Book Review: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

By: Neil Gaiman

5 STARS

A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman’s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys.

This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real...

This was a very interesting and imaginative book. It's told from the point of view of an older man looking back on events that happened to him as a child. So it blends the initial thoughts of the child and the realizations of the adult man.

As is typical for Gaiman, the images his writing invokes are pretty amazing. Some pretty and light while others are dark and dangerous. It was a really enjoyable and short read and you leave it thinking. I like books that make me think.

If you're already a Gaiman fan, I highly suggest this. Also, if you're a fan of very imagery driven stories.

In other, blog related, news, since I have a huge back log of posts I want to do, I'm going to start posting twice a week. On Mondays and Fridays. Otherwise it will take me months do write about all the things on my mind and that are relevant to me.

So what book will you be reading this weekend? Tell em in the comments! Thank you for reading and have a great day!

It's been a while...

Wow, um, yeah, I totally skipped January. My bad. The beginning of the new year has been kind of crazy. I have all these goals for this year and things I want to improve. My resolutions list is pretty long, maybe too long. But it's doable.

Looking back over last year, I realized that I didn't do much. Nothing major happened and I just kind of floated along in life and didn't accomplish much of anything. But this year will be different. The key will be to not get overwhelmed.

I'll just briefly go over some of my goals:

1. Improve my spirituality. This includes going to church every week (I get lazy, a lot) and doing the daily stuff of reading my scriptures and saying prayer. I've struggled with that one for a while.
2. Make and keep to a budget. Another thing we've been meaning to do for a while, but just keep skipping over. But this year we're going to start knocking out some debt.
3. More discipline and structure for the kids. Jacob is totally passed the do whatever he wants all day stage and I need to get William ready for preschool.
4. Health stuff. Daniel and I are going to start working out regularly and I'm trying to do more good home cooked meals and less fast food.
5. And finally, my writing goals. Which include, finishing my current project (which might happen this weekend), start a new project and to update my blogs once a week.

It's a lot, but I've got a year, so I think I can do it. Just have to adjust the daily schedule a bit and stop being so lazy. I'm insanely lazy.

Anyway, as I said in #5, I'm going to keep up with my blogs this year *pause for laughter* yeah, yeah, I know. :) But I've got a lot of ideas and stuff.

So what do you have to look forward to? Well, I plan on updating this blog every Friday and the Writing blog on Wednesdays. Some topics we'll cover here are, Kricket Krafts, Kricket Kooks, more Mommy Konfessions, more book reviews and just whatever else I do in my life.

So please, stick around, I want to do more with this blog and I can't do that without your help and support. :)

Happy Valentines Day and have a great weekend!

P.S. I'm going to be doing some adjustments to the blog today, so it might look weird for a bit.

 

Book Review: Undead Chaos

A book review! I haven't done one of these in a while. :)

Undead Chaos

By: Joshua Roots

5 STARS!

The job was simple: decapitate the zombie, get paid, get out. Warlock Marcus Shifter followed the plan perfectly.

The corpse, however, did not.

Now there's a body on the loose, accusations of illegal necromancy are flying, and the answers are waiting in the perilous alleys between the mortal and paranormal worlds. They're no place for someone who mostly gave up magic after a childhood accident. And given his tendency to shoot off his mouth and his Glock, Marcus is having a hell of a time digging up more than just bodies.

When an apocalypse-minded megalomaniac threatens Marcus's family, things get personal. Marcus will have to embrace the magic he's been avoiding for years—and even that might not be enough to save the world from a hellish demise.

~~~

In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Roots is a friend of mine from Absolute Write

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure I was going to read this at first. I'm not really a fan of zombies (they're overused, much like vampires), but Root's clever writing style pulled me in 100%. Marcus is a great character, fully realized and believable. I love that he relies more on his gun than his magic. I also loved how not jaded he was. Many characters like this are bitter against the world for one reason or another. Yeah they kick ass and take names, but they're also emo and it can be annoying after a while. But not Marcus.

Yeah, he's been through some crap in his life, some of it his own making, but he still has a lot to live for and be happy about. Like his loving family and his bees. I will never look at bees the same way again.

And Marcus isn't the only awesome character in this book, there's also Steve. Every line of Steve's dialogue is pure gold. Quinn is also wonderful and unique.

In short, I really enjoyed every moment I spent with this book and I'm dying to spend more time with these characters in their world.

Well thanks for reading! I hope I've given you an idea for something fun to read this week.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

And here follows the obligatory gratitude post. ;)

But seriously, I have a lot to be thankful for. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you'll notice that I don't do the daily gratitude thing in November because, well, why try to do something I know I'll forget to do two days in?

So here follows some things that I am grateful for this year.

1. My family. Daniel is the most amazing husband and father ever. My boys are gems (most of the time). I'm so lucky that I live near my sisters and that my parents are able to come visit us, as well as being not too terribly far from Daniel's family. Oh, and Happy, I love my dog. :)
2. My job. I'm so grateful that I get to be a stay at home mom. As hard as it can be sometimes, I love being home with William and Jacob. Also, I love being able to spend a whole day in my PJ's. ;)
3. Writing. I love to write and create new worlds and characters to populate those worlds. I love coming up with stories. Again, it's not always easy, but it's worth it.
4. All the material things I take for granted. I live in a nice place. We have a good car. I'm able to buy food, clothes and other, less essential things. I love the internet and the TV. And books, so many books!
5. My religion. I'm grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. It gives me peace and direction in my life, as well as connecting me to good people and new friends.

Well, I think that about covers it. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it) and try not to over eat.

Oh, a programming note: Starting next week I'm going to start a series of writing tips over at Kricket Writes. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and I finally figured out a plan. So look forward to that. :)

And Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading!

*Poke, Poke*

Are we all still alive? I am, mostly.

I did that thing where I kept forgetting to update this thing or I felt like I just had nothing to talk about. Now, I'm not going to sit here and promise to keep to any kind of schedule right now, because we know that's not going to stick. Because, really, I'm not a politician. ;)

So let's do a quick run down of what's been going on and then we'll see where we're at from there. We'll start with the bad, just to get it out of the way.

Bad: I've been dealing with a lot of headaches and back pain as of late. I could use a chiropractor but that is expensive. I'm making due with drinking more water and watching how much sugar I take in. Plus I'm trying to not sit slouched over so much. Also, I haven't been writing like I should. Despite it being NaNoWriMo. I have no excuse except that I'm lazy. And I'm currently trying to come up with ways to teach William not to wet the bed at night.

And now some Good: I got a sweet new hair cut and color the other day. I've never had it this short and I'm totally loving it. Also, I got a new techie toy, a Microsoft Surface. I've only had a couple days but so far I'm liking it. It doesn't support Google Chrome, which sucks, but I'm managing.

And in other news, William turns four on Sunday. Is there a way to get kids to stop growing?

Well I guess that's it for now. Hopefully I'll be back in a week, but no promises. I do have some book review I can do though.

Have a Wonderful Wednesday! And thanks for reading!

Fall, Already?

Okay, so this month got away from me in like every way possible. The first week of September I was in Utah visiting family. Then the next week we brought home a guest and she stayed with us for a week and a half. Then last week I went to a Fall Out Boy concert, which was my first ever concert. And somewhere in there, I turned 27. God I'm old.

Anyway, I've been busy and have totally forgotten to blog, or write, or do much of anything productive. I can blame some of it on a wicked cold, and then thus weekend I had a migraine from hell. I call those my "Post Stress Migraines". They only seem to happen after all the crazy has gone away. It's how I decompress I guess. It was either that or I killed my neck trying to see over people at the concert. Which was awesome by the way. And no, I don't have pictures because I was too busy enjoying the moment to film it.

And so, life is now back to normal. I'm in the process of revamping my daily routine, again. I do this a lot, but I'm still struggling to find something that works. Of course, one day I'll figure it out and then something outside of my control will change and I'll be right back to square one again.

But one thing that will not change is what I do here on this blog. We will be back to normal and hopefully I have something more to say at Kricket Writes, on Wednesday, than, "Not much." But I'll wait and get into all of that then.

So, I hope you have a Marvelous Monday and I'll see you on Wednesday!

BTW, do you follow me on Kricket Writes? Well you should. Go click that link and follow me, because, I mean, really, who doesn't want more Kricket in their life? ;)

Happy Birthday To Me!

I have a cold. Picked it up at the in-laws, go figure. :)

Anyway! Vacation was great, the boys had a blast. I know they've had a good day when Will comes up to me and asks to go to bed. But, it's good to be home.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to do for my birthday. I want to go out and stuff, but it all depends on how I feel by the time Daniel comes home from work. So off I go to make my self feel better.

Have a good week, dear reader! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all my birthday buddies out there. 9/9 is the best!