and helps move the story forward.
In discussing what kind of heroines they like to write, Danielle describes herself as quiet, straightforward, and just grumpy. Hahaha. So, she said she relates well with her main character in Accidentally in Love. In that novel, Sam has a lot going on, but she is just grumpy and Danielle expressed that people in books should have the allowance to just be grumpy if that is how they are. So, for her, she made the hero the sunshiny one and the heroine the grumpy one, which is a dynamic she enjoys doing. Nikki, she loves writing heroines who see everything in different perspectives than everyone else around them. Denise’s favorite heroine she wrote is the attorney RJ who knows she is a bad***. She enjoyed writing her in a way where she was unapologetically her. Denise found that very empowering. She described writing this character as writing how alpha men are written in books.
All of their books have interracial couples. Nikki said that each time she does that, she does it intentionally and pulls a lot of research for her books because it falls into anthropology. Denise said that all of her books but one have interracial couples, and for her, it is very natural to write because of how she has lived and her relationships. Danielle said that for her, what she did intentionally in her book The Accidental Pinup was give the white hero the messy background and the black heroine the emotional support with the cleaner background. She also gave her couple in that book a discussion that she has had similarly with her husband because she is also in an interracial relationship where the heroine explains how she has to live compared to how he can live.
This discussion was fun, cute, and insightful to listen to. Thank you, Meet Cute!!
Open Me
Animate me
Bring me to life
Open my curtains
Let in some light
Release me from darkness
From deep dark despair
Lessen depression
Show me you’re there
Book Event
Today we discussed Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid with Oxford Exchange Book Club. It seriously was a fun discussion. This book opened up many readers to discuss things we usually wouldn’t have discussed. We learned so much about each other and saw everyone light up with their passions.
But honestly, all I am going to say about this book, from my perspective, is that it is very triggering. The best way I can describe how triggering is by saying that if I were younger and had gotten ahold of this book when I was not mentally stable, I would have unalived myself because of the ending.
Below is a spoiler.
In this book, the main character, a victim of multiple forms of abuse, turns into a monster at the end and kills people. For me, that is the worst nightmare for many victims of abuse. Many young kids grow up scared to death that they will turn into the monsters that feed off of them. They demonize themselves. They humanize and make excuses for everyone else. Then at the end, this is what happens with the main character. She ‘has the seed of her papa’s monster living inside her,’ which was too much for me.
I love dark stories. I need them. But I also appreciate it when people are careful. Alice by Christine Henry is a book on this theme that does this amazingly, with still many trigger warnings. She demonizes the abusers by making them creatures. She gives strength to the abused. She uses tactics to put the perfect distance between the reader and the story while still offering the reader the glorious wave of darkness they can relate to and are looking for.
I would recommend Alice all day for those who love the dark sides of things. This one, not so much to those who have been abused. To those I would say to be extra careful.
Please
Take me to places I’ve always needed to go
Stand with me against anyone who’s foe
Welcome my heart and understand all my needs
Believe in me, love for me, cherish me, please
Book Event
Loyalty Books hosted an event to discuss The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson.
I loved listening to Alaya. She was very intelligent and insightful when it came to humanity and perspectives. She also put much care into her book to ensure certain characters came across as she wanted, along with certain social situations, contrasts, environments, and how the cities and her world would function. I could tell she cares so much. She said she rewrote four-fifths of the book, and the character Joshua was the big reason for the rewrite because she wanted to get him right.
Malinda Lo asked Alaya to describe her book since, most of the time, how an author would describe their book is different from how it is defined on the back cover. She started by saying, “This may not seem commercial.” Haha, but how she described her novel sold it to me, even though I have already bought it.
To Alaya, her book is a big idea of far-future sci-fi, like a new wave of sci-fi, with big social ideas about a young woman born in a place called a library, which was founded in the aftermath of a war. In the library, there are four gods that are giant AIs. Her world has eight gods in total, four of which are in the library. The main character is considered something between a human and an AI because she was born in the library. Through her relationships, the main character discovers the library’s history and what it means to be her.
Malinda Lo added to describe the book as a vast, complex, multi-layered world that blows her away.
Malinda Lo asked where Alaya’s idea came from. Alaya said her idea started with a basic concept while she was in the shower of a woman crossing a desert, leaving a library she didn’t want to leave, and heading toward a god that wanted to kill her. She also knew that the image she had in her head was sci-fi, not fantasy.
Alaya then went on to explain that world-building was very important to her in this story. She wanted the world to feel lived in, and like it could exist but to give a certain experience to it. She wanted to figure out how an organized society would work where people could download themselves or back themselves up. Or how a world would work where giant AIs can store so much knowledge. When she was writing and world-building, she felt like she was discovering her world, like she was chipping away at it and revealing it.
Help me Persevere
Let the breeze whistle to me
To forewarn my doom
Let my magick shatter the storm
And signal me a tune
Keep me safe, keep me warm
Under the moonlight of the sky
Fire is roaming, disaster is coming
Help me persevere and survive
Book Event
I was able to attend a book discussion hosted by Oxford Exchange Bookstore, discussing the book Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. It was a very insightful conversation!
We first opened the discussion with what kinds of fairy tales we saw in this story. A few that were named were “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” “Pinocchio,” and loosely “Wizard of Oz,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Rumpelstiltskin.” Everyone thought that this was a story that lived adjacent to fairy tales and in conversation with fairy tales instead of any kind of retelling.
Just about everyone in this group loved this book for a variety of reasons. One was the spaced-out surprising humor. Another was the Blistered Land, which everyone wanted to see more of. Many liked how refreshing it was that the main character was older and in her thirties. They forgave her for being as weepy as she was because of how sheltered she was growing up. And everyone loved the side characters, especially the dust-witch.
It was very interesting to hear that a majority of people believed that it was the land that gave the main character the magick to make the bone dog, which I agree with and was not something I had thought of. Another interesting topic that was discussed in this conversation was feminism and how many couldn’t wrap their minds around this being a feminist book, especially since it still had such misogynistic requirements.
This book brought up many conversations about life, literature, prose, history, and other forms of media. One of the questions that it also brought up that still lingers in my mind is what is more fairytale-like, someone having to partake in a tortuous punishment for the rest of their lives or someone just dropping dead?
Book Event
I attended a book event with Brookline Booksmith discussing The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson, who was very nice. I loved hearing about her ideology and passion. The interviewer, Lindsey Kelk, was also very passionate and described her love for Juno Dawson’s books as borderline unhealthy. Haha.
Apparently, Juno, who is from the UK, was in New York last week and, at the moment of this interview, was in Illinois networking and promoting her books. She is from the UK. The interviewer was also from the UK before she moved to the states and asked Juno what the most incredible thing she has eaten while in the States was. Juno said that she had Red Lobster for the first time and assumed there would be more lobster, but she had a great salmon salad. For the most terrifying eating experience in the States, she had hot Korean food in New York when she isn’t a girl that loves spicy food.
Then they started talking about the books. The series, which I haven’t read, is about five high school friends who are all powerful witches. The story then jumps to years later when they are in their 30s, all living very different lives and running different covens. There is also a trans witch. The first book deals with the division of the friendship group and then in book two they have to pick up the pieces.
I bought it right as they were discussing it. I was personally sold on witches in their 30s.
Juno explained how she has been in the industry for ten years and has realized she has had a lot of impact on LGBTQ+ people’s lives but didn’t have much commercial success. Now that she is having commercial success, it is interesting to her. Success came to her when she wrote all her favorite things in one novel because she wasn’t very optimistic about her success. But then, when she talked to booksellers, they were enthusiastic about her witch book, which is everything she wanted to say about the trans debate. She wanted to explore if covens are just a woman’s space and what happens if a trans witch is introduced into that world. She decided to explore this topic in fantasy, which she loves because fantasy helps take the edge off real issues. For her, she comes for the fantasy and witches and stays for the emotions.
Lindsey, who has been in the industry for twenty years and was an editor previously, complimented Juno and how her characters were done so well. She wanted to know how Juno started to make her characters. Juno said she tries to find a thing to love in each of them and that all the women in the books are the different sides of her personality.
I loved how nerdy Juno was. She LOVES Buffy, which I can highly relate to, and Doctor Who and more relatable shows I grew up with. She said she always has a rough guide when she plots, while her best scenes creep up on her. BUT the big twists were planned right from the beginning.
She is so excited to be able to go home after her tour, and it just be her and Her Majesty’s Royal Coven 3 for her to focus on. She didn’t want to start the conclusion of her series until she could sit down and focus solely on it.
There is a very good chance Her Majesty’s Royal Coven will be appearing on TV! It got picked up by Left Blank Pictures. So there are many exciting things in the work for Juno Dawson. I was very happy to have heard what this author had to say. Thank you, Brookline Booksmith.
Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul 