Category Archives: Blog Hops

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books With Fantastic Endings

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Five hardcover books with bright red covers have been stood up on a white background. They are arranged so their pages are fanned out and their spines are facing each other in a circular pattern. My first impulse for this week’s prompt was to discuss books with fantastic endings that I’ve talked about here before, but I’m going to try to stretch myself and choose titles I have rarely or maybe even never discussed on my blog instead.

Now let’s see if I can briefly describe why I loved these endings without giving away too many spoilers about them.

I will be jumping around among various genres a lot in this post as that’s what my reading habits have always been like.

 

My Real Children by Jo Walton

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: It was open-ended. Given how serious Patricia’s memory loss was, a definitive answer would have felt a little odd to me.

 

Westlake Soul by Rio Youers

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: Westlake performed marvellously in it!

 

Angelica: A Novel by Arthur Phillips

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: As a heads up for those of you who need it, one of the storylines in this book revolved around whether a child was being abused or if her strange behavior could be explained by paranormal means instead. I thought this book did an excellent job of resolving that question while still remaining true to the time period when it was written and when child abuse was rarely if ever discussed in polite company.

 

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: There was a lot of character growth by the final stanza. (This was a story told in the form of poems).

 

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: This entire book took place over a few days in  a maternity ward in an Irish hospital during an outbreak of the 1918 flu. While there were still things about it that felt rushed to me, the ending went a long way in explaining why everything moved so quickly.

 

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: It was happy. Given what happened earlier in the storyline and how often those things turned out tragically back then, that is not at all what I was expecting. It was pleasantly surprising to say goodbye to these characters with the assurance that they were going to be okay.

 

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Why the Ending Was Fantastic: I loved how much room it left for a sequel while still tying up nearly all of the important conflicts in the storyline. The fact that romance was not part of this storyline was also refreshing to me. We need more books that focus on non-romantic relationships in my opinion.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A crack has formed in a white wall. The crack is slender but long. Some of the best escapist fiction I’ve ever read have been books that broke the fourth wall.

There is nothing as entertaining and distracting as meeting characters who are aware the reader exists and who might even be aware that they are characters in a story!

I’m specifically focusing on picture books today because of how quickly they pay off as far as breaking the fourth wall and getting straight to the point goes.

That can be a very helpful thing if you’re having trouble concentrating or otherwise need a quick escape from what is happening in the real world.  It’s sort of like taking the quick-release version of an over-the-counter drug instead of taking something that takes an hour to kick in.

If you also like books that break the fourth wall and acknowledge their readers, I’d love to hear what you’ve read that fits this micro-genre.

1. The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone

2. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems

3. The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

4.Harold and the Purple Crayon (Harold, #1) by Crockett Johnson

5. Coral Reefs: A Journey Through an Aquatic World Full of Wonder by Jason Chin

6.Shiloh and Dande the Lion: Embrace diversity, accept others, and courageously be yourself! by Ciara L. Hill

7. Do Not Open This Book by Andy Lee

8. Help! We Need a Title! by Hervé Tullet

9. Is There a Dog in This Book? by Viviane Schwarz

10. The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things I Like and Dislike About the Mystery Genre

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A pale-skinned person holding a book in front of their head. The book has a question mark photoshopped onto its cover. This photo is in black and white. Just like I did for the romance genre version of this topic last year, I will share three things I like and three things I dislike about mysteries.

What I Dislike About the Mystery Genre 

1. Graphic descriptions of death and corpses.

I rarely like to read this stuff in the horror genre these days, much less in genres that have much more realistic explanations of how someone could die. Please give me a fluffy overview instead and then let’s move on to solving the case.

2. Red herrings

This doesn’t seem to be as popular these days, but I dislike mysteries that try to purposefully mislead their audiences early on. Why not share fewer clues overall instead? I don’t mind being confused or not figuring everything out before the main character does.

3. Inspired by true events

Unless the crime in question is a really silly one where no one was physically harmed, I don’t like mixing fiction with fact in this genre. I’d rather see how creative a mystery author can be instead. Fiction is escapism for me the vast majority of the time, so there’s no need to be reminded of real-life tragedies when I’m reading a mystery.

 

 

What I Like About the Mystery Genre

1. Puns

The cozy mystery sub-genre excels at titles that are filled with puns, and I love every single one of them I’ve seen so far. If the titles reference food as well, I basically have to pick them up and at least read their blurbs if nothing else.

2. Justice 

Criminals are almost always brought to justice in this genre even if they’ve managed to fool everyone in their lives up until the point that the protagonist figures out what’s really going on.  I find that so emotionally satisfying. If only real life could be like this, too.

3. Mixing Genres

Mysteries are often mixed with other genres like romance, historical fiction, paranormal, or fantasy. When they’re done well, these tends to be the sorts of books that I cannot put down because I simply must know if the sad attic ghost will finally find peace after their untimely death or if the main character is ever going to realize that his or her neighbour is totally flirting with them and would make a great boyfriend/girlfriend for them.

There’s something about the mystery genre that really lends itself to being combined in these ways in my opinion! Pure mysteries are fun, too, but that blending can really bring out the best of two or more genres.

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books Involving Food (That are Not Cookbooks)


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A whole, fresh pineapple that is wearing sunglasses. It is sitting in front of a bright yellow wall. Thank you to Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext and Hopewell’s Public Library of Life for submitting this topic. 

I’m narrowing this week’s topic down to nonfiction books involving food history.

There is something really cool learning about the history, science, sociology, and/or cultural meaning of various types of food.

I could read about that sort of stuff all day!

1. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

2.Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser

3. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

4. A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain

5. Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

6. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink

7. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

8. Diet for a Small Planet: The Book That Started a Revolution in the Way Americans Eat by Frances Moore Lappé

9. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

10. Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner

11.The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson

12. The Book of Tea by Kakuzō Okakura

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Funny Animal Video

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Close-up photo of a little brown baby bunny sitting in a patch of dirt outside. Its ears are perked up as it listens for anything nearby. One of my favourite types of amusing animal videos involves rabbits squeezing through spaces the humans thought were far too small for them to fit through or hopping further than anyone thought they should be able to.

If you’ve never held or otherwise been near a rabbit, know that a lot of their volume can be taken up by their fur and that they hop over and around all sorts of barriers.

Their bodies beneath all of that fluff are smaller and more flexible than you might think, especially if they’re sporting an especially fluffy coat or if it’s the right time of year for their winter fur to grow in.

Here is a short video about a baby rabbit who squeezes thought a cage.

Here is another one.

And a third and final great escape from a so-called rabbit-proof fence. (I do not think anyone consulted the rabbits before deciding to call it that!)

This is a baby bunny who has been temporarily placed in a laundry basket that is much too high for them to jump out of….right?

The tale of a rabbit in a large glass cage.

All of these videos are short. They are a few minutes long at most, and some are more like 20 to 30 seconds of footage.

I adore seeing tiny little rabbits outwit humans. It’s so funny.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Posts I’ve Written That Give You the Best Glimpse of Me


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Stock photo of a white person peeking out at the world through white blinds. I think stories about people is a great way to get to know their personalities, so here are some of the stories I’ve told about myself over the years.

1) Keeping the Pipes Clear

This is how my grandfather found a safe way to involve his young grandchildren in digging ditches and keeping his land from accumulating too much water.

 

2, 3, and 4) Three Fun Facts About Myself

In which I talk about my heart murmur (which is not at all serious or anything, just interesting),  share how I saved a turtle, and graciously responded to a vacation that did not go the way I was hoping. These three things are not at all related to each other, by the way.

 

5) Non-Bookish Hobbies

Did you know I’m trying to become fluent in Spanish and love weightlifting, for example?

 

6. A Review of Reading Breaks

A glimpse into my silly sense of humour as well as an explanation of why I sometimes take breaks from reading.

 

7.  The Pet Fish I Almost Had

I still think about this little fish and hope he or she had a long and happy life.

 

8) Things I Love About Halloween

It’s my favourite holiday of the year!

 

9) A Photo Essay in Memoriam of a Tree

In which I get sentimental about a sick tree I was really hoping would survive but sadly did not. It was so gorgeous when it was alive. Click above for photos.

 

10) What I Do When I’m Not Feeling Well

A lighthearted look at dealing with minor illnesses like the common cold and how I handle them.

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Book I Wish Were More Popular

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A gorgeous black woman dressed in a mermaid costume and sitting on the sand at the beach as the waves roll in. Her bra is metallic purple, her fin is light green, and her hair has been braided with red extensions. She’s lovely and looks very happy to be there.

It was so tempting for me to list five or six stories today, but I did follow the rules by narrowing down my choices to books that have been published in the last five years that I think should have been far more popular than they were.

My answer for this week’s theme?

The Deep by Rivers Solomon. That link will take you to the Goodreads page for it, and this one will show you my review of it from 2020.

What is it about? Without giving away spoilers, it’s about black mermaids who bear little to no resemblance to Disney’s bubblegum representation of mermaids. Their meaning is much deeper and thought provoking than that.

What I love about this novella are all of the layers readers get to unwrap as they discover more information about Yetu and her people. My impression of her changed several times as I read this book, and I keep hoping someone will finally turn it into a film or TV show.

Other themes in the storyline include intergenerational trauma, the lingering effects of racism, figuring out how to heal from the past, accepting love (both romantic and platonic), and, interestingly enough,  the many differences between aquatic and land-based organisms.

Obviously, humans in their current form cannot live in the ocean. It takes a lot of alterations to make such a thing possible and some of them created opportunities for amusing misunderstandings, so keep an eye out for those moments as they appear.

The world-building leaves a lot of space for readers to come up with our own ideas of how certain things worked or what happened in the time periods Yetu does not have knowledge of as well. This is yet another reason why we need more readers for this book and for an on-screen adaptation to happen.

I need more folks around who would like to discuss the possibilities of this world and what might happen next to the characters!

 

 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Animals I’d Want to Meet


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of an blond English Cocker Spaniel puppy sitting on a dirt trail in a forest. She is looking up lovingly at the human who is holding her leash just out of view and to the right of this photo. The forest is lush and looks as green and vibrant as it should in July or August when summer is peaking and everything is growing furiously. You can barely see anything of the sky because of how tall the trees are!If only it were possible to meet all of them!

1. Enzo from The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

2. Wilbur and Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White

3. All of the friendly rabbits from Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

4. The Velveteen Rabbit from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco

5. Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and maybe even Toad from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

6. Bambi from Bambi (Bambi, #1) by Felix Salten

As some of these answers included multiple characters, I think this will suffice.

Which fictional animals would you want to meet?

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Things I Wish More People Talked About Openly

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

This week’s prompt was interesting because I’m a pretty private person. Theoretically, I am all for people sharing details of whatever is going on in their lives, including topics that previous generations tended to keep to themselves.

A photo of four different phones. From left to right there is a: 2000s-era black cellphone, 1980s-era green landline, 1960s-era white rotary phone, and 1940s-era black rotary phone. That does not mean that I am equally comfortable sharing everything about myself in great detail, though! I need time to get to know someone first to see what sort of character they might have and whether something small I share privately with them is going to be spread to every single person they know in the world by tomorrow morning. 😉

So what do I wish people talked about openly more often?

Their Average Days. Social media can often be a highlight reel of the best times in life…but what about when you’re not doing anything out of the ordinary? What do those days look like?

Small Accomplishments. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. I love listening to or reading about people doing little things that are difficult for them but may be easy for someone else like making a phone call or trying something new. There’s nothing like cheering someone on for something that most folks would probably overlook if it wasn’t pointed out.

What They’re Grateful For. I believe that gratitude is often an underrated virtue, so it’s wonderful to see what someone is grateful for today even if it’s something minor like watching a gorgeous sunset.

Compliments. Everyone needs a nice compliment now and again.

How about all of you?

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books About Trains


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of train tracks going through a forest. There isn’t currently a train on them, but you can see the sun setting in the distance and the dark, evergreen forest on either side of the tracks. It’s a quiet and thoughtful moment. Thank you to Cathy @ What Cathy Read Next for this topic idea. I’m narrowing down “Planes, Trains & Automobiles/Books Featuring Travel” to just books about trains as I think travelling by train is just about the nicest ways to get around. 

Canada doesn’t have as much train service as I wish we had, but you can still travel between most of the larger cities this way. It’s so relaxing to sit in a soft, comfortable seat and surf the Internet, eat some tasty food, or watch the countryside fly by. I much prefer it to driving or flying!

Here are some books about trains. Interestingly enough, they are all for children.

1. The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, #1) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

2.The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

3. Ghost Train by Paul Yee
4. Bear on the Train by Julie Lawson
5 .A Sea So Far by Jean Thesman
6. The Runaway Train by Jane Flory
8. Bob the Railway Dog by Corinne Fenton
10. Lackawanna: A Novel by Chester Aaron

What is the train system like where you live? Can you hop on a nearby train when you need to travel, or do they only carry stuff like livestock or bulky goods?

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