Author: Trish

Winter by Marissa Meyer

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Winter-finalOkay, this might be awful, but I wasn’t blown away by Winter, the last installment in The Lunar Chronicles.  I think maybe it was too long?  All the action takes place on Luna, but there’s just so much back and forth and splitting up and reuniting, and…I don’t know!  I liked it, but I wasn’t desperate to read it the way I expected.

The characters remain amazing.  Meyer has found a way to make her heroines and heroes both strong and vulnerable.  The women are especially powerful – the final confrontation between Cinder and Levana was an epic standoff…between two women!  That doesn’t happen nearly enough.  I also really liked Winter, and how her mental breakdowns were viewed as weakness by ignorant bad guys, but as strength by those who know her.  And Thorne remains the dashing snarky hero of my heart.   Continue reading →

Oh Hey, Friday! #8 HAVE A LAUGH WITH STEPHEN COLBERT

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It’s another round of the Oh Hey, Friday! link-up from September Farm and 5 on Friday from A. Liz Adventures!  

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Stephen Colbert is the celebrity I would most want to marry…if he were twenty years younger.  Luckily, things like “age compatibility” don’t matter on YouTube, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time this week watching clips from his time hosting The Late Show.  Here are five of my favorites,  perfect for your viewing weekend pleasure.

HAVE A LAUGH WITH STEPHEN COLBERT  

1|  Stephen & Emily Blunt Have a Fake Vomit-Off

Continue reading →

Letters Between Friends: SCANDAL

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LettersBtwnFriends

I got Lindsay into Scandal, and it has taken over both our mental states.  So today I wrote her a letter about all the ways we should imitate Olivia Pope…and a couple ways we shouldn’t.

Check it out on Lindsay’s blog, Wild Ginger!

 

Choosing Love Over Fear

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I was going to write a blog post about the nauseous horror I feel every time I go on Facebook and see Christians praising Republican leaders for refusing to allow Syrian refugees into our country.  I was going to talk about how of course some terrorists will take advantage of the situation, but how….I cannot fathom why that would keep us from helping people in need.

I say “I was going…” because I found a blog post that said everything I wanted to say.  Consider taking the time to read Klinton Silvey’s blog post “Something Christian Millennials ‘Don’t Get.'”  And if you won’t take the time, here are a few passages that especially resonated with what I wanted to say.

I was raised in a small-town Baptist church. I was taken there Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday nights. I don’t care how much you like to goof off, if you spend that much time in a church, you’re going to pick up on major themes whether you want to or not.

One of those major themes is that we should be courageous. Another is that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. Another is that life is eternal.

These themes are all over the Bible. “Be strong and courageous,” God told Joshua. “Perhaps you are here for such a time as this,” Esther’s uncle said. “Do not fear those who can kill the body,” Jesus said.

Courage, love, and eternity.  Those are the hallmarks of my Christian upbringing too.  We are free to love courageously because our hope is not in this world – we are eternal beings, and death is just a doorway into the next phase of our existence.   Continue reading →

Coming to Terms with Being Type Four in the Enneagram

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If you don’t know what the Enneagram is, this post won’t make much sense to you.  Check out The Enneagram Institute for more information, and take one of their tests to find your personality type.

Several days ago, I wrote a blog post about my identity crisis when I realized I was not an Enneagram Type Nine, but was instead a Type Four.  I hated being a Four, partly because my brain was wrong that I’d been misidentifying myself, and partly because Fours just kind of seem awful!  But over the last couple days, I’m coming around to being a Four.

For one thing, Lindsay wrote me a letter about how our friendship is compatible based on our personality types (she’s a Two).  It was helpful to see that me being a Four brings something useful to our friendship.  It helped me see that Fours aren’t ALWAYS self-absorbed and moody, but can use their emotionality to draw others into deeper and more intimate relationships.

For another thing, I read Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me? which is a memoir that is about as self-absorbed and emotional as you can get–and it was great!  She unapologetically admits her faults, finds humor in them, and offers her life as an example to be followed (or not).  I’m pretty sure she’s a Four, and it felt so good to see someone with my personality doing something awesome.

Because the thing is, when I found out I was a Four, I still desperately wanted to be a Nine.  All the emotional chaos that comes with being a Four is absent in Nines, and I liked thinking of myself as someone whose negative quality was retreating (instead of what it is: mulling over everything ad nauseum).  So when I found out I was actually a Four, everything inside me wanted to be Someone Else.  What traits could I learn that would make me more like a Nine?  Anything to not be a Four!!

But.  That’s awful!   Continue reading →

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

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Inimona_final‘ve long been a fan of Gingerhaze (Noelle Stevenson’s online persona), but I didn’t read Nimona when it was a webcomic.  I hate waiting for new updates (which is also why I watch Netflix more than TV).  But now it’s out in book form, and IT IS SO GOOD.

Nimona is clever, gorgeously drawn in a deceptively simplistic animation, and incredibly touching while also being laugh-out-loud funny on multiple occasions.  In the words of Stevenson herself:

Nimona is about a supervillain mad scientist knight and his shapeshifting, trigger-happy girl sidekick, the titular Nimona. Ballister is actually a pretty nice guy, but Nimona just wants to blow stuff up. They go up against Sir Goldenloin, the codpiece-wearing swishy-haired hero, and the duplicitous institution he represents. It all takes place in a medieval-futuristic world.

It’s dedicated “to all the monster girls” and I am in love with the raw emotion behind Nimona’s story.  She’s a shapeshifter, dangerous and angry.  She joins Ballister Blackheart in supervillainy in one of the coolest settings I’ve seen:  there are kings and knights alongside science labs and touch screens.  Teaming up against Goldenloin (who has a secret past with Blackheart) and the good (evil?) Institute, Nimona and Blackheart become good friends…until Nimona’s monstrous side gets out of hand.

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Nimona is every girl who has felt Too Much, who feels used and abused, who knows trusting people is the first step toward being betrayed.  This comic gets deep, y’all.  The fact that she makes jokes about “I’m a shark!” is just icing on top of a really emotional story about beauty and the beast – but genderswapped!  I’m SUCH a fan.

You can read the first three comics on Stevenson’s website HERE.  Though be forewarned, the drawing style matures throughout the story (it was written over the course of a couple years).  It gets SO GOOD.  Now I’m off to dive back into the Internet world of Gingerhaze.


Book Jacket

Nimona is an impulsive shapeshifter with a knack for villainy.  Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta.

As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc.  Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren’t the heroes everyone thinks they are.

Explosions will be involved.  Science and sharks will be too.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona’s powers are as murky and mysterious as her past.  And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.

Nemeses!  Dragons!  Science!  Symbolism!

All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson, based on her award-winning web comic.

Release Date: May 2015

What Are You Reading Wednesday #WAYRW (10)

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I only just realized (two hours after publishing this blog post) that today is actually TUESDAY, not Wednesday.  I have no excuse other than I clearly do not have enough structure in my life.  Please consider today a whimsical treat:  What Are You Reading Wednesday (on Tuesday).

 

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What Are You Reading Wednesdays #WAYRW is a weekly feature started on It’s A Reading Thing. Everyone is welcome to participate. You can answer the questions in the comments section of the weekly #WAYRW post or link back to your #WAYRW post on your blog via the link up. You can grab the image above or create your own, just please make sure you link back to IART as the host for this meme.

How to participate:
Grab the book you are currently reading and answer three questions:
1. What’s the name of your current read?
2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share a couple of sentences.
3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

 

ness1. What’s the name of your current read?  

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share a couple of sentences.

“You know,” he [Jared] says, when we meet back at the waitress station (still called a waitress station even though it’s only us two waiters tonight), “this thing with Henna only really came up when she started dating Tony.  And now she’s going to Africa after graduation.  And then Nathan comes into our lives to catch her eye when she’s single and you’re still ‘gathering your courage.'”  He eats a french fry off a plate.  “Ever thought you only really like her because there’s always something in the way of actually getting close to her?”

“I think that all the time.”

3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

Mmm, nah.  Ness’s satirical world is fun, but I’m not dying to live in a world where indie kids fix supernatural problems while everyone else struggles through real life issues.  I’ll read about it, though!

When to Act and When to Wait

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The combination of obsessively listening to the Hamilton soundtrack and reading old blog entires for my Ten Years Ago… series has gotten me thinking a lot about waiting and acting.

I’ve always felt like a mass of contradictions, wanting to DO and BE and change the world!!! while also being absolutely terrified of walking into a room of strangers.  I think I have grown into some confidence, and also learned how to say no to the unnecessarily stressful things that I can avoid.  But still, there is a push/pull within me that urges me forward and holds me back simultaneously.   Continue reading →

TEN YEARS AGO…First Snowfall and Low Grade Depression

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TEN YEARS AGO

November 16, 2005

Gah!  I LOVE Lost and I HATE Ana-Lucia.  I love that every episode I’m left with my mouth hanging open, eyes bugged out, gasping for some sort of closure that never comes.  Every week–it’s just awesome.  I’m in love.

In other news, it was the first snowfall today!  Quite exciting.  Now we just need a good blizzard, a few snow days, and then I’m ready for spring.  But I do like snow.  I wish somehow it could snow without being cold.  Because I don’t like that.  Especially since I know we’ll have to be marching in it soon.  Ew.  Related to snow, my milk carton today was special; it had snowflakes on it.  There were only three of them.  Weird, but I was excited.  No one else seemed to understand the cuteness of it, but oh well.   Continue reading →

Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther

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514iqc7VMnL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_I am often drawn to books about people who grew up in conservative Christian circles who wind up abandoning their faith because of the pain in their past (like Jesus Land).  I want to understand how the faith that so empowers me has hurt other people so badly.  And I want to know how God’s people too often lead others away from God instead of toward him.  Many such spiritual memoirs end with the author swearing off religion, but in Girl at the End of the World, despite a childhood of emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse, Elizabeth finds her way back to faith, not through the fundamentalist religion of her past, but through the mystery-embracing truths of Catholicism.

Then I realize: She isn’t just Jesus’s mother.  She is the mother of our Lord and Savior.  Mary is important.

I touch my tender belly and think of the twins growing inside me.  I’m not just a mother either.  I am important.

The thought breaks over me like the rising dawn of a new day: What if God is pursuing me through the gentle love of His Son’s mother? What if, knowing that all the masculine roads to God are blocked for me, Jesus has sent His mother to lead me back to Him?

The granddaugher of the founders of The Assembly, Elizabeth grew up in a religious cult.  She writes about the pain of her childhood and the intense anxiety it provoked with raw honesty that absolutely draws the reader in.  She isn’t hesitant to expose herself, her family, or her faith, and because of that, her story is a beautiful portrayal of brokenness and hope.   Continue reading →