September 26th to October 2nd: Riding Out a Hurricane, Cozy Autumn Books, and Redoing My Office
This past week was… interesting to say the least. I’m definitely in the throws of a pretty big life slump and I’m struggling but determined to pull myself out of it. There was no “getting my life together” activities happening for the majority of this past week as I’ve been deal with Hurricane Ian. I did manage to spend my Sunday trying to check off one task on my list that I’ve been putting off forever and that is to redecorate my desk/office area. I’m hoping that finally checking off a task on my to do list and also making a place in my home extra cozy will give me the serotonin boost to keep myself going and check off more things on my to do list.
Here are some highs from the past few days:
Ravenfall by Kalyn Josephson
This was such a cute autumnal read. It’s so atmospheric and cute and it reminded me of a nostalgic Disney channel movie like Hocus Pocus but make it more Irish. This book follows two kids who find each other as they partner up to take down this mysterious creature who’s going around killing magical creatures. Colin wants revenge for the murder of his parents and Anna finally wants to put her use powers to use and prove that she’s a capable member of er very magical family who run a very magical inn. This book involves a cat or jabberwocky who loves to dress up a very sentient house so if that doesn’t win your hearts over, I don’t know what will.
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’ Farrell
I’ve always wanted to read Hamnet because historical fiction is my jam but I’ve done the classic me thing where I save things off till a “better” time. I don’t know why but the past weekend, instead of picking up “Hamnet”, I picked up her latest release. I’m loving this book. It’s a slow burn, beautiful, building of this Lucrezia’s life and her journey into marriage and her attempts to escape it alive. This book reminds me a bit of “Love and Fury” which follows the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. At the start of both these books, we know the fate of these woman but yet we journey forward, backwards, and through their last few moments to understand who they are, were, and who they could have been had they been born at a different time.
Lullabies by Lang Leav
This is the first poetry collection I’ve ever read and I feel like a whole new world of reading just opened up to me. I’ve also found Lang Leav’s writing online and absolutely loved it. I had picked up some of her work earlier on this year but was never in the mood for it. But this past few days, when everything was stormy and dark, I thought that it was finally time to settle down and read some poetry. I absolutely love the poems in this collection and how she’s building a story that’ snot always directly linear but linear nonetheless. Excuse me while I amateur my way through explaining and talking about poetry but honestly, this book is a work of art. There’s so many lines I have tabbed and pages I’ve folded down for future reference.
This week was weird in TV watching. I didn’t think I’d watch much television this week because I’ve been having trouble getting into and finishing TV shows. I’m in the middle of Sins of Our Mother and Dahmer but I’m not in the mood to finish either of them. Sins of Our Mother is definitely far more interesting than Dahmer but I’m not in the mood for a true crime type of show at the moment.
Or so I thought lol. When the weekend rolled around, I ran out of things that I wanted to watch and started Into the Deep which is a documentary movie about a murder that occurred in a submarine. That’s all I knew going into the documentary and that’s all you should know as well. I’m not going to lie, the start of this documentary was a bit slow but boy oh boy, did it pick up pace in the second half. And that twist! This was a very informative show when it came to the engineering or science aspect of the development of this submarine in question as well on the whole amateur science forward industry in European countries.
After finishing Into the Deep, I wanted to watch something else that wasn’t a documentary type thing so I watched DUFF the movie and my oh my did I love it. I’ve definitely seen DUFF before but like most things, I don’t remember it. I loved the relationship between these two characters and their chemistry was just so good. I really wish I could find a book that had that neighbors to lovers/acquaintances to lovers kind of trope like there was in this movie.
The real winner of this week’s watch list has to be The Thai Cave Rescue, a limited series on Netflix. There’s six episodes and it’s all fictionalized, nothing like a documentary. My family and I followed this case when it was happening real time back in 2017/2018 but my GOD was this show intense. It was jaw dropping to see how much innovation, thinking, engineering, and just sheer luck went into getting these kids out. There was obstacle after obstacle, but people from all around the world kept going, refusing to give in and leave those kids behind. I could not stop watching this show, I stayed awake till 4:30 A.M to finish this.
How has your week been? What did you love and what did you not love?