This year arrived for me with a heap of emotions and challenges. After being fired from my bookstore position (yeah, can you believe that? Me. Fired.), I hobbled along to find another job. At the start of the year, we also found this obnoxiously cute and innocent-looking puppy we named Nadja (after Natasha Demetriou’s vampiress…
Category: Reviews
The Watchers: How to turn a great book into a terrible movie
The Watchers was on my bookshelf, so when I saw the first movie preview, the familiar premise piqued my attention. A woman and a yellow bird are saved from the dark woods by a mysterious woman, taken into a mysterious house. There, they are safe from watching monsters. There’s nothing to spur me to read…
Furiosa: A study in undermining your strong female character
Furiosa started strong, but the movie didn’t ultimately know what to make of its title character. It starts with a chase. Like all Mad Max films, Furiosa mostly happens on the move. Furiosa is a preteen girl harvesting peaches in a hushed wooded oasis in the middle of the Wasteland. When bikers find the…
Nova’s Favorite 5 in Fiction
In my daily writing sprint with Paperbacks & Co., our group discussed the following question: What is your favorite novel? It was a short answer session because writers like us don’t have one favorite novel. We’d be lucky to narrow it down to ten. But I thought I’d try anyway to sit down and share…
Let’s Talk: A Manual For Tough Conversations
Sale breaks down intimidating topics so our brains don’t jam I was fortunate to stumble across this ARC that happens to be right up my alley. I’ve listened to Anna Sale’s Death, Sex, and Money podcast a bit, but never felt hooked. After her book, I’m eager to give it another chance. Let’s Talk About Hard…
Of Women and Salt: A Sharp Meditation on the Resilience of Women
A Cuban-American classic about the power of survival Of all the ARCs I was never granted, I’m thrilled Of Women and Salt was not one of them. When I read the synopses about a multi-generational tale of Cuban and Cuban-American women, it struck me that I am completely ignorant to the culture or history of…