I will be back to daily blogging for the month of May. The end of this month I was dealing with my hours at work being cut and some legal things I needed to take care of. On top of that I had some family things too I had to take care of.
I got really emotionally exhausted and I was unhappy that everything popping up was reducing the quality of the content on my blog and I was releasing a lot of super short blogs just to continue my streak. I was really proud to get to 70 days, but I know that blogging for me is something I take seriously and I put so much of myself into it that if it’s not content I am proud of I don’t want to post it.
I am still going through a lot in my life right now. However, I think I am in a better headspace to keep going and to do my best. I will be dedicating myself to my blog and finding ways to make extra income. I’ve had so many projects I’d wanted to do that I never got started on and that changes now. I know if I dedicate myself to something and work on it everyday I will be able to accomplish whatever goal I have. I need to be consistent even with my life being so chaotic.
I want to tell stories. I want to wake up in the morning with a smile on my face knowing that I am able to do a job I chose for myself that makes me fulfilled and happy. I want to have finical security for the first time in my whole life. To know that I have something I’ve built that is going to carry me and my family my whole life and beyond it.
So I will be doing my best and hopefully in time I can announce projects and have some really cool things for all of you to see and be able to enjoy for yourselves. In the meantime the best way to support me is to bookmark https://sistersoftwilightcandleco.com/shop and purchase a candle. We have a zen line available right now with scents like Peace, Sandlewood Rose, and Stress Relief.
I am so appreciative of everyone who has been supporting my blog over the years. I have hopes to put out a greater depth of content and I hope you all will come along with me on my journey.
I always have the urge to put more and more on my plate and recently I’ve had a lot of life issues pop up and my stress has been high. So for a while I want to not add anything on my plate and enjoy the books that I have. I’ll start writing when I feel like I have a better groove where things are more steady and I don’t have so much chaos going on. For now I want to live in my books and give my mind a rest.
I have 75 netgalley books to read and I also have a lot of my own books on my shelves to enjoy. The more I read the more I replenish and I’ll be able to find the inspiration to write when I’m read to start writing books again soon.
Sometimes when life throughs a bunch of stuff at you all at once you need to give yourself a break. I’m allowing myself that at the moment. Read my books, drink coffee, play my games, and after a while when I am feeling better rested I can take the time to look at starting to be more productive again.
Of course I’ll still be blogging everyday and the more I read the more I can get reviews out and share amazing stories with all of you. Happy reading time!
“In this necessary tale grappling with some of the prickly parts of life—mental health, loss, friendship—Spears proves once again that she’s a master, not just of the teenage voice, but also of carefully crafting stories with both heart and teeth. Stories that bond themselves to readers and live with them—in them—far after the last page.” —Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Stamped and Long Way Down A teen confronts his feelings about his father’s death, his new family, and the girl next door in this emotional young adult novel from critically-acclaimed author Kat Spears
Dane Riley’s grasp on reality is slipping, and he’s not sure that he cares. While his mother has moved on after his father’s death, Dane desperately misses the man who made Dane feel okay to be himself. He can’t stand his mother’s boyfriend, or the boyfriend’s son, whose favorite pastime is tormenting Dane. Then there’s the girl next door: Dane can’t quite define their relationship, and he doesn’t know if he’s got the courage to leave the friend zone.
An emotional novel about mental health, and dealing with grief and growing up, The Tragedy of Dane Riley is the story of a teenager looking to make sense of his feelings in the wake of tragedy, and finding the strength he needs to make life worth living.
Opening Sentence: “If you knew you were going to die at the age of seventeen, it would impact every decision you made—who you dated, how much time you spent in school or worrying about grades, what risks you would take.”
Musings:
This is an example of a time where I am reading a book at the timing I was meant to read it. I have been losing my dad for several years now. I’ve watched his physical and mental decline and while in the book it happened really fast, in real life with my dad it’s been painfully slow. My struggles with my dad have not manifested in any suicidal ideation or as self-destructive of behavior as Dane displays in this book, but I share some of the fascination with death and the depression that Dane experiences.
Grief is no joke. It can make everything in life feel like a void and the desire to do anything at all gets completely sucked away. The fact that this book came into my path has left me feeling like that day where I lose my dad forever is closer then it ever was and I’m scared. I’ve been grieving my dad for the way he used to be for years now, but I’m not ready to lose him completely.
I am afraid that when I do lose my dad that I will be like Dane. He loses himself in his grief. He doesn’t participate in school, he uses vaping to cope, he set part of his house on fire (although that partially was for a reasonable thing and was an accident, but still), he continues skateboarding while he is injured, and he’s horribly self depreciating. I understand him though. I understand why he feels and does what he does. I know that I would probably even be friends with him if I met him in person. He reminds me so much of my guy friends in some of his more adorable dork ways that it’s hard for me not to like him. However, I don’t want to become him.
I know grief will manifest however it needs to. I know I won’t be in control. I know that it’ll cause a hole in my heart that already aches because of how hard it is to see my dad suffer everyday. Reading this book it shows how ugly grief can be and it’s even harder when your family grieves differently and it feels lonely when you can’t find common ground to be understood. It doesn’t completely absolve him from the mistakes he makes in this novel, but it makes him fully human. Dane is messy, hurting, and he is well intentioned. Reading his story made me want to scold, try and talk to, and just hug this guy. He’s a likable dummy (in a good way).
All in all, if you want to read something that shows a whole lot of character development, revelations about life and death, cringe behavior, awkward first love, and a whole lot of grief, you’ll want to pick up ‘The Tragedy of Dane Riley’. As much as it hurts it helps too.
I started this blog several years ago and back then I struck on something beautiful that I wasn’t ready to keep up with in the years that followed. I have done a lot of living since then. That’s a new perspective of how I see those years I didn’t read or write as much, but even as I’ve fought over and over to come back it wasn’t till the beginning of this month that I really come back into my own.
Reading has brought me back to a feeling I had forgotten. That reading wasn’t so much me escaping away from reality, but discovering the life lessons that helped me build the person I wanted to be. I admire the protagonists in books and their lofty goals and their willingness to be uncomfortable for the sake of accomplishing their dreams.
I remember a time where I did a book challenge and I read and reviewed books for something like 56 days in a row. I remember the burn out at the end of it and the disconnect from the reviewing process that happened and reviewing felt like a chore for a long time after.
Even though that particular experience was years ago, I still noticed that I had a hard time finding the desire to review the books I read until recently. Reviewing books felt like a chore that felt necessary, but I began to hate to do it.
Yet, the beginning of this month came and as I read again and rejoined netgalley and started to enjoy books and feel the benefits of what a book had inside of it to give me, I felt that spark of wanting to review them again. That desire to share with others that what I just read gave me something that is worth sharing. The passion that I feel for books that I want to share it because I love it so much. The piece of the puzzle of myself I had taken out and put in a lost corner only to rediscover it and put it back in its place. To even create more of those puzzle pieces and build a brighter passion in me.
Reviewing a book is saying thank you to the authors for the gifts they’ve given us. It’s saying this touched me and it changed me and I hope that it’ll change others too. It’s a butterfly effect that will lead to more and more that we can’t even imagine or see. I truly believe in the power of books and we normally don’t extend that power to the books reviews, but I do believe they have a lasting effect.
I am so happy to be back and I am so happy that I have found a new truth because of it all. I can’t wait for the stories that will touch my life and I can’t wait to share them with all of you.
So for a while now, more like for the past couple weeks, months, and years, I have had a very hard time getting onto a schedule. I have been fighting depression, my work schedule, my life balance, my health, my sleep schedule. Everything has been so completely out of wack that I just haven’t known what to do or how to get my life back in order. To be completely honest I haven’t even been able to turn on my ps5 and play anything for the past few weeks.
For the sake of my health sleep is a priority to me so I know I need to go to bed earlier then the 2am sleep time I’ve had the past few days. So I’m making sure I go to bed at 12 or earlier tonight and try and make that my habit. If I go to bed at 12 I can wake up at 8 and have plenty of time to do whatever I need to do before work. Even better would be if I could go to sleep at 11 but I have to set realistic expectations for myself. That’s just not going to happen most of the time.
To start I want to get used to that and see how well I can use my mornings to get things done that I want done. I can do my Honkai star rail dailies and then do my blog post and read for a while. See if I can fit in writing for a book even if I start off just writing for shorter periods of time.
I’m deciding to start I’m going to be lenient with myself because my health has been not too great. Which is why I’m going to try and also eat better. Less sugars, no cold things for the sake of my cough and throat, more anti inflammatory promoting foods. I need to take care of myself way better than I have been. Now is as good a time as any to start.
The name of the game right now is baby steps. Just inching towards better little by little. Get the life stuff done I need to get done. See what I can do to get my body to start feeling better. To be an all around more productive and successful human. It’s the most gentle plan I’ve had for myself in a long time, but it’s what I need.
Now I know how this sounds and it kinda sounds bad, but I promise you that this is actually a really positive thing and I think it’s an idea that would allow people to be more accepting of positions they are in that are not entirely from the fault of their own.
The reason I am discussing this topic at all is because lately I have felt very very down on myself because I have so many dreams and I’ve tried over and over again to make them a reality and it’s not worked. Maybe it never will. It is entirely impossible for me to know, but in the end I am not going to stop trying in spite of the closed doors in my face. Even if I do get sad that I haven’t yet tasted the success that I have been desiring to.
This post was sparked by a video that my partner sent me and he said he was hesitant to for a while because of the mental state I’ve been in recently being pretty poor. He hadn’t been sure how I would take the video, but I said I’d watch it anyway. I am glad I did.
This is the video he sent me. A majority of the time when you watch something like this and they’re calling you a loser it would probably not make you feel very good. However, in this video, there’s a bigger message that is being shared. Yes, you may have lost in life. A lot of us will experience that in our lives, but the only reason you got to experience that loss is because you tried. It’s ok if you didn’t win the race. If the love you wanted to have with someone didn’t work out. If the book you wrote didn’t sell. Or if your YouTube videos never got any views. The act of putting yourself out there and trying is something worth being celebrated too. Sometimes you will do the absolute best you can and you will not make it. Yes it feels bad, but the act of trying is something beautiful.
You didn’t sit on the sidelines. You didn’t give up. You didn’t leave it to others to go after something you want. You went for it for yourself. Even though it didn’t work out. I feel like if we accepted being a loser and thought about it differently it would help a lot of people break a cycle where they felt like it was time to give up.
The word loser is harsh. It has so many negative connotations. It feels very bad to be called one. However, we all experience it in our lives. We will all feel what it’s like for something to not work out and trying to avoid the discomfort of that word doesn’t change the fact that you’ve lost.
In a less stakes way me and my friends experience this all the time playing Fortnite. We are all pretty bad at the game, but none of us particularly take losing at it hard, because it’s really fun to play Fortnite. If we took life more in this lighthearted way. Especially knowing that we’ve done our best and life had other plans new pathways might start making themselves known. So a job didn’t work out maybe it’s time to try a new path. That love didn’t work out that person wasn’t the one for you and better will come even if you never find love at all. Your book didn’t sell, but you kept writing and this other book eventually finds the right readership. Loss isn’t always forever, but if you allow the negative feeling being a loser gives stop you from trying then that’s when it truly is game over.
It is beautiful to try. It is beautiful to do your best. It is often said the journey is way more important than the end goal and I want to end it can even be more important than if you win or lose. Us losers I think we should cheer each other on, because we do deserve our own cheering section too.
There’s times in my life where all of a sudden I just don’t want to do anything. I will feel listless and sad and question if I’ve made the right decisions in my life or if I will recover from mistakes I have made. If any of what I have chosen to do or be has ever been a mistake at all.
My depression is deeply tied to the fact that I have so many dreams and feel as though every time I speak about going for them it is a lie. It’s sucks to talk about my dreams and feel the passion for what I want to do within me, but then turn my back on them for 100 different excuses and feeling bad about not doing it increasing my depression. My depression being the main culprit for me not wanting to do anything at all.
The one thing it can’t take away from me is that I keep trying. I get up everyday. I have all these ideas for what I want to do. I work. I enjoy what I can enjoy and at the end if it didn’t feel like it was enough then, I can’t really do much about it. The people in my life that love me would say that I was enough that I am doing enough that if anything I put way way way too much on my plate and it’s more than enough and that’s why it’s so hard for me to keep up. That if I shot for smaller more manageable goals it would make my life easier. I just want to catch up on all the times that I didn’t do anything at all and it makes me want to do way more than I can accomplish. I am truly the agent of my own problems.
I know how to be kinder to myself technically. I know the way I can flip the narrative in my head to feel better. I know that it isn’t my own fault that a lot of the things that have happened in my life have happened. I know too that it’s not even my fault that I suffer depression in the first place. Life and trauma and living in great uncertainty are all part of it. But how do I overcome this? How do I get myself to smile for my partner when he sees me suffer through so much and show him I really do appreciate his joking around to try and make me happy? How can I heal the brokenness that leaves me harsh at times when things are still occurring to break me over and over and over again? How can I show that little girl that forever lives inside me that yes indeed I can make her dreams come true and finally be happy?
I don’t know the answers right now. I don’t know how I can move forward when all I want to do is have time stop so I can breath for once. I am so tired.
Life doesn’t stop. It doesn’t wait for you. It doesn’t care anything about you. It will give and take away everything from you. It will break you over and over and over again and then show you one blissful piece and for that moment you’ll realize that living in that state will only ever be fleeting. Knowing that life can be beautiful makes me want to try harder. So I won’t stop trying.
Depression isn’t going to go away. No more than I can stop bad things from happening. In the spaces in between I can do my best to go for what I want and maybe they’ll happen and maybe they won’t. Maybe nothing that I want will ever come into fruition. But all I can do is make the most of every one of the moments I have and at the end I’m sure I’ll be able to say it was alright.
I have done way too many of this exact kind of post recently and I am really frustrated with why I haven’t been able to keep up, but now it is pretty much do or die. I have received word that something is going on at my job that may make it so I am out of a job and as the main provider for my family I am genuinely super scared. I’ve been searching for other jobs anyway, but I haven’t had any luck finding anything and I’m hoping through blogging I can make some money that’ll be enough to lesson the blow.
However this means blogging has to turn into a lucrative job for me and in order to do that I need to be blogging daily and sometimes maybe even more then that. My first main way of being able to help get income via blogging is to promote my sister and I’s candle business.
In the meantime I will be working on other projects that I will let you all know about as they’re closer to being able to be released that I hope you all will be excited for.
Below will be the obligatory stats so that I have something to look back on in a year as far as growth and how far I’ve come. Hopefully of January 29th, 2025 I will put a post up that’ll show the stat difference and talk about how far I’d come in a year.
The Stats:
I will do everything in my power to make this work, because otherwise I really don’t see how me and my family will make it long term. My story hasn’t been written yet and I will be damn positive that it won’t turn out to be a tragedy. I will make it work however I can.
Cover Rating: 10/10 this is the most perfect cover this book could have. This is Tilla embracing the storm wearing the butterfly necklace her father gave her and you appreciate the cover all the more having finished the book.
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Publish Date: May 4th, 2021
Number of Pages: 400
Received: Netgalley provided an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis: In this sweeping debut, Asha Bromfield takes readers to the heart of Jamaica, and into the soul of a girl coming to terms with her family, and herself, set against the backdrop of a hurricane.
Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica.
When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him.
In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise―all in the midst of an impending hurricane.
Hurricane Summer is a powerful coming of age story that deals with colorism, classism, young love, the father-daughter dynamic―and what it means to discover your own voice in the center of complete destruction.
Opening Sentence: “Mom says you get two birthdays.”
Musings:
*There are spoilers*
This book is about embracing the destruction of life. The pain your family, your friends, and life itself scars your heart with. I needed to read this book at this point in my life. When every new day has felt like another hurricane. Even just writing this and remembering how it felt to read this book tears are forming in my eyes.
Tilla is a warrior. I admire her strength. I admire how in the end she puts herself first and decides to poor her love into herself instead of using people, places, or things to fill that aching void. Her relationship with her father killed me because as my dad’s dementia has gotten worse I’ve come to know a new father who has left scars on my own heart. I may be with my dad everyday. I have not been abandoned in the way Tilla gets abandoned over and over by her dad. However, I have experienced that moment where you look at your parent and you no longer see a hero and you understand that your parent will never be your champion or hero again and the acceptance of that is so hard.
The scars Tilla gets from the ideas about sexuality among the family she stays with in Jamaica are devastating. To have sexual assault be forced upon you is a fate I wish for no one to ever have to experience. On top of it for her to be blamed for it and have to deal with the feeling of shame and dirtiness of what was forced upon her hurts so much. It wasn’t her fault. Sexual assault is never the victims fault. It is beautiful to find that strength within herself to stand up for herself, but the lack of support all around just broke me.
The other part of this book that was so interesting to me was the racism within the people of Jamaica. The light skinned with lighter colored eyes were practically worshipped and the darkest skinned were beaten and treated like trash. I had thought that among black people that colorism would be much less between each other. Racism seems to be taught and expected in the culture in a way that shocked me. To the point where Tilly’s father is called Massa (which means master) by Andre as a sign of “respect”. The practice being something of a tradition passed down from the slavery times in Jamaica.
The issues of wealth and poverty too was a shock for me. Not so much that there’s poor people in Jamaica, but the way they see and treat Tilla because of her coming from foreign and her having more access to privilege. Tilla does everything she can to try and fit in and not anger anyone, but it happens anyway, because all the people see is a privileged princess and they treat her pretty horribly for it.
The other particular person that just boiled my blood was one of her uncles. He beats Andre and he also beat up one of the aunts for not serving him his food the way he wants it. Yet every person looks away and says nothing. They just shrug it off and say he was diagnosed with a blood cancer so it’s ok. It filled my heart with rage. If you can’t stand up for what’s right nothing will ever change. It’s not ok to let abusers to abuse. Tilla is the only person that stands up to him and everyone tells her to leave it alone and it drove me crazy.
I am glad for the ending. I am glad for Tilla embracing the storm and the destruction. I needed to hear it. I also have experienced culture different from how I want to see the world and how toxic some old ideas can be. Yet I have to accept that there’s a brokenness in people that no one can fix except for themselves. I have to accept that I have to create myself and I have to move forward and make my life the way I want it, but I cannot expect anything of anyone else. Everyone is responsible for healing their own pain and I can’t do it for anyone other then myself. I have to embrace the hurricane that lives inside me.
All in all:
I 100% recommend hurricane summer. I think that everyone should read it. It’s rare to see a book that embraces all that aches inside it and transforms it all into something positive and beautiful. You will never be the same after reading it and it’s for the better.
I have thought of how I would write this post for a while now. I avoided doing it shortly after recent events so everything would sink in and I would have time to rest and recover. However, the days that have passed have done nothing to take away my rage.
I started off this year with my whole heart bursting with hope. Read more ravenously then I had in so long and I was determined to find a new job as soon as possible. Only to find that if you are trying to find remote work at the moment you better have your guard to the max and realize that the majority of listings are out there only to scam you.
I was offered a position for $28 an hour and I took the interview having so much hope. Then, as I took the time to do the interviews questions everything sounded good and it felt like they genuinely felt like I was a great fit for their company. However, the reality is it was another one of those scams I was damn lucky to get out of before they got any money out of me. It felt like a slap to the face. Even more so as I realized that every interview request I was getting after that one were all trying to do the same exact scam.
It’s one of those check scams where they send a “company check” that includes enough to buy materials so you can get started on remote work, but once you cash it and purchase the materials (to a vendor that 100% isn’t real and you won’t be getting any of the items either) the check will later bounce and now you are responsible for paying that money back to the bank and these cheating bastards can’t get caught because spoofed emails and fake names aren’t traceable and there’s really nothing you can do about it.
Adding insult to the injury I got diagnosed with bronchitis. Not only has this cough been following me since the end of November, but now it has turned into a bacterial infection that I’m taking antibiotics, steroid’s, and an inhaler to control. As nice as it has been to chill out at home for a while considering the circumstances I’ve just been pretty angry.
I am having a hard time figuring out exactly how I want to move going forward. A part of me wants to deep dive into doing my own thing and try and accomplish multiple different of my own ventures if I possibly can. I just really wanted a for sure paycheck to keep me going before I put my energy into my own thing, because I am dearly looking for something for sure and secure. Yet, every thing that I’ve ever tried that would be a for sure secure thing has left me feeling like I grasped at a nothing that looked as solid as a rock. As scared as I am maybe it is time to bet on myself. To work tirelessly to build my own way in this world. Nothing else seems to stick and it’s harsh and heartbreaking. I can’t stand how many times I’ve had a hope in something that felt like a for sure job or school opportunity only to have it be a disappointment.
However, I want to continue trying. I am 25 years old and I have a whole life ahead of me and these are only lessons that will make me stronger and sharper. I’ll be able to see the signs ahead of time before putting my all into something that is a possible scam or ultimately not good for me in the long run. Sometimes you just got to shake things off and take things into your own hands even if the risk is much bigger.
So that’s what I’m going to do moving forward. I am going to start my own ventures and create my own things and see if I can make something of myself on my own merit. It’s always what I end up being drawn to do in the first place anyway as difficult as it’ll be to start I just have to do my best and keep going.
The Book Raven 