Books I've read: Bones and All

 

Okay, so I really don't know how I felt about this book....  It was weird.  And creepy. And I can't believe anyone made a movie of it, but apparently they have...

You see, it's about cannibalism - never an easy topic to tackle.

Maren has a problem with people liking her.  When they do, she tends to eat them. It's been happening since she was a toddler and her babysitter got too close. Since then, there have been others.  Her mother doesn't love it, but will do whatever she can to protect Maren, so after each "incident" they pack up and move elsewhere, start afresh.

Until Maren is 16 and wakes up one day to find her mother gone,

Certain her father will have some answers for her, Maren sets off to find him, even though she's never met him.  On the journey she discovers a lot about herself and the world around her, most importantly, that she is not alone in her need to devour the people she cares about.  But as she discovers more about the world and her place in it, can she learn to accept herself?

I found this book odd from start to finish.  I'm sure the cannibalism was supposed to be symbolic of something, but I never quite grasped what and that frustrated me.  Each of the "eaters" she come across seems to have a different reason or way of eating people so there was no consistency.  

And my logical brain couldn't accept that people could just vanish off the face of the earth without questions being asked.  I mean, not all the people who got eaten in the story were unattached drifters who wouldn't be missed...  And is it possible for a human to eat another human without leaving even a trace of DNA lying around somewhere?  I don't think so!  And how does the human jaw manage bones the size of  a thighbone or pelvis?

Yet there was something oddly compelling about the book which made me finish it even though I had a lot of reservations.  

So I'm not sure if I should recommend it or not!  Maybe?  Maybe not?

Don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Maren Yearly doesn’t just break hearts, she devours them.

Since she was a baby, Maren has had what you might call "an issue" with affection. Anytime someone cares for her too much, she can’t seem to stop herself from eating them. Abandoned by her mother at the age of 16, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, but finds more than she bargained for along the way.

Faced with love, fellow eaters, and enemies for the first time in her life, Maren realizes she isn’t just looking for her father, she is looking for herself. The real question is, will she like the girl she finds?

Weekly Goals 6-5 24

 It's going to be a busy week this week, with an event going into production at work.  So I'm not setting myself any real goals this week.  If I get some spare minutes, I may send out a few more queries, but basically, I think I'm just waiting on the ones I already have out for the next month or so.  There are still quite a few.

Otherwise, it's a work-focused week.  I have our event to get up, plus I still need to finish up the extra work I took on a couple of weeks ago as it's all due on my birthday (15 May).  So those two things are my main focus this week.

What are your goals for the 7 days ahead?

Celebrate the Small Things 3-5-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I don't have a lot on this weekend, which is nice because next week we go live with our next event and I'm working nights Thurs-Sun and then am on call every other night until mid-June.  And with it being autumn and getting chilly at night, I imagine we'll have a few of our staff getting sick across the four weeks.  It's an outdoor event...

I've only had one more query rejection this week.  Still no requests for pages.  It's clearly very competitive out there at the moment, but I'm not sure what else I can do.  I've had my query package professionally assessed and been told it's very strong, so I have to just keep believing in my book and putting it out there.  Fingers crossed the right person will stumble across it eventually.

I got author copies of the anthology I have a story in and it's really pretty!  They sent me both hardback and paperback copies!  I've never had harcovers before.  They'll look lovely in the library!

And that's about me for celebrating this week.  What do you have to cheer about?

Insecure Writers' Support Group - May

 It's the first Wednesday in May so it's time for the Insecure Writers' Support Groups!

The awesome co-hosts for the May 1 posting of the IWSG are Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon, and Cathrina Constantine!

This month's question is a very relevant one!

How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

Distractions are all too common, everywhere, whether it's when I'm doing my own writing, or trying to perfectly word an email or funding application at work.  The trick is to try and minimize them as much as possible so you can make the most out of the limited writing time available.

For example, I sometimes take a day off work just to write.  To make sure I get the most out of this day, I don't write at home where there are always chores that need attending to.  I'll go to the library with my laptop and find a nice quiet corner in which to park myself for the day.  I turn the wifi off too, so emails and notifications won't come through and distract me from my work.

I also turn the sound off on my phone no I don't hear those notifications coming through either.  I can look at that stuff when I take a break every few hours.  There's unlikely to be anything so urgent it can't wait a few hours, right?

So that's how I try to keep distraction at bay.  But once you have been distracted, how to get focused back on what you're doing?  Sometimes I  accept that it's time to take a break and use that break in concentration to get up, walk around, take a few minutes away from the page I'm working on.  But then I get back to it.  Maybe I have to go back and read a paragraph or two of what comes before the place I got distracted to find my way back into the flow.  Sometimes I can just dive back in, but I usually need a little intro back into the world of my story.

Listening to music can help keep distraction at bay.  I find I can't listen to music with lyrics I understand while I'm writing because they distract me from the words I'm writing, but music without lyrics can help block the outside world, or music with lyrics in languages I don't speak.  I have a few classical music playlists that I like to listen to when writing, one which is very big and dramatic, and one that is more serene.  I've also been listening to a lot of music from the Middle East recently, with lyrics in Urdu or Arabic.

At the end of the day, how big the distraction is will have an effect on how easy it is to get back into the writing flow.  If you take a phone call and it's something you can just brush off or deal with later, that's one thing.  Getting a call from your kid's teacher asking you to come and see them after school can be more distracting because then you'll be thinking about that and wondering what the hell the kid has done now,

Sometimes I just have to accept that I'm not going to get back to that chapter today.  My brain has moved away from the story and is now focused on  something else.  I like to make sure I leave each writing session with something slightly unfinished on a page to guide me to where I need to start next time, so stopping midway through something is often helpful for me.  I never stop writing for the day at the end of a chapter, for example.  I will always write at least a couple of sentences of the next one before I close the laptop so I'm not staring at a blank page when I open it again.  

Getting distracted to the point I have to stop for the day often leaves me mid-sentence or mid-paragraph - the perfect place to pick up again next time.

How do you deal with distraction?

Weekly Goals 29-4-24

 Despite having a long weekend, I didn't manage to get any writing or querying done.  I spent the whole four days working on this other job instead.  I'm not quite finished with it either,  but close.   I think I'm going to need to put in a few hours next weekend to finish it off.

So I'm not setting myself any writing goals this week (again).  If I have time, I'll try to send out a few more queries, but we go live with our next event at work on 9 May, so I'm not expecting to have a lot of time until that finishes in June.  But we'll see how we go...

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 26-4-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Actually, it's kind of felt like the weekend since Wednesday because Thursday was a holiday.  And I took the Friday off too so I have a 4-day weekend.  Not that I'm relaxing and doing nothing or going away or writing.  No, I'm using this long weekend to do another job for a bit of extra cash.  And it's going well so far, I think.  I'm not sure I'll get through all the work I have to do this weekend, but I will certainly have broken the back of it so I won't have a lot to do the next couple of weeks.

Which is good, because we're about to go live with our next event at the beginning of May and things will get super busy for me again at work.

I don't know if I'm ever going to have time to write again...

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: A Tale of Two Princes

This was kind of a silly book, but one that I kind of enjoyed, despite the ridiculousness of its premise.  

Basically, it's kind of a Parent Trap story.  But set against the rather preposterous idea of Canada suddenly having its own monarchy - known throughout the book at the Maple Crown.  Seriously, the number of times maple was mentioned in this book was ridiculous.  It's enough to give you diabetes!

Edward is the Crown Prince of Canada, just waiting for his eighteenth birthday and his investiture as the heir to the Canadian throne.  Weeks before the big event, a chance meeting with a stranger who looks remarkably like him leads to the discovery that Edward has a long-lost twin, Billy.  And Billy is a minute older, so is in fact heir to the throne.

Obviously this is not ideal for Edward, especially when Billy blurts out that he's gay in his first public outing, something Edward has been keeping hidden for years for fear of tarnishing the Crown's reputation.  As his resentment grows, Edward plots to sabotage his newfound brother by trying to turn public opinion against him.

On his part, Billy is overwhelmed with discovering he's a prince.  He's spent his life on a Montana ranch and believes it's his destiny to stay there and keep it running for his recently deceased father.  All of a sudden he finds himself in the global spotlight and his every move is being scrutinised by the press.  And his family's moves too...

As the big day gets closer, it becomes increasingly uncertain which head will eventually wear the crown.

To enjoy this book, you really need to just accept the ridiculousness of the Canadian monarchy.  It's not explained that well - one of the Queen's sons had an affair with a Canadian commoner and the press hounded them out of town - and its value and structure within the Canadian political system is never clear.  But if you can just believe that that exists, you can just move on and enjoy the story.

The book is told in dual POV, but the two boys' voices are a little too alike and I found I had to keep checking back to see whose section I was reading.  Edward, who was brought up Canadian, speaks French and sprinkles a few words en francais into his sections, but that's not quite enough to different backgrounds and life experiences.

Billy has a precocious younger sister who vlogs on social media and a genderqueer bestie with dreams of becoming a fashion designer - both these things are important to the plot, but the characters are fully fleshed out enough to feel like they exist for any reason other than the parts they play in the drama.

Edward has a best friend who is out and proud and a girlfriend who is certain she's going to marry a prince and secure the social currency she's sure she deserves.

I think this book is very flawed in so many ways, but I actually didn't hate it.  It made me smile a lot because it was just so silly and the shenanigans got more and more ridiculous the closer we got to the princes' big moment.

So I'm torn about recommending it.  On the one hand, it's kind of a fun romp, but on another, it's just really not that good.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Will these long-lost twin princes be able to take on high school, coming out, and coronations together—or will this royal reunion quickly become a royal mess?

Edward Dinnissen, Crown Prince of Canada, loves getting the royal treatment at his exclusive Manhattan private school and living in a fancy mansion on Park Avenue. But despite living a royal life of luxury, Edward is unsure how to tell his parents, his expectant country, and his adoring fans that he’s gay.

Billy Boone couldn’t be happier: he loves small-town life and his family’s Montana ranch, and his boyfriend is the cutest guy at Little Timber High. But this out-and-proud cowboy is finally admitting to himself that he feels destined for more . . .

When Edward and Billy meet by chance in New York City and discover that they are long-lost twins, their lives are forever changed. Will the twin princes—“twinces”— be able to take on high school, coming out, and coronations together? Or will this royal reunion quickly become a royal disaster?