Review - Rurally Screwed by Jessie Knadler

Title: Rurally Screwed
My Life Off the Grid with the Cowboy I Love
Author: Jessie Knadler
Publisher: Berkley
Publish Date: Apr 3, 2012
Hardcover, 336 pages

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I went in to this book thinking it would be very similar to Pioneer Woman's book Black Heels to Tractor Wheels about meeting her husband, but I was surprised that it was really different. It had a similar feel, but otherwise it was it's own book.

Jessie is a woman living in New York striving to find out who she is and what she can do in the magazine world, but things just don't seem to be working out. In fact, they go horribly wrong and she is fired which leads her on a journey to being a freelance writer in cowboy town - ironically her home town. She grew up on the farm and did everything she could to get away and have a more city-fied life. Then she meets a man she falls in love with, but he has designs on staying a cowboy, living on a ranch and doing the things you do in a small rural town. He is religious and hard working. Though Jessie tries her hardest to fit in, it may not be the fit for her.

I really enjoyed though Jessie was going through many things that could have made her bitter, she still kept her chin up and didn't go into a huge spiral depression.

 Summary -
Jessie Knadler was a New York City girl, through and through. An editor for a splashy women's magazine, she splurged on Miu Miu, partied hard, lived for Kundalini yoga, and dated a man-boy whose complexion was creamier than her own. Circling the drain both personally and professionally, Jessie definitely wouldn't have described herself as "happy"; more like caustically content. Then one day, she was assigned a story about an annual rodeo in the badlands of Eastern Montana.

There, she met a twenty-five-year-old bull rider named Jake. He voted Republican and read Truck Trader. He listened to Garth Brooks. He owned guns. And Jessie suddenly found herself blindsided by something with which she was painfully unfamiliar: a genuinely lovable disposition. In fact, Jake radiated such optimism and old-school gentlemanliness that Jessie impulsively ditched Manhattan for an authentic existence, and an authentic man. Almost overnight, she was canning and sewing, making jerky, chopping firewood, and raising chickens. And all the while one question was ringing in the back of her head: "What the !#*$ have I done with my life?"

A hilarious true-life love story, Rurally Screwed reveals what happens to a woman who gives up everything she's ever known and wanted-job security, money, her professional network, access to decent Thai food-to live off the grid with her one true love (and dogs and horses and chickens), and asks, is it worth it? The answer comes amid war, Bible clubs, and moonshine.

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Review - Thumped by Megan McCafferty

Title: Thumped
Bumped #2
Author: Megan McCaffery
Publish Date: April 24, 2012
Publisher: Balzar + Bray
Hardcover, 304 pages

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Right away I was wondering why I liked this book so much better than the first book, Bumped. It took almost three chapters for me to figure out that Megan McCafferty dropped many of the weird ways the girls spoke. She did leave a few in, "I was so . . ." was one of my favorites. Though she used so many "fertilicious," pregging, egging. The first book almost required a few definitions from the religious talk of Harmony to the excitable, teen talk of Melody. The second book however, was toned down and made this book so much easier to read and in retrospect more enjoyable.

I'll be honest though, I am a bit bummed that this is the last book. I was hoping for a trilogy to find out exactly where Harmony and Melody actually found their happiness. Do they decide to eventually have kids or will they forever be without? Do they really take the fame and fortune earned by "Bumping" and make a stand? Or is this really it?

Don't get me wrong. I thought this book was so well thought up and completely creative. What a refreshing twist on the Teen Fiction Lit. It focuses on a very harsh opinion too of whether or not our society would adopt a similar policy of getting teenage girls pregnant to sell their babies should some catastrophic disease ever invade our society rendering women infertile. What is best for our teens? Bumping with parental consent or in secret? Is getting paid to have babies good or bad? Can it really be that easy of an issue?

Megan McCafferty also threw in religion to coincide with this touchy subject by allowing Harmony to come from a very religious sect of the country where women are not supposed to get pregnant for money, but rather get married young and be devoted to their God. Even though it was posed as two extremes, Megan McCafferty did a splendid job of making me vote for both sides. (ironic, huh?) But then again, I tend to vote for people who stand up for what they believe in.

Summary -
THE CONCLUSION TO ONE OF THE MOST TALKED-ABOUT NOVELS OF LAST YEAR

It’s been thirty-five weeks since twin sisters Harmony and Melody went their separate ways. And now their story has become irresistible: twins separated at birth, each due to deliver twins…on the same day!

Married to Ram and living in Goodside, Harmony spends her time trying to fit back into the community she once believed in. But she can’t forget about Jondoe, the guy she fell for under the strangest of circumstances.

To her adoring fans, Melody has achieved everything: a major contract and a coupling with the hottest bump prospect around. But this image is costing her the one guy she really wants.

The girls’ every move is analyzed by millions of fans eagerly counting down to “Double Double Due Date.” They’re two of the most powerful teen girls on the planet, and they could do only one thing to make them even more famous:

Tell the truth.

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Review - Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Title: Born Wicked
The Cahill Witch Chronicles #1
Author: Jessica Spotswood
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Publish Date: Feb 7, 2012
Hardcover,  330 pages

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Oh my goodness this book was SO GOOD!!! Seriously could not put it down. Every single character in this book was superbly written. Even the ones I didn't like, I still loved. Jessica Spotswood developed each character with such splendid patience without overloading the book with descriptions. I was hooked on every single word. And yes it is part of a series!!! I am so disappointed it took me so long to read this.

Cate is the oldest of three sisters, who are coincidentally witches, as was their mother. But they must keep this a secret because the Brotherhood is constantly on the look out for witches to punish. They like their women insipid, pretty and obliging. A few months before needing to proclaim her interests, Cate's old friend returns to ask her for her hand in marriage. She is surprised and elated, but then along comes a surprise to her heart. A man who is easily overlooked and sadly, below her class. How does she choose? As she is dealing with this heart-felt tragedy, her sisters are being pulled toward their new governess straight from the Sisterhood, who are possibly not just out saving the world from girls who need a mother figure. Cate seems to be on her own fighting to protect her sisters from their own magic nature, keeping their secrets and figuring out whom to be betrothed to. Meanwhile her mother has left her clues in a journal she must locate and then decipher.

Cate is wonderful! So smart, so sweet and yet, she follows her heart as far as it will take her without endangering her sisters. This book didn't end until the last couple pages. Drat!! I cannot wait til the next book in the series. What a wonderfully romantic, fantasy book. Cate does make a few friends along the way, though they are unexpected and surprisingly well placed, but I will not tell who they are because that is a huge giveaway. I absolutely love Finn too! He was so well written that I hardly noticed him til he was already a main character. And Tess, the youngest sister came out of nowhere to light the entire book on fire.

The only character I truly care for was their father. I get that he was sad for his wife's death, but he pissed me off because he let his daughters down so continuously. I really hope he pops up as a stronger character for them in the future books. Maybe he can be a secret Brother who fights for witches on the brain side?

Seriously, go read this book right now!! (Or click the links above and order it.)

Summary -

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word... especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

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Tuesday - Tune in and Teaser

My boyfriend left yesterday to go back to the big ol' city and if I didn't feel so overflowing with love, I would feel devastated. Maybe I know I feel devastated somewhere deep inside, but he has such faith in our love and our relationship that even when I feel we struggled all week to communicate and connect, it took less than a one hour conversation - me bringing up all the feelings I have kept inside all week during our phone conversations and texts - for him to shrug and say he loves me. Really? To him, our disagreements are so minimal and to me, each painful comment is a knife in my heart. I find it so refreshing that no matter what we go through he is so calm about the whole thing. He always knows we are good. One thing to look forward to is learning this technique from him.

This song must have something to do with the way I feel -
Carrie Underwood, I Unapologize

 

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven
by Susan Jane Gillman

The day went so well at first. I rented a bicycle and went to the Grand Hotel Beijing and had tea okay? Proper tea like they might serve at the Plaza. They serve it with cream and gingerbread, and you sit in western chairs and listen to classical music, and it's clean and warm and quiet and it feels so civilized. Civilized and elegant, no one is spitting. Nobody's frying vegetables in the gutter. And the waiter speak English. And then? Then I biked over to the Main Post Office, by Tiananmen, and put in a collect call to home.

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Title: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven
Author: Susan Jane Gilman
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publish Date: Feb 8, 2012
Paperback, 320 pages

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Here is where I wonder what type of review to write as I didn't necessarily enjoy this book, but at the same time I found it incredibly enlightening. Do I tell that I am left with so many questions regarding this endeavor of Susan's that it frustrates me? If I was her, I would need more closure. Will she be writing a sequel? I sure hope so because it kills me to not only to not know what really took place, but to be left without answers too. It is justifiably crazy talk.

This book is the prime example of why I chose not to have roommates after I divorced. People are plain crazy and you really don't know how cookoo til you live with them. And by then, what are you going to do kick them out on their arses and leave them to fend for themselves? Not me. I am a bit too kind-hearted for that. Damn it.

Susan starts her book out by explaining she has changed the names to protect the innocent. Blah, blah, blah whatever, so does everyone else. Uhm no, about halfway through the book I realize she without a doubt should have changed their names.

Not only is she all the way around the world in a country she doesn't speak the language, but she is a bit new to new world experiences. Yes, Susan grew up a bit rougher than most so she is used to living a tougher life, but when her roommate starts spending time by herself to do "counter intelligence work," saying things like "there are people here to protect us" and other such nonsense Susan isn't quite sure what to make of the stranger that was once her acquaintance. Susan is feeling her own anxiety of being alone, away from everything she has known especially the comfort of identifiable food, bathrooms with doors and toilets. Now her only friend has abandoned her to crazy-ville.

There were many parts in this book that kept me turning pages to try and get past the ever present giant WHAT?! that surrounded this book. And even when I finished it I didn't feel sated, but it was still an incredible read making me glad I wasn't there, but more so that Susan wrote this book for me to experience it.

That being said, Susan please find an investigator and track down your friend to find out WTH happened bc I gotta know!!! Susan has such a wonderfully creative way of telling her story that I was truly riveted even when I was trying not to gag. I truly enjoyed her take on the everyday living of the oriental culture with things like public restrooms being big holes the ground women went in to squat above. The fact that rice is a palate cleanser served at the end of the meal rather than during. The cultural differences were amazing.

And not that anyone asked me, but since it is my review . . . .  I prefer the following cover over the one above. A small bummer when purchasing an ebook, they don't let me choose the cover I like.

Summary -

 They were young, brilliant, and bold. They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them.
Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes.
In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes.
Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever.
Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

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Review - Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Title: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Publisher: Knopf Double Day Publishing
Publish Date: March 20, 2012
Hardcover, 336 pages

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I absolutely love this book!! It was so funny and so incredibly honest. Couldn't put it down and recommend it so highly!!

Cheryl has had a really hard life. Her mother has died from Cancer and she had to watch her go through it all. And Cheryl has punished herself the entire time with drugs, strange men and all the while pushing her husband away from her. Not the greatest beginning. At a low point, she is standing in line and sees the book about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and buys the book. And in that one small moment her entire outlook changes. She will go hike this trail and see where it leads her.

The very first chapter tells of her losing her book over the side of a mountain. Irretrievable, she tosses her other boot over as well. In the middle of nowhere, without her boots what will she do.

I love the part where she breaks down and allows another hiker to go through her backpack called the monster because of it's gargantuan size. He pulls out all sorts of things, including 21 condoms. Where she thinks she will be using these is beyond even Cheryl, but she felt the need to bring them anyhow.

She faces life with such a funny outlook. It is almost boarder line absurd. She sinks herself in to these crazy moments, all kind of her own doing and yet, she seems to climb out of them a tiny bit smarter. Until one day, she just gets it. This book is her journey.

If you liked the book Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert you should definitely read this!

Summary -
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

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Review - Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott

Title: Some Assembly Required
Author: Anne Lamott
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Publish Date: March 20, 2011

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Not my usual type of book to read, not that I have one, but this one just pulled at my heart strings and longed for me to read it. I haven't read her first book, Operating Instructions, but was pulled in immediately. The way Anne Lamott wrote this book is like wonderful poetry. She has letters from her son, his wife incorporating how they are doing as new parents. Anne deals with the trials of being in the middle as a grandparent, but trying to stay out of all the controversy. She wants to tell her son what to do and yet, she chooses not to. Anne Lamott is an incredible writer who spills her heart out in this book.

Summary -

In Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott enters a new and unexpected chapter of her own life: grandmotherhood.

Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life.

In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam-about whom she first wrote so movingly in Operating Instructions-struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax's mother, who has her own ideas about how to raise a child. Lamott writes about the complex feelings that Jax fosters in her, recalling her own experiences with Sam when she was a single mother. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways.

By turns poignant and funny, honest and touching, Some Assembly Required is the true story of how the birth of a baby changes a family-as this book will change everyone who reads it.

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Wordless Wednesday - Grandmother-made quilt

Wordless Wednesday

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Tuesday - Tune In & Teaser

I rented the new Footloose and though I enjoyed it, it wasn't as good as the original. All the characters I preferred from the first one even the preacher, but Dennis Quaid was good. I absolutely love Willis!






A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson

"When guys in campflauge pants and hunting hats sat around in the Four Aces Diner talking about fearson things done out-of-doors, I would not longer have to feel like such a cupcake. I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say, a slow, manly sniff, "Yeah, I've shit in the woods."

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Review - Crushed by KC Blake

Title: Crushed
The Witch-Game #1
Author: K.C. Blake
Publisher: Createspace
Publish Date: July 30, 2011
Paperback, 262 pages

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I wasn't sure what to expect with this book, but it was on sale, it had some pretty good reviews amongst the blog world, so I thought I'd give it a go. Oddly enough, it was lots of fun. I really enjoyed it.

These girls have a game they play every year. They pick boys that they can "crush" which equates to blowing witch dust on them and controlling them. They make fun of them, they play tricks on them and basically make them their slaves. It is cruel, but they don't seem to realize. Until they crush the wrong guy. Zach is a boy with special powers as well. But how long will Kristen try to play with him before he unleashes his fury?

Summary -
The Noah sisters rule Titan High with their beauty, brains, and magical powers. Each year they play a secret game: Crushed. The girls pick their targets carefully and blow enchanted dust into the boy’s faces, charming them, but this year Kristen makes a grave mistake. She chooses the wrong boy and almost dies that same day. Coincidence? Maybe. But something isn’t quite right about Zach Bevian. He doesn’t behave like a boy who’s been Crushed. He goes from hot to cold, from looking at her with contempt to asking her out on a date. She doesn’t know what to think. Does he hate her or is he truly falling for her? Is he trying to kill her, or is he trying to save her?

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Wordless Wednesday - Claire Thomas from Food for Thought

I got this recipe from Claire Thomas who hosts the TV Show Food for Thought. She is the cutest, sweetest and so far my favorite tv chef. Her recipes are so easy and she seems to have a talent for making every recipe seem doable. I actually set my alarm on Saturday mornings to get up in time to see her show (when I am not working). This past week, she featured her Australian Pasta which you should really visit her blog and read the back story to why it is named this. Funny!! I also got a wild hair and decided to make her Cream Scones.

Here is the pasta sauce while it is simmering.

Here is the final dish. Australian Pasta with strawberries (just finished cutting them for the week's snacks, so I threw a few in) and her scones (bc I didn't make bread).

Also, Claire if you are reading this, QUESTION - On your blog recipe, you didn't specify searing the sausage and taking them out of the pan while the onions and garlic cook. But in your show, I distinctly remember you keeping them separate. ??

I think next time I will do a few things different. One, I will blanch and peel the tomatoes. Then using my potato smasher, smash the tomatoes before inserting them in the pan.

Wordless Wednesday (not so wordless this week)

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Tuesday - Tune In & Teaser

Out of nowhere I started singing this song at work. I couldn't stop. It was in my blood. And all anyone could say was, "That is the saddest song." But it's also incredibly beautiful. So I bought it on iTunes.

Pearl Jam - Last Kiss








Wild
by Cheryl Strayed


The trees were tall, but I was taller standing on a steep mountain slope in Northern California. Moments before, I'd removed my hiking boots and the left one had fallen into the trees, first catapulting into the air when my enormous backpack toppled onto it, then skittering across the gravelly trail and flying over the edge. It bounced off a rocky outcropping several feet beneath me before disappearing into the forest canopy below, impossible to retrieve. I let out a stunned gasp, though I'd been in the wildness thirty-eight days and by then I'd come to know that anything could happen and everything would. But that didn't mean I wouldn't be shocked when it did.

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Yoga and the Scowl-ey face

I am about 30 minutes out from my favorite class of the week - All levels yoga. This class is so wonderful for so many reasons.

It is the one class where we work on the wood floor, so doing any standing poses is easier than the carpet, bounce floor that they use for ballet and the other yoga classes.

The first 20 minutes or so is pure breathing and slow moving poses. It can be killer to hold a pose, but at the same time I take really long breaths so there are times I have trouble keeping up. But not for the first part of this class. It is built for me. I can really stretch in to each pose and perfect my technique.

We have a ton of bodies in this class so the energy level is so brilliantly positive. It's like a body of it's own. If I am struggling to focus, I can listen to others breathing in and out to help center me. If I can't remember what the pose is that he called out, I can casually look up and see so many people around me doing it.

All levels so I get to see some really spectacular poses that I have yet to be able to do like crazy head stands, but if I am tired or struggling with a pose I can do the easier version too.

It is an hour and a half so there is more than enough time to really do some serious yoga. Some classes I feel go too fast and I don't get a full relaxation time.

I love our instructor because he actually does the class with us. I have some instructors that just teach it, which is fine, but as a person who can have trouble hearing it helps to be able to see the pose. I also am a fan of good posture, so seeing a professional do the pose can help me perfect my own ability.

I leave dripping in sweat. (ew I know) It is such a good workout, inside and out. I get the full time to just be inside my own body. I leave all my cares behind and just breathe. Work through the anger and frustration that has built up. It is completely and utterly my time.

******************************

We had a new instructor in this class. Right after I wrote the post. Figures.

At first I didn't really care for her. She was very informal, talking during the entire class which I am sorry, I go to yoga to block out all the voices. She also used the formal yoga names which I don't know yet so I had to pause while I waited for others to indicate what the pose was. After a bit though, I got used to her. She is trying to lighten up the class, but keep it focused. It was good. I actually laughed during the class and still had a solid workout. She told a great story while we were holding the goddess pose.

The goddess pose to me is like wall sits when I was a swimmer. They suck and yet I love them. They hurt like hell, but I love the concentration it takes to do them. I feel stronger just knowing I can do them. She had us hold the pose for about five minutes. TWICE!

Here's her story:

She was already having a rough day, running late when someone pulled out in front of her while she was driving. They then proceeded to slow down. She rode their bumper, but they would not speed up. She tried to get around, but there were too many cars. Meanwhile she is screaming inside her car, so upset. She finally is able to get around the car and gets caught at a red light. Not only did they cut her off, now she missed the light. Well, she pulls up next to them to she thinks, I'll show them! She stops, turns and prepares to give the other driver her "Scowl-ey" face only to realize the other driver . . . is one of her yoga students!

This was a great story to give during our class as we were focusing on our facial muscles and how we project ourselves into the world. What type of message is our face sending others. I like this because I have TMJ so focusing on my face is important. Am I clenching my jaw? Is my jaw relaxed and my tongue touching the roof of my mouth? And hello, wrinkles come from unhappy facial expressions!

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