Girl, Wash Your Face

This is a book everyone should read. 
 

"Stop believing the lies about who you are so you can become who you were meant to be!" 

This book is about some of the lies Rachel Hollis has told herself over the years (and I'm sure many of us have told ourselves) and why we need to stop believing them. 

Her chapters include: 

• "The Lie: Something else will make me happy
• The Lie: I'll start tomorrow
• The Lie: I'm not good enough
• The Lie: I'm better than you
• The Lie: Loving him is enough for me
• The Lie: No is the final answer
• The Lie: I'm bad at sex
• The Lie: I don't know how to be a mom
• The Lie: I'm not a good mom 
• The Lie: I should be further along by now
• The Lie: Other people's kids are so much cleaner/better organized/more polite
• The Lie: I need to make myself smaller
• The Lie: I'm going to marry Matt Damon
• The Lie: I'm a terrible writer
• The Lie: I will never get past this
• The Lie: I can't tell the truth: 
• The Lie: I am defined by my weight
• The Lie: I need a drink
• The Lie: There's only one right way
• The Lie: I need a hero"

There are so many things that I knew I tell myself that she discusses and how she and maybe how you can get past these obstacles that are in your way. 

Rachel Hollis is beyond funny and had me laughing aloud multiple times. She is clean (as some might be nervous about the sex chapter) and is Christian so there are many things about God and the relationship she has with him set alongside Bible verses that helped her during hard times. 

This is one that I'm going to buy for my bookshelf and everyone, especially women, should read it. Take a closer look (and really look) at yourself to see how much better you can actually be. 

Be Prepared

Be Prepared was a cute little story about the trials of a ten year old misfit.

Vera doesn't really fit in with all the rest of the girls in her neighborhood. They are more wealthy, they have both parents, and they don't come from Russia. She moved to the USA when she was five, but the rest of the kids don't get it. They invite her to things, but she still feels like the outcast. During the summer they all go off to their own camps and she stays at home, until she finds out that there is a Russian kids scout camp. After some begging, her mom lets her and her brother go the following summer. Only summer camp isn't what she expected it to be. She finds that it's more of the same. She's the youngest in her troupe, they are all already friends and have known each other for years, and she's very much alone. Invisible. This is where she was supposed to find friends, so where are they?

It was a well drawn true-mostly story of Vera Brosgol's time at camp. She even has some of her letters and pictures from her time at camp. Vera is also the author of Anya's Ghost, which I didn't realize until I read the author bio.

I think this is a very potent and prominent story for many people. Trouble with friends is always something hard and pretty much everyone goes through it at some point. So it touches many people right in the hearts.

I think many people would enjoy this simple, well depicted story. It might even be one that I'd put on my bookshelf. Eventually.

Fruits Basket Another

FRUITS BASKET!!! My all time favorite manga has made a very short sequel series.

And it's not finished yet, but man I wish it was. When I say short, I mean short. Three volumes, or so, short--which comparatively to the original series at 23 volumes is not a lot. Natstuki Takaya is still releasing chapters every week in honors of the new edition of Fruits Basket. I love them so much. But sadly none of the original cast shows up.

This story follows a very "shy and self-conscious" girl named Sawa Mitoma. She constantly feels like an inconvenience and a burden to all who are around here and believes if she looks only at the ground, she won't be a hindrance to anyone. But bumping into a Sohma (what every other girl in the world wants to do) has started to turn her would upside down. She has suddenly, somehow, made it into the student body presidency alongside Hajame and Mustuki Sohma. All kinds of Sohma's come out of the woodworks in order to help Mitoma find a bit of self confidence.

It is sweet, well drawn, and fun to see the next generation of Sohma's and the people associating with them. From and expanded YUKI-club, to stepping on someones face because they are laying on the floor like a cat *cough cough*, to many other little things. *sigh* It is really cute and I can't wait for the rest of it to come.

I may update this once all the chapters are out.

Edgedancer

As a side story (novella) to Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series, as expected, it was a joy to read.

We were first introduced to Lift (one of Brandon's favorite characters) in the second book in the Stormlight Archive series, Words of Radiance, in the interludes between the normal chapters. As soon as I read about how "awesome" she was, I fell in love with her.

This is Lift's story starting with some interlude chapters from WoR, but then continues after she leaves the Azir palace. She heads to Yeddaw a very peculiar city dug into the ground. Why she is there, we don't really know until the end and she really figures it out herself. Not only is Lift there with her Voidbringer Wyndle, but Darkness is in the city for some reason and Lift sets herself on a mission to find out.

This is a very small book also found in the Arcanum Unbound compilation of stories. It was a quick, short read only really taking two in-story days. But when it comes to Brandon a short story always ends up turning into a small 200 page book *smiles* and we are happy to have so much.

Lift is one of Brandon's favorite characters (he says so at the end of this story) and she is one of mine too. I find her funny and childlike, deeming her radiant powers as "awesomeness" because she doesn't know anything else to call it. Some people, I know, get rubbed the wrong way by this, so it is up to you if you like her but I think she's a doll.

This world is a small part of Roshar and Brandon gave a chance to explore more of this world that we won't get while reading through the Stormlight Archive because of lack of screen time. Roshar is thought out and very well developed. Each culture is vastly different with their own pros and cons and quirks which makes it real.

I think the part that I enjoyed, almost, the most is that we get to see changes in the characters as they are working through their own internal struggles. Not just Lift as she's coping with growing older, but other important character to all of the series. This book covers a jump that happened to particular characters that were brushed over in Oathbringer, so this book gave more of an explanation.

It can be read on it's own, but there will be references to other important things that might fly over the readers head if unacquainted with the Stormlight Archive. It's possible, but you end up missing out on a lot. For those who don't want to read all 1100 pages each of the Stormlight Archive, if you wanted to read this and get a taste of Roshar, read it. Enjoy it. Then pick up The Way of Kings because you'll like that one too.

In the end, there was more screen time for Lift and Wyndle, whom I love and enjoy reading about.

Letters to a Young Poet

Ten simple letters with quite a bit of wisdom behind them. This is one of the few books that I would here. Please read it.
want to keep sticky notes in so then I could refer back to them later. The whole text can be found online

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet in the early 20th Century who wrote letters to a fellow poet who went to the same military school he had--though a few years different.

There are many things that happen throughout the course of these letters. They are in response to an inquiry of critique on poetry. We only get one side of the letters, but they are full of inspiration, not only for writers (young and more experienced) but in almost any avenues of life. He asks his reader to look into himself and ask "Must I write?" You can ask yourself, "Must I ______ <insert what you most enjoy doing--reading, math, accounting, look at the stars, etc>?" When faced with that question myself, I found that I didn't need to write. It wasn't a must. Reading, devouring knowledge, is what I must. (This blog has helped that, which is awesome especially considering how much I disliked reading when I was little.) But you can ask yourself, what must you do?

There are many other things which Rilke discusses with his pen pal. Not only suggested books that he says has wisdom in them, but he discusses critiques (not to read them), solitude, the passion of writing, taking on anxieties and sadness, taking on what is difficult whilst in sadness, that your doubts can be a "good quality if you school them."

It seems Mr. Kappas, the pen pal to which Rilke is writing, had some dramatic changes in his life that kept him depressed and Rilke was one of the people who tried to assist and give advice as to how to overcome them. His advice was profound and from what I've been able to see in my own life, very accurate.

Some of my favorite quotes are these:

"The only sorrows which are harmful and bad are those one takes among people in order to drown them out."

"You shouldn't be dismayed if a sadness rises up in front of your, greater than any you have ever seen before; ...Why should you want to exclude from your life all unsettling, all pain, all depression of spirit, when you don't know what work it is these states are performing within you? ... You know well you are in a period of transformation and want nothing more than to be transformed. ... You must be patient as an invalid and trusting as a convalescent, for you are perhaps both. And more than that: you are also the doctor responsible for looking after himself. But with all illnesses there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And inasfar as you are your own doctor, this is above all is what you must do now."

"And your doubts can become a good quality if you school them. They must grow to be knowledgeable, they must learn to be critical. As soon as they begin to spoil something for you ask them why a thing is ugly, demand hard evidence, test them, and you will perhaps find them at a loss and short of an answer, or perhaps mutinous. But do not give in, request arguments, and act with this kind of attentiveness and consistency every single time, and the day will come when instead of behind demolishers they will be among your best workers--perhaps of all those at work on the building of your life."

Speak

"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson is by far my favorite Young Adult novel I've read. I enjoy rereading this book and remember why I like it.

There are many reasons why I enjoy this book is due to many things. The writing style, the characters, the plot. Laurie Halse Anderson creates a setting that, I believe, realistic to the circumstances. This is also a book that I think every teenager, or even pre-teen, needs to read and it would make them better--better at dealing with friends who have gone through a traumatic event, hopefully better prepared at parties, better at speaking up for themselves or coming to terms with hardships.

Without giving too much away and using spoilers, Melinda Sordino calls the cops at a party before her Freshman year of high school. None of the party goers know why, but many of them got arrested and harsh feeling abound.

Melinda ends up walking home friendless and silent.

The story starts with her first day of school and her dealing with the her reasons for beings silent and the ridicule of the other students. Her old friends, as in most transitions from middle to high schools, find their own groups and cliches. Her "ex-best friend" doesn't speak to her at all, though her other two good friends aren't nearly as hostile. She finds solace in her art class where she can express herself via the assignments she's been given by her art teacher, Mr. Freeman. Melinda also finds a single friend, Heather-from-Ohio, who is a busy body and tries to get Melinda to get into the many clubs and groups that are around the school. There are very few others, in Melinda's eyes, that are even remotely kind to her. Her relationship with her parents is dysfunctional, like most YA literature out there.

Over the course of the school year she finds a way to speak up for herself as she starts to deal with what has happened to her.

The novel is written in first person giving us the impression of Melinda's thoughts. Melinda, in any other circumstance, would have been a talkative, sarcastic teenager and that comes through the narrative. There are conversations written on the bathroom stall wall between the girls, some of the teachers aren't given names, such as "Hairwoman"--her English teacher--for obvious reasons. Much of Melinda's character development happens through the unspoken narrative of the novel which is comical at times and rather thought provoking at others.

I find the characters to be very realistic. The conversations and feels of high school are very real and are portrayed well. Melinda, though practically mute throughout the story, has a lot to say.

There is also a lot of symbolism that can be drawn out of the art that she draws and the trees around her house. The metamorphosis that Melinda feels comes through her art in strange yet awesome ways. I particularly love the way Mr. Freeman is portrayed throughout the story and how he helps her find her voice and come to terms with what happened to her.

They have made a film adaptation that is worth the watch as well. I highly recommend it! It stays fairly close to the book. The actors and actresses that star in it work incredibly well together and in the characters they portray.

Again, I'll say it: I loved this book. It was published in 1999, and for the last decade and a half it has been taught and read by probably close to millions of readers. This is a beautiful piece.  I hope you enjoy it and much as I have.