In Absentia

I've been absent from this blog for long months, but for good reason. Here are some of the trials and tribulations that have kept me away.

- I spent a week helping my grandparents move from their house to an apartment. Goodbye only home I've had an attachment to all my life!

- My boyfriend lost his job for stupid political reasons. Oh the joy of being a teacher one year away from tenure.

- Both of us being unemployed, finding a job became my number one priority. Eventually, I was offered two jobs on the same day. I picked a gig as a math tutor in the local school system (for a truly terrific program: http://www.sps.springfield.ma.us/forward5/) as my boyfriend landed a job that was half a state away. He had to get an apartment for during the week so, you know, fun sort of long distance relationship stuff.

- BF got laid off from his new job right before Thanksgiving, no reasons given as it was within his 90 day probationary period. I'm still furious about this.

- All kinds of stress and relationship strain from all of the above.

- Now trying to reinvent our lives together and also both looking for more work again. No easy feat.

So that's what I've been up to. I hope everyone else I know in the blogosphere is doing well because I feel like life has been in shambles and it's be nice to come somewhere with some stability.

Soon I'll update with some exciting news on the writing front. This is the one really good things going for me right now, so if this post was a bit depressing, stay tuned! Things will get better.

July Book Photo Challenge

I love the monthly book photo challenges over at Books and Cupcakes - so I decided to do July's!

You can check it out on my Tumblr. :)

Teaser Tuesday: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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From my current read (as I described yesterday), The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker. Here is the first line:

Much later, Nora would learn magic for dissolving glue or killing vermin swiftly and painlessly or barring mice from the house altogether, but that morning--the last normal morning, she later thought of it--as she padded into the kitchen in search of coffee, she was horribly at a loss when she saw the small brown mouse wriggling on the glue trap in front of the sink.

See, this is why I couldn't not check this book out from the library! What a great first line.

Book Quiz - with bonus reaction gifs!

I love doing quizzess and also reading other people's responses to them! So if you do this too, please leave me a link in the comments. :)

I grabbed this from Miz B over at Should Be Reading who did it courtesy of Alicia @ Awesome Book Assessment.

Top 3 bookish pet peeves?

1. Bad writing with a great premise.
2. Good writing with an unoriginal premise/characters.
3. People who don't return books they've borrowed. (To be fair, I only get annoyed after a year...)

 
Perfect reading spot?
One of my great pleasures in life is finding a new perfect reading spot every other week. Right now it's a folding chair in the backyard.

3 Bookish confessions?

1. I'm a sucker for tragic romance.
2. Sometimes I let books stack up in piles all over my house just because I like the way it looks.
3. Roughly half the books I own I've started reading and never finished. Not because I didn't like them, but just because I got distracted by something else!

When was the last time you cried during a book?
I definitely teared up when I reread Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Peterson a few months ago. Even though I knew it was coming. Sigh.

How many books are on your bedside table?
There are 3 right now: The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. All of which I started reading months ago and have subsequently suffered the "Rachel go distracted by something else" curse.

What is your favorite snack to eat while reading?
I have found that I don't really snack while I read anymore. It's either nothing - or sitting down to a full meal.

Name 3 books you’d recommend to everyone.

1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
3. Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

Write how much books mean to you in 3 words.
Past, present, future.

What is your biggest reading secret?
Probably every fourth book I read is a schlock-y romance novel. Just because they're fun and brainless.

Who I’m tagging:

Musing Monday: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

Musing Mondays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Just muse about one of the following each week:

Describe one of your reading habits.
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

On GoodReads

 So last week I had a job interview. It went well, but I also left with the unfortunate feeling that they were really looking for someone with more experience. Feeling a bit low, I hightailed it over to my local library so I could bask in the glow of book-y goodness.

I ended up checking out three books. I already finished The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - which I thoroughly enjoyed although I'm not sure I feel compelled to read the rest of the series. And now I'm reading The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker.

I picked this one off the shelf because of... you guessed it. The title. It's so intriguing! It sounds exactly like the kind of fantasy I'd enjoy.

The book starts out with an erstwhile English grad student, Nora. The man who just broke her heart is now engaged to someone else. Her dissertation is going nowhere and her adviser is increasingly annoyed with her. And she's been invited to a friend's wedding that she doesn't really want to go to... She goes - and ends up wandering into another world.

Soon she's entrenched in a world of fairy-like people who seek to use her for their own devices. She manages to break free and seeks out a magician who might be able to help her..?

That's as far as I've gotten. So far, I'm loving this book. The language is superb. The fantasy world is deliciously dream-like. And for the most part Nora is a sympathetic main character without being too whiny. It's easy to see myself in her, and I always enjoy that in a story where we shift from reality to fantasy and back again.

I'll give my full opinion when I've finished!