Reading Rambo

I went somewhere! And finally met Megs of longtime book blog frienddom ! For those of you wondering, Megs is a slender and delightful person who will drive you up, up! into the Hollywood Hills to look at the outside of a building for 30 seconds. She will also not judge you for eating two everything bagels in a row while watching Netflix. THANKS, MEGS.  Yes, I flew to LA for my birthday (and then San Francisco, but more about that next week), and everything was magical and filled with dogs and the aforementioned bagels. Things started out what-on-earth-ish when my oldest internet friend (meaning we met in 2002, not that she's 80) turned out to be on my plane. We discovered this through a Facebook post followed by texting. "YOU'RE at Midway? I'M at Midway. Wait..." Steph and I met through a Yahoo Group about Cheers  couple Frasier & Lilith (or "Frith" to those in the know). There were four of us in this group. Obviously. We were all teenagers. Step

Leah Vincent's memoir Cut Me Loose , a copy of which was provided to me by Penguin, is the story of her growing up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish household and her subsequent separation from that life. I've got a lot of feelings about it. First of all, I'm gonna say that if you read this, which you should if you are interested in a perspective that is not your own and sometimes quite challenging, read the new paperback edition with the afterword. I would've had way more questions without it, and it gives much more of a sense of finality to the story than the original ending. So. This story. I tend to read memoirs by women who have left conservative religions, because that was my self-imposed deal. My parents aren't hardcore Christians, but I decided at 13 that most of what I liked was sinful and I was always failing and a pretty terrible person. I'm not saying this is what Christianity teaches AT ALL -- I'm still a Christian, albeit a much more liberal

IT IS MINITHON DAY. I have felt like writing lately (meaning this past week) Not At All, but who am I to reject a perfectly good minithon. They are the best. This one is coinciding with being at my parents' and going to see Pitch Perfect 2 , BUT I have been reading despite this. awwwww yeah For those worried that Ernest Cline's second book would suck, DO NOT WORRY, for it is engaging and great. But my middle brother stole it, so I am now working on: Got a lotta feelings about this book. Which have been switching around a lot. To get to my parents', I woke up at 6:15 AM to get to a train. This is too early for normal humans, but how else was I supposed to both have time to see Pitch Perfect 2 / Mad Max at my parents' AND see the Goodman's production of The Little Foxes last night? By teleporting? I would if I could , but I can't, and I honestly think that expectation is unreasonable.  Despite an extreme lack of planning, I got a small (MINI) coffe

In 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, then 80 years old , published the first part of a project she and the other women working on it called The Woman's Bible . One of its main purposes was to argue against the idea that women should be subservient to men, and to trample upon the notion that it was God's will they be so. This book is startling, shocking, and astonishing. It reads like an essay by 1960s radical feminists (except when Stanton uses words like "tergiversation"). It seems that when they can, they use the Julia Smith translation , which I'd never heard of, for reasons explained in that Wikipedia article. Side note, but I'd like to point out that that translation apparently retails for appx $20,000  because there are basically no copies of it. The Woman's Bible was published in two parts, in 1895 and 1898, and looks at the women in the Bible, as well as verses that have been used for centuries to justify their subjugation. As Clara Bewick Col

I know you all might think my Meghan Trainor enthusiasm has waned, but REST ASSURED IT BURNS BRIGHT AS THE PLANET VENUS. There has unfortunately not been much new material from her, as she is on tour overseas, but there is a duet coming out with One Direction's Harry Styles someday maybe, which is of course called..."Someday Maybe." don't judge me, Meghan Now that I have indeed been listening to Meghan Trainor's music for MONTHS upon months, what are her best songs? Well. Here are my current top 5, excluding All About That Bass because you all know it, damnit: 1. Lips Are Movin . It's still great. Not sick of it. Do I know some of the dance because I watched a choreography video YES OF COURSE. What I'm saying is, it's immensely catchy and even though I avoided the music video for ages due to the sequined cat shirt I saw her wearing in it, it is in fact adorable. don't tell me that's not adorable I will disown you 2. Dear Futu

Look at that clickbait-format title! Moving up in the world! And by moving up, I mean slowly becoming a Buzzfeed article. But April did indeed blow the Reading Slump That Is 2015 out of the water, mostly due to graphic novels and middle grade fiction. Here's what I read: 1. Aquarium  by David Vann. REMEMBER HOW MUCH I LOVED THIS BOOK because it was a lot. A girl and her single mom and how much she loves fish. So much srsness and it's so great. 2. Villette  by Charlotte Bronte. Man. That was a long ride. What a very emotionally complicated novel. My feelings about a lot of Villette 3. For Queen and Country  by Margaret Drabble. Ah-ha! This  is a brief overview of Victorian England and talks about important artists, inventors, social reformers, etc. Did you know that the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury was really, really into fixing the lunacy laws and advocated for child labor reform and safe factory conditions and was just all-around an apparently great guy? Yes. 4

A Christmas Carol by Dickens is ridiculously famous, has seeped into our collective cultural consciousness, and is one in a list of things that keeps us emotionally tied to England (along with Hugh Grant and the Spice Girls). It's also CRAZY GOOD. Everyone has their own sacrosanct version of A Christmas Carol . My family is not about Muppets at all (sure. yell at me in comments. because no one eeeever has before), so we watched Mickey's Christmas Carol . It is SO GREAT, although Goofy as Jacob Marley is legit terrifying, do not even second guess me on this, my siblings will bear me out. WHAT IF YOUR DOORKNOB TURNED INTO GOOFY'S FACE In my quest to read all of Dickens's works, I thought I better have another look at Christmas Carol , as the latest I would've read it, if I ever DID, was 1999. And that was awhile ago. This awhile ago.  (x) Dickens in a shortened form is maybe Dickens at his best. I hesitate because there's a certain reward in stic