storiesonsundays-blog

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sundae: ‘cancerians’

cancerians

are nurturers, protectors –

(nostalgic dreamers)

they build homes in people, carving out tiny bits of their hearts and setting it as the hearth, constructing the family with memories and emotions as foundation

but emotions are fickle, and memories fade, you know?

and when the heart burns out and the bedrock crumbles

who’s left but the moonchild, cradling the ashes

of a home

that never should have been

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Review: “the princess saves herself in this one” by Amanda Lovelace

“once upon a time, the princess rose from the ashes her dragon lovers made of her & crowned herself the mother-fucking queen of herself.    - how’s that for a happily ever after?”

My friend gave this to me as a birthday present and to be honest, it’s the first ever poetry book I’ve ever gotten, and also the first that I’ve actually read in full. I wouldn’t really consider myself a poet because I’ve only just begun to dabble a little in poetry, so I’m not really sure how a review for a poetry book would go, but here it goes. I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. Let’s begin with the good. The book is split into four sections: the princess, the damsel, the queen, and you. I personally loved the first section the best, because even though I haven’t experienced anything that she has (especially with regards to her mother), it still hit me hard in the emotions. It made me stop and think. It made my eyes linger on the words and savour each line, wondering how the hell she managed such impact using such simple words. I think Amanda Lovelace writes about her family particularly well -- from the first section about her mother treatment of her, to the subsequent sections of death and cancer and her sister. They were raw, they were personal, and they were the poems that really took my breath away. I also liked how each poem connected with one another, how it’s mostly consistent throughout. The metaphor of the princess and the dragons is not only used at the beginning and forgotten, but is brought back again and I liked that I was able to craft a cohesive story of her life using pieces of memories and emotions that her poems provided me with.

However, there are some stylistic choices she made that really annoyed the hell out of me. 

all she does is to constantly break her lines like this to make it aesthetically minimalist, or randomly doing t h i s when it is not needed, or even worse, t h i s , ending off with - some afterthought of some sort like this 

and it can get just really frustrating to read. There has to be meaning to these things, and just because it looks aesthetically pleasing doesn’t make it poetry. The worst out of all that I mentioned above has got to be the constant breakage of lines. When it’s done right, poetry has a rhythm and flow to it, a fluency that makes it easy to read while at the same time conveying the emotion the poet is trying to bring across. Constantly clicking enter after every few words just makes it choppy, and it made me lose interest in some of her poems because I just couldn’t bear to read it.

Some of her poems are literally just six words or so written in one line. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that can be considered poetry. Also, unfortunately, I really didn’t feel much for her poems on her past boyfriends, or even those with social messages about feminism etc. I liked the sentiment behind them I suppose, but they didn’t really do much for me.

Overall, I loved her poems about family, but not as much for the rest. If she had written more of that, perhaps I’d have liked this book better.

★ ★ ½

Check it out on goodreads.

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PLEASE REBLOG IF YOU’RE AN ACTIVE BOOKLR SO I CAN FOLLOW YOU

I feel like I’m failing at booklr right now I’ve been like semi-inactive for more than a month because I haven’t had time, so i need more content to keep my queue filled for when I’m gone

also, I just love awesome booklrs

and potential friends

so please reblog!!

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Microreview: TBR

I wasn’t tagged in this, but I saw this floating around booklr so I thought it’d be fun to do it!  Microreview: TBR To play: answer the prompts and tag your friends to do the same. Optional: use #microreview and check out @microreviews for “rules,” reviews, and more!

1. Pick a book you own but haven’t read yet:

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

2. How did you come by it? Given by a friend? Bought from a recommendation? Compelled by the cover?

It’s been quite a while, but I think there was quite a hype surrounding this book at some point in time. Of course I was drawn to it by the hype, and when I read the blurb it sounded like it could be pretty interesting. Also, I think there was a discount at Waterstones for it, and since I was on holiday I just kinda thought to myself, why not? And bought it. The discount was probably the main reason HAHA no lie.

3. Quote the first sentence(s):

“As they ascended, retreating farther from the winding trails that marked the way to nearby villages, the world opened to him in its purest form: silent, ancient, mysterious. Deadly.”

4. Realistically, will you ever read it?

Well... hm. Even from simply reading the blurb I can tell it’s going to be a long, perhaps even slow, read, but it’s a historical fiction and I love reading historical fictions, so who knows? I might give it a try one of these days (I mean, I should, since I already bought it), but I honestly don’t think it’s going to be anytime soon. The first sentence does sound intriguing, though.   - Kessa 

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Looking for Booklrs!

Reblog if you’re a Booklr and I’ll follow =3 Happy Monday! Stay Curious.

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Sundae: ‘writing drunk’

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Sundae: ‘nearing twenty-one’

nearing twenty-one

and you still don’t know so much, you haven’t

felt your heart pounding in the palms of your hands as they wrap around the worn foam of a steering wheel, haven’t

collapsed in a bathroom stall with the blood leaking out of your eyes and your throat scorched like the Sahara Desert;

haven’t nervously tucked your hair behind your ears as you sat across your daydream in real life, haven’t

laughed till you cried in the middle of the night exchanging stories about the past with your fingers intertwined tight

nearing twenty-one

and still you’re scraping for talents in a barren barrel for your worth,

still you’re fumbling between love and infatuation,

still you’re a child screaming to mommy for help

but nearing twenty-one

also means you’re not yet there, you’re still

growing, still developing, still

a work in progress – because you’re only still

nearing twenty-one

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Review: “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo

“This isn't a job for trained soldiers and spies. It's a job for thugs and thieves.”

Let me start off by saying that I’ve been a huge fan of Leigh Bardugo’s ever since reading the Grisha trilogy (Nikolai Lantsov still firmly holds the place as my favourite book character of all-time), and when I first read the premise of Six of Crows, all I thought was, wow. Six outcasts - hoodlums and crooks of all sorts - plucked from the streets to commit a dangerous crime? Anytime a story revolves around people forced to work together in a sort of motley crew (and of course, eventually grow to care and love one another), I’m in. The fact that it’s a high-level heist they’re committing only makes it better.

Yet for all that I thought I would love of it, I was somehow... I wouldn’t say unimpressed, because I was impressed. The characters are amazing - Leigh Bardugo has this way of writing well-rounded, three-dimensional characters, and this pertains not only to the main characters, but secondary characters to the plot. They all have lives and motivations of their own, and are not simply planted in the story for plot purposes. The plot was complex, and all-in-all extremely well-thought and perfectly executed. From the set-up of characters to the actual start of the heist itself, everything was thought out down to the tiniest detail. 

Perhaps what’s wrong with it, for me at least, is that it’s too complex. Location names, colloquial terms, various concepts and story history are used liberally from the beginning of the book, with limited explanations of them only being given in the later parts of the book. I mean, I have read the Grisha trilogy before this and I do know some of the terms, but since this was advertised to be able to be read as a standalone, I honestly think more explanations need to be given at the beginning because I was confused as hell. 

Maybe six main characters was also a little too many, because in spite of them being real, believable characters, I didn’t find myself emotionally invested in any of them. Okay sure, so I liked Kaz Brekker well enough - who wouldn’t? - and I liked Inej and Nina, that was about it. I didn’t care about them enough for the ending to actually affect me. I wanted to feel something for them, I really did. They had everything that I usually would love to read in a character (especially for Kaz, who was a legitimate crook of an anti-hero), yet it just somehow didn’t work out. I loved the fact that romance wasn’t a big part of the story though, and that the characters (mainly, Inej and Nina) had the sense not to let their feelings ruin things for themselves - because honestly, that’s something I want to see in all books. 

I honestly thought I’d love this. There’s been a LOT of hype surrounding this, and I really thought I’d be jumping on the hype train from the very first page in. I’ll still be reading the next book, Crooked Kingdom - and keeping my fingers crossed that I’d like it - but just based on the first book itself, it was... disappointing. It’s certainly an epic book, and it had a lot going for it - just that it somehow missed the mark for me.

★ ★ ★

Check it out on goodreads. 

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Review: “Flame in the Mist” by Renee Ahdieh

"Tell me — right now — what do you want, Asano Tsuneoki?"

Oh, Renee Ahdieh. How you do manage to move my frozen heart.

After having fallen so wholeheartedly for her previous series, The Wrath & the Dawn, I could not have been more thrilled to hear about her new series. And what a series it's going to be.

I'll be honest — Flame in the Mist is a a much slower, quieter read than its predecessor. Which is unexpected, since I was expecting all kinds of action in a book set in feudal Japan and all its bloodiness, with katana-wielding sort-of samurai taking the stage.

And it's not just less action, either; the romance takes somewhat of a backseat here. It's more subtle, less intense, and frankly, it's simply less of a big deal. I don’t think Ahdieh is capable of writing a romance that I won’t immediately fall in love with, but if you’re looking for the kind of lusty, all-encompassing thing like in The Wrath & the Dawn, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. 

I won't lie, I did miss the whole heart-melting, soul-shattering thing that Ahdieh does so well, but I appreciated how the characters didn't let themselves get consumed in the fiery passions of love, et cetera, because — and this might be nitpicking again — but showy, dramatic romances are just not very Japanese. And I do love a good slow-burn love story, which is what this one is making out to be.

Aside from that, however, there are a lot of things that are pretty confusing, and that I'm hoping will be cleared up eventually. The whole forest yokai thing, for one, totally lost me. 

It's pretty clear that this book is more of a prologue than a first installation, with a lot of buildup and no real climax. And yet there is still an undeniable magic in the book; in the sheer promise of it. The premise is enchanting, the characters engaging, and all in all, I have extremely high hopes for the rest of the series.

I received this copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

★ ★ ★ ★

Buy this book on Amazon.

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Thoughts: Experience - or lack thereof - in YA Fiction

That might be a pretty confusing title, but let me explain. YA fiction has a heavy focus on romance, and since the main age group for YA fiction is people between the ages of 13 and 25, such books often mention the dating experience - or lack thereof - that the characters have. Mostly, it goes something like this:

“I haven’t dated much before. I mean, of course, I’ve dated some people and had my fair share of kisses, but otherwise, I’m fairly inexperienced.”

(not an excerpt from an actual book, but a recreation of the common lines used in many of the books I’ve read before)

What’s wrong with this, you ask? Let me tell you. There’s an implication in lines written like these that there is something fundamentally and inherently wrong with having zero experience. The author wants the main protagonist to be mostly inexperienced, but not completely inexperienced, with the tone suggesting that it is even somehow shameful if a person is completely inexperienced. They always have to offset the lack of dating experience with a line or two showing that the character isn’t a complete loser because at the very least the character has had a few kisses! The character had actually gone on a few dates before! Some authors even explicitly write things like ‘I’m not a complete loser, I have gone on a few dates before’ in their stories. It’s honestly not at all necessary, but they just have to put it in!! Because otherwise people will get mistaken!! Their character will be treated as an undesirable prude!! And of course, they can’t have that.

Somehow, the characters have to be inexperienced, yet not at the same time. They have to be inexperienced enough to be appealing, yet not so inexperienced that people might think there’s something inherently undesirable or unlovable about them that brought about this lack of experience.  I am 21 this year and I am not ashamed to say that I have never had my first kiss. I have never dated another person before. It’s not because there’s something about me that repels people away from me, and it’s definitely not because there’s something wrong with me. And I’m not the only one - a rather significant portion of my friends have the same dating portfolio as I do, as do many others in the world. We just haven’t dated before, because maybe we haven’t found the right person, we haven’t found a reason to date, there are supervening circumstances that make it difficult to date etc. etc. - there are all sorts of valid reasons behind it. We’re not ashamed by it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. But books like these, books that frantically try to balance their characters in this in-between state of no-experience and has-experience because of what they fear the implication of having zero experience would bring, make it shameful. I’m not overly affected by this - probably because I’m surrounded by a circle of friends who are in the same situation and who are comfortable with it. But this could be more problematic for the younger audiences, audiences who are more impressionable and audiences who don’t have the same support group that I do. 

TLDR; having a complete lack of dating experience is not shameful, and books should stop implying it as such. 

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Review: “One Of Us Is Lying” by Karen M. McManus

One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

As far as YA mystery/thrillers go, I'm a complete novice - but if this what the genre is about, I'm definitely up for more. Five-second summary: five teenagers enter a room, and only four come out alive. It's a classic whodunit, except it's, well, YA. And here’s the real mystery: it’s not a bad thing. One Of Us Is Lying, in theory, doesn't seem like something that would work. A YA mystery-thriller-romance, narrated in first-person by four different characters. It's a recipe for disaster, yet it turned out so unexpectedly well. The plot was certainly lighter than a classic mystery, but I actually really enjoyed that. I'm not one for convoluted plot twists, and I appreciated that this was more about people and actual human relationships than it was about excessive displays of cleverness. That's not to say that this book wasn't clever. It wasn't overly predictable or simplistic (which, thank you) and while it it certainly kept me immersed in the mystery, I didn't feel like I was being dragged through a maze of plot twists and getting a headache in the process. And the switching narratives? It really, really worked. Honestly, I couldn't imagine it being told any other way. Getting into each character's head really upped the stakes, because when you know each of the suspects and how they think and how they feel, that's when shit gets real.

So, TLDR: this was a solid novel in every way. Nothing groundbreaking, but fast-paced, cleverly addictive and one hundred percent enjoyable. Definitely recommend.

This was an advance reader’s copy made available to me by Netgalley.

★ ★ ★

Check it out on Goodreads. 

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Review: “The Names They Gave Us” by Emery Lord

"Bones can snap. Skin is like paper. And I just want to go back. I want to go back to when it felt like nothing could hurt me."

So, firstly, the good: this book was a fun, pleasant read. A typical summer read. As always, Emery Lord's writing is nicely paced and engaging, with a number of lovely lines.

And now, the bad - this book was such a disappointment.

From a secular standpoint, this book was, at best, uncomfortably vague. Death, faith, sexuality - all immensely complex issues, and all brushed aside in a manner that bordered on insensitive.

And from a Christian standpoint, this book was a complete sellout.

I tend to avoid Christian fiction, and it's because of books like this. It presents Christianity as something mysterious and holy and full of vague, airy-fairy answers to difficult questions. It isn't.

Theologically speaking, there are a lot of sketchy areas in this novel concerning aforementioned complex issues. And it comes across as a contrived effort to remain inoffensive - for the benefit of secular and religious readers alike, of course.

But let's be real, that's not what Christianity is about.

The Bible talks about a lot of things that are uncomfortable to address in today's society. Pre-marital sex. Suicide. Sexuality and gender.

So why were these not addressed?

I'll give her this - she talks, if briefly and purely on a superficial level, about the nice parts of Christianity. Love and grace and forgiveness. The parts that are easy to talk about.

But where are the ugly parts? Because those are the parts that need to be talked about. Those are the parts that are so misunderstood by secular society; that too many Christians today prefer to just avoid because they're difficult to confront.

But that doesn't change the fact that they exist, and ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away.

And the ending was the final nail in the coffin for me.

Because what the hell is up with that?

"It's not the Bible or the light bending through the church's stained glass or the rafters filled with glorias. Although it is still those things. It's the white light that fills you, wide and glowing, expanding your seams. And maybe you find it in the smooth lake water or piano chords, so lost in them that you sway back and forth. In brassy hits of trumpet, playing until you pant, breathless. Maybe you find it somewhere beneath the tall pines, during a summer that changes everything. Or in an Airstream trailer on an open road that you earned. In every dance move that sets you free. In the hands that mend your split-open knuckles. In the people who teach you, who forgive you."

That's a load of bullshit. Pretty bullshit, eloquent bullshit, but bullshit all the same - it tells us nothing. Not about her faith, not about her lack thereof. Nothing.

It doesn't take a Christian to see that Lucy's idea of faith - her pretty church, her music, her prayers that have fallen into routine - is unbelievably shallow.

In an effort to avoid turning this review into a full-length essay (again), I'll end with a TLDR:

This book is like any other YA novel. It's easy and fun to read and makes you smile, but there's absolutely nothing below the surface.

And usually, I'd be okay with that. But you know what? I really, really wanted this to be so much more.

This was an advance reader’s copy made available to me by Netgalley.

★ ★

Check it out on Goodreads.

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So what’s this about?

Sundaes are bits of original fiction, written by yours truly (and you guys)! They can be anything - prose, poetry, the like. 

We post these every Sunday so if you have a submission, drop us an email at storiesonsundays@gmail.com, and let us know what you want to be known at as well!

Cheers, Kessa and Ilyda

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Hi!

Welcome to Stories on Sundays! 

We’re a new book blog. We’ve got tons of stuff coming up - opinion pieces, book reviews, stuff like that - so keep an eye out! 

(And follow us plz)

Love, Ilyda and Kessa