Eloquent Pedestrian

In December of 2013 I was hit by a sudden depression. Depression seems like an odd word for it now, because it was a very heightened experience. My skin was full of pins and needles all the time. My lungs were constricted.  I was obsessed with the idea of my own death, not as something to be wished for, but as the inevitable truth it is for all of us. I was terrified all the time. I was also terrified that I would live a long life without experiencing any of it fully and deeply.  Thankfully, I was raised in a household where mental health was an open topic to be discussed. I told people I was struggling, and they helped me.  Depression and anxiety are still things I struggle with. I should emphasize that what I went through was nothing compared to the monster of depression that some people deal with. You fight so hard every day, and you're still here. I am in awe of you. I spoke to my pastor, not being one to do so generally, and it was the best decisi...

I have thought a lot about this little blog lately. Starting today I want to push in a new direction. The old posts will stay, with all their rambly random goodness. But moving forward I'm hoping to do something different. There are a lot of wish words in that paragraph. I come from a family of hopeful journalers. Our house is full of partially begun diaries and half-filled photo albums. But I think this could be the start of something special.

Staked by Kevin Hearne My rating: 1 of 5 stars Come on Hearne, why do you have to do this to me? I love Kevin Hearne's sense of humor, I follow him on Facebook, I adore Oberon, and all of his shenanigans. But this was just shoddy work. The few good things first off. Atticus has a big revelation about himself in this book, with long term implications. I like that. Granuille is living with the consequences of her actions in recent books and stories. Unfortunately this leads her to a scene so painfully badly written that I genuinely couldn't stomach it. I skipped pages and pages of what was supposed to be the climax of her story arc because the dialogue was painful to look at. Then there was Owen, who has undergone a bit too much character shift for me recently. All in all I was glad to see the character development and the ending of the Vampire War arc. I'm going to give it one more book before I give up on it. View all my rev...

Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars Verity and Dominic are back! I confess to a mixture of excitement (I love these two) and disappointment (I was really hoping to hear more about Antimony). A brief and hilarious introduction and we are plunged into Verity's world of dance, and I was happy to hear from her alter-ego Valerie. Things quickly go south in an epic way and Verity is plunged into an eerily familiar problem. We meet some new types of cryptids and hear far too much about the noble profession of dancers. Honestly if I saw the phrase "We are dancers" one more time I was going to be ill. Verity handles this with her amazing wit and snappy one liners. The aeslinn mice are hilarious, as usual (by the way the God of Tough Decisions in Dark Places is the best fictional god name ever). And then it all falls apart at the very end. The culprits were obvious, with the exception of one who had a personality transpla...

Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoy the Alpha and Omega series. After struggling with Mercy Thompson for so many books and still not knowing how I feel, it is a relief to get the wonderfully rich stories and characters with rough edges that Patricia Briggs is so good at, without running into the walking doormat that is Mercy Thompson. Anna and Charles pull me in with their relationship, which has only gotten better over time. They each have their strengths and their faults, and I love the way they know those things about each other. This novel adds an issue common to all relationships: kids. Adding their own supernatural layer to this common problem only makes it better. I was happy to learn more about Charles, and more about Arabian Horses. The story did fall back into Patricia Brigg's perpetual problem with pacing and concluded in the last forty pages very quickly, but stuck the landing more elegantly than the ea...

Double Cross by Carolyn Crane My rating: 3 of 5 stars I just don't know what to make of this series! So I'm going to do a pro and con list. Pro's: - I still think that weaponizing mental health and making it an intersection between magic and science is fascinating - The heroine becomes more proactive through the course of the series - Female friendships worth reading - Plot twist at the end! I hate it but I love it. Con's: - Beware the Bermuda Love Triangle - Least favorite characters: I alpha male will make you love me with aggressive border-line threatening language that implies I will possess you. - Even worse characters: the woman who is attracted to the above listed character - World's strangest pacing. All in all a middle of the road 2.5 stars out of five. View all my reviews