Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Song Lyrics I’ve Misheard

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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 close-up of a sheet of music on a music stand. The stand is next to a window that is covered by horizontal blinds.

This isn’t the sheet music to my answer. It’s simply a nice thing to look at.

I thought this topic was going to be an easy one, but it almost stumped me. Only one answer came to mind.

Artists and Song: Lloyd Feat. Lil Wayne, I Want You

What I Heard: “She’s 5’2,” but I want you.”

The Actual Lyric: “She’s fine, too, but I want you.”

I spent years wondering why height matters at all to these rappers. I don’t notice a meaningful difference between someone who is 5’2” versus an inch shorter or taller than that unless I have some compelling reason to pay close attention their height.

It feels weird to publish such a short post, but this one can help to balance out some of my earlier Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge posts where I gave long, chatty answers because I simply had to give two or more responses when only one was technically called for. Ha!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Defied My Expectations


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A shooting star zipping across a velvety purple and black night sky just after sunset. You can see the stars beginning to twinkle in the sky and the dim outline of a forest in the background where the last drops of sunlight are quickly fading out of view. This is going to be one of those tougher weeks when I do not have ten answers for the prompt, but I’ll do my best to come up with as many as possible.

Please note there are a few spoilers in this post, so reader beware if any of these books are on your TBR list.

It was interesting to me that all of the authors I picked this time around were women.

That was not done on purpose, and I didn’t even realize it until I was nearly finished writing this post.

Isn’t it interesting how our brains sometimes make patterns like that without us noticing it at the time?

 

 

Book cover for The Ghost and the Real Girl by Avery Carter. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of the profile of a woman’s face. Her hair has been piled on top of her head in a Victorian-style puffy bun, and she has a scarf with a few sprigs of flowers tired around her neck. There is also an oval border around this drawing that has roses, vines, and leaves sprouting around it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. The Ghost and the Real Girl by Avery Carter (My Review)

My Assumption: It was going to be 90% romance and 10 % fantasy.

What It Was Actually Like: 90% fantasy and 10% romance. I ended up really liking this one.

 

 

Book cover for The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Image on cover shows a painting of a young black girl who is wearing a red coat and a dark grey hat. She is sitting slumped over beside a window whose blinds are opened. You can see the brilliant oranges and yellows of a setting sun in the sky, but the girl’s body language is sad and defeated in contrast to that brilliant display of nature.

 

2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

My Assumption: The justice system would work in Pecola’s favour, and the person who abused her would be punished.

What It Was Actually Like: Beautifully written but sadly lacking in justice of any sort.

 

 

Book cover for Skylark (#2 in the Sarah Plain and Tall Series series) by Patricia MacLachlan. Image on cover is a painting of Anna, the little white girl who is the protagonist of this series, sitting sadly and petting her dog. She is wearing a green 1800s style prairie dress. Her dad, stepmother, and little brother are sitting in a wagon and looking at her from the background. The horse is about to take the stepmother and children away from the drought, but Sarah doesn’t want to go. All around them is dead grass, and there is a barn and a few green trees in the distance.

 

3. Skylark (#2 in the Sarah Plain and Tall Series series) by Patricia MacLachlan

My Assumption: The first book in this series was about a single woman named Sarah coming to visit Anna, Caleb, and Papa while she decided whether or not she was going to marry Papa and stay on the prairie. There was a lot of angst about her possibly leaving them in that tale, so I assumed the sequel would move on from that conflict now that Sarah and Papa are married.

What It Was Actually Like: I was wrong. Everyone still worried about Sarah leaving because of how homesick she was for Maine. It was cool to revisit characters I originally met as a kid, though.

 

Book cover for Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming of Age Story by Stacey Chomiak. Image on cover shows a drawing of a plump white girl with glasses and straight shoulder length brown hair sitting on a brick wall next to a lake. She’s wearing a white shirt and shorts and looking wistfully into the water as she dips one foot into it.

 

4. Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming of Age Story by Stacey Chomiak

My Assumption: This is an autobiography of the author’s evangelical childhood as a deeply closeted lesbian. I thought that Stacey’s parents were eventually going to accept that both of their kids were gay.

What It Was Actually Like: Based on the post-script, her parents are more accepting now but their relationship still sounds pretty strained.  I wished she could have had a happier ending before she became a parent herself, but it was honestly pretty realistic for the time and place Stacey grew up in based on my own experiences with that denomination.

 

Well, that was a short list this time! There aren’t a lot of books that defy my expectations these days, but I hope the rest of you had better luck coming up with answers.

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A Review of The Red Pencil

Book cover for The red pencil by Shawna Reppert. Image on cover shows a red pencil lying on an opened spiral notebook. Title: The Red Pencil

Author: Shawna Reppert

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 26, 2015

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: About 19 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

A young girl learns to be careful what she wishes for. . .and as an adult decides that some things are worth the cost. Contemporary fantasy by an award-winning author.

Although this story is inspired in part by the author’s childhood in Pennsylvania and her Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, it is contemporary fantasy/magical realism, not memoir. The magic in the book is entirely the author’s invention, although inspired by archetypes from several cultures. It is in no way meant to represent the Pennsylvania Dutch hex tradition.

Review:

Content Warning: Two brief descriptions of animal abuse and one brief description of a dead pet cat.

Everyone needs the right tools for their education.

Childhood isn’t always a fun experience. It was interesting to see how Mari coped with her jealousy over a classmate who seemed to live a charmed life. Those sorts of emotions can be intense, especially when the ordinary scuffles of recess spill over into other parts of life. Getting to know the main character was even more rewarding than it had already been once she shared how she handled her feelings and how the red pencil helped her learn an important life lesson at such a tender age.

I would have loved to see more world building in this short story, especially when it came to Mari’s relationship with the Huckster. He was such a mysterious figure that I would have loved to know how they first met and how he knew she was the right person to give the red pencil to. There was space to expand this world here, and I would have gone with a full five-star rating if the author had done that.

With that being said, I thought Ms. Reppert did a fabulous job of explaining the allure and danger of the red pencil. Some of the most memorable scenes for me were the ones that explored Mari’s relationship with what she originally thought was a perfectly ordinary gift from an acquaintance. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover what was actually going on there, but this is the sort of magical touch to a plot that leaves me wanting more.

The Red Pencil was a thoughtful back-to-school read.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: The Weirdest Thing I Loved as a Child

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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 photograph of a very old graveyard. The gravestones are covered in moss and have most of their etchings either hidden by moss or worn away. The largest and nearest one has begun to bend over and looks like it might soon fall over entirely. Please note that this post includes references to child mortality and epidemics because little Lydia read tons of stories about (typically Victorian-era) children who caught all sorts of unpleasant illnesses. This will be a general overview, and I will not be going into detail about specific characters, individuals, or causes of death.

The weirdest thing I loved as a child was visiting the pre-1950 (ish?) sections of graveyards, figuring out how old the people there were when they died, and trying to guess what might have killed them and if they would have survived if they had access to modern medicine. I was most interested in the gravestones of those who died young because almost everyone I knew who died had done so at a ripe old age.

Why was I interested in this? Well, there were a few reasons for it:

1)  I’ve always thought cemeteries are beautiful and peaceful places to remember the dead. I liked seeing the pretty tombstones, reading names on them that maybe weren’t so commonly used these days, and pondering their creative epitaphs.

2) Getting sick made me anxious in small part because of how many classic novels I’d read about kids being disabled or killed by all sorts of diseases that can now be cured with medications like antibiotics or prevented entirely with vaccines. (See also: Beth March from Little Women, Helen Burns from Jane Eyre, and Mary Ingalls from the Little House books). It was always nice to go to the library later on, or maybe ask my mother who was training to become a nurse back then, and learn about how modern medicine has radically changed the world in this regard.

3) It made getting vaccinated slightly less horrible. I still hated needles, but at least I knew why vaccines were so important.

4)  I liked being scared, and it was frightening to read lists of names on a gravestone who died one right after the other and realize they were probably related and suffered from the same illness.

In conclusion, I have a bit of a gothic side. Don’t tell anyone. 😉

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Top Ten Tuesday: Sea Monster Stories


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photograph of a dark portion of the ocean. Something huge is stirring in the water and making waves. It’s too dark in the water to tell what might be churning around down there.I have previously blogged about mermaids, rubber ducks, and wetlands, so it took me a little while to come up with a good spin for this week’s water freebie theme.

Large bodies of water like lakes and the ocean can be beautiful on a calm summer day.

They‘re treacherous during a hurricane or other violent storm.

They can be a safe place to swim, boat, or play.

They’re often a good food source.

What else can they be? Well, depending on what sort of books you read, they might also contain sea monsters. Here are ten titles about that exact scenario.

1. Jaws (Jaws, #1) by Peter Benchley

2. Black Water Horror: A Tale of Terror for the 21st Century : Creature from the Black Lagoon
by Larry Mike Garmon

3. Slime by John Halkin

4. How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack by Andrew Shaffer

5. Goliath by Steve Alten

6. Creature from the Black Lagoon by Vargo Statten

7. Zomby Dick or, The Undead Whale by J.D. Livingstone

8. The Origin of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith

9. Orca by Arthur Herzog III

10. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters

11. The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

 

 

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Summer Lessons: A Review of Modern Parables

Book cover for Modern Parables by Alex Sonifrank and Richa Sonifrank. Image on cover is a painting of a red truck sitting in a meadow on a partially cloudy spring day. A white boy is sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle, and an Indian girl and a pig are sitting in the bed of the truck in the back. There is also a white goat sitting on top of the trunk and a large red bird flying overhead. All of the characters look relaxed and happy as they gaze upon the peaceful scene before them. Title: Modern Parables

Author: Alex Sonifrank and Richa Sonifrank

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: July 16, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 82 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the authors.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

You may be familiar with the tortoise and the hare, but have you heard of the king and the sage?

A collection of short stories about the challenges we face each day in the modern world.

Stories that would take you all around the world to different cultures, times, and places. From ancient kings to modern mayors, from vast farmlands and forests to present day offices and from sages to priests.

Review:

Story time is for everyone.

Improving one’s character is a complex task that never ends. Some of my favorite stories in this book were the ones that featured people who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing in life. Good intentions don’t always translate to helpful choices, though, and I nodded along as they realized that sometimes you can be too nice, too eager to give others unsolicited advice, or too quick to judge without knowing someone’s history. These are the sorts of lessons that work better when repeated in a lot of different ways in my experience, so I was glad to see so much attention paid to them here.

I had mixed feelings about the fact that the lesson each story was teaching was written after the end of it. Yes, some readers probably need to have such things pointed out directly to them, but I also think that there’s a big benefit to discussing what you’ve just read and allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions about what it all means and how it should apply to our daily lives. Sometimes one can learn more from a conversation about a work than the tale itself, after all! With that being said, I’ll leave it up to other readers to come to their own conclusions about how well this worked. Just because it didn’t resonate with me doesn’t meant that everyone else will necessarily feel the same way!

One of the strengths of this collection was how varied it was. The characters in it came from a wide array of ages, backgrounds, and places. That isn’t necessarily something that’s common in traditional parables or fairy tales, so it was refreshing to discover here. One specific parable might be more meaningful to a certain person based on their previous experiences in life, but there were so many different types of them that I think anyone will be able to find something that appeals to them. I appreciate authors who pay attention to such things and try to reach out to all sorts of different people in our modern age.

Modern Parables was a thought-provoking read.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Three Fun Facts About Myself

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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.

The numbers 1, 2, and 3 are beige coloured and lying on a red surface. Beneath each letter is a small lego: a white one underneath the number 1, a black one underneath the number 2, and a red one underneath the number 3. Once again, I’d like to have a crystal ball so I can see how you all answer this question! Will you be telling us a secret? Posting pictures? Sharing funny childhood stories? Or maybe something else entirely?

Here are three fun facts about me that I don’t think I’ve shared on my blog before:

1. I once stopped driving and pulled over to the side of a quiet, flat, country road to save a turtle that had been flipped over on its back. There were no other vehicles anywhere to be seen in either direction, so I was not putting myself in harm’s way by doing this. The turtle was a greenish-brown little creature that was about the size of a small dinner plate. It wasn’t at all heavy to pick up and probably weighed no more than 5 pounds. It didn’t look anything like a snapping turtle, but I’m not sure which type of turtle it was. I picked it up, brought it to the edge of the road, and made sure it was walking into the grass safely where it would live happily ever after before I drove off again.

2. I was born with an innocent heart murmur that wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult. It’s called an innocent murmur because it doesn’t cause any health problems and doesn’t need to be treated. Some of you may have one, too! About 10% of adults and 30% of kids have them, so it’s a pretty common variation of normal. I only ever think of it when I meet a new doctor who pauses and listens again to my heart while examining me.

3. I  have always loved educational stuff. When I was a teenager, my family visited some family friends in a big city. There was a gorgeous, huge museum there I desperately wanted to see. Our hosts said museums were boring and wanted to show us a local mall instead. Mom took me aside and told me to be polite, so I smiled and said nothing more about it.

My only memory of that excursion is of patiently sitting in a food court with a neutral expression on my face as I silently felt the sting of disappointment and the grating texture of boredom that somehow seems worse when you’re a kid or teen.

On a positive note, I have visited that museum multiple times since then and always have a marvellous time examining their fossils, paintings, and artifacts in detail.

But I still don’t like going to the mall. Ha!

(This is in no way a judgement of people who love shopping or malls, by the way. May you enjoy those hobbies to your heart’s content. Our hosts and I simply had wildly different ideas about what is fun in life, and I doubt they realized what a rare treat visiting a museum was for rural people who didn’t have a lot of disposable income.

We had a mall in the town we lived in, but it was about a one-hour drive to the nearest small museum and  several hours to a full day of driving for the large ones. Due to the cost of gas, multiple meals, parking fees, highway tolls, and possibly renting a motel room or two for the night in addition to buying general admission tickets to a museum, we were only able to afford to do this about once every five to ten years when I was growing up. It was a huge deal whenever it happened, and it was one of the many reasons why I moved to an urban area as an adult).

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Top Ten Tuesday: Memoirs Written by Women


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A pink dried flower that is lying on the blank white page of an opened book. Here’s a quick heads up before I jump into today’s post. Long and Short Reviews is hosting a virtual party on their site this week to celebrate their 16th anniversary. If you’d like to learn about new indie and small press books in a wide variety of genres or win one of the gift certificates or other great prizes, click on the second link in this paragraph and read some of their guests posts to find out how to enter the drawings.

Okay, onto Top Ten Tuesday stuff now.

The genre topic I picked for this week’s freebie post is memoirs written by women.

I enjoyed all of these books and would recommend them to anyone who likes memoirs or who wants to learn more about the lives of these incredible women and girls.

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou’s Autobiography, #1) by Maya Angelou

3. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

4. I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

5. Educated by Tara Westover

6. Becoming by Michelle Obama

7. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

8. Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth

9. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

10. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

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An Anniversary Giveaway at Long and Short Reviews

Banner for the 16th Anniversary Party for the renowned book review site, Long and Short Reviews. Text on the blue banner reads: “16th Anniversary Party. August 21-25, 2023. Win $100 Amazon GC’s and more! Dozens of winners.” There are four balloons floating next to the text and little stars and confetti strewn throughout it as well to give it a celebratory feel as most book blogs don’t last this long!

 

Long and Short Reviews is celebrating their 16th anniversary this week.

Just like in previous years, they are hosting a virtual party on their website that includes a giveaway of Amazon gift cards and many other prizes.

If you want to join in and possibly win something cool, go to their website and fill out the Rafflecopter on as many posts as you wish.  There will be dozens of new posts every day this week, so keep checking back.

Every genre is represented: picture books, middle grade, young adult, non-fiction, inspirational, romance, erotica, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mainstream fiction, and more.

No matter what you like to read, someone will be discussing it over there.

They’re also promoting indie and small press books this week, so this is also a fantastic opportunity to get to know some new authors and find some hidden gems in your favourite genre or genres. I’ve had wonderful experiences doing that and can’t wait to see what’s in store this time.

The comment sections in previous years have been delightfully talkative and friendly, too, and I expect the same this year.

I hope to see all of my readers over there!

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A Review of How (Not) to Play With Magic

Book cover for How (Not) to Play With Magic by Elizabeth A. Reeves. Image on cover is a drawing of a red-headed, curly-haired white woman who has her hands on her hips and is looking saucily at the audience. She’s wearing a purple witch’s hat with a gold buckle on it and a purple, low-cut dress with puffy sleeves and a gold belt. Title: How (Not) to Play With Magic

Author: Elizabeth A. Reeves

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: March 18, 2013

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A Cindy Eller Short story.

Cindy Eller is a witch and a baker. She is making a name for herself in the world of desserts with her new and unique flavor profiles.

But juggling her weird family and trying to keep her magic a secret from her roommates is a daily challenge.

And her twin sisters, Starrie and Rainey Skye won’t hesitate to bring the trouble right to her door.

Review:

Food can do a lot of things, but it can’t reverse a spell.

This short story had a gentle, goofy sense of humour that I adored. Cindy’s sisters were very good at getting into mischief despite being old enough to know better, so I was glad to see the main character be so patient with her family even as she shook her head and tried to fix their problem. There was a slice of life aspect to their troubles that made me smile.

It would have been helpful to have more plot and character development in this piece. So much time was spent describing stuff like what the characters were eating that there wasn’t enough space left in these twenty-five pages to keep the rest of it moving at a good pace. As much as I wanted to choose a higher rating, I don’t want my readers to walk into this without a clear understanding of what they’re getting into and how it was paced. This can be a positive thing for readers who are craving something lighthearted and leisurely, but it might be less fun for those of us who prefer more action.

On a positive note, the food descriptions made me hungry. I enjoy books that talk about what the characters are eating and drinking. That makes it just a little easier to imagine what it would be like to sit down at a kitchen table with them and share a meal, and it also gave me some insight into Cindy’s personality and interests due to her love of sweets and high standards for what she wanted to eat.

How (Not) to Play With Magic is a good choice for anyone who is looking for kind fiction.

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