Bethanie's Brain

I know. It's still spring. But my final exam is Monday, which means summer starts for me as soon as I hit "Submit Quiz", get the news, and calculate my final grade. :D And I am So Fucking Sick of cramming my brain full of stuff I have to know, that I have actually formulated a plan to spend all summer cramming it full of stuff I want to know just 'cuz . Specifically, I am talking about Bethanie's Fantastic Summer Reading List . Yaay for summers!! Yaay for reading!! I plan to post The Official List here and check in with it and check things off and comment and review and contemplate and theorize and otherwise generally wallow shamelessly in my neglected and now-towering TBR pile. So. Be looking for the Fantastic List sometime next week and feel free to suggest any Must Reads on your Fantastic Summer (or Other) Reading List in the meantime (since I just know you're sitting there on the edge of your seat with nothing better to do...). And we now return you ...

It's here! It's here!! IT'S HERE!!! Witch Ember is here! It arrived this afternoon and I was so busy I never even checked the mailbox, and was shocked and delighted when The Husband brought it in this evening. Yahoo! I'm delivering it straight to the TBR pile. I'm gonna be good -- I'm not even gonna crack the cover, 'cuz I'm not allowed to read it until after my final on May 4th and I don't want to be tempted and .... Say! Check out those maps!! Uh-oh... .

So a friend at work sent me a link to this blog and it's so damn amusing, I added it to my list of Distractions & Addictions. It's called Cake Wrecks and it's all about... well, let's just say the title is self explanatory... It's been a great stress reliever over the past few weeks of family, family, wedding, school, work, family, family, OMG- more -family. In a word (or two) it's fucking hysterical. You must check it out! 'Cuz I said so! Back to searching the archives for the Pepto-Bismal Barbie cake I made for Ms. Six when she turned Ms. Four (or was it Ms. Three...). Heh. No, seriously. Anyway, enjoy y'all! .

I did it. I had to. I couldn't stand it anymore. John Lawson's Witch Ember just sounds too awesome, and it finally popped up used on Amazon at a price I could afford, so I raided the emergency funds (books are an emergency, yes?) and ordered it. So there. And so what if I won't have time to read it until after my effing A&P class comes to its gruesome and excruciating end in May. And so what if my freelance workload is scheduled to pick up right about then. And so what if my stack of Absolutely-Positively-Must-Read-This-Summer books is already taller than I am. So what! Witch Ember goes to the top of the stack as soon as it arrives, and if it's here, it gets cracked open the minute I'm done taking my final on May 4th. So there! .

First, The Usual Warning – probably, I am not going to do this review thing right. My 'reviews' are more a part of my own learning process as a writer than 'proper reviews’ in the traditional sense. They are more my ruminations, more my thoughts on and reactions to stories I either read or watch (yanno, movies), and more my attempt to process - mainly for my own benefit - the techniques and bits of craft that I most admired (or that didn’t seem to work for me). For that reason, it isn’t enough for me to say ‘I liked it’; I need to think about and say exactly why, so I get very specific. Oh, and sorry about all the italics and bold and bold-italics in this one. I went sorta wild with it... There. You have been warned. :) On to Sorrow , by John Lawson ! * * * I'm not going to begin with a synopsis or blurb of the plot. I think that's boring. Sorry. I'll tell you there's an assassin and nobody knows who it is, but they need to find out before more people d...