Author: Manda Kay

Uncategorized

Just A Little Bit Hard To Swallow

Manda Kay

Two words: Murder.  Mystery. 

Unf!

Okay, so I’ll be the first to admit, murder mysteries aren’t normally the first thing I go for when I go to a bookstore.  It’s not that I have anything against them.  It’s moreso that I prefer my murder mysteries in a different medium altogether.  Murder whodunits go wonderfully on my television screen.  Printed on page, however, it tends to go on just a little too long for my liking.  I have a tendency to get bored halfway through and be tempted to just skip to the end to see if my prediction for who killed who is correct or not.  It’s like…get it done and over with already!

The Throat was so wonderfully different from what I thought it would be.  I had hopes it would be decent—the man wrote a couple books with Stephen King, so it almost had to be—but decent doesn’t quite cover what this experience was.  Peter Straub packed a punch with his characters, and managed to keep me guessing for 689 glorious pages. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByONw3AAUGe/

Any faults in this novel I am willing to assume is from my own misunderstanding.  By that, I mean that the book is actually part of a series, and I was unaware of such when I picked it up.  I mean, it said so right on the dust jacket, but I kind of just glanced over it before I said “Oh, yeah, this is the next one on the list for sure.”  A lot of my books are hand-me-downs.  Work with me here.

So, the faults.

  • Characters:  There was many.  Many cops, many witnesses, many fillers.  So many characters, in fact, that I had problems keeping them apart from each other.  Now, I’m not marking that as a hardcore problem.  Like I said, this isn’t his first book following the main character.  I could be missing something/confusing some people for others because the reader had a chance to get fully acquainted with them in the first novel.  Or there could just be that many people in the novel that I just can’t keep them straight.  It’s anyone’s guess at this point, really.  But, I’m going to give it the benefit of a doubt.
  • Timeline:  This is another thing I can’t bring myself to be too harsh about, not because of the benefit of a doubt but because my feelings as I read The Throat changed.  It starts with the main character, Tim Underhill, and his childhood, then moves on to him in Vietnam, where it focuses a good chunk of the story.  Then it jumps to several years later, when he is a successful writer and gets called back to his hometown.  Looking back, I can understand why it was all formatted that way.  It becomes clearer as you go, because certain pieces you can only understand if you’ve gone through his past, but for that first portion of the book, I was lost.  I didn’t know why any of it mattered or what any of it had to do with the serial killer I was promised an encounter with.  When so many people who write stories say that you should start as close to the end as possible, why were we starting from his early childhood?  The answer is obvious by now, but it wasn’t then, ya feel me?  The short of it: I drug my feet in the beginning waiting to get to a point where it wasn’t a dizzying chore to do so.
  • Walter Dragonette:  No spoilers.  I’ll just say he is super interesting when we first meet him then later on he completely drops off the radar and I’m still confused as to the real part he played in the story.  I liked him a lot, and while he was probably meant to be just a minor character, I would have liked to see more of him.  Plus, again, the situation with him is iffy as to what happens, and I don’t know if it’s ever fully explained in the book and I missed it, or if, like I said, he wasn’t meant to be anything but filler.  I don’t know how to elaborate without spoiling, so I’ll just leave that there.

Okay, enough with the bitching.  Mostly because I don’t have much to bitch about.  Here’s some of the strongest things I found in The Throat.

  • Tim Underhill:  Oh, Tim Underhill.  How I love thee so.  He wasn’t perfect, and that’s my favorite type of main character.  His loyalty lies with himself, which is refreshing in its own right.  He’s skeptical even of those he considers, or considered at one time, friends.  He’s not extraordinary in any way shape or form.  He relies on other characters throughout the novel to bring him closer to his end goal: find out who the Blue Rose killer is.  And the best part?  It’s not even his job to do so.  So many stories like this rely on telling it through the eyes of the detective in charge of the case, but Underhill is just a writer.  A writer who’s childhood friend’s wife was murdered.  A writer, who in all honesty, is there to gather new material for a book.  He’s not a bad guy, but he has his own priorities that others would find selfish or even shameful.  Which leads me to my next point…
  • False leads:  More reason to love him is that he doesn’t have the whole thing figured out chapters before the reader does.  He’s along for the ride just as much as we are.  Just like any other good murder mystery, there are plenty of false leads that Underhill follows whole-heartedly.  He believes each false trail, and because he believes it, the reader believes it as well.  He gets himself into trouble because he believes he’s doing the right thing, then he learns from his mistakes, and sometimes is at a loss of what to do next.  He’ll counsel with colleagues and friends and witnesses until he figures out the next step.  There aren’t just a couple of red herrings, either.  Peter Straub keeps them coming all the way to the end.  It’s a pointing fingers bonanza up in this shiz, and it’s wonderful.
  • No such thing as a happy ending:  I will not spoil.  I will not spoil.  I will not spoil.  But, what I can say, just as a blanket statement, is that my favorite type of ending in any story is when it’s not all wrapped up in a neat package.  I don’t mean ending on a cliffhanger or anything like that.  The pieces are all there and loose ends tied up, but the string is frayed and split and burned and the package has been tossed around by FedEx one too many times.  The insides are still there, mostly unharmed, but no longer pristine.  I’m a firm believer that in real life, there are no happy endings, and this book emulates that.  It’s an ending, and it’s a good ending, but it’s not the ending the reader might have wanted.  It’s like if you go up to someone who’s really made you mad, who totally has it coming, and you confront them about everything.  You think that once it’s out in the open, you’ll feel better, and maybe you do for a minute or two, but once it sinks in, you realize you don’t really feel better at all.  They are going to stop doing whatever it was they were doing to make you upset, and that’s good, but you might have said some things you didn’t mean to say, and you can’t take that back.  You don’t feel better, and maybe you even feel a little worse than before.  Is this the best analogy?  Nope, but we’ll roll with it.
Who is the Blue Rose Killer???? Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

TL;DR:  The Throat by Peter Straub.  10/10 would recommend.  10/10 would find the rest of the series.  10/10 changed my mind about how I feel about murder mysteries.  For real, though.  It’s an enjoyable read, and even if these types of books aren’t your forte, I recommend you give it a try.  Maayyybe try to find the first book, though.  I won’t guarantee it’ll make more sense, but eh, it’d make sense for it to make more sense.

Do you like books about serial killers?  What one would you recommend? 

Uncategorized

Death in a Sundress Sneak Peek!

Manda Kay

Hi Hi Hello!  So, this time around, it’s a quick itty bitty update to let you know that a while back I submitted the first chapter of my novel to a contest on Booksie.  Submissions are closed, and in approximately three weeks or so from the time this post goes live, I’ll find out if it went to the next round of twenty (don’t quote me on that number because I don’t remember for sure but it’s close to that) finalists.

I won’t lie.  I don’t expect to go to the next round; mostly because my mindset is always to expect the worst.  That being said, while I don’t expect it to go to the next round (any genre is accepted and horror is never first on anyone’s list, yo), I know for a fact that it’s not the worst to be submitted.  I think it’s better than average, and I think the story as a whole has potential. 

Okay so this is your face right now but come on dude just lemme have this one – Photo by Alexander Dummer on Pexels.com

I’d say I’m biased, but I’m really not (says every writer or every person ever).  If anything, I am my worst critic.  I am a perfectionist.  Nothing I write is ever good enough to live up to my own standards.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Maybe a tinge unhealthy?  Eh, whatever.  The point is, I am hard on myself, and I think this book is going to go somewhere, and the first chapter is one of my favorites.

BUT

Like I said, I might be a little biased (contradictions contradictions jesus lady).  It would mean the world to me if you read the first chapter for yourself.  I don’t know if you would be able to comment on Booksie without setting up an account, but if you’re able to, I’d love to see what you think.  If you’re not able to, and you want to float me a line in the comment section here, it would also mean the world to me. 

Even if I don’t make it to the next round in the contest, it’s okay by me, because this baby is eventually going to go out into the world.  And maybe some people will love it, and maybe other people will hate it, and that’s okay, too.  As it has been made abundantly clear to me from reading authors whom I’ve never heard of before and looking at reviews afterward, not everything is for everyone.  There’s books that I hated and other people loved, and there’s books that opened my eyes and I related to that other people would rather gouge out their own eyes than read again (maybe I’m exaggerating). 

But I’m rambling.

Here’s the link!

Can’t wait to hear what you think!!

Uncategorized

A Little Anarchy in the World of Books. And Clubs.

Manda Kay

I have a dream.  And I don’t mean that in the MLK Jr sense, but rather just in the overall ooo shiny sense.  Make sense? 

No?

Okay, I know I ask you to do this basically all the time, but work with me on this one. 

Imagine, if you will a gathering of people with a similar interest.  A club, if you will.  And the interest?  Reading the written word.  Book club, bitches.

Those who read together…um…honestly the first place my mind went is peed together. Not sure if anyone reads the hilarity that is the under the photo caption, but if you do, congratulations. You made it to the peek of comedy. Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

Now, you’re probably saying, “Yo, Manda, book clubs are a thing.  They are already a thing.  Why are you writing about them?”  To which I say, “Because I can, and because it’s not a normal book club.”

Traditional book clubs are everything that I love and hate about book clubs.  On one hand, you have a group of people who love reading who come in to discuss what they read, and probably do so while getting drunk on cheap wine.  On the other hand, to really get anything out of said book club, everyone has to read the same book.  Don’t get me wrong.  If I didn’t have a lot of other things going on, I probably wouldn’t mind it.  The issue is if I’m told what to read every month, I’m not going to have time to read what I want to read, and I’m going to lose interest fast.

So a book club, but minus the agenda.  A group of people who love reading, who don’t want to be told what to do.  A group of people with a low key problem with authority.  😉

This all begs a single question:  How the fuck does that work?  It’s a good question, fair even, and it’s one that I’m still working out myself.  How does one engage people when the people are all over the place?  How does discussion work when there is so much to discuss?

How do we organize chaos???

Why do people like me thrive in this nonsense????

Here are a couple things I’ve tried thus far (that have ultimately failed) (whoops):

  • Facebook group discussions
    In the beginning, things were looking up for Books’n’Shiz (I’m not very creative with naming things, yo).  I was able to get everyone to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about what they liked to read.  It was a win for sure!  But then I tried to engage everyone afterward about a variety of topics, anything from what they were reading right now to if they preferred physical or electronic books.  This was met with mixed results.  A few people would react, a smaller handful would respond, and on a few posts, I was the only one to write anything.  Things didn’t go the way I envisioned for my little group of nerds.
  • Random face-to-face discussions
    If you know me, this should be a given.  If I have to speak more than a couple sentences at a time, it’s bad news bears the whole way.  Putting someone on the spot about anything without some form of preparation is a surefire way to anxiety attacks and mayhem.  Or maybe that’s just me?  Eh, anyway, going up to someone randomly, even if it is someone from the group you created, is not going to grant you discussion material.  All that’s going to happen is some shrugs and awkward pauses.  Plus, you know, the lack of the rest of the group.  Approaching someone with as important a question as “Hey what are you reading right now tell me everything about it who’s your favorite character do you think there’s some deep underlying meaning in the novel you picked up?” isn’t necessarily fun for anyone involved.
In case of failure: Hide behind books Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So where do we go from here?  How can we have a book club when we’re not even discussing what we’re reading right now?  Well, I have a few ideas on that matter, and I will keep you, my dear reader, updated with how those ideas work out.  I would do the dramatic thing and keep you in the dark about the inner workings of my master plan, but that’d be a bitch thing to do, and let’s face it, I don’t want to forget.  Here’s the rough draft:

  • Facebook Call-Outs
    So how this will work (and I hope it works) is every week I’ll tag someone in a post with a question they have to answer in reference to a book they are reading right now.  So say I tag my friend Tabitha (I don’t actually have a friend Tabitha but roll with me) and ask her who’s the saltiest she ever did see?  Tabitha is reading the first Harry Potter book, so she responds, “That damn Snape dude is the absolute saltiest drop in the ocean.  If you ingested him, you’d die of sodium poisoning.”  And then she would go on to say what he’s doing in the book to make him seem so snarky and whether or not she agrees with the way he’s acting, you know, whatever she wants.  I want a rant, though.  More than a sentence.  Give me and the rest of the group something to go off of.  And then after they say their piece, the rest of the group can respond with questions or quips or stupid gifs and just all in all show our support for Tabitha’s thinking.  We’re all reading, so let’s celebrate it!  I’m going to try to put this into effect in June, so we’ll see how it goes.
  • Quarterly Get-Togethers
    This one is a for sure thing that’s going to happen, and I have the first one already in the works.  Once every few months or so (shooting for three here but life gets busy), I want us all to join up in person for a silly little project.  For instance, this first one I have planned is a blind date with a book.  I’m sure you’ve all seen them online or at your local bookstore, where someone wraps up a book and writes a few things about it on the cover and you choose it based on that, then take it home and read away.  But for this one, there’s a catch.  For this one, it’s going to be a blind Tinder date.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  So, you choose a book that you did not like for whatever reason (keeping politics out of the equation naturally) and wrap it up as pretty as you can make it.  Then, you write that book’s best qualities by means of making the worst ones sound great.  Bring it to the date, and let someone choose the book.  I want to have everyone include a little written piece in the book detailing the exact moment they threw the book down or why they forced themselves to power through it to the bitter end.  With the group, everyone can discuss—WITHOUT SPOILERS—what their problem was with the book, or what they really meant when they wrote up the book’s profile, something along those lines.  I want real life discussion with real life booze.  And it doesn’t end there.  I want us all to talk about it while we’re reading it in the group.  I want the woes of torturous literature.  I want to suffer as a team, mostly because I think it’ll be funny, but also because there’s that slim chance that the book you hate will be the book someone else adores, and that’s magical.

This unorganized, unorthodox book club is definitely a work in progress.  I’ll keep you all updated with what happens.  May we stay afloat!!!

That being said, what about you?  Have you ever been part of a book club before?  How did you like it?  Any suggestions for the likes of me???  I’d love to hear them, and I’m always open to new ideas.  ❤

Uncategorized

Harry Potter and the Time Everyone Died

Manda Kay

Game of Thrones ain’t got nothin’ on the last of the Harry Potter series.

Let me backtrack.  I’ve never read Game of Thrones.  I’ve never watched the series.  But I imagine that nothing in its pages will stab as deep as some of my favorite characters being slashed, zapped, and otherwise magicked out of existence.  And I totally, most definitely, reserve the right to contradict myself should I ever delve into kings and dragons and drunk dwarves.  And I totally, most definitely, sincerely, reserve the right to retract that statement should it be false and otherwise insensitive.  I don’t know.  I don’t know what it’s about.

But that’s not why we are here.


https://www.instagram.com/p/BvrmfpygKnz/

Harry Potter was a huge deal when I was in grade school.  Everyone who was anyone read the books and watched the movies and bought the merch and wrote the fanfiction and wrote the slashfiction…eh, you get it.

I was late getting on the train.

So, back up a bit more, I adored the movies, and my friends were all reading the books, so I tried to read them, too.  Key note: tried.  I read the first book by myself, but the second and part of the third, I had to use my own personal audio book: my mother.  She would sit in the red, worn chair in the living room, and I would sit on the floor in front of her, and listen to her read to me aloud.  This was during a time that I was “too old” to have my mommy read to me (shame on me for ever thinking that), but I had some problems comprehending what I read to myself.  The words wouldn’t click well, and with the make-believe creatures and spells and odd names JK Rowling added into the mix, my head was spinning.  Listening to it slowed me down enough to understand what was going on.  It was nice.  My mom is a pretty swell gal. 

Fast forward a bit, I picked up the first Harry Potter again a couple years back for old time’s sake.  And then the second.  And the third.  And I fell in love with the series for what seemed like the first time.  Reading it as an adult is a completely different experience than reading/listening as a child.  Ten-year-old me was enthralled by the magic in each installment.  Twenty-nine-year-old me was floored by the way every book got a little darker, a little more serious.  There was so much I didn’t pick up on the first go around.

Let me geek out for just a second.

Yule Ball. 2018.
Hi, my name’s Manda and I’m a Hufflepuff.  Sorting hat said twice I belonged in Gryffindor, but if Harry can choose his house than so can I.  I’m dating a Slytherin.  My best friend is a Ravenclaw.  I have a house elf that is well loved and treated better than anyone else in our home.  His name is Dobby (no relation).

  • He doesn’t listen as well as a house elf though

I could keep going, but I’ll try to keep this one short.  So many people have read this book already, so if you haven’t by now, this review probably won’t sway you either way.  I’ll just go over a few points where I had to put the book down and think a while. 

  1. The Dumbledore Reveal
    If the reader is anything like me, they had to take long breaks in book six during the emotional time that was Dumbledore’s final moments.  I loved him.  I thought nothing but good about him.  He seemed so wise, so caring, so interested in helping Harry be the best he could be and mentoring him when needed.
    And then book seven happened.
    The Deathly Hallows took Dumbledore, wadded him up in a little ball, and shoved him in a toilet.  Then, it took a gigantic shit all over the top of him.
    And it did it all in the name of the greater good.
    I had lots of strong feelings on this, as you can probably tell.  But, despite that, I don’t disagree or hate on Rowling for doing it.  I think it runs along the same lines as you should never meet your heroes.  From a distance, Dumbledore seemed almost godlike in his wisdom and strength and love.  But after he dies and the truth comes out, he’s not so godlike after all.  Like any human, he has flaws, and his were pretty major in my ever so humble (and shitty) opinion.  BUT!  I don’t think he ever did anything with ill intent.  I truly believe that he believed the way he handled everything was the best way to do it.  He sort of runs along the lines of chaotic good.  He doesn’t care who he hurts along the way, so long as that in the long run, it was for the best.  He doesn’t hate Harry.  He’s not priming him for war and death and nothing beyond that.  I think he really did care about him and his well-being, but his shady way of keeping secrets and never being straightforward with Harry or anyone else didn’t help his cause.  He was a bottom line man, and the bottom line was that for everyone else to live in harmony, Harry would have to die.  Not a bad man, not a good man, but a man.
  2. This Passage
    “Tell me one last thing,” said Harry.  “Is this real?  Or has it been happening inside my head?”
    Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
    “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
    Oh.  My god.
    So, of course, we can take this in the literal sense; that Harry is talking to Dumbledore in his head yadda yadda.  But this line means so much more to me than that. 
    On one end of the spectrum, the same can be said of mental illness.  It’s in your head, of course, yes, great, grand, wonderful, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not REAL.  Depression is a thing I deal with on my day-to-day, and even though it is in my head, it is real to me.  Anxiety is in your head, but it still affects you.  It’s invisible, you cannot see it, you cannot touch it, but it’s in your head, so it’s real. 
    On the other end, it can be said of fiction in general.  When Dumbledore died at the end of the sixth book and made me bawl for fifty plus pages, it was not real.  He is not real.  But, in the pages, he is.  He felt like a living, breathing person, and I felt his death the same as I would a person I knew.  When Harry found out all the bad after his death, about his family and secret sister, about his plan for Harry, I felt betrayed, angry, hurt, that this person, this make-believe person, would lie to me like this.  Good books make you feel, and the worlds inside the pages feel real to you, even if the rest of the world can’t see it. 
    I dunno, dude.  I just loved this line.  I had to flip the pages and breathe a little bit before I could go to the final battle.  Dumbledore, man.  I loved him.  Then hated him.  Then simply accepted him.
  3. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape
    God.  Damn.  It. 
    Reading this entire series knowing the crucial role Snape played, I picked up on a lot that I don’t think I would have if I experienced it firsthand this read through.  One point that really sticks out for me was from I believe book six?  Maybe the end of five?  Voldemort is back, and Snape runs off with the rest of the Death Eaters, and he won’t let Harry cast an unforgivable curse.  He stops him every time, telling him to stay down.  First go through, this could definitely be seen as a thing where he just wants to get away and stopping Harry is the most logical thing to do.  But, and this is just my take (and it could totally be wrong or right because it’s been a while since I’ve read that part so bear with me here), I think Snape was trying to save Harry.  He didn’t want him to cast the curse, and it wasn’t for Snape’s own good.  He knew Harry had never done anything like that before, and he didn’t want him to carry the guilt on his shoulders.  He was trying to spare him.
    I feel for Snape, I really do.  He was forced into a bad situation, playing sides and keeping secrets, all in the name of the greater good (side eyeing you HARD Dumbledore).  He doesn’t really want to be with the Death Eaters, but he has no choice.  He has to keep up appearances, get on the Dark Lord’s good side.  At the same time, he doesn’t really want to be responsible for keeping Harry safe.  The boy just serves as a painful reminder of what could have been but what never would be.  It doesn’t help that he looks and acts like his father, but with the added pain of having his mother’s eyes.  He doesn’t like Harry, but in his own way, he loves him.
    That being said, I can’t pretend he doesn’t have his own flaws on this one.  He doesn’t love Harry for Harry’s sake, but for his own.  It’s the last piece of Lily that he’ll ever have.  When she died, he didn’t care about James or Harry, only her, only that she was dead.  Which I get it, I understand, he hated James and he hated that James won her and he didn’t, but like…come on, dude.  There’s a time and place, and when they’re both dead on the floor, maybe put aside your differences for a hot minute?  Maybe care about the little baby who lost their family and is forced to live in a freaking closet for half his life?  Maybe show a little bit of humanity?
    That also being said, I cared more for him by the end than for Dumbledore.  I dunno, I guess because Snape was straight up about how he hated James and didn’t care much for a lot about Harry, but he loved and wanted Lily.  Dumbledore played everyone along even when he didn’t have to.

So, how about that ending?  Who was your favorite character?  What house do you belong to??  Geek out with me.  My inbox is always open.

Uncategorized

New Year, Blah Blah Bullshit

Manda Kay

Close your eyes and think back a hot minute.  It’s New Year’s Eve, and we were young.  Hopeful.  So full of ambitions and ideas.  December 31 me was a dumb bitch is what I’m saying.  I was looking back on my list I made, and I think I still have a ways to go.  Accountability is everything, so let’s go through the failures together, shall we?

I mean, it could be worse. I could be like her. Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com
  1. Lose ten pounds: It’s not that I haven’t been giving it my all, but it’s not that I have been, either.  I’ve cut down on food for the most part.  I eat more salads.  Um…with food.  Normal food.  I eat a burger and have a salad with it is what I’m saying.  I’m down a whopping three pounds, but progress is progress.
  2. Keep to writing and cleaning schedule: For the most part, this has gone well.  I have an item a day in each spot, but I have a tendency to skip a day and double up the next to make up for it.  I gotta stick to it when it’s there.  Otherwise I stress.  Stress is not the goal here.
  3. Take a day every couple of weeks to do absolutely nothing: I’ve been scheduling one day a month to do just that.  It probably sounds stupid as hell, but doing nothing is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  I can’t argue that it’s been good for me, though.  I always come back the next day ready to go.
  4. Go on more dates: This has not happened nearly all that much in the traditional sense.  We just haven’t had the funds to go out on random dinner dates.  HOWEVER: we have spent more time at home cooking together and watching movies together, which is more than what we’ve done in the past where we would spend almost all our free time in separate rooms doing our own thing.  Just tonight we watched the last Harry Potter movie and had some magical snacks and laughed our asses off.  It was a good time.  So I guess what I’m trying to say is while we haven’t gone out on dates, we’ve done what we could with what we have.  Check in the win column, I think.
  5. Do more social networking for writing and less for personal: This I have embraced whole-heartedly.  I have queues set up both here and on Facebook (which you can follow me here).  Instagram has a nice mix of both (link right here).  I also set up an account on Booksie, and have already started networking with other authors.  This has worked for both my *potential* writing career and my personal life, since social media has always been a source of drama that I don’t want to deal with.  So far, so good!
  6. Be more involved with family and keep track of birthdays: This is a win/lose so far this year, and not from lack of trying (excuses, excuses).  The win is I have been out to my parents’ house more these past few months than I have all last year and probably the year before combined.  Once every month or so, my mother, my sister, and myself get together and have a dinner/movie date, and every time has been great.  Most often we watch something scary, and my sister (who is older than me by a decade, I might add) cowers behind a blanket and squeezes my hand until I swear the bones are going to break.  It.  Is.  A.  Blast.  Family bonding at its finest!   Now, where I have failed with this is birthdays.  Ready yourself, because here comes the excuses.  My mother is my go-to for when birthdays are.  I have a planner, she tells me that month who’s birthdays are when (we have a huge family, okay?), I write them down, and then come birthday time, people get a phone call and a gift.  I did great.  For one birthday.  One.  Come next few, and no one tells me, as if I’ve known these kids my entire life and should know what day they came into this world!  Such bullshit.  😉  Just kidding.  But seriously, I need to get better on that stuff.  I’ve gotten two gifts after the fact, and nothing looks worse than a great big “Hey sorry I missed your day but here’s a thing maybe you’ll like please love me still?”  Pffttt
  7. Pay off credit cards and car loan:  God.  Damn.  It.  I had it paid off, okay?  I had my credit card paid up and had a zero balance.  For a week.  A week!  And then comes vacation planning for the year, which was NOT cheap, and then parts on my car turned obsolete, and then my car had to go to the shop to put those parts on, and then fuckin…asdfghjkl; Game Grumps were all like “Oh, we gunna go on tour and there’s some VIP tickets out there” and how exactly am I supposed to say no to that???  Long story short: Credit card balance now very much exists.  I’m hoping within the next three months I can get it gone again.  If I put everything toward it.  Hoo-boy.
  8. Go out of town to see friends more often just because: This is another thing that has not happened, and not from lack of want.  You know that whole shpeel about the credit cards?  It’s largely due to that.  But a besties friend trip for next year is in the works, and I do plan on heading to see people twice this year, so???
  9. Take Jax (old grumpo) to good doggo classes: Not yet, but still in the works.  The lady I plan to go through has classes every month.  When it gets warmer outside, I plan on taking the time to get him on his best behavior.  Er…to teach me how to act with him and not let him be the boss, I guess.  I think it’s moreso good people classes.  Food for thought.
  10. Take doggos for more walks:  It’s happening kind of?  Weather where I live has not been cooperating, and that’s not just an excuse this time.  The littlest one can’t do cold.  He refuses to move anywhere but toward the door to go back inside.  But we are finally out of winter and into spring, so here soon, it’ll be nothing but pavement and poop bags.
  11. Declutter digital and physical files:  I’ve been a pro at this.  My email is spectacular, and I’ve taken a little bit of time every few weeks to go through old papers.  I plan on going through the entire filing cabinet when I can switch it out for a new one that isn’t broken.  Which I’ll get after my credit card is paid off.  Ugh finances are so lame.
  12. Locate my self-esteem: Still searching.  I am supposed to get my hair done later this week, so maybe after that it’ll pop out and say SURPRISE!  But so far…eh.  I still need to work on that.
Scrabble tiles make it seem so much more fun. Photo by Breakingpic on Pexels.com

So there you have it.  I’m about…eh…fifty fifty.  Progress is progress. 

Those of you who do the whole New Year New Me bull, how’s it going so far?  You crushing those goals?  Those goals crushing you?  Or are you just floating by doing your best, such as yours truly?

Uncategorized

Just Skip This One

Manda Kay

I’ll level with you.  I have this blog on queue, and I try to work on it a bit every week, along with my Facebook page and my draft work.  And today is my day to work on this.  And this is not what I want to do.  It’s not the writing or anything like that.  Generally, I still like writing.  I still like working on projects and all that other nice shiz.  Today, I just don’t like much of anything.

Story time!

I’m not new to depression.  In the past I’ve been to counseling over it and a couple other issues, and I’ve also been on medication for it for…oh…let’s say a little over two years if my memory is correct? 

I’m no longer in counseling because talking to a stranger doesn’t work for me and I’ve never really found one who I liked to talk to where I didn’t feel judged.  That’s not a comment on their professionalism or anything like that.  I’m sure they are good at what they do.  It just didn’t work for me.

I’m no longer taking medication because it kinda stopped working.  I tried Zoloft and did fairly well on it, but I started having problems with clenching my jaw 24/7, and after some research of my own and confirmation from my doctor, I weaned myself off it and switched to Wellbutrin for about a month.  My body and my mind did not take the switch well at all.

Wellbutrin and Well are two words that should never go together. Pun was unintentional. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I felt like I had the flu for weeks when I was on it.  I went through the worst low of my twenty-nine years of existence, which ended with me curled up in the bottom of the shower bawling because I thought I was going crazy and my boyfriend sitting with me trying to convince me I wasn’t.

It.

Sucked.

Balls.

So, I called my doctor and got the okay to slowly get off it, and had to deal with the withdrawals from not just one but two medications.  Phew.  Not good times.

So yeah, me and depression are long time friends.  Like, not the kind of friends you want to go hang out with on weekends, but maybe the kind a friends you dread going to the bar with because you know they are just going to ditch out on you and leave you to walk home by yourself at two in the morning through alleys and the streets you don’t really like to drive past even in broad daylight. 

My analogies suck, but work with me here.

I guess the point of this post is to show that even when it hurts to get out of bed or eat when you’re supposed to or breathe when you’d rather not is that sometimes it’s better to force yourself to do it.  Even if you would rather do anything but be productive.  Keeping busy is important especially when you are on a low because if you don’t, then the self-depreciation thoughts kick into overdrive, and that shit is scarier than anything else.

This blog post is nothing but an exercise in forcing myself to do what I don’t want to do and seeing how many times I can write a few words before I delete paragraphs because everything I put to page sounds petty.  These feelings don’t go well with expository writing, in my ever so humble opinion.  Here’s a poem instead:

Late night early
morning late night again
and still I cannot get
these thoughts
out of my fucking head.
I don’t think I want to die in earnest,
but I do think that existing is
harder than what some people
make it out to be.
Whenever someone says something
less than satisfactory to me
(in jest I think it’s in jest I hope it’s in jest)
I tell them that the joke is on them,
because no one can possibly hate me
more than
me.
I say it so often, I’m not sure
which of us is really
joking
anymore.

Little red Minecraft dude doesn’t like this blog post either. Photo by burak kostak on Pexels.com

I don’t know.  I think that’s as far as I can push this issue.  I guess what you can take out of this is that depression sucks, that getting medication is almost too easy and that just because one thing works doesn’t mean another one will, and that I don’t know which thing sucks more.  That’s probably a good topic for another post now that I think about it.

I usually like to end all these things off with a question that has to do with what I wrote about, but fuck that on-topic bull.

Do you like puppies?

Uncategorized

Gone, but Never Forgotten

Manda Kay

This.  Fucking.  Book.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuRyzz9AQlX/

Where do I even start?  The believable, relatable characters?  The phenomenal descriptions from beginning to end?  The total twist at the end that I did not see coming?

Nah… Let’s start instead with the subject matter of the book.

I feel like rape stories are done time and time again, but I haven’t even seen one from the point of view of someone not directly involved in the act.  This story is told through the daughter of the accused, who allegedly raped her best friend.  WAIT it gets worse.  The dad allegedly raped his daughter’s best friend, who happens to be underage.  WAIT WAIT!  The act allegedly happened while the daughter was in the same room, sleeping.

What.  The.  Fuck.

The daughter, Katie, has to go through the next six years of her life without her father.  She is fiercely loyal to him, and grows up hating her best friend, Lulu, for ruining her family’s life.  She cuts contact completely, not only because the lawyers tell her to do so, but also because she wants nothing to do with her anymore.  Katie was in the same room, for godsake.  She would have known if something was going down that shouldn’t have been.  Besides, her father loved those girls.  He accepted Lulu as one of his own.  He was a well-respected man of the community.  There’s no way in hell that Lulu’s allegations could be true.

Right?

The closer it comes to her father’s release date, the more unsure she becomes of what exactly happened that night.  Had there been a fight between herself and Lulu?  Did Lulu have motivation to get Katie’s father a one way ticket to the jailhouse?

There’s a blank spot in her memory (some forgotten hours, ROLL CREDITS) but when she goes back to the cabin they spent those summers at to get it ready for her father’s return, she finds a box of letters and receipts that offers answers if only she is brave enough to follow the trail.

Did her dad do it?

Did Lulu lie?

I’m not here to spoil that for you.  Read this book.  It’s not one I would normally pick up, but it was a freebie on Amazon one month (yey prime!) and I’m glad I chose it. 

The Forgotten Hours delves into a subject matter that is uncomfortable but necessary.  There’s the #MeToo movement happening (wow girl welcome to the party like fifty years later seriously), and I first want to say that I stand behind it completely.  Consent is an important thing to give and receive before any sort of bumping of the uglies commences.  With more and more people coming out and saying that they’ve been harmed in one way or another by another person, it can be hard to trust in someone.  And I’m not saying that it’s just for women, either.  For men, too, it can be hard to trust.  And I feel like this is because the whole concept of “consent” is a tricky subject.

Now, backtrack a little bit.  When I say that, I don’t mean blatant rape.  Like, violence against a person is bad.  Date raping a person is bad.  If someone says “No, don’t touch me,” that is obviously rape.  If someone is passed out and you choose to feel them up, that is bad.  There’s things that are obvious.

You still with me here?

So, consent.  It’s tricky.  It’s tricky because both people are supposed to be mind readers.  In the case of Lulu and Katie’s father (NO SPOILERS okay some spoilers), there is no violence.  There is no “No, don’t touch me.”  There is the thing of being underage and statutory and all that shiz, but that’s a different subject.  Let’s take that out of the picture entirely.  Let’s pretend she’s eighteen for the sake of my point. 

Okay, we pretending?  Sweet.

If Katie’s father and Lulu sleep together, and Lulu didn’t really want to, but she didn’t say anything otherwise, is it rape?  Or did they consent?  I don’t know, because what is considered consent varies from person to person.

Which is why it’s important that people talk about it.

Where do we draw the line?  Katie wasn’t completely sure.  Lulu wasn’t entirely certain.  Katie’s father, well, he goes to jail over it, so you can draw your own conclusions on what he thinks.

One final point I want to make is about character.  As I said before, Katie’s father is a well-respected member of the community.  He’s involved in his family.  He is a friendly, outgoing man.  He’s always ready to welcome people with open arms.  He likes people and people like him.  He’s always ready to turn any bad situation into a new opportunity.  He has all these good qualities, and so his friends and neighbors can’t believe that he is capable of doing something as terrible as what he’s accused of.

What people forget is that every person (both in real life and in good fiction) has multiple qualities that make them who they are.  Very rarely is there a human being who is all good or all bad.  Katrin Schumann, the author of the book, made it a point to tell all the good about Katie’s father all the way through, and that’s important.  People who are considered saints by all that know them are still capable of doing horrible things.  People who are labeled as criminals can still help those in need.  There are no monsters in this world. 

I’ll say it again:

People are not monsters.

Big Foot might be where I draw the line Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

People you don’t like are not just like Hitler, and Hitler was not a monster.  He was a man.  A man who committed atrocious acts and convinced a country to dispose of an entire group of people for reasons I cannot pretend to understand, but he also did a handful of good, too.  In no way does that excuse what he did.  But at the end of the day, he was a man.  Not a monster.  I feel like society is quick to label people monsters because they don’t want to accept that anyone is capable of doing bad things, but at the end of the day, at the end of right and wrong, we are all capable of anything.  And that’s scary.

Annddd somehow I went from a book review to the fundamentals of labeling.  I think that’s a good place to stop.

Tl;dr Read The Forgotten Hours. 

Uncategorized

Roller Coaster…of LOOove

Manda Kay

Hey you!  Yeah, you!  Kid, you like roller coasters? 

Ya want some candy? Photo by Daria Obymaha on Pexels.com

Well, then do I got something for you.

Was that a stupid enough of an intro for this?  Probably.  But in all seriousness: Joe Hill.  More importantly, Joe Hill’s short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts.  This book has fifteen stories that range anywhere from terrifying to heartwarming to just plain sad. 

This is why I love Joe Hill.

I feel like the best way to do this is to choose my favorite and least favorite story.  Otherwise this will go on for thousands and thousands of words, and, let’s be real, neither one of us have the time or energy to go through that.  😉

So, Pop Art.  The first sentence begins, “My best friend when I was twelve was inflatable.”  I’m thinking, alright, cool, crazy kid with a blow-up doll, or maybe not even necessarily crazy, but definitely lonely.  An imaginary friend story.  Those are fun.  But that’s when things get interesting and Hill forces me to think outside the box. 

First of all, the inflatable friend isn’t imaginary.  He’s real.  He goes to school, other kids acknowledge him, and he’s able to communicate with others via a whiteboard and some crayons.  Him being inflatable isn’t a metaphor for some kind of ailment or disease or anything like that.  He’s 100% full of air; no organs, no openings (save for the spots where he can take in more air), so no mouth.  If he isn’t careful, he can float away.  His parents are not inflatable.  They are normal everyday humans who eat and talk and function like anyone else.  He is not adopted.  He was just born that way. 

When I accepted this fact, the rest of the story was enjoyable, and rather sad.  The protagonist of the story is kind of an outcast with a bad home life.  His mother is gone and his father doesn’t want much to do with him.  He befriends Art (the inflatable kid) at school when a couple of bullies are after him.  After that day, they hang out at school and at each other’s houses, until the protagonist’s father gets a dog and things get a bit tense at his house, so they instead hang around Art’s house.

I don’t want to give the whole story away because I think you should read it yourself.  It’s funny and sad and heartwarming and frightening all at the same time.  I may or may not have cried at the end of it.  It’s a great story about what a person would be willing to do for their best friend.  Ahhh I love it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtrCZlNF3LU/

My Father’s Mask.  Now, I can’t say that I hated this one.  It was good for what it was.  I was tense the whole time I was reading it; the story has an uneasy feel, like there’s something under the surface that it’s not letting on.

The short of it is that a boy named Jack goes with his parents on a trip to this cabin and he doesn’t really want to go.  The mom plays a game with him and makes it out to be an adventure and tells him that he can’t be seen by anyone or else they will come to get him.  The kid is too old for these kinds of games (I believe he’s a teenager?), but he plays along anyway.  Cut to the cabin.  There are a ton of masks laying around and hanging on the walls and just everywhere you look, there’s a mask.  If you thought the parents were acting off before, they really act off now.  They wear a mask, and insist that he wears a mask, too.  There’s almost a taboo sexual feel to the whole thing?  Like, the kid wants to leave the cabin because he wants to let them do their thing without having to be a part of it.  He goes into the woods to gather some wood and gets lost, but he meets a kid who he thought he saw the night before who makes him uneasy, so he runs and hides.  Then he meets two other kids who offer to answer one question if he beats them in a card game with ambiguous rules.

Confused yet?

A lot happens in this story, but it’s all rather vague.  I still don’t know what exactly happened in the cabin, or in the woods, or when he gets back to the cabin.  Everything feels off and uneasy.  The entire time I read this one, I had my head in my hand and my face scrunched up the way, as if screwing myself up would help me understand it better. 

That being said, I liked it.  It scared me, and I had no idea what was going on.  I don’t know if that was purposeful or if I was missing some major plot point, but either way, it fucking worked.  I felt like I was in the woods with Jack, but he left me behind, and several weeks later I still can’t find my way out.

Have you read 20th Century Ghosts?  What was your favorite story in it?  And (more importantly for me anyway) did you understand My Father’s Mask??

Uncategorized

Three Down, ??? To Go…

Manda Kay

Oh, gaspers!

Oh, jeezums!

Oh, beepers!

Any of those doing anything for ya?  😉

Alright, so no review this week.  Not from lack of reading, I assure you.  Instead, I thought I’d drop you all a line to celebrate!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtrCwWwF8yo/

MUTHAFUGGIN CELEBRATION!!!

I just finished editing the third draft of my novel!  Now, I got this blog on queue, so this magic actually happened last month.  When you read this, I’ll be working on typing out the fourth (and hopefully final) draft before sending this baby out and praying for something cool to happen. 

Weird little tidbit: I had no idea what was going to happen.  By that, I mean with the ending, and by that, I mean that I had a general idea of how it would close out, but not so clear on how it would get there.  It’s taken three drafts to get the beginnings of an idea, and it took editing that third draft to finally get that little light bulb in my head to spark up.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtrCwWwF8yo/

So, from my editing notes, I need to:

  • Give the last few sections a major revision
  • Do some more research on what happens when you go blind in one eye (and really I should just be able to ask my doctor at work about that) (perks of being an optician)
  • Set up a timeline (don’t give me shit I don’t do plot for the most part when I do these things)
  • Make a map (physical map) (should’ve done that to begin with) (didn’t seem important at the time) (sue me)
  • Read up on some voodoo hoodoo

I have my work cut out for me.  But I’m one step closer.

And now, to celebrate.  Probably with some San Pedro and a margarita the size of my face.  What do you do for yourself when you meet a goal?

Book Reviews

Keep You Safe in a Tower

Manda Kay

The Dark Tower.  The final installment of the series that shares the same name.  I heard from a large handful of people that I wouldn’t like the end because it was a “major letdown.”  While it definitely wasn’t the ending I wanted, I can say with complete sincerity that it was the ending that was needed. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs3azGgAb9a/

Let’s take a hot minute here and talk about some of the characters.  I’ll go from least favorite to bae (good god I feel like I’m too old to say that word).  Ready?

Susanna.  It wasn’t that I hated her by any stretch of the imagination.  I liked her.  In a vast sea of interesting people, though, she just wasn’t as interesting to me.  Her other two personalities you meet when you first come across her in The Drawing of the Three, however, were amazing.  Total polar opposites.  Detta will forever be my hero; she was a blast, if crude and rude and all around nasty to everyone most always.  But Susanna was just a steady middle ground between the prissy high-class Odetta and the take-no-shit Detta.  I fell out of love with her when she got her mind under control.

Jake.  I didn’t have anything against him.  There just wasn’t very much about him that was memorable, aside from him telling Roland at the very beginning, “Go then.  There are other worlds than these.”  (Awesome tattoo idea, by the way.) 

Roland.  What a dick.  Just kidding, but seriously, though.  He’s so single minded and selfish that it’s infuriating.  He’ll do anything so long as it gets him closer to the tower.  And you know what?  That’s what I love about him.  He’s got this anti-hero dynamic about him that the reader (or me, at very least) loves to hate.  He’s not above saving people and telling them to fuck off immediately afterward.  Cold, calculating, and better than you in almost every way, but with certain touches that border adorable, like his mispronunciations and literal attitude.  He’s not a monster; he can feel love and loss, but he pushes it to the back of his mind so he can accomplish his quest.  Misunderstood, I suppose, is a good word to describe him.

Oy.  Oh, god, how my heart bleeds for Jake’s best friend.  I have a soft spot for animals anyway, but make them talk, and I’m head over heels in love.  But Oy is more than a cute mimicking pet.  He’s hands down the most fiercely loyal of the ka’tet.  Everyone is willing to die for the cause, and that’s all good and grand, but Oy is willing to stay even after he has literally no reason to.  The same can’t be said for the others, in my humble opinion. 

Alright, that brings me to the man of the hour, Eddy.  This sarcastic, wise-cracking street-smart druggie was destined to be my favorite the moment Roland entered his mind in the second book.  The reader is with him through his transformation of body and mind, with Roland teaching him the ways of a gunslinger and him dealing with withdrawal and learning to let go of his past.  He might not be the smartest of the ka’tet, but he has a way with words and can talk his way into and out of most anything.  He’s not above making jokes even at the most inappropriate of times, but he has a heart of gold that makes up for it.  I’m unashamed to admit that he was my book crush for the series, but I really don’t think I’m alone in that respect.

Some quick thoughts about The Dark Tower itself:  The first half of the book made me want to vomit, what with the pus and snot and people eating of the people (and not-so-people) in the city where they break the beam.  The last half of the book made me want to cry, what with all the dying, some definitely more unexpected than others.  Mordred was terrifyingly evil and every time he was mentioned my skin would crawl.  The final battle was a bit of a letdown for me.  I wanted more than anything for Roland to have this epic showdown with the Crimson King with lots of one-liners and action sequences and instead I got…

SPOILER ALERT

…erased from existence MS Paint style.  For how much the Crimson King was talked up throughout the series I thought it would be more drawn out (lol), or at very least he would be dealt with by Roland exclusively. 

But such is life.  What can ya do?

Now, this ending, the real ending, the moment I was waiting for from the first time I picked up The Gunslinger years (and years and years goodness gracious this series took me a long time to get through and there were a lot of breaks between books for me) ago.  I’ll keep it short, because I’ve been rambling for longer than what I intended to make this.  Was this the ending I wanted?  Of course not.  I wanted him to find what he was looking for with his ka’tet at his side and finally be at peace.  He had been working so hard for so long, he just needs some damn rest!  Instead, he walks up and up, reliving every painful memory and mistake room by room, floor by floor, until he reaches the top and is pulled back into the loop, destined to repeat his journey to the Dark Tower once more.  Roland is stuck in purgatory, and who knows how many times he’s been through the journey before now?  This wasn’t the ending I wanted for Roland, but I believe deep down that it was the ending that Roland deserved.  He’s sacrificed everything for the tower: strangers, friends, even family, without even knowing what was inside, without ever questioning.  He was obsessed and greedy and just couldn’t leave well enough alone with saving the beams.  I hope his next journey that he plays his cards right and is able to get the ending we all want for him and he can finally stop fighting.

Before I end this, here’s a couple links that are my headcannon theme songs for Roland and the tower.

Roland and his quest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKh2Hb7mcU0

The Dark Tower to Roland:

Have you read The Dark Tower?  What did you think?