Abby and Liz Recommend Spooky Books

                          

A Quick Reminder About What the Stars Mean:
1 Star-Hated it, 2 Stars-Disliked it, 3 Stars-Soft Like, 4 Stars-Hard Like, 5 Stars-Loved it
And these are general quality/enjoyment ratings not specifically "amazing writing style" or "contains only moral excellence" or "I promise you personally will feel the same way," they're just overall ratings.

Abby: Well hello everyone! My little sister and I thought we'd do a collab for you today. We've got a list of good books to read around Halloween: everything from lightly spooky and atmospheric to true crime to horror/thriller. We've got some new releases, some tried and true classics, and some titles you probably never knew were books before they were movies. We tend to be of the opinion that you shouldn't know too much about a scary book going in, so we're only going to provide short teasers and Expect You to Take Our Word For It *Cackling*.

In case you get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options we're about to present to you, we're going to give you our top recommendation up front.
It's short. It's a classic. And it's creeeeppppyyyy.

                                      

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Published 1948) *5 Stars* 

Recently made into a Netflix series, which neither of us have watched, this book is the Standard in haunted house stories. It's an absolute horror classic, and if you don't read Anything Else from this post, Liz and I both agree, you should read this. It's about a group of supernatural experts who take a holiday in Hill House in order to study it. And bad things happen. Obviously.
Do Not Read Alone In The Dark.

Spooky Young Adult Fantasy 

                       
                                   
                             

Abby House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig (Published August 2019) *4 Stars*
                               
A nail-bitey retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, this fairy-tale adaptation is briny and chilly and full of ghosts(?) and nightmares and pretty dresses and dancing slippers. It revolves around what may or may not be a deadly family curse, a suspicious death, and a wicked(?) stepmother. The seaside atmosphere of this book is fantastic; you can just Smell the salt. The plot wasn't the Greatest Ever, but it was a good time, and I recommend it for anyone who loves the fairy tale and the sea.

Abby The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh (Published October, 2019) *5 Stars*

Vampires in post-civil war New Orleans. That's all you need to know. Booktube is raving about the resurgence of vampires, and I think they have a right to. I wouldn't say this book is scary, it's just vampires. And murder. No biggie.

Abby The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (Published January 2018) *4 Stars*

Dark fairy tale characters come to haunt the granddaughter of the woman who published their stories? Yes. Sign me up. This book examines the relationship between happy fairy tales and dark fairy tales, and between stories and reality. It's not scary exactly, but the deep-deep-woods-fairy-tale tone is unsettling and perfect for the season. Sequel arriving in 2020!

Liz The Cabinet of Curiosities by Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand, and Emma Trevayn (Published 2016) *4 Stars but only because they're not all by Stefan*

This is a collection of creepy, unsettling stories. Some of them are quiet and unnerving, but others will stick with you for years to come. I may be biased (I’m not biased), but Stefan Bachmann’s stories are clearly the best ones.

Liz and Abby A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachman (Published 2014) *5 Stars* 

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a literary crush on Stefan Bachmann. Why would you say that? This book was amazing. It's about a group of kids studying an underground palace in France. Creepy stuff happens. I don't remember the rest it was kind of a blur. You should read it. 

Adult Thrillers

Liz Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (Published 1990) *5 Stars*

Raise your hand if you’ve seen the movie. Okay, put it down now, no one cares. Everyone’s seen the movie. But have you read the book? Have you read it, huh? Yes, the movie was good, but *transforms into raging bookwyrm* *breathes fire* the book was better. From the slow build, where everyone ignores vital details until the problem has progressed out of control, to the dramatic climax, the story is both an adventure in blind terror and an essay on cruel mathematics. I love how it calls us humans on our arrogance in assuming we can play God by controlling every aspect of our environment.

Liz Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (Published 2009) *5 Stars*

Most of you are familiar with Hannibal Lector. More specifically, most of you are familiar with the movie The Silence of the Lambs. But what some of you might not know *cough* Abby *cough* is that the character of Hannibal originated in a four book series, of which The Silence of the Lambs is the second book. Red Dragon is the first, and if you’re tempted to skip it to get to the action that is Silence, you’d be missing out. This book has it all: a serial killer you sympathize with, smart cops, impending doom, and so much more. And while Clarice is amazing, and I would never say otherwise, you haven’t experienced Hannibal until you’ve seen him reflected in Will Graham.

Liz I’m A Therapist And My Patient Is Going To Be The Next School Shooter by Dr. Harper (Published January 2019) *4 Stars*

If you are familiar with the thread /r/nosleep on Reddit, then you’ll know it’s a forum where people commonly post fictional horror and everyone pretends that it’s real, because it’s more fun that way. (Unless… *checks over shoulder* Unless it /is/ real.) Obviously, with threads like that, you have to wade through some junk, since everyone and their uncle are free to post, but you can find some really cool story concepts as well. That’s where I’m A Therapist And My Patient Is Going To Be The Next School Shooter originated, before the author self-published it and its sequel. While it is not perfect, and the sequel has even more plot holes and weaknesses, it is twisty and fascinating and references the dark web and sugar free Haribo gummy bears and everything else that’s a true nod to Reddit. What’s not to love, I ask you?

Abby Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (Published 2017) *5 Stars* SECONDED BY LIZ
Holy Crap. Is what I said when I finished this book. This is a magical realism novel with lucid dreaming and mysterious strangers. So good, though I will warn you that the plot turns on an extramarital affair. But trust me, no part of this book is suggesting that an affair is a good thing that will take you lovely places. Not at all. Not. At. All.

Stephen King Novels

                    

Liz Needful Things by Stephen King (Published 1992) *Five Stars*

This book, guys. While everyone, including Abby, is getting distracted by mainstream Steven King books like It *Abby, don’t hit me, there are witnesses*, some of his other stories get overlooked. But seriously, you need to read Needful Things. It is, first and foremost, about greed. Is there something you need, more than anything else in the world? Is there one thing that can make your life perfect? You can buy it at Needful Things, for a price. Here’s the catch: maybe you didn’t know you needed it before, but once you see it in the shop window, you will be willing to do anything to acquire it, and anything to keep it, and when you have it in your possession, you will be so terrified of losing it that your life will fall to ruins.

Liz The Shining by Stephen King (Published 1980) *Five Stars*

Speaking of mainstream Stephen King books, The Shining is also pretty good. Of the books on this list, this one has the most spiritual horror, so if that’s something you shy away from, then be forewarned. When Jack brings his wife and son, Danny, to the Overlook Hotel, which they will take care of over the winter, they expect nothing bad to happen. But the Hotel is sentient and evil. It has fixated on Danny, and it will use anything, even Jack’s addiction, to claim him. In typical Stephen King fashion, the horror in this book comes less from the outside influences themselves, and more from the worst they bring out in the characters. P.S. The Shining's sequel, Dr. Sleep, has a movie that's hitting theaters soon.

Abby It by Stephen King (Published 1986) *Four Stars*
At the risk of quoting my own Facebook statuses...
I was terrified to pick this book up, both because I've heard horrible things, and because it's So Much Book. But honestly it wasn't that bad. I mean it was. But it wasn't.
Also I had to constantly lay it upside down when I wasn't reading because the cover was too scary.
I have issues.                   **Trigger Warnings for Everything**
Once you get through 1,000 pages of well-written documentation of the filth of the human condition the book is SHOCKINGLY Hopeful. There were a couple plot points that made me angry, and I wish they weren't there, but I'm not Stephen King, and no one asked me to help edit this book before it hit presses in 1986 before I was even born (I know, Rude). This is a book about a monster that's been living in the sewers of Derry, Maine for decades if not centuries. It comes out to play (*tear people to pieces*) once every 27 years or so, but this time the Loser's Club of Derry believes they've defeated it. Except they haven't. King tells this story in constant time-jumps from kids-fighting-It to grown-up-kids-fighting-It with interludes of other vile moments in Derry's history.
I would only recommend this book to those with reasonably strong stomachs and enough security in their own faith and morality to descend into the sewers of humanity (literally and metaphorically) and admit that the scariest thing living in the world is NOT INTER-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE-SHIFTING CLOWNS but human beings. But if you're willing to take it on, I promise it's worth it. So much to think about.
            
Real Life Scary

Liz Obviously we’ve been talking about fiction so far, but if you want some truly disturbing material (in case Stephen King isn't enough for you), you only have to look at real life. Here are some true crime titles to freeze your blood.

                                   

The Man From The Train by Bill James (Published 2017) *Five Stars*
I’ve talked about this one on my blog before, but it bears repeating. This is a chilling work of research. Bill James has taken a string of brutal ax-murders from the twentieth century, discovered additional murders that were never linked, and come up with a possible name for the perpetrator. Even if he is wrong (which I don’t think he is, but then again, I’m not a detective), his research is still impressive.

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (Published 2011) *Five Stars*
A lot of you are very familiar with Ted Bundy, but maybe some of you don’t know that the popular true crime writer Ann Rule knew Bundy before he became infamous. (I didn’t.) It’s probably bad that I’m geeking out a little about this, but I like firsthand accounts, and I like books by people who know what they’re talking about, and this one sits in the middle of that Venn diagram.

Christian Thrillers

JUST KIDDING

Abby But seriously, we really tried to bring you some Christian thriller recommendations. We both picked up Frank E. Peretti novels since Peretti is allegedly the Stephen King of the Christian Publishing World. But we did. not. like. what we read, and can't recommend it. We found the plotting poor, the spiritual aspects problematic, and the characters, particularly the female characters, flat.  We're not saying that all Christian thrillers are low-quality, we're just saying that we have yet to find any worth recommending, sorry. We do share an opinion that Christian thrillers tend to make a poor parody of the Powers of Darkness in an attempt to create jump scares. We find this concerning.

If you'd like to take our word for it, go ahead and avoid:

                                   

I read House by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker, and found the portrayals of demons, rednecks, women and retarded humans, to all be so problematic (for various reasons) that I gave this book 1 star out of sheer disgust. Liz read Monster by Frank E. Peretti, and found it both less problematic and less entertaining. She DNFed it, and she didn't rate it. It was simply not well plotted, in her opinion, which I trust or I wouldn't have invited her to collaborate on this post!

Speaking of...

Give it up for Liz, everybody! She had far more to bring to this post than I did, because she reads way more scary books than me. *Shocker* We actually had to cut a bunch of her recommendations for space, so if you're looking for more adult thrillers or true crime novels, hit her up, okay?

Have you read any of these titles? Planning to pick up one or two in the next couple weeks? Strongly disagree with any of our opinions? Have any recommendations for us? Leave a comment! 
Oh and please direct all hate mail to Liz at 140 B***REDACTED***

                                                                        
                               

In Defense of Harry Potter

                   

Hello Friends!

First off, I just want to announce that the Gorgeous Illustrated Edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling is out now! This is book 4 of 7, so in just a couple more years, we'll have the entire series illustrated by the talented Jim Kay, and I am So Excited. Look Look Look!

                                     

If you've never read Harry Potter, or if you're someone who tends to feel that Harry Potter is not for Christians, then I'm going to try, in the following paragraphs to talk you out of your position. But if I can't, I still respect you and support you in your conviction.

Okay. Let's get into it. Let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time when I was a little girl, a bunch of mainstream pastors started preaching against J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and my parental figures, like a great many members of the Christian community at the time, took their word for it. This was an understandable life choice as the alternative for taking their word for it would have been reading thousands of pages of supposedly-evil children's literature. But I think it is valuable to note that we Christians have a way of doing this: of taking the advice of our spiritual super-leaders without doing much personal research. And while sometimes we have to take this route for lack of time or energy or resources, it's not the optimal way to make life choices or come to spiritual conclusions.

I first began to read Harry Potter soon after my 18th birthday, and finally finished the series around this time last year. It starts out as a working-hard-and-making-friends-at-school story with a battle between good and evil thrown in for good measure. But it grows into a coming-of-age story with that battle between good and evil threatening everyone's ability to grow up at all. It's really good, guys. Really Good. And there's a part of me that's a little heartbroken that younger-me didn't get to face life with these stories of courage and friendship and personal growth in my back pocket. I know my parents--now proud possessors of the entire movie series--also have regrets.

                                 

Harry Potter, as I think we all know, is set primarily at a boarding school for witches and wizards, called Hogwarts, and this is the reason why all those pastors said it was bad to let your kids read it.

And in truth, if Harry Potter was a book set in the Real World and glorified a school that taught Wicca and Satanism to young people, then yeah...that would have been pretty messed up. But that's not even a little bit what it is.

Harry Potter is set in a fantasy world in the same way that The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia is. This fantasy world has people in it who either are or are not wizards (male) or witches (female). Anyone who is not genetically (for lack of a better term) a wizard (or witch) is known as either a muggle (regular old human) or a squib (a child of wizard parents, yet without magic). I think this is important to note for two reasons: Witchcraft in the Real World is condemned by the Bible because it is something people Do not something that they Are, and it is a reaching into the spiritual world for spiritual (read: demonic) energies through things as benign as incense burning and as not-benign as ritual sacrifices of goats inside pentagrams.

No goats are sacrificed in Harry Potter. No pentagrams are drawn in Harry Potter. All the magic in Harry Potter is inherent to the Witch or Wizard or Magical Creature or Plant in the same way that superpowers in Marvel movies are inherent to the superhero. The wizarding world has its own laws which include Not using your magic to commit crimes, and Not terrorizing muggles with your magic, and just generally being an upstanding citizen of both the magical and non-magical world.

                                     

In order to create atmosphere, J.K. Rowling used a lot of the trappings of cartoon-y witchcraft: pointy hats, cauldrons, flying broomsticks, friendly ghosts, and Halloween-y foods such as pumpkin juice. These elements can further the discomfort parents feel toward the Harry Potter stories, but your typical Satan worshiper does not use a cauldron, and in all my many hours working with a practicing witch at a local pie shop, I never saw her mount a broom and fly around. My point is, generally when you see the word "witch" or the word "wizard" in a fictional story--it is so far from being a reference to real world witchcraft as to be not worth comparing, in my opinion. If a book does glorify real-world witchcraft or occult practices then I naturally choose to read other things.

However, I would argue that there is no similarity of any substance between the wizards of J.K. Rowling's fantasy world and the witchcraft that the Bible condemns, and that equivocating the two is just that: the logical fallacy known as equivocation. The bad characters, the antagonists, the ones who practice "dark magic" are the only ones who dabble in anything that could really be called unBiblical, and even that is mostly just killing people. It's certainly not summoning demons. There are no demons in the world of Harry Potter, only people and more or less scary magical creatures.

Now, if Harry Potter was just another book series that dealt with magic, I wouldn't belabor this point, but it's not. Harry Potter is one of the cleanest middle-grade to young adult book series out there. It's got no sex. Only the mildest and most British of swear words. Strong friendships. Well-rounded, dynamic characters, who grow massively over the course of the series--each dealing with a fatal flaw or two. The series features and celebrates an incredibly strong family unit: the Weasleys, and uses them as a foil for some of the more broken and disfunctional families such as Harry's guardians. The series deals a lot with bullying, both how to deal with it and how to not do it. It advocates working hard at your schoolwork and hard at your hobbies. It celebrates strong, respectable adult figures: both parental and elder. It celebrates siblings and friendships and delves deeply into the highs and lows and complications therein. It even tackles a set of monsters that J.K. Rowling wrote as a metaphor for depression. What I'm trying to say is: It's Very Family Friendly and Super Uplifting.

                                            

Harry Potter is ultimately a years-long struggle of the good against the evil, as well as the good against the complacent who would deny the evil's strength. It shares a lot of similarities in broad plot line with Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm and other accounts of the lead-up to World War II. The characters in Harry Potter deal with fear and prejudice and difficult subjects in school and opposing sports teams and grief and betrayals and secrets and tempers and jealousies and crushes and corrupt authority figures and strict-but-just authority figures and generational wrongs and so. much more. Harry Potter is right up there with The Chronicles of Narnia and A Series of Unfortunate Events in my book as a fictional-handbook-for-kids-on-how-to-face-the-world-and-grow-up-brave.

A Caution on Age Range: There are seven books, and each corresponds to a school year beginning with nine-year-old main characters. The stories each have a certain amount of peril and violence especially as the series progresses, and the challenges certainly age as the characters do, so this is just something to be aware of. I have personally decided to either hand the series to my kids when they turn thirteen, or else read one per year aloud to them beginning at age nine. As far as the movie adaptations go, just look to the ratings. The first three are rated PG, and the rest are PG-13.
   
                                                      

Ultimately, it is up to you as an individual to determine if you're morally comfortable reading the series. I have one or two close, respected friends, who feel it's not for them, and I deeply respect that. Each person has different needs and sensitivities. I'm not advocating taking my word for it and handing it to your kids without a second thought. The series does deal with very grown-up things and features characters who face great darkness. I think that's what makes it so powerful. To others, that's what makes it so inappropriate. I encourage you to read it for yourself: at least the first one or two, preferably the Illustrated Editions because those are Delightful, and tell me what you think!

Do you agree? Disagree? Have Further Questions? Leave a Comment Down Below.

In Defense of Halloween

                     

Growing up, my family never celebrated Halloween. Once or twice we attended a "Halloween Alternative" church event or put on costumes to bum candy off my grandmother. I did insist on carving a pumpkin most years, but only with a happy face, and that was the extent of it. And I just want to state upfront that I really respect my parents for taking the stance: "This isn't for us." Their reasoning behind that stance was loving and logical, and their application of it was consistent.

The following thoughts of mine have Everything to do with how I approach the holiday now as an independent adult, and how I'd like to approach it with my kids whenever Jon and I get around to procuring some. The following thoughts have Nothing to do with putting down anyone who has a heartfelt conviction that Halloween is evil.

I just want to state really clearly that it is wrong to go against your convictions. If your convictions change over the course of your life, and you grow or change into deeper or more relaxed convictions on different topics, that's great, but don't ever force yourself. Don't dive into a deeper conviction to please a human being. Don't loosen your convictions to please a human being. I believe that the only reason you should ever allow an edit to a conviction is with a genuine understanding that not all of your moral and philosophical convictions are 100% right at any given time, and allowing God to work with you to hone those is always appropriate. Just be careful you're not deciding that God told you cheating on your husband is His will. It's not. He didn't tell you that. You gotta be careful with your ears. Your ears are just as sinful as your eyes and only slightly less sinful then your tongue.

That said. This IS a post in defense of Halloween as suggested by the title, so here goes.

So the general concern I've heard from Conservative Christian people about Halloween is that it celebrates demonic activity, witchcraft, the occult, fear, and spiritual darkness in general. And this is a valid concern. I absolutely shared this concern until I started having conversations with non-Christian parents who explained to me what the holiday means to them and their children.

See, I think that Christians tend to react to what they perceive Halloween to be about without ever really understanding what the holiday actually is about.

I think Christians often react to the trappings of Halloween (witch costumes and horror movies) as well as some of the ways it's misused, and don't ever see the good in it--the really fantastic potential that Halloween has as a healthy family celebration of The Confrontation of Fear.

Let me say that a little more clearly:

I don't think that Halloween, at its heart or even in its historical roots, is a celebration of fear and evil. I think it is a celebration Of The Confrontation of fear and evil, and that is such an important distinction to make. 

In the same way that The Day of the Dead in Mexico is not a Celebration of Death, but rather a celebration of Life in the Face of Death and a celebration of the Lives that have Passed, even though it looks like a celebration of death...

And in the same way that Christmas is a celebration of the advent of Christ and of selfless love and family even though it Looks An Awful Lot Like a celebration of materialism...

...so I have come to believe that Halloween is a valuable celebration of something really important.

There are scary things in the world. It's important for us to face our fears and confront our demons and remind ourselves that Darkness never has and never will have power over the children of the Light. Darkness only ever has power over us when we let it--when we fear it and hide from it instead of shining light into it.

For a child, dressing up as the monster underneath her bed can be the best way to conquer her fear of that monster. For a child, walking around in the dark, safe with parents on a mission to get candy can be a Great context within which to discuss that which frightens us and why it needn't. It can be a great time to talk about spiritual light and spiritual darkness and our place in that Great Battle. It can also be a great time to discuss the difference between fear and prudence, i.e., "No, you don't need to be frightened of the monster under your bed, but yes, you need to look both ways before crossing the street and never take candy from strangers when I'm not here with you."

I believe it is So Very Important that we teach our kids not to be frightened of the trappings and symbols and exaggerations and cartoons of evil, but only to be wary of evil itself. Appearances can be deceiving, and if we spend our time teaching our kids that Halloween and Halloweeny things are evil because they look a certain way, I think we miss out on teaching them to tell the difference between something benign that's cloaked in black and something wicked that's cloaked in white.

It is really hard to tell the difference between good and evil sometimes. Anyone can put on a costume and wear it their whole lives. Even Satan appears as an angel of Light. The primary thing about Satan and his followers is that they are deceivers. The primary role of demonic powers in the world is not to scare us. It's to deceive us. I think a holiday that encourages the confrontation of fear and evil, a holiday about dressing up as something else but not forgetting who you are and not forgetting that everyone else is dressed up too, can be a really, really good thing. Also pumpkins are Super fun to carve and candy corn is bae.

For me, setting aside the month of October to get cozy and read scary books is a great way for me to grapple with the things in the world which are terrible and frightening and horrific and continue to hone my responses. This is something I've found is really healthy. There is something Incredibly Safe, especially to children, I feel, about setting aside a holiday on which it's okay, and even cool, to be scared. Rather than promoting shame about being frightened (something kids get bullied over all the time), there is a holiday season in the year where we, as a culture, have decided that it's fun to be scared, and to face down scary things, and to ultimately stop being scared in time for Thanksgiving.

Now that my piece is said, I want to invite all of you to share your thoughts and opinions and concerns with me. More than any other post, I covet your comments. Leave one below! Talk to you soon!

It's Fall. Read Spooky, Read Nostalgic, Prep for NaNoWriMo, and Drink Coffee.

                       

I am the sort of person who declares Spring while there's still snow on the ground. I am the sort of person who declares Winter the minute I see my first snowflake, and who declares Summer the day I feel like wearing a sundress, but Fall is different.

For me Fall is the season of all the feelings. All of the warm and still somehow achy colors. It's the season of the most cohesive and specific aesthetic, and all the various pieces of that aesthetic have to "fall" into place before I'm ready to welcome it. Pun Freaking Intended. It's the one season that hits me square between the eyes, usually when I'm driving down the road or out on a walk, and usually a week or two after the official start of Fall according to the Gregorian calendar.

                        

I welcomed Fall yesterday while driving down Mount Weather and across the Shenandoah River on my way home from work. I was listening to the audiobook of Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls (5 out of 5 stars). It was giving me all the nostalgic emotions about the very Fall-Vibey TV show we all know and love unless we're out of touch/monsters. I also couldn't help but notice that the air had that smell and that a quarter of the leaves were definitely changed.

Note: If you have never seen Gilmore Girls, I'm not actually calling you a monster. But I do Highly Recommend it. I'm starting a rewatch tomorrow and introducing my sister to the show. My sister is incidentally both out of touch and a monster, but that is neither here nor there. So if you'd like to join us (virtually. I'm not inviting you over to my house for seven season and a reboot), then you are very welcome. 

                                 

It's officially Fall. So it's Officially Time.

What's it Time For? I Will Tell You.

It's time for multiple trips to Barnes and Noble for chai lattes and hours wandering through the shelves telling yourself you're on the lookout for Christmas presents.

It's time to Never No Not Ever Apologize for loving pumpkin spice things and Starbucks and pumpkin spice things from Starbucks. More on this later.

It's time to get outside as much as possible. To hike, to read, or to drive with your windows down, take your pick.

It's time to prep for Nanowrimo and get around to some Fall Reading.
I'm here to help you with these latter two things (although if you'd like to visit Barnes and Noble with me or go hiking, or get a pumpkin spice thing, I'm really Always down, so just shoot me a text).

                         

Nanowrimo

For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as Nanowrimo, or if you want to be obnoxious: NaNoWriMo. It's a longstanding, worldwide challenge to write 50,000 words (a small novel) in one month, but it's more than that. Nanowrimo is a community. If you create a (free) account on their website, you can announce your project, chat with other participants about everything from character names to writer's block, read pep talks by Real Authors, find out about local writing meet-ups, and Most Importantly, track your progress.

There is Nothing that helps me keep pace better than watching my progress on the little automatically generated graph. That and comparing my progress to my little sister's automatically generated graph.

It turns out that writing 50,000 words in a month is Much more accessible that you might imagine. The trick is just to put words on paper in a steady steam without using your backspace button too much. The point of the challenge is to write a complete draft, not a perfect, ready-to-publish book.

In order to keep pace with the challenge, "all" you have to do is write 1667 words a day. Approximately. That's it! You can do that in a couple hours if you don't let yourself get bogged down in perfectionism, and it's a great excuse to spend time in coffee shops looking super important as you pound away at your laptop.

At any rate, I will be setting aside some time this October to cook up a loose outline of my Nano project and plan various writing parties and coffee shop crawls for any of my local friends and acquaintances who want to join the challenge. Stay tuned for At Least One, Possibly Twenty more blog posts on this subject. If I get enough interest I may also start a Facebook group. We'll see.

                          

Fall Reading

Fall is the time for reading Nostalgic and reading Spooky. I'm never more picky about my reading list then during the fall. I highly recommend using this time to reread favorite stories, especially ones from your high school years. But I also recommend you read some heavily atmospheric, at least mildly scary, books as well. It's the perfect season to curl up in a blanket and read a scary book so that you can trick your friends into thinking you're super brave when you go see the movie adaptation.

I'm committing to write the following blog posts in the next couple weeks to hopefully influence your Fall reading and other October/November Life Choices:

(In Probable Order, Actual Titles Pending)

1. In Defense of Halloween: Celebrating the Confrontation of Fear and Death
2. In Defense of Harry Potter: Separating Fantasy Wizards from Real Life Witchcraft
3. Where I Draw the Line with Horror Stories: Books and Film
4. Sister-Post with Liz Brooks: 10 (or so) Scary Books for Your Halloween Reading List
5. In Defense of Pumpkin Spice and Early Christmas Music
6. Why NaNoWriMo is Good for Your Soul

So that's something to look forward to. At least, I'm looking forward to it, as I've been pondering these topics extensively lately, and I'm excited to share my thoughts. I'm especially psyched about #4. Liz and I have been reading and talking and talking and reading in preparation, and we've come up with a really solid list, so Clear Your Schedule.

Talk to you soon, Friends!
Have a Lovely Fall.

AGAIN, BUT BETTER, External Processors and Commonplace Books

                    

Today I'm going to use Christine Riccio's debut novel, Again, But Better, which I finished the other day, as a jumping-off point to a discussion of how we process the books we read and apply that found meaning to our lives.

Again, But Better, Barnes and Noble's YA Book Club Book of the Month for August, is a contemporary romantic comedy about studying abroad and traveling, coming of age, taking chances on relationships and life and experiences, and setting your own standards for success. It delves into difficult familial relationships in the context of near-independence, the tension between dreams and practicality, and a complicated crush. Oh, and Christine threw in a splash of magic for good measure, which Made the story for me.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, and Highly Recommend it, especially to late highschool and college-aged readers.

Shane Primaveri, the leading lady in Again, But Better, approaches life-processing in much the same way I do. There are two kinds of people: external processors and internal processors. Internal processors process their lives and experiences inside their own heads, but external processors, like me, need to take experiences out of our heads in order to process them correctly. 

                                            

Taking experiences outside our heads can happen in conversations, in journals, in blog posts, and even in social media posts and Youtube videos. 

Speaking of Youtube videos. Christine Riccio, the 29-year-old author of Again, but Better was a wildly popular Booktuber before she ever set about to write a book of her own. She started her channel in 2010, and filled it with book reviews, bookish comedy, and much more. She is considered to be both the OG Booktuber and the most famous. Here is her channel.

Here are my three favorite Christine Riccio videos:

How to Read in the Shower
DIY Bookmarks

The Reading Slump Case Study (language warning)

Did you watch them? GO WATCH THEM. Have you watched them now? Okay, you may continue reading this blog post now. As you can hopefully tell, this lady is a Personality. She's also an external processor just like her main character. Shane Primaveri talks a lot, blogs, and journals physically in little notebooks she calls "horcruxes" (a reference to the horcrux/journal Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).

Throughout Again, But Better, Shane sorts through her emotions and comes to realizations and decisions that drive the story through this process of externally processing her experiences. For me, this is So Relatable. Actually everything about Shane is relatable. She accidentally knocks over chairs when she stands up too fast, she plays Angry Birds, she has a crush on a guy with a girlfriend, and so much more.

                                     

Every time I read a book, I do a little journal entry on it. It's my way of processing my reactions to the story, what thoughts and emotions it elicited, and what my conclusions are on its messages. This practice grew out of something I had to do for all of Dr. Grewell's literature classes: Keep a Commonplace Book.

A Commonplace Book, traditionally, is a personal book of notable quotations taken from other books. It can also include observations and drawings as well as quotes from other mediums, but it is not the same thing as a journal. For my classes, I had to select a notable quotation from each day's reading and comment on it. This, by the way, is a fantastic method of ensuring that your students do the reading. Or at least skim. It was my favorite assignment every semester, which is why I've modified the practice and continued to this day in the form of what I like to call call "Literary Journaling".

Keeping a Commonplace book or Literary Journal is something I highly recommend because it ensures that you don't simply read for blind entertainment, which I tend to think is both dangerous and a waste of time.

I would back up this statement, but I don't think I actually need to. I think we're all quite aware, on some level, that entertainment without thought is a waste of time, even if we're not willing to do anything about it. Some of us need to waste a little time for our general mental health. That's okay. But I think we're also all aware that there are plenty of morally or intellectually dangerous systems of thought out there that we don't want creeping into our minds and hearts when we're not paying attention. I'm talking about stuff like racist attitudes, materialism, demonic influence, religious concerns, and more. I have no issues reading a book with problematic elements, but I'm also going to spend a long time afterward thinking through those issues and landing in a good place in my own mind and heart.

When I do an entry, I tend to identify what bothered me about the book and why, what hit me right in the feels and why, what I found problematic philosophically, what I found insensitive, what shocked me and why, what I found profound, and in many cases, how I want my life or viewpoint to change as a result of what I've read.

Again, But Better for example made me want to write more. It, along with the author's personal writing story, wound up making a poignant case for not letting your dreams go. It doesn't advocate tossing wisdom and practicality out the window in some bid to win the dream-job lottery, but it does argue against choosing a life-path that will cause your dreams to die. It is a solid encouragement to all those artistic souls out there to have the courage to continue doing your art, even if it is just a hobby, and not to value arbitrary definitions of "real life" and "success" to such an extent that you give up everything that brings you joy and makes you unique. The book also has a lot that is healthy and good to say about an appropriate balance between familial wishes, romantic relationships, and success and happiness in life on ones own terms.
Also journaling!

How do you process your life experiences? The books you read? Do you journal or keep a Commonplace Book? Have you read Again, But Better? Leave me a message in the comments section!

SHOCKER: Abby Is Still a Weird Theater Kid

                     
^This is a photo I took of the cast meet and greet for Jupiter Theater Company's Winter season, in case anyone was wondering. No one was looking except Jon and Nick. I just wanted to catch the mood and the pretty lights. Apologies to everyone involved.

I mistakenly assumed that my career in theater would end in college.
But the weird world of theater is like a whirlpool. It just. Keeps. Sucking you. Back. In.

I never meant to enter that world in the first place. My college's theater group, Eden Troupe, was holding auditions for a late fall production of It's a Wonderful Life: The Musical. It was my sophomore year. I was taking 18 credits that semester. I had absolutely no time for extra-curricular activities, but a "friend" dragged me to auditions anyways pleading the need for moral support.

My moral support audition turned into a call back, which turned into the singing role of Tilly.
I don't think I slept for three months.

As often happens with theater, my friend group became the cast. I spent most of my time with George Bailey and Clarence and our mutual friend Ellyse, who roped me into spending hours painting detailed sets to Taylor Swift's, then newly released, 1989. As much as I loved being onstage, I loved being backstage even more. I loved creating a separate, magical world an audience could live in for a couple of glittering hours.

I remember sitting in the shadows backstage during a show waiting for one of my scenes and watching this wide-eyed kid, one of the Bailey children, a four or five-year old, just standing, inches from the curtain, still as a statue, peering through a crack of light, completely enthralled with the stage and the magic of that night.
I think I cried.

It was the first and only time I've ever been paid for a performance. Eden Troupe is meant to be non-profit so there are rules as to how much money it can make from a show, but we oversold our projections and made too much on Wonderful Life. It couldn't all go into the Eden Troupe coffers, so every member of the cast got five dollars. I have never felt richer in my life. I still have that five-dollar bill.

The next semester I stage-managed a super-minimalist show called John, His Story, which launched me into stage-managing that semester's second show: Henry V, my first ever Christian Fernandez Theater Experience, and my first ever Shakespeare production ("first ever" items listed in order of importance).

Now the thing to note about a Christian Fernandez show is that any and all involvement in said show is At Ones Own Risk. You Never Know what you're getting into. Sure, I'll be your stage manager turned into, Sure I'll paint that Agincourt battle scene from this Age of Empires screenshot you've provided me across these four pieces of backdrop. And Before I Knew It, I was applying fake blood backstage to the faces and arms of battle-hardened warriors and trying to tell it apart from the real blood, of which there was an inordinate amount. I've come to realize that real blood, bruises, sprains, and more are par for the course in Fernandez shows. But like #worthit.

I meant this to be the end of my theater career. It should have been the end. I left school after sophomore year for financial and emotional reasons. But what have I said?

One Does Not Simply Walk Away from Theater. 

Enter Elisabeth Wilk.

The Fall of what would have been my junior year but wasn't, Elisabeth Wilk (along with Graham Jackson) directed Six Characters in Search of an Author by Louigi Pirandello. The play was post-modern in every way, and I ended up with a meta-role that was Stage Manager (the character) and stage manager (the position), rolled into one.

Now, I don't regret the experience at all, but this play was Brutal. The subject matter and the emotions the cast lived in those few months were Hard. I exited that play feeling proud of my performance, particularly that gut-wrenching scream at the end, but Quite Ready to leave acting alone for a bit and focus on all the brokenness in my own heart and life that I'd just unearthed.

But Then.

I made the mistake of just getting a Teensy Tinsy bit involved in Jupiter Theater Company's summer production of As You Like It this year, directed by non other than...you guessed it...Christian Fernandez. Alllll I did was run around in a merry-man costume for a trailer. That's it. And then, of course, I saw the production.

But that was all it took.

A couple months later I was sitting on Elisabeth Wilk (now Kamakawiwoole)'s couch, filming silly audition videos for three different minor roles, of which I received Jacquenetta in Love's Labour's Lost and a couple weeks after that I was explaining to my husband that I was going to be seeing these two other men and getting pregnant by one of them. He was very supportive.

I have been OFFICIALLY sucked back into theater. And not just any theater. This is NOT ONLY Shakespeare, but Christian Fernandez Shakespeare. And NOT ONLY Christian Fernandez Shakespeare but Elisabeth Kamakawiwoole X Christian Fernandez Shakespeare.

GET HYPED PEOPLE.

Love's Labours Lost is a play about a bunch of princes who've taken vows and passed laws against having anything to do with women in order to focus on their bookish studies for a while. LOL.
Enter Some Women.
These silly princes promptly fall in love with said women and run around trying to hide it from each other. There's intrigue and drama and sonnets and Latin and Napoleon and a Whole Lot of Shenanigans.

My character is a little country wench in a scandalous and station-complicated love triangle.
I Love Her, and I'm going to do my best to make the audience fall for her too and cry for her by the end of the play. *Spoilers*

We had our first full-run through of this play on Saturday, and I Am So Excited. We have such a talented and quirky and crazy cast. It is going to be a FREAKING RIOT. For more information and announcements regarding showtimes and tickets follow Jupiter Theater Company here.


That's all for now, everybody. Tune in next time to hear Abby say: Why Am I Bleeding? I have a Completely Non-Violent Role. FERNANDEZ!!!

Do you have experiences with the all-consuming whirlpool world of Theater? 
Leave a comment! 

B&N YA Book of the Month: Riots and Race Relations

                 

Barnes and Noble hosts a YA (Young Adult Genre) book club on the second Thursday of every month at all locations across the country. I found out about this two Sundays ago when a manager at the One Loudoun location encouraged me to come after I got him and half his staff chasing a misplaced copy of  Fawkes by Nadine Brandes across the store for half an hour. It's not my fault. I just asked about it, and then they were Committed. It was terrifying and thrilling to watch. Guy Fawkes was Not getting away from these agents of literary justice.

Wow bunny trail.

*ahem*

This month's Barnes and Noble YA Book of the Month is ***drummmmmmrollll***

I'm Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal.

After receiving said invitation from said dedicated manager, I was like...okay. I will come to the group. But I am not attempting to read this book. You can't make me. Not in half a week. Not with everything else I've got going on.

Three days later I did a little research just so I would be mildly prepared for discussion. This research involved skimming blurbs online, watching Booktube reviews, and READING THE ENTIRE BOOK.

What can I say? I just sorta Checked to see if the library had it, and they did, and One Thing Led to Another....and you know how it is.

Kimberly Jones is African American. Gilly Segal is Caucasian, but grew up in Israel. They met, became friends, and decided to co-write a YA book about race relations. This Sounds Good Already, Right? I'm Not Dying With You Tonight follows on the heels of books like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which have really defined the ever-growing contemporary YA race relations canon. More on The Hate U Give later.

                                           

If you take a look at the cover here, you'll see that the authors' names correspond with the artwork depending on which way you orient the book. If you hold it with Kimberly Jones's name right-side-up, then Lena's face is also right side up along with her bold, red version of the title (as in the photo).
But. If you hold the book with Gilly Segal's name right-side-up, then Campbell's face is also right-side-up, along with her peach script version of the title. I like this cover. I like it a lot. Like all great book covers, it communicates So Much about the story and how its authors present it.

I'm Not Dying With You Tonight was inspired by the riots that took place in Baltimore in 2015. It alternates in perspective between Lena, a fierce, confident, fashion-savvy, type-A girl who knows what she wants out of life and Campbell, shrinking violet, new girl in town, runner, and the only child of a broken family. Lena and Campbell go to the same school, but until the night in question, they're nearly strangers.

When a fight breaks out after a football game, Lena and Campbell find themselves trapped in a concession stand together as the fight escalates into a riot that spills into the streets of the city. Just watching the escalation--thoughtless words, pent-up anger loosed, misunderstandings, accidents, retaliations of greater and greater violence, destruction of property, trampling, and looting--is a terrifying study in human nature.

I think what really got me were the reactions and assumptions of two different people to the arrival and involvement of police officers.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be trapped in the middle of a riot, trying to get from point A to point B, and in some sort of danger because of the color of your skin, whatever color it is, then this is the book to read. I was on the edge of my seat fascinated at how it all unfolded, and seeing the scene through two completely different pairs of eyes lent a whole new level of chaos and compassion to the story.

What I appreciate most about this book is that it shows without telling. It's not a sermon or an op-ed. It's not even a complete story. It's just a window on a landscape. It presents two different, equally valid and equally flawed lines of thought that have to make some semblance of peace with each other. It depicts the riot not as a randomized incident but as a volcanic eruption that had been building in the hearts of the people involved for some time.

Because Segal and Jones don't attempt to offer any answers, this book is in a unique position to present facet upon facet of the problem without (I think) oversimplifying. This is in contrast to Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give, which, admittedly, I haven't read yet (I Know, SHAME). But I Have Watched the Movie. Twice. Apologies to Angie Thomas if I judge her work too harshly by its film adaptation!!

                                               

I did really appreciate The Hate U Give. It made me think in ways I never have before. It made me want to pay more attention. It elicited so many good conversations. But. Because it did what books are generally supposed to do, and gave a complete story with a complete message, it, by necessity, had to oversimplify the issues, and because of that, the story and its message felt a bit contrived and a bit forced. Maybe the book was better.

However. When you start to stack these stories on top of each other. Take The Hate U Give with On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds and Black Enough (various authors) And I'm Not Dying With You Tonight, and Anything else you've read and want to add to that pile, you start to get a better picture.

That's what I'm encouraging today: Listening to people tell stories. Stories are Such a Precious and Unique way to get inside someone else's head. Even if they're wrong or half-right or just a little bit right or just a smidge off the mark, you Still learn So Much by sitting down and listening. And who knows, maybe you'll start to see the world in a way you never thought you would or wanted to. Not listening is really the only excuse we have for not understanding because people are talking and talking in articulate, talented and riveting ways.

The way I figure, if you can read Watership Down and somehow come to a deep understanding of the subtleties and inner workings of Rabbit Society, then you can certainly read to better understand a different race, class, culture, subculture, worldview, etc. etc. etc.

What's Watership Down, you ask? Oh dear, we have so much work to do.

All that to say, I give I'm Not Dying With You Tonight four out of five stars (liked it a lot, recommend) and would for sure read another book by Segal and Jones if they give it another go.

Let me know what you think! Have you read any good books lately that took you completely out of your own shoes and put you in someone else's? I'd love to hear about it. Leave a comment!

P.S. I plan to keep up with reviews of Barnes and Noble YA Books of the Month from here on out; so stay tuned!