Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue Imperfections

                         

Weddings are known for their stress. From planning to execution, they get a pretty bad rap.
Here's the big secret as far as I can tell: SPECIAL AND PERFECT ARE NOT THE SAME THING. If you pursue perfect, you'll lose special along the way, but if you are intentional about making something special, you'll succeed as long as you remember to make even the imperfections and little failures into beautiful memories.

The following post is a more or less chronological account of the little things which made Jon's and my wedding day so imperfectly wonderful

The Dress

Let's just be honest: Wedding Planning is really just Creating a Situation in Which to Wear THE DRESS OF YOUR LIFE.
For me this was The Colbie Gown by BHLDN (Pronounced “Beholden”).

                                 

It was nothing like what I thought I wanted in a wedding dress, but then again Jon was nothing like what I thought I wanted in a man. This dress was fun and big and light, simple and comfortable--not to mention easy to step in and out of when I had to use the bathroom--all in all the perfect metaphor for our relationship.
Sort of kidding but not really.

The nice thing about BHLDN is that you don't have to wait six months for your gown to arrive and then Who Knows How Long to get the alterations right. You get it in a week, and, in my case, all I had to do was get the straps shortened.

Mostly, though, I picked this dress because it seemed like just the thing to wear in the woods by a lake and because my friend, Katie Gicker, made me fall so completely in love with BHLDN that I was never going to buy my dress anywhere else. Their Instagram account alone is enough to make a girl swoon.

Something Old

We lost my Grammie Tyson just about a year ago. On the morning of the wedding, when I was sitting in a pile of tulle on a couch, drinking champagne, my aunt Bobbie came in for a visit. She apologized in advance for threatening the integrity of my eye makeup and gave me my grandmother's ring. I can't even put into words how much that meant to me, so I'm not going to try.

                                   


Something New 

I have been in love with pearls ever since I discovered as a little girl how they form from an oyster’s pain over the course of years until something beautiful and inwardly luminescent emerges. I saw the Whitley Pearl Drop Earrings on BHLDN's website and was sold on them before I even picked the dress. Someday I hope they will be my daughter’s something borrowed and my granddaughter’s something old.

                                     

Quick side-note before I move on: I had my eye on "The Neve Pearl Halo" by BHLDN, but with a price tag of $200, it wasn’t feasible. My beloved friend and bridesmaid, Katie, knew this and surprised me by hand-making a look-alike. The thing that absolutely cracks me up about this is that for days and days after the wedding,  Jon was under the impression that I had worn fairy lights in my hair. Actual fairy lights. He thought that I had figured out some way to hide the battery box inside my updo (shout-out to Elisabeth K. for this hair, by the way). Fairy lights, people. That is how luminescent this freshwater pearl halo is, and it is a gift I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Something Borrowed

“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” rendition by Kina Grannis from the wedding scene in Crazy Rich Asians. This is a movie Jon and I saw in theaters a couple months into our relationship, and that scene made me cry, which is super uncommon for me. I cry at sad parts in movies, but usually not romantic ones. Because this rendition of Elvis's tune was expressly arranged for aisle-walking, it made the whole timing thing super simple.

Something Blue

“You are my something blue,” was something I wanted to be able to say, but while I picked the color and even a dress early on, the dresses that appeared at the wedding were not the dresses originally ordered. I never thought I would be That Bride, but after Kennedy Blue failed to deliver dresses that fit normal human bodies (sorry, not sorry for that review), we sent them all back and went to the mall instead, which was way more fun than ordering online let's just be honest.

                                     

Barefoot Sandals

I spent so much time when I was younger running around Camp Living Waters barefoot, that I knew I would deeply regret it if I didn’t get married barefoot. Those of you who know me well are probably rolling your eyes right now in Not Surprise. My slight acquiescence to occasion and propriety was to get myself a pair of barefoot sandals. They were perfect for bumming around in the mud, which I had to do because it had been raining all week.

                                      
Speaking of Rain

It rains a lot in Maine, so I made my peace from the very beginning with the concept of rain on my wedding day. I arrived at the camp a couple days prior to the big day, and the weather had been nothing but wet nastiness, so when the morning arrived I was Overjoyed that it was only Slightly Damp with light, scattered showers predicted. The damp put a sheen on everything that made the pictures actual magic. Rachel of Twin Firs Photography did an amazing job working with the scattered showers and managing her intermittent dry weather patches well.

However. While I expected rain, I did not think about the ensuing mud. From the minute I walked out the door in my dress, the morning of the wedding, I had to just lean in to the whole trash-the-dress thing. It would have been way less fun worrying about getting my hem dirty. Besides, Jon helping me past Really wet spots made for some adorable photography.

The Littles

Our Flower Girl and Ring-Bearer (one from each side of the family) were stupid adorable, and we don't regret for one minute picking them. Each, in their own perfect way, brought a beautiful imperfection to the ceremony.

                     

I made the mistake of not having Stella practice with petals during rehearsal. She flawlessly mimed creating a petal-fairy-princess road in rehearsal, but during the ceremony, she got so caught up in carefully creating the most magical petal-fairy-princess road anyone has ever seen (or ever will see) that she only made it a quarter of the way down the aisle before my musical cue arrived, and I had to just go. Luckily, even though my magical petal-fairy-princess road didn't lead me all the way to Jon, there were fairy lights and floating candles that helped me find my way.

Reggie, our little ring-bearer ended up being just a little too young to walk down the aisle by himself. The result was some of the most adorable father-son photos I've ever seen.

                     

   
That one-finger hand-hold tho.
In addition, we got great shots of Jon using a dandelion to coax a small child to come join our stolen family, so there's that. 

                   
The Nap

Between the ceremony and the reception, Jon and I were so exhausted that we just climbed into my bed in the bridal cabin and took a nap. Now that's what I call a marriage bed....I can’t remember if the photographer or the maid of honor woke us up, but yeah.

The Birdseed Toss 

This is just another sterling example of how sometimes Pinterest will let you down.
I decided not to use confetti or rice because Environment or sparklers because time-of-day. Having consulted Pinterest, the maid of honor, and the Googles, I decided on birdseed, which looked amazing here:

                                       

But not so much here:

                         

Birdseed is dusty. It's heavy. It gets everywhere. It was not good. But...it actually was. I had to spit it out of my mouth as Jon and I ran off but, it paved the way for my favorite memory of the entire wedding:

The Lake Jump

Jon and I arrived back at our respective cabins hot and bothered and covered in birdseed. We had a quick conversation that went something like this:

JON: I have birdseed in PLACES.
ABBY: Yeah me too.
JON: I'm also really hot. Wanna jump in the lake?
ABBY: YASSSS
JON: Wait...should we have sex first?
ABBY: *considers*
ABBY: uh
ABBY: Well we both have birdseed in PLACES. I imagine that would be Not Fun.
JON: Right, let's jump in the lake.

JON and ABBY: *Jump in a Lake Instead of Having Sex*

We had a moment at the dock where Jon discovered to his Astonishment and Wonder just how many bobby pins can fit into a woman’s hair. And thus began our journey as Man and Wife.

                            

Tune in next time for a possibly, probably, mostly PG-rated Honeymoon Post that does not include any more lakes. 

Wedding Planning in Retrospect

                     
I intended to write a blog post on wedding planning WHILE I was wedding planning, but I was too busy wedding planning, so I didn’t. Now that I think of it, though, having the benefit of hindsight is probably better anyway. Here we go!

                     

For a variety of reasons, both emotional and logistical, Jon and I decided to have our wedding at the beautiful lakeside Camp Living Waters in Weston, Maine right on the Canadian border. This choice was the first that we made, and it drove every subsequent decision from date to dress. 

                                      

Getting permission to use the camp was a huge blessing. Living Waters is not a wedding venue, it’s a Christian summer camp that had a massive impact on my childhood and on my faith. I volunteered there from my thirteenth summer to my nineteenth. I took Jon there for a weekend around this time last year when he road-tripped to Maine with me to meet my parents. It was there that he first let me know he was hoping to marry me.

                       

Because of the camp’s busy summer schedule, the only date available to us was June 29th, which presented the first pleasant shock of the wedding planning journey. I would be getting married within one week of Elisabeth Wilk (now Kamakawiwoole), my dear friend and maid of honor. I remember the night when we realized it:

We were snacking and catching up at some dark PM hour outside Chik-fil-A in Purcellville. She had a brand-new sparkling ring on her hand, and I was holding my breath waiting to hear what her wedding date was, praying we weren’t about to have a Bride Wars situation on our hands. When she said July 6th, I sighed with relief, had a minor heart attack as I realized it was the Weekend After Mine and Travel and All the Things, but we didn’t graduate from Patrick freakin’ Henry only to be afraid of back to back weddings, so we took a pair of deep breaths and dove into planning together. Also watching Bride Wars--because duh.

                                         

A massive challenge faced each of us: She would have to be in Maine the week before her wedding in order to be in mine, and I would have to figure out a honeymoon that would allow me to be back to Virginia in time for hers (more on that in an upcoming post). On top of that, I couldn’t be in Maine until the week before the big day. Yikes. It took all of five minutes of Googling Weston, Maine florists to realize exactly how difficult planning a destination wedding can be. Elisabeth and I bounced every single roadblock, success, brilliant idea, and Etsy find off each other in the next six months, and as a result, planning this wedding was possibly the single most fun thing I’ve ever done. 

                                           

Jon and I decided early on that we valued having cash for our new life together over having an expensive event. We settled on a budget of 5K, which was HARD, but we stuck to it. Mostly. For those of you who don’t know, the average wedding in the United States today costs 30K, and any company that works the wedding machine knows that, and naturally wants to convince you to have an above-average wedding. Not to mention guest expectations. Not to mention MY expectations. I wanted a beautiful wedding. Yeeeiikes. (That’s a mixture of Yeet and Yikes, if anyone was wondering).

How did we do it?

Well, I'll tell you.

First of all, we picked a wedding venue that, not being a wedding venue, was free-adjacent rather than a couple thousand dollars to book and only a bit extra work. The lakeside vibe and natural beauty of the place gave me the freedom to lean into the florals and pay very little more for additional decor. 

                                          

Speaking of florals, we saved tons of money and had more fun by opting to buy loose and DIY the arrangements. This was one of the most difficult parts of the process, but not in the way you might think. I LOVE arranging flowers--from bouquets to boutineers--so that was no issue, but the distance between me and Amanda at Chadwick Florist, Houlton, was tough. Pinterest saved the day, though, so even though I wasn’t able to see what my flowers would look like until the day before the ceremony, they turned out amazing. I went for red daisies, yellow roses, baby’s breath, and seeded eucalyptus. The lovely sisters, Bethany and Katie Gicker, bridesmaids extraordinaire, took point on the decor.

                         

                                           

They are legit super heroes.

                         

Jon and I decided that the one thing on which we were willing to spend a bit of cash was photography, because that’s all you get to keep forever besides the wedding bands and the promises. We settled on NOVA’s Rachel Yearick for her romantic style and calming manner. We wanted our wedding photos to have some continuity of style with our beautiful engagement gallery, and Rachel at Twin First Photography delivered once again. We could not be more happy with our preserved moments! I adore Rachel as a friend, but she is out of this world as a photographer. She worked with a weekend of scattered showers with an ease, grace, creativity, and attentiveness that just blew me away. At one point she found herself some twine and a ladder and hung my dress up in the woods! Dang.

                                        

Speaking of people who blew me away, we also imported our caterer, a recent culinary school graduate just breaking into the catering world. And I mean just. Ours was Olivia Wilk’s first wedding, and from our Sam’s Club shopping trip (CALM DOWN...There Is No Costco In Maine) to her beautiful rolls, salads, and chicken pot pies--Olivia was amazing. She was a joy to work with, and she makes great food. She enjoyed the willing helping hands of two of my new sisters: Leanna and Katie, and they looked adorable with flour all over them, rolling out pie crust. 

                       

                                         

Man, this post is getting long. Why did I think I should shove six months of wedding planning into 1,000 words? Almost Done, I Promise.

Shout out to Kelsey Wolfley, an Etsy Designer who makes beautifully simple invitation files perfect for taking to the printer. 

                                         

Shout out to Mr. Edling at PHC for printing and cutting the invitations for all of $6.

Shout out to my mom who took on a sewing project to save us $$$ on table runners, to Bethany Gicker for picking out the fabric, to Hobby Lobby for putting said fabric on sale at just the right moment, and to Etsy for these gorgeous, engraved cake servers.

                       

Shout out to Kennebec Chocolates in Maine for being exponentially cheaper than any NOVA bakery ever, to Jennifer Dumond for baking this dark chocolate gem before taking her kids to the beach, and to Etsy again for this personalized cake topper that somehow looks Exactly like Jon and I.

                                     

Shout out to old cars for teaching me the value of mixtape CDs--my choice in wedding favors and my other favorite DIY project of the wedding.

Shout out to my sister for putting on a blue wig and pretending to be an expensive foreign DJ. I don’t know about anyone else, but thought it was hilarious, and I’m thankful to have such a weird, quirky sibling.
                   

On the DJ note, I bought a quality speaker on the recommendation of a musician friend, sprung for Spotify Premium for the first and last two months of my life, and borrowed a microphone and cables from said friend. It turned out great. And by great I mean, mediocre at best, which is all one can reasonably expect of the enigmatic DJ Wizzé. 

And Last But Not Least: Shout out to my best friend for marrying me. 

                                

Isn't he a cutie? (**Cough** I mean a manly, manly dreamboat?). And. With. That. I will leave you.

Next time on my blog: the dress, the old the new the borrowed and the Blue, as well as Highlights and Mishaps from our Wedding Day! Let me know if you’re planning a wedding and need some help and/or would like the contact info/links to any of the vendors I’ve mentioned above. More Soon!

Ultramarathons, Marriage, SpaceX, and Cadavers: 10 Nonfiction Reads

                   
I've tried to make a concerted effort to read some popular non-fiction in the last few months. I'd love to share some highlights with you!


1.  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Five Stars

There’s nothing like the interlocking stories of ultramarathon runners--young, old, first world, third world, male, female, larger than life and regular Joe--to get you seriously hyped for running. McDougall’s narrative style is engaging and energetic. It just thrills with the awe he clearly feels for these runners as he embarks on his own ultra training journey. Highly recommend.

2. Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Three Stars

A piece of feminist literature documenting undercover, immersive research and engagement with the issues lower class women face in the workplace and in their struggles to keep their heads above water with a tiny paycheck. While the flow of arguments isn’t entirely logical, I found it compassionate and moving, and it made me take an honest, hard look at the way I think about low-wage workers of both genders. I do recommend with that small reservation.

3. Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

Four Stars

This thoughtful book, well-researched and rooted in church history on the topic of marriage, as well as its lighter, more romantic counterpart Cherish by the same author (also four stars) served as the bulk of Jon and I's pre-marital counseling. Like most general marriage books, these titles cover a wide variety of marriage-central topics. The former focuses on the spiritual aspects of marriage: the lovely and the difficult. The latter is all about intentionally cherishing your spouse, and speaks against complacency and stagnancy in relationship. Recommend.

4. Sheet Music by Kevin Leman

Five Stars

Clever Title, AMIRIGHT? It’s a book about sex, and it’s awesome. Highly Recommend. But only if you’re prepared to get a very detailed, but lighthearted, sex education. Alternative Title: A Christian Psychologist Tells You Everything Your Parents Were Too Embarrassed To Teach You About Sex.

5. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Five Stars

A fascinating and incredibly-compassionate medical casebook of some of the strangest mental cases Dr. Sacks encountered in his practice. Includes instances of visual agnosia, Korsakoff’s syndrome, proprioception, somatoparaphrenia, hemispacial neglect, and several lovely studies of retarded or autistic savants. Highly Recommend.

6. What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe 

Five Stars

If you’ve ever wanted to tickle the science side of your brain without learning anything useful at all, then this is the book for you. Find out, among other things, what would happen, exactly, if you tried to build a wall of elements with bricks directly corresponding to the periodic table. Hint: you would destroy the planet. Highly Recommend.

6 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Three Stars

I was so disappointed by this book. I was like: I’m in a hurry, and I want to learn astrophysics. And I did learn some astrophysics, but I also got an earful of Tyson’s “we came from nowhere and we’re going everywhere” schtick, which sounded super religious in its nonreligious religiosity. It felt the same way Carl Sagan’s Cosmos did: a book that was supposedly about science but read far more like a spiritually-sciencey religious-but-definitely-not manifesto. Honestly the three stars are for the title and the excitement and good writing that is Tyson, but I don't actually recommend.

7 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Five Stars

This one is everything it claimed to be and more. So morbid. The textbook definition of morbid. But so, so fascinating. Everything you never thought you wanted to know about cadaver research, cannibalism, cremation, and more. Highly recommend. But like, know what you’re getting into: Deaaaadddd Bodddddiiiieeesss.

8 The Space Barons by Christian Davenport

Two Stars

I picked this up because it’s about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and all the private entities making a concerted effort to get into space without NASA’s help. I only gave it two stars because the writing is weak, and I honestly think it’s too soon to tell this story. It’d be like writing the moon landing saga before the Apollo 11 launch. There was no climax to this book, only a promise or rather a hope of a promise of great things to come. Still it fascinated me to no end.
Honestly I just recommend you read up on Blue Origin and SpaceX on the web. But if you really want to, go for it! I do not regret the information gained.


9 The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher 

Four Stars

It’s the classic show, don’t tell. Want the nation to be a utopia of Christian values? Build those values up into strong, moral communities that so well exemplify the good life that people can’t help but be attracted to the philosophy and theology behind them. Spend less time tearing down bad things, and more time growing up good things. The bad things will pale in comparison and crumble with disuse. I don't entirely agree, but I do recommend the read, even just to get you thinking.


10 I Dared to Call Him Father by Bilquis Sheikh

Five Stars

A Muslim woman’s daring conversion story. True, but reads like a fairy tale. Highly Recommend.
Sorry I don’t have any more to say about this one; you’ve just got to read it! A really nice audio version is available on Hoopla through the Loudoun County Public Library system. Most of the above titles are available on Hoopla, in fact.

That's All Everyone! Which of these titles have you read? What did you think? Any nonfiction recommendations for me?

A Literature Degree...oh...What are you going to do with THAT?

Ummm….All the Things?

I cannot count the number of times I’ve had an interaction like this one:

Random person: “You just graduated college? Congratulations! What was your degree in?”

Me: *with enthusiasm* “Literature!”

Random person: “.........”

Random person: “You know you’re never going to be able to get a job with that, right?”

                 

Me: “I could get this job. The job I have. The one you’re standing here talking to me at. This one. I got this one.”

Random person: “Yeah but…”

Me *interrupting*: “I like this job because it pays my bills and leaves me with the mental bandwidth to pursue writing and possibly getting published one day.”

Random person: *Pitying look.*

Random person: *Stops short of telling me they don’t believe I’m ever going to get published.*

Me: *Stops short of telling them how much I don’t like being told by anyone, friends and strangers alike, that the thing I just dedicated the last six years of my life to achieving is completely useless, and also that I’m so unlikely to succeed at my dreams that it would just be better if I didn’t try at all.*



Here are all the things I’d like to say in these interactions, but generally don’t:

First of all, if I had wanted a job such as doctor, or engineer, or underwater basket weaver, for which I would need a particular degree, I would have gotten that degree. I always had the grades to do whatever. Not necessarily do it at Harvard, but do it, for sure. I chose literature because I knew I would be miserable as a lawyer or a therapist, or a drug lord. I chose literature because as a degree it opens up every single door I care to think about maybe someday walking through.

Let me unpack that last statement.

People seem to assume that if your degree is in literature or English the only thing you can possibly do with that degree is write books, which, they assume is out of the reach of mere mortals, thereby rendering the whole endeavor a useless and expensive pipe dream.

This is just not true. Publishing is done by mere mortals all the time to varying degrees of success. I will write as a hobby and hope for the best, but in the meantime I can do So Many Things. I can do what I am already doing: be an administrative assistant at an interior design company. If I take the time to learn the design side of this business more, I could be selling $$$ in by-Abby custom kitchens in a few years. Or not. *Shrugs*

If I want to go somewhere else, I could be an editor, a journalist, a think-tank...um...fish, a researcher, a program reviewer, and that’s just using my degree with some sort of specificity. I could also do any of the myriad jobs that just require a degree in Literally Anything such as private school teaching (anywhere in the world), the FBI, dispatch, reception or administration Literally Anywhere, MOST NON-STEM GRADUATE PROGRAMS including law, library science, and much more. OR I could get a job that doesn’t happen to require a degree like just about any kind of sales, small business ownership, alpaca farming, hot-air balloon piloting, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Second of all, most jobs these days rest on certifications, licenses, previous experience, and on-the-job training more than any particular degree. As the higher education market continues to charge kids gold-plated yachts full of twenty-dollar bills for fancy pieces of paper and an entitlement mentality that says, “Now I’ll take my dream job at 50K a year (starting) please. I’ve got crippling student debt to pay. No, I don’t have any experience,” the job market is saying more and more, “We don’t care what you paid for or what that piece of paper says, we care what you can do.”

Third and last, unless someone’s path in life is one you genuinely and lovingly believe is going to damage them, let them have their hobbies, dreams, and weird obsessions. Failure can be just as rich a life experience as success. Let that happen, whether your friend/family member is trying to get into professional music, professional basketball, or serial killer profiling. If you see your loved one gunning for financial or psychological ruin, speak up. If you see them embarking on a life that will not earn them the same salary it was your aspiration to achieve, let them be. Their priorities may not be yours, but if they’re pursuing the gifts and passions God has given them with honest, hard work, there’s nothing wrong with that. They will find more joy than you might imagine.

"The Breakfast Dress," A Poem

                  

I wrote this while driving through West Virginia one morning while the frost was still out on the grass. I had to memorize each line before I could add another or it would have been lost to the drive.

I don’t write poetry often. The urge doesn’t strike me often. As you see, it hasn’t since the winter.

I hope you like it.

“The Breakfast Dress”

There are gauzy mornings

When robin’s egg, blush, and ivory tulle

Fall in layers on the feet of the mountains

Comfortable in slippers of pine

And as the sky approaches

Each blade of grass stands to attention

Clad in winter suits of fine crystal

Not even Solomon in all his glory

Was arrayed like one of these

And not even Aphrodite

Could rival the sky in her breakfast dress

But God made the grass for our cattle to eat

And He gave us the pines for our houses

He moves the mountains out of our way

And commands the sky at our request

So Darling

I don’t know why you’re worried how you’re dressed

10 Newish YA Novels that Colored my Last Six Months

By way of explanation: YA is the industry-recognized acronym for the Young Adult genre, arguably the most influential, colorful, and thoughtful genre of the current literary era. All my ratings are based on the Goodreads Metric: 1-5 of 5 stars. In Abbyland that’s: 1- Hated its guts 2- Didn’t like it, but saw some redeeming value 3- Enjoyed it, but not too much. You might like it more. Read if the premise intrigues you 4- Liked it a lot. Recommend. 5- LOVED IT. Highly Recommend.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!

1 All the Crooked Saints (October, 2017) by Maggie Stiefvater while she had hookworms living in her face. Five stars.

A book about miracles and radio waves, sinners and so-called saints. About bondage made allegorically physical and darkness made light. A book about fake roses so wonderfully made they look real and real roses so wonderfully grown they look fake. A book about silence and noise. About interminable guilt and authentic Mexican food (yes, in the same sentence). A book about looking at darkness in others made manifest and loving them anyways, and about looking at darkness in ourselves and refusing to put up with it anymore. A book about the wisdom of brokenness. Not a Christian author, just a woman who gets quite a few things very right. Highly Recommend.

2 Manga Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Okay so not remotely recent, but I Just Discovered it, so there) play by William Shakespeare, text adapted by Richard Appignanesi, illustrated by Nana Li. Five stars.

The entirety of this ever-growing series is a beautiful mix of East and West and does tribute to the Bard. Twelfth Night is currently my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s not my very favorite of the series, but it is a Solid offering for sure. Each installment was illustrated by a different manga artist, giving the works of Shakespeare a broad treatment in the Eastern graphic style. The original language is preserved, but the artist and adapter take liberties with the settings and character portrayals within those settings. Check it out and call me when you’re ready to freak out, mmkay? Highly Recommend.

3 A Curse So Dark and Lonely (January, 2019) by Brigid Kemmerer. Four stars.

A dark and lonely twist on Beauty and the Beast complete with a modern DC princess with cerebral palsy. There’s not a lot I can say here without SpOiLeRs, but it was quiet and tense, and I really liked it. It felt more genuine and gritty than your typical fairy tale without departing from the conventions of the genre. Both the princess and the prince are Real People, not airbrushed ideals. The book examines the necessity of selflessness in the face of your own limitations both for your own success and for others. It works to define courage and heroism in new and different lights. It features a David and Jonathan-like male friendship I really liked, and also one of the more well-rounded evil witches I’ve seen. Recommend.

4 Obsidio (March, 2018) by Aimee Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Five stars.

The final installment in the incredible space opera that is The Illuminae Files. I say opera. I mean three-part dossier of video transcripts, IMs, photographs, journal excerpts, e-mails, photographs, and other items of evidence collected against the evil space company Beitech. Alternative title: B*it*ch Gets Space-Punked Three Times in a Row by a Sassy Bunch of Kids and also a Psychopathic A.I., then Taken to Court. This final installment wasn’t Quite as mind-blowing as the first two with their mutated viruses, space parasites, and alternate realities, but it’s a solid end to an amazing tale and gets a Highly Recommend from me.

5 Truly, Devious (January, 2018) by Maureen Johnson. Four Stars.
I took up A Clockwork Reader's recommendation on this one, and it did not disappoint. Truly, Devious is The Mysterious Benedict Society meets Sherlock Holmes. I can’t say too much, but there is an old, unsolved kidnapping and a modern murder at a school for super-nerds. There are truly fascinating characters and a famous, cryptic letter signed, “Truly, Devious”. All of the intrigue commences. I impatiently await my chance to get my hands on the sequel, The Vanishing Stair. To whoever currently has it out from Loudoun County Public Library, can you hurry the heck up? I need to know what happens. Recommend. Content Warning: at least two actively dating LGBTQ side characters if that's something that bothers you. Also murder if that's something that bothers you.

6 Long May She Reign (February 2017) by Rhiannon Thomas. Four stars.

Another book with murder! I’ve been on a bit of a murder mystery kick lately. It sounds weird, but murder mysteries are so Cozy! This one is like the female princess version of the TV show, Designated Survivor, which, admittedly I’ve seen like...one scene and a preview for. Mostly I just loved that the princess, turned queen, is a socially-awkward scientist far more interested in figuring out who poisoned the entire court than wearing pretty dresses or asking people to approve of her. The book is not super deep, but it’s highly relatable and a family-friendly choice for even elementary kids. Aside from, you know, the mass murder part. Recommend.

7 The Sacred Lies of Minnow Blye (June 2015) by Stephanie Oakes. Five stars.

Speaking of super deep. This book is super deep. I was scared to sneak it off my sister’s shelf for the longest time, not only because Liz is a dragon with a hoard about her books, but also because it’s a story about a girl in Juvie who’s just lost her hands to the cult she grew up in. It’s a hard book, but it’s good. It’s the sort of thing Christians ought to read in order to think rather carefully about the ways in which we cross lines into believing and enforcing doctrines that sound spiritual and give us power but are not in the Bible. That or use that which Is in the Bible in wrong and hurtful ways. Both of these mis-uses stand starkly in this compassionate novel. It’s most powerful theme is in its title: there are lies which we hold as sacredly as truth. And when we hold lies in this way, we hurt people and feel good about it. Highly Recommend.

8 Replica (October 2016) by Lauren Oliver. Three stars.

This book didn’t quite live up to the hype, but it was enjoyable. I’ll get around to the sequel eventually. It’s claim to fame is that it is a story told twice through two different sets of eyes: Lyra’s and Gemma’s, and you can start with whichever and get a completely different feel for it. They both get things wrong. Both understand some things better than the other does. Both find out they’ve been wrong about themselves and their worlds for a very long time. It’s a fascinating examination of the necessity of a bit of relativism in literature when you’re dealing in human perspective. We lie to ourselves about what we see, and we tell the story to ourselves wrong before we tell it wrong to anyone else. Read if you’re intrigued (I was).

9 The Mortal Engines (2001, but the movie (click for a trailer) was just released last December) by Philip Reeve. Book: three stars. Movie: four stars.

This is one of the few books out there where I genuinely feel the movie is better. The movie is a steampunk flick about cities on wheels that roll through their post-apocalyptic landscape and eat smaller cities. Their politics are built upon justifications for their barbaric actions including slavery of the citizens of consumed cities. It’s also a study in unsustainability. The story is about what happens when you have to come to terms with the fact that the way you thought was right your whole life may, in fact, be evil. Evil people can be those who know that what they do is wrong and do it anyway. But evil people can also be those who don’t ever ask themselves whether what they’re doing is right, and instead just thoughtlessly follow along behind a wicked leader or influencer. I personally think the characters in this book are a bit darker than than they need to be, and the series gets darker as it goes along. I recommend the movie, but maybe stop there unless you really want to get into the series. Book lovers, please don’t tar and feather me. The format of book is not the holy grail of storytelling. It’s just generally more conducive to depth. Case in Point...

10 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (July 2016) Play by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. Five stars.

I’m soooo late getting on the bandwagon with this one. I wasn’t allowed to read Harry Potter until I was 18 (my parents have since repented of their crimes against humanity XD), so I didn’t get around to reading this installment until I finished the original series. Which was recently. I think I’m going to write a whole post on why Harry Potter is one of the best things that ever happened in children’s/YA literature, and why parents really needn’t fear it will lead their children into the occult. Show of hands, how many of you Potterheads have tried to make a horcrux? LIZ PUT YOUR HAND DOWN. No one? Cool. See parents? Completely safe. So look forward to that! Meanwhile, I highly recommend this transition of Rowling’s (with the help of some playwrights) into her now-preferred format: Screenplay/Script.

Bonus Title: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: Tales from Alagaesia Vol. 1 (December, 2018) by Christopher Paolini. Five stars.

If you loved The Inheritance Cycle (As I do...I Just Reread the Whole Goshdarn Thing), then try out this little collection of short stories. If not, don’t bother. You won’t get any of it. Even if you have read the series but it’s been awhile, and you weren’t a total nerd about it, these stories will probably be too full of obscure references to make much sense. *Insert more Nerdy Literary Snobbishness*. Highly Recommend.

Annnnd I’ll leave you with that. Leave a question or comment about any of the above titles. If you disagree with any of my reviews Definitely leave a comment. I want to hear your thoughts. What YA books have captured Your imagination lately?

Graduates College, Starts a Blog

Hi.

I have a degree in Literature. Not English, mind you. Literature. Stories. I moved from Coastal Maine to Northern Virginia to study stories. I thought I wanted to study true stories, that is, Journalism, and I did that for a year before I decided I wanted to study real stories, that is, My Story, that is, Drop Out of College for Financial Reasons and Make a Life For Myself. And then after waiting tables for a bit, I went to work for a church, which was one of the worst life decisions I have ever made, but at the time it seemed better than getting yelled at over salad dressing, so there it is. I brought my sister (who blogs here) out to live with me because I was lonely and needed her, and because she was sad and needed a fresh start.

After a year or so at that church I got super bored with my story and decided to go back to school to study fictional stories in an attempt to make my real one more...well MORE. Stories do that, you know. All of them. If they’re good stories (in the broadest sense). They make you more.

They make you bigger. They make you muchier. 

I’ll just leave this ^ here.

Anyways. I went back to school. And then I met Jon. And then I lost my job. Which was one of the better/more painful things that has happened in my life. In the following few horribly-lost weeks, I took Jon to meet my parents in Maine, and he started talking about getting married. Talk about emotional whiplash. First betrayal by best friends, then true love, then a whole new set of friends, a whole new job, a whole new apartment, the promise of a whole fresh new life spread out in front of me.

It’s this life, working here at this super-cool kitchen/bath design company with my artsy, construction coworkers (yes, that can be a thing), planning a wedding, reading SO MANY BOOKS, and trying to figure out how to fill the massive void in my life where school used to live--it’s this life that I want to talk with you about here on this blog.

Hey, thanks for reading, by the way. All two of you, you are so great. Hi mom.

Things I’m probably going to write about a lot (Fair Warning):

Books. Old, wonderful, classic books. Recent, thoughtful, popular books. Books I can’t stop thinking about from when I was younger. Books I took way too long to read because I thought they'd be boring or bad, but finally fell in love with. (*Is she talking about books or about Jon?*)

Jon and the very few things I've figured out about love.

Wedding Planning. Because I actually LOVE it, and I’m full of tips and ideas.

Food, Cooking, and Body Image.

Feminism. Because it’s possible to think that women should be treated like human beings with rights and stuff while still thinking that unborn children should be treated like human beings with rights and stuff while still thinking that men should be treated like human beings with rights and stuff.

Other Politics and Current Events. But not too much. Because I get too feisty.

The Church in America. Because I’ve seen and experienced so so much that is so so wrong and so so unacceptable in people (including myself) who claim to represent Christ and hold the hope of all the world.

The State of Current, Conservative, Christian Thought. On all the topics. From relationships and sexuality to movies and media to politics.

Hobbies. I have too many. And there’s so much I want to try. Origami. Knitting. French. American Sign Language. Yoga. Swimming. Macrame. Window Gardening. Etc. Etc.

Art and Music. Also MOVIES. Also TV. And maybe some video games.

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

That is all.


Readers (you beautiful people), comment below! What should I write about?
What are your favorite types of stories?
How do you cope with massive life changes?
What do you do when you get a whole bunch of free time?


NEXT POST (Probably): 10 New-ish YA Novels for Your Reading List.