PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge Prompt: N/A

Other PS 2020 reading prompts this would satisfy: A book that's published in 2020, A bildungsroman, A book with a bird on the cover

TW: Domestic abuse, sexual assault, drug abuse, self harm/suicide



I love to read a book that is compared to another pop culture favorite. For Mayhem, those comparisons were The Lost Boys and The Craft, and seriously, who doesn't love both? The Lost Boys is a vampire classic, and maybe one of my all-time favorite movies. So of course I added Mayhem high to my list of must-reads.


After growing up with her mother and abusive step-father in a small town in Texas, Mayhem Brayburn and her mother Roxy finally leave Texas and head back to their family home in Santa Maria. Roxy's been running from her past for years and isn't pleased to be back home. Santa Maria is different, and the Brayburn's are special. Magic runs through their veins. And now that Mayhem's found her way home, that magic is in her too. Can she use it for good, or will vigilante justice change Mayhem for the worse?


I liked this book, but I wanted to love it, and I just didn't love it. There was an interesting basis for the plot line, but unfortunately, so much of the story felt shallow and just seemed to lack so much in terms of the story. I liked Mayhem, as well as plenty of the other characters, but the story itself felt incredibly rushed, and so I kept waiting for more.

At the beginning of the book, there was a disclaimer about sexual assault being a basis of the story. The way the book is formatted, there are several chapters from Mayhem's perspective (the majority of the book), and then there were a sprinkling of chapters in the book that were letters from multiple generations of Brayburn women (no worries - these aren't spoilers). The assault was a non-graphic scene in one of these chapters. The author's note discussed using that scene and how she did not go about writing that scene lightly, however, I felt it was unnecessary. I do think that fiction novels based off #metoo can be really powerful (for example, The Whisper Network was absolutely incredible and one really well). I didn't think it was powerful here. Oftentimes, in works of fiction, bad guys are made to be rapists so we know they're bad - they can still be bad guys without raping people. They can be misogynists and sexists. There is still a reason to smash the patriarchy without bringing assault into the picture. This novel also had a lot of basis in abuse.

I can see where the connections were made to The Lost Boys and The Craft, but I would never describe this book as "The Lost Boys meets The Craft." And I would certainly connect Mayhem to The Craft more than The Lost Boys, though that may have been an inspiration.






I enjoyed the story itself. I mostly liked the characters. But I wish the historical letters would've been parts of the story in a different way - them being letters seemed odd and honestly didn't make much sense in terms of the story. Like, why were the letters even written anyways. And what was the connection to birds? I don't know - just too much was left unexplained. I really wish it would've been executed better. There was so much potential, but the book just felt so sensational.




Goodreads rating: ★★★☆☆














*Thanks to Netgalley for the digital review copy. All opinions are entirely my own.

*This is a collaborative post.


Becoming a vegetarian or a vegan is a sensible, eco-friendly option. With fewer animals to feed and less pollution in the world, the planet will be a nicer and healthier place to live. Plus, studies suggest that plant-based diets are excellent for boosting things such as your mood and energy levels. If you're anything like me, you definitely want to make changes to your lifestyle to work towards a better world, and eating less meat is a way to do so. But also if you're like me, then you probably can't see yourself forgoing meat completely (hello, bacon!). But you can definitely let go of meat one or two days of the week. Check out these tips for lowering your meat intake.




Order Meal Kits

Meal kits come in all shapes and sizes, so there is a wide range of options. Part of the reason that they are so good for meat-lovers trying to cut down on meat, though, is that they reduce your temptation. With the pescatarian diet meal kits or the exclusively vegetarian and vegan ones, everything arrives in pre-prepared and pre-arranged quantities. There’s no reason to err from the recipe - just finish off the meal and its contents! And, yes, a pescatarian diet does count as not eating meat. Don’t ask why; it just is!



Spruce Up Your Salads

If you find food boring without meat, you'll definitely want to spruce up your dishes without resorting to old habits. Sure, lettuce and tomatoes are great with pieces of flame-grilled chicken, yet it’s a needless addition. I actually prefer a salad full of veggies and loaded with cheese and dressing. it's easy to take a salad to the next level by introducing a quick and basic dressing. Take two to three parts oil, add lime or white wine vinegar, and season lightly. For those who want the wow factor, you should think about the type of fish that goes well with salad, such as tuna.



Substitute Real For Fake

Such is the society that we live in today that there’s such a thing as fake meat. It's called plant-based meat, and it resembles all our favorite meats. You can even get it at fast food restaurants these days, so it's easy to keep up the meat-free gig when on the go.



Do It Little By Little

Excuse the pun, but there’s no need to go cold turkey. Removing meat from your diet will only make you crave it more, which is counterproductive. Therefore, the best tactic is to cook veggie-only dishes every other day. In-between, treat yourself, and at least you’ll reduce your intake. You should start by eliminating red meats as they are pretty unhealthy in medium to large quantities, and maybe try to stick to lean, white meats, such as chicken and turkey.

PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge Prompt: N/A

Other PS 2020 reading prompts this would satisfy: A book that's published in 2020, A book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it

TW: Death, violence, missing children



I had held off on pre-ordering The Shadows because I assumed it would be a Book of the Month pick for July. I had gotten The Whisper Man last year through BOTM, and it was such a slow burn but so damn haunting. And after reading the synopsis of The Shadows, marketed as being similar to Stephen King's It and my favorite show, Stranger Things.


Twenty-five years ago, creepy classmate Charlie Crabtee went from threatening remarks and haunting half-smiles to committing a heinous murder. Paul Adams remembers it too well. He also remembers that as soon as he could, he left home for college and never looks back. But his mother's not well, and it's time to return home. When he meets with his mother, she almost speaks in riddles - saying someone's in the woods and something's in the house. Paul's unnerved. There have been several copycat murders, and someone seems to be trying to scare Paul away. Twenty-five years ago, Charlie disappeared after murdering a classmate. Is he behind these new murders? Is he after Paul?


I'm notorious for reading books without really knowing what they're about. I read the synopsis briefly when the news of the book was first released, but once I started reading, all I could remember were the works it was compared to. I then found myself a bit disappointed as I found very few similarities between The Shadows and It/Stranger Things. There is a group of "friends," but they're not quite the type of outcast friends within those classic 80s tales that I love so much. Instead, it's a group of outcasts that don't even fit together, and the girl of the story isn't part of the group. But that's mostly the biggest similarity there.

Instead, as I was reading I realized that the story I was reading was actually incredibly familiar to me. It reminded me a lot of the Slenderman stabbing that happened several years ago. It's a story I've read about, watched documentaries about, and even watched the horror movie version of the tale. For those unfamiliar with Slenderman, he's an internet myth that basically came to life for many believers and had folks creating incredibly harmful acts in order to earn something that wasn't real. It's pretty creepy and enthralling true crime.

Once I was about halfway through the novel, I saw an article that mentioned the book was actually inspired by the infamous Slenderman stabbing event. So, while it was exciting that the pieces fit together so well, I also felt a little let down because of how familiar I was with the true story. I realize this is likely not the case for most readers, and I think learning about the true story after reading the book will make the book even more terrifying, even more creepy. However, because of how I knew the story before reading the book, it felt kind of like watching a movie before reading the book it was based on.

I read The Shadows in both a physical format and audiobook format (thanks to Netgalley), and that was the first time I've read a book across different formats like that. It actually really made the experience super cool and further engaging. I was able to listen to the book while doing chores or cooking, and could physically read before bed or whenever I actually had time to just sit down and do nothing. I loved the audiobook version and I thought the narrators did a fantastic job bringing the story to life (yikes!). It is narrated from both the perspective of Paul and also from a detective named Amanda who is investigating the copycat murders. I was actually surprised by Amanda's chapters, because I thought the book would be from a single perspective (Paul's), but the switched perspective format was done well and actually interweaved the storyline beautifully.

Story wise, everything felt virtually impossible to predict. I had an inkling of an idea about one thing that ended up to be right, but only because I noticed one little clue (or lack thereof), but everything else took a turn I absolutely didn't expect. I never saw any of it coming, and because of that, the book felt better than I imagined. However, I didn't find this book quite as chilling as The Whisper Man. There were parts of Whisper that virtually took my breath away because I was so uncomfortably afraid. I never felt that with Shadows, but I feel I was expected to - again, it may have been the familiarity of the Slenderman. I know I keep coming back to the story that inspired the book, but it was really obvious for me and truly impacted my experience reading this novel.







The Shadows was such an interesting experience for me because of my familiarity with the story that inspired the book. It impacted the way I read the book and my thoughts about it, for sure. Overall though, Shadows was a compelling, dark and twisty story. The writing was done well, much like The Whisper Man, and the twists were unforeseeable. Though a story set in realism, there are some fantastical parts to this book (though lucid dreaming is a very real thing, just maybe not in the way the characters experience it in the novel). North did a great job of interweaving the realism and the hints of fantasy to make a story that creepy and disturbing, while fully holding the reader's attention. I found The Shadows very reminiscent of C.J. Tudor's The Chalk Man, and think fans of Tudor would enjoy this book.




Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆

PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge Prompt: None used

Other PS 2020 reading prompts this would satisfy: A book that's published in 2020, A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins

TW: Graphic gore/violence and death to humans and animals, racism



I grew up in a world of deer hunters. My daddy shot a deer in our yard from the living room of our house when my mom was pregnant with me. My first word was "deer." We had taxidermy deer heads lining the walls of our house, and my parents still have those same deer along their walls til this day. I was raised being told my grandfather was half-Cherokee, but we never really practiced any Native lifestyles. And who knows what my heritage is? I've yet to take any kind of DNA testing, so I'm unsure of family's history. But since I wasn't raised practicing Native customs, I would not call myself Native. I do not really understand or know the struggles of Indigenous peoples. I requested a copy of The Only Good Indians because I was so intrigued by the cover, but I was a bit uncomfortable with the title once I found out the book was about Native Americans. After looking more into the book, I realized it's actually written by a very popular Indigenous horror author that I'd never heard of before. He's written tons of terrifying horror stories and is compared to Jordan Peele, which totally makes sense. Both of them write horror stories that speak much deeper than the words on the surface - they speak of racism and oppression. They're critical pieces of art (literature, film). And while I chose the book initially because I thought it was a deer on the cover, I came to find the story was actually about elk, and I spent a lot of time while reading the book trying to learn more about elks.


After an unfortunate event involving the slaughter of an elk herd on a day lovingly referred to as the "Thanksgiving Classic," a group of four friends is stalked by a vengeful entity hellbent on taking back what was taken from them. Each of the four men have taken steps away from many pieces of their culture identity and the traditions they were raised upon.


Wow. So there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this book, and oddly not because the content of the book. Many reviewers have been addressing their dislike for this book because they "couldn't relate." This book is definitely about cultural identity, and there were some things that I was not familiar with, but that absolutely did not take away from this story. The things I didn't understand, I googled. There were also some weird issues with the topic of basketball, because apparently basketball being popular about Indigenous folks is weird? I don't know. But here's the thing - I'm speaking out against these ridiculous White folks who had issues with this book because of the "relatability" of the story. If anything, I would be more understanding of complaints about the gore, violence, and death in this book of both humans and animals, because it was really, really graphic. But this is a horror story, and those things could definitely before foreseen. Even the official synopsis discusses the topics of disturbing violence, and it was certainly disturbing. And here's the thing - the point of reading is to learn about different people, different experiences, stories that are unlike your own. If we wanted things to be "relatable," would so many people love a book about a boy wizard? For Christ's sake, how many of us are boy wizards? So forget the ignorance, and read this book because it is incredible literary horror.

This book started out as a bit of a slow burn. The epilogue was incredible. But once I got into the first chapter, I was intrigued but it wasn't unputdownable. But then about of a third of the way through the book, things turned around real fast. The story got incredibly intense, terrifying, and I had to keep going because I had to know what the hell was going to happen next. This story was unbelievable in the best way, because it was so intense. I was petrified as I read. It's the kind of horror that creeps up under your skin until you're itching all over and cannot get away from your fear.

My biggest complaint about this book is, at times, the writing is almost stream of consciousness, and could get a bit confusing at points - but that's more a preference in the type of writing I enjoy. It wasn't always like that, but some parts of the book that were more focused on the perspective of a specific character were the parts that I noticed the most. But overall, the story-telling was phenomenal.





The Only Good Indians is a horrifying tale of revenge with violent and disturbing scenes of gore and death. This was my first time reading Stephen Graham Jones and I certainly plan to read more from him. His writing style and story-telling are reminiscent of classic Stephen King horror tales. This is a dark book, but if you are a horror fan, I would highly recommend this book.



Goodreads rating: ★★★★★

 


*This is a collaborative post. This post is not me condoning traveling at this time, however, I am not ignorant and I'm aware people will continue to travel, so please be safe if that is your plan.


Summer has arrived, and with it comes the warmer weather and longer evenings. While summer this year obviously looks very different than most, folks are itching to spend time at the beach, or to take a trip up to the mountains to enjoy some time away from being cooped in the house. It's important to follow safety protocols when traveling, including wearing a mask while you're in public spaces, washing and/or sanitizing your hands regularly, and don't forget to disinfect regularly - your phone, the interior of your car, your keys, etc.

While an outdoor-themed vacation is usually a time to relax and enjoy, it’s also a time of stress when you’re packing for the whole family. There should be no stress on vacation. There should be fun, laughter, and no forgotten things to pack! With that in mind, check out the list below so you can check off everything that your vacation will need to be successful.



Clothes. 

Obviously, the first thing on your list should be clothes. Make a list per family member and as you pack the item, tick it off. You could make this list on your phone or physically write it down. I keep a travel notebook, and I use a new page every time I travel, but I keep the old lists so I can base it off it each time. You'll need shorts, dresses, sandals, vacation t shirts, and obviously don't forget undergarments (I always take twice as many of the days I'm staying) to make sure that you’re all comfortable whilst you’re away. Don't forget at least one cover-up for your shoulders to avoid sunburn!



Sunscreen. 

No matter how many people there are in your family, you need to make sure that you have appropriate sunscreen for all. It’s not just the sun protection factor that you need to consider, either. Each bottle of sunscreen has a “Star Rating” and you want to have a top star rating for your sunscreen. There is no use in having a high SPF if you’re going to have zero UVA protection! And I cannot stress enough the importance of sunscreen.



Swimwear. 

Beach clothes are not the same as the regular clothes on the list. You'll need hats, a swimsuit, water shoes, and sunglasses. Not to mention you'll need a mask for the crowded beach spaces - several swimsuit companies are making masks from their extra fabrics. This company even donates sales from specific masks to Black Girls Code. Pack sarongs and floppy, wide-brimmed hats, too. While you’re there, pack some towels specifically for beach use; they’re the ones you don't mind getting sand and seawater on, and these are the ones that you’re happy to “ruin” while you’re away.



Beach shade. 

Did you know that you can buy pop-up beach shades? If you have children, they'll need a little more coverage than grownups and it can save their skin and your sanity to have a shade for them to be in through the day. Don't forget about your own skincare - protecting it is so important. These beach shades are easy to fold and carry, and they're easy to pack away in the car when you're road-tripping.



Books.

If you're going to lay around on the beach or by a mountainside lake, you're gonna need a few good beach reads. Don't forget to pack some books, preferably physical, so you don't get sand in your electronic devices. They also tend to get too hot on the beach, so a nice paperback is something you'll definitely want to pack.



Bags for trash. 

Believe it or not, if there's one thing you'll need when you’re going on vacation, it’s trash bags - you could take smaller grocery store bags, but I prefer the small scented bags I find at the Dollar Tree (they're also the ones I use to change litter and they're the perfect size. Not only will you need them for trash on the beach so you can clear up after yourself, but you'll need somewhere to put your dirty laundry to take home. This way, you can keep it separated from the clean clothes in your suitcase.



Safety and disinfectant items.

I touched on this earlier, but it's so important to continue following CDC guidelines for the safety of yourself and others. If you are going to be traveling, do not forget to take multiple masks for each person - I'm a fan of reusable ones, so you could take a couple and wash them in the sink each evening, so they can be used multiple times throughout your trip. You'll want disinfectant spray and wipes, hand sanitizer, and antibacterial soaps. Make sure to take care of yourself, your family, and those around you. That's the most important thing!