Fangirl

Hi humans. Just a warning; my laptops’ space bar broke and I have to take it in, so i’m not sure how long, if any, of my blogging schedule will be affected. Also, I’m styonedish by prescription med my doctor instis I take even though it had side effects. 

)Onto…

Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell, 11/12

Spellcheck says fangirl isn’t a word, what.

jUST WOWS.

 Rainbow Rowell stole from my diaries. Also, pretty sure ‘Rainbow’ is a pseudonym. So’s mine; can you tell?

 I have an insane mom. I write constantly, or did, at any rate. College is hard for me. I’ve spent a lot of time in my dorm or at the library. 

 Cath has an insane dad. She has a hard time during her 1st semester in college. She spends a lot of time in her dorm room or at the library.

 The 2nd half/ semester was romantically inclined. Like Carrie Fisher’s diary. 

 Yet, something feels hollow. It could be post-book greif. I related on every level. But what if I read this before I went to college? How would it have affected me then? 

 Everything is breezy. There’s some pretty heavy stuff; mental health, 1st time in college, estranged mom, etc. Yet none of it sinks deep. It’s like reading a bunch of essay intros, you know what it’s about, but you’re not filled up on the topic. 

 I recommend it for anyone in, bound for, or thinking about college. Have you read it? Did the timing (before, after, during) affect the way you thought about it?

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Yoon Is Also A Star

The Sun Is Also A Star, Nicola Yoon, 348 pages, circa 2016, 12/12 I LOVE YOU

  Strengths:

• Diversity! How often do you read about a Jamaican immigrant? Interracial couples that don’t include a white person?
• Science! People talking about science like normal people, little burbs about different things, like the biochemistry of love and pie’s reliance on the existence of the universe.
• Escape Room! In Everything, Everything, the escape room was actually a room, but in The Sun Is Also A Star, the escape room is 18 hours in New York City. I love how so much can happen so much can be felt, in one city, in one day. If Yoon designed escape rooms, she’d be the most memorable, most beloved escape room designer there is. (Moffit isn’t beloved.)
• Somehow realistic! Natasha and Daniel fell in love in less than 18 hours. It had a sort of surreal, fairy-tale quality to it, but it seemed like real people falling in love. I hate Romeo and Juliet from the heart of my bottom, but I loved and believed this love.
• Suspense! The Kinsleys face deportation. On e the last day, Tasha finds a lawyer that just might let them stay. It’s not an on-your-toes suspense, as she enjoys her day and time with Daniel. Then she goes into the half-done building with her desperate need to stay. She’s still in denial about the deportation and believes in the lawyer. Can the lawyer do it? It throws the sequence of events into its’ own time flux.

  Weaknesses:

• The Baes seem like a stereotypical Korean American family. The parents pressure their sons to go to Ivy League and become doctors. Charlie and Daniel don’t fit the stereotype, but their parents seem cut out of cardboard.
• What’s with the cover? I get it’s supposed to look like a supernova or the strings of Fates (If it’s the latter, it’s a rather bad representation.) If it’s the former, why yarn?
• The end was a bit…lame. It should have made a bigger impact, and the author was clearly expecting that impact. But there was no impact. Irene’s story is great, but the chapter itself wasn’t polished, like Nicola sent it off a draft or two early.

Also seen: For the background I used The Star Trek Guide To The Universe, by Andrew Fazekas. It seemed appropriate given the beauty, science, and powerfulness of it all. 

  In short, I love Nicola Yoon. I love The Sun Is Also A Star, but Everything, Everything was a tad better. Just a tad.

  How much do you love Nicola Yoon?

A Heartbreaking Post Of Staggering Genius

(Trigger warnings, graphic cancer details, anxiety and suicide. This is not meant to reflect my writing style or ideas, but a full imitation of Dave. Also, this is the ’90s and does not reflect the current housing market.)

A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers, 1995, 9/12

 Hello, dickheads.

 You will rot the wood from under my feet. You will cut the strings off the giant Jesus and let it fall on my head. You have given me AIDS, probably.

 But I’m still going to perform frisbee tricks with my little brother. When you take him to a foster home, I will bust him out and we’ll fly like falcons. We’ll let the air scream our feathers back, all the way back, balding us.

 When Chicago rids us of our parents with cancer, we go to Berkeley. When Berkeley kicks us out, we drive to San Francisco. When San Francisco gets dull, we fly. We fly! All the way to New York!

 You have but a Sad Role to play in the book of my life; the suicidal friend, the helpless little brother, but I will always be sadder! For I am the Sad Adult-ish Orphan Parent Stand-In For Little Brother! No, I don’t have proof. And you will pity us! 

 We fly!

The Return Of Sherlock Holmes, pt.2

 

(You can read pt. 1 here)

The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons– Yeah, seems obvious when you’ve seen the series. Yeah, murder. Ideal portrait of a journalist, unlike the scavengers usually portrayed.

 The Adventure Of The Three Students– Ah, that the very thing that plagues me should be shoved into the Sherlock collection- college. Getting in, exams, dorms, etc. A nice change from the usual running ’round and a very simple solution, or would be, if given all the facts available to Sherlock, instead of waiting with Watson.

 The Adventure Of The Golden Pince-Nez– Unusual, yet has ordinary features, a combo that made the solution partly accessible. 

 The Adventure Of The Missing Three-Quarter– As always, the mystery can be solved not by the present, but the secrets of the past. It’s strange that Holmes didn’t have a case involving sports before, as today’s sports have a great deal of scandal.

 The Adventure Of The Abbey Grange– It’s a wonder why Hopkins hasn’t appeared on tv. More of the same. I s’pose Doyle was really tired of SH by then. I love the ending, where Watson is Jury and Sherlock judge.

 The Adventure of The Second Stain– Why The Hell Didn’t They Burn The Letter? Cute ending.

  So. What’s your favorite Sherlock story? Have you seen the Moffat series or RDJ movies?

 

The Return Of Sherlock Holmes, Pt.1

 

The Adventure of The Empty House– It’s brave and unusual for Watson to admit that he fainted; usually women are portrayed as the fainters in their time period.  And what happened to Mrs. Watson?

The Adventure Of The Norwood Builder– One of the more dramatic and thorough cases, beginning with the accused murderer bursting into Baker Street. Fire, murder, blood!

The Adventure Of The Dancing Men– The opening is more Poe than Doyle. The wife of the client is Modern Mary-esqe, with a secret history and possibly being a foreigner. The hieroglyphs seem more exotic than American. Is that how the English think of us?

The Adventure Of The Solitary Cyclist– Why do so many men fell in love with this woman? So stalkery.

The Adventure Of The Priory School– Every series must have its’ dull moments, I s’pose. But how did the boy actually feel about this?

The Adventure Of Black Peter- Ugh, good riddance! Bit of a plot twist, though it should’ve been obvious.

Adventure Of Charles Augustus Milverton– The creepy descriptions did not disappoint, although the solution  did. While my favorite Sherlock villain and an awesome SH story, is not better than The Speckled Band. Show was better. I love that Sherlock doesn’t always work with the police.

Love For Notebooks

 

 The worst thing you can do to a writer is steal her notebook. Persons of other professions, including teachers, seem to think notebooks are a convenient, use-by-use, disposable items that have no meaning no matter who owns it.

Notebooks are important!

 Filled notebooks are the past, empty notebooks are the future, some planned, some without any idea of what it will contain. It’s a communion with your subconscious, with the Muses, with Apollo. With others, depending on what you write.

 Like the TARDIS diary, I have exactly the amount of pages I need. Once a year or so, I get more, but during the year I am content with the blank pages, though not always with the full. When I type out my stories, I make corrections, add little ideas. But if it’s a notebook only, like my diary, I skim through the past content, amused, embarrassed. Notebooks, like the TARDIS, is a way to travel through space-time.

  I love notebooks! Not just the use of them, but the smell and feel, too. I love that a private notebook is physically different from an academic notebook, and different from a professional notebook filled with stories, or a single, continuous story that doesn’t seem to have a concrete end, or repeats itself to find a better way to express an idea.

 I’d better stop now, or I might not stop before the allotted time. What of your love of notebooks, of books? How would you describe their importance?

Childhood’s End – Book Review

Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke, 218 pages, circa 1953, 7/12 

Clarke is of course, one of those famous masters of sci-fi but I didn’t pick him up until my library’s giveaway shelf had a battered, almost-gone cover, of a copy.

 It spans over 100 years, with different human characters. My favorite human is alive for a short time at the beginning of the Overlord’s reign. Secretary-General Stormgren has an insatiable curiosity about the Overlords, despite being the only human in his day to have contact with one. The Overlord Supervisor Karellen has a fondness for him that may transfer to the reader. 

 The Overlords are the alien race that has come to guide, or shepherd, or merely babysit the human race. Humans and the Overlords have already, in a sense, met, and cause the Overlords to become mythologized figures. To separate themselves from myth they are secretive at first, and gradually revel more of themselves and their culture as time progresses and humans get used to them. It’s a great literary device to build suspense, with little rewards at each stage to keep things interesting. 

Clarke expresses philosophical ideas about stagnation and creativity. When the Overlords arrive, they abolish things like nuclear weapons and bullfighting-

 

-to create a peaceful, stable society. With no hardships, creativity, passion and drive stagnate, creating a utopia that would be a safe, yet boring place to live.

 The ending is rather sad. The plausibility is so doubtful it interferes sometimes and it puts too much importance on humans, particularly men. Why don’y the overlords ever become interested in cats? But the objections, although significant, don’t stop it from being a great book. For all sci-fi fans and philosophical readers!