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Not going to work on a weekday and staying in a place where there are only the standard TV channels and no option to stick my HDD into the TV got me re-acquainted with such pearls of morning TV as 30-min discussion of bows on toiler paper, even longer discussion of a somewhat-famous couple enjoying sakura viewing in a park (seriously, what the fluff goes through people’s heads when they think it’s necessary to take pictures of two people sitting on grass in a park and looking at trees and then discuss every angle of those pictures at length on national tv?), and a very detailed discussion of the Imperial couple’s outfits as they pay last homage in shrines around the country before abdication. (Still better than what I caught on CNN and BBC before changing the channel though.)
In short, it’s days like this when I really begin to despise that part of my broken mind that makes me unable to function without having some kind of TV noise in the background…because no matter how much I try to concentrate on something else, time after time I catch glimpses of something that just sends the ‘damn, I really can’t understand or feel any kind of affinity with this humanity’ thought shooting through my mind.
I’m not sure if I would’ve ever understood ‘hype culture’ even before I had depression for years.
I have very little trust and respect towards people who appear to cower before authority of any kind. Especially grown adults. People who place too much weight into vertically structured society and authority are always the first to abuse it. They’re like time bombs and I don’t like being around them.
My first reaction to having a breakdown in public is to pretend that I’m not having a breakdown and buy a hamburger take-out. Though usually cheeseburger. With pickles if I can help it.
Though since I can’t really eat lately, this time the hamburger is spending the night in the fridge. Crisscut fries and all.
Thinking about how many meals it will take me to eat it and will it survive long enough to be still edible when I can get to it is better than thinking about the fact that I have no support system at all and my breakdowns are getting worse.
Summer Breeze by Catherine Anderson
Summer Breeze by Catherine Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A skillfully written, slow, sweet, and simple story of a young woman who has spent last 5 years unable to leave 4 walls because of a trauma-induced panic disorder and a ‘reluctant temporary caretaker’ who is of course a dashing gentleman who will change her world.
It follows very traditional story arc, with romance so thick and sweet you could spread it on a toast, but then have hard time chewing through it. With sprinkles of stetsons, sheriffs, horses, gold, and bullets.
Perfect fit for people who are looking for a quality pure romance.
Though it is also likely simple enough that those of us not too open-minded to transparent romance will have to fight through some skepticism.
View all my reviews
Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’m not usually a fan of ‘dark’ and ‘vampires’, but I picked this book up because I saw “fans of Black Dagger Brotherhood will love this” on another book’s cover. Admittedly, I mistakenly thought that 1) reverse should be true as well; 2) if publishers bothered to put something on the front cover it should actually make sense. (The two books had absolutely nothing in common.)
I gave this three stars because there were a few points and moments (like the blindness and cat communication) that I actually liked, but overall this was not a very pleasant experience.
First, I made up this book to be scarier than it was for about 60% of it. This would be because it started very low. Murder, rape, prostitution, psychopaths, a thick layer of immorality on every side, and a gathering of tortured souls with very disturbing pasts. From the very beginning it is filled with too much malice and violence.
Second, there is something very unsavory and ‘underdone’ about this book’s writing and language. The extra ‘kind of’s in descriptions, the fact that Darius’s name is the only one that didn’t fit into the pattern of the Brotherhood like he didn’t belong from the beginning, the cheesiest ‘Mr. X’, the ‘awesome responsibility’, the dialogs that felt like they needed a few more edits… I kept stumbling over these, and the reading didn’t feel smooth or nice, especially in the beginning.
And then also the ‘street/gang’ talk cops and Brotherhood kept using and the whole rap music and ‘we’re so bad and badass’ tone done in a way that just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Then we get an unappreciated-as-an-individual extremely beautiful heroine and a super-strong, super-inhumanly-hot main hero. Skip the insta-romance and jump into insta-lust. And ‘You’re a vampire, Harry.’ cherry on top.
I’m not sure if my perception is screwed by the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to read through the ‘Mr. X’ parts because of whole cliché-ism and distastefulness of them and skipped most of them, but I also felt like the main character suddenly lost most of her personality and just turned into ‘perfect wife and queen that says and does only the right things’.
About the same time, the book lost most of its scarinesses and it became clear that nothing as terrible as I imagined was actually going to happen. Which is actually a plus, because I liked the ending more that the beginning. Just still not enough to like the book overall.
View all my reviews
A year ago, I looked at my 10-15 book TBR pile and thought it was a lot.
(a year ago my head was in a place where I couldn’t really read anything but fluffy fanfiction on 2-3 specific fandoms by thousands)
As of this moment my TBR pile has reached at least 84 (I run out of space on the top of my shelf where I was storing them 20 books ago) … with more expected in the mail.
I need to cancel my book boxes…because as of now, the book selections they send end up all the way on the bottom of the list of things I want to read at the moment, and there’s really no sense in ordering them if this is the case.
