Dexter Say It Again Meme Mt Jewlet

Whew! That was fun!

I mentioned on Thursday that I planned to do some housekeeping on the Book Blog Meme Directory page. I intended to go through the directory, test out each link, and update anything that needed updating. I figured I'd tackle it in small bites, maybe just trying out a handful each day until I finished.

Whoops. Nothing like having an obsessive need to finish things to move a project along!

I sat down to work on it earlier this afternoon… and here, I am, two hours later, with tired fingers but a big smile of accomplishment. I'm done!

I checked out every directory listing, and archived every one I found that was no longer current. For some, the host blog was still active, but I didn't see any recent meme posts (as in, not for months or even years). For some, I could find the blog but couldn't find anything related to the meme. And for others, the entire blog seemed to be gone, or there was a final blog post saying that the blog would no longer be active.

That's blogging, I guess. Things come, things go!

Never fear: Nothing from the Book Blog Meme Directory is gone forever. I've saved all of the details and images, and can reinstate any of the entries if needed. If you host one of the deleted meme entries, just get in touch (my Contact page is really the best way) and let me know your updated details. If you're not the host but happen to know some relevant information (like the meme was adopted by a different blog, switched names, etc), please let me know!

Here's a list of the 32 (!!!) meme entries that I've archived as of now:

Day	Name of Meme	Hosted by
Monday	Music Monday	Total Book Geek
Monday	Middle Grade Monday	Jordan's Jewels
Monday	Pay Day Book Haul	After the Book Hangover
Monday	Rambling Monday	The Realm of Books
Monday	Mangaka Monday	The Fujoshi Reads
Monday	Monday Recommendations	Bookshelves & Paperbacks
Tuesday	Top Off Tuesday	Smitten With Reading
Wednesday	Winning Wednesdays	Write Note Reviews
Wednesday	Way Back Wednesday	A Well Read Woman
Thursday	Quote Me Thursday	Daily Mayo
Thursday	Third Sentence Thursday	That's What She Read
Thursday	Characterize It	The YA Book Butterfly
Thursday	Thirsty Thursdays	Lazy Book Lovers
Friday	Friday Favorites	Tressa's Wishful Endings
Friday	Keen Cover Friday	Keepbooked
Friday	Friday Favourites	Book Lover's Life
Friday	Five Friday Favourites	Book Badger
Friday	Falling Behind on Friday	Moirae (the Fates) Book Reviews
Friday	Fast Five Friday	Reader Noir
Friday	Free Time Fridays	Eat Up My Free Time
Saturday	Swoon Worthy Saturday	Stay Bookish
Saturday	Bookish Project Happiness	Keepbooked
Saturday	Hot Scot Saturday	Leila Reads
Saturday	Do Judge a Book By Its Cover	The Book Magpie
Sunday	Sunday Shout-Out	Write Note Reviews
Sunday	Bought, Borrowed & Bagged	Talk Supe
Sunday	Summary Sunday	The Fujoshi Reads
Weekly/Monthly	Peek Into My Postbox	Fire and Ice
Weekly/Monthly	Weekend Reads	Escape Reality Through Books & Bookaholic-ness
Weekly/Monthly	Quoteable Thursdays	Mo Books
Weekly/Monthly	Turn Right Down School Lane	Trips Down Imagination Road
Weekly/Monthly	Monthly Most Wanted	Kit 'N Kabookle

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Don't worry! This may look like a lot, but there are still plenty left! So if you're looking for a fun new meme to try out, come check out the Book Blog Meme Directory page and visit any of the 40+ memes currently listed.

As always, new memes are welcome! Just send me the info via my Contact page, and I'll be glad to add a listing to the Directory.

Happy blogging to all!

Everyone once in a while I feel like writing about something other than books (shocking, I know!)… and one of my favorite non-reading activities is watching TV. The spring season has just wrapped up, and I find myself with only three ongoing series on my DVR queue. Which is a good thing, in a way — more reading time in the evenings! I've cut way back on my commitment TV, but there are some shows that I absolutely love, and some that have only recently joined the list of my TV favorites.

One of the newer-to-me shows is AMC's TURN. Close to the end of its second season, Turn has grown on me steadily since the beginning, and at this point, I'm totally hooked.

Turn's promos declare it "the untold story of America's first spy ring". Sounds pretty sensational, right?

Turn is the story of the legendary Culper Ring, George Washington's network of spies whose intelligence gathering changed the course of the American Revolution.

Check out the season 2 preview trailer for a taste:

I'm seriously into this show. The development has been something of a slow burn, and it took me a few episodes of the first season to really get a handle on the players and the stakes. Ultimately, the characters are what make the show, and they're terrific.

There are the biggies — George Washington and Benedict Arnold, among other well-known historical figures. Other people from the history books may be less immediately recognizable, but were in fact the key members of the Culper Ring: Abraham Woodhull, Benjamin Tallmadge, and Caleb Brewster, among others.

I hate to admit it, but I've become a little unreasonably infatuated with British spymaster John André, who is portrayed on the show with oodles of swagger and sex appeal (and has an endearing side braid that fascinates me all by itself):

If you need more convincing, how about this:

Why do I love Turn?

The acting is terrific, the story is fast-paced and twisty-turny, and the stakes are incredibly high. We all know how it turns out… but do we really know why? The intrigues are fascinating, and while we may think of redcoats and muskets as quaint elements of the past, seeing them in action makes the danger feel real. The weaponry is from the 1700s, but the human lives on the line are as vulnerable as ever.

I was surprised by how much tension and suspense a show about historical events could deliver. After all, we do know so much about the time — but seeing how these events unfold is constantly a thrill, especially as we've come to know the characters and understand who they are and what they're risking for their beliefs.

The cast is superb (and okay, really good-looking). There are heroes and villains, some totally crazy-pants bad guys, dashes of romance, and even some rather funny bits mixed in… Hey, on the last episode, there was even a wooden mini-submarine. (It's from HISTORY, yo. The Turtle — go look it up!)

Captain Crazy-Pants

As a side note — because I never do seem to write many posts that don't mention Outlander in one way or another — the time period ties in nicely with the events in books 7 and 8 in the Outlander series, An Echo in the Bone and Written In My Own Heart's Blood. Fans of the book series will especially enjoy seeing some of the people, places, and occurrences familiar from the books from a new and different perspective. (No Jamie Fraser, but you can't have everything.)

Want to know more about the history of the Culper Ring? Here are some good basics.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for something intelligent and absorbing to occupy your vacant TV-watching hours, give Turn a try!

Do you watch Turn? What do you think of it so far? Share your thoughts in the comments!

"Take a Peek" book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book's about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Sebastião Raposa is only thirteen when his parents are unjustly imprisoned, never to be seen again, and he is forced to flee Portugal lest he too fall victim to the Inquisition. But ten years in exile only serve to whet his appetite for vengeance. Returning at last to Lisbon, in the guise of English businessman Sebastian Foxx, he is no longer a frightened boy but a dangerous man tormented by violent impulses. Haunted by the specter of all he has lost—including his exquisite first love—Foxx is determined to right old wrongs by punishing an unforgivable enemy with unrelenting fury.

Well schooled by his benefactor, the notorious bounty hunter Benjamin Weaver, in the use of wits, fists, and a variety of weapons, Foxx stalks the ruthless Inquisitor priest Pedro Azinheiro. But in a city ruled by terror and treachery, where money and information can buy power and trump any law, no enemy should be underestimated and no ally can be trusted. Having risked everything, and once again under the watchful eye of the Inquisition, Foxx finds his plans unraveling as he becomes drawn into the struggles of old friends—and new enemies—none of whom, like Lisbon itself, are what they seem.

Compelled to play a game of deception and greed, Sebastian Foxx will find himself befriended, betrayed, tempted by desire, and tormented by personal turmoil. And when a twist of fate turns his carefully laid plans to chaos, he will be forced to choose between surrendering to bloodlust or serving the cause of mercy.

My Thoughts:

What a captivating book! The narrator is a fascinating man, whose description of himself is not particularly trustworthy. Sebastian describes himself early on as a monster, someone whose sole purpose in life is vengeance. Yet as we follow his intrigues and alliances while he moves his chess pieces into place, we come to see him also as a man with a moral core. He is a ruthless fighter who does not hesitate when violence is called for, yet his time in Lisbon becomes more and more complicated due to his sense of personal obligation to those he becomes entangled with. He defends those who need it; he strives to right old wrongs; he grants forgiveness to people who cause him pain because he realizes they had only poor choices to make. Yes, he's still violent, but his rage is directed against the true villains, and the more people he embroils in his plots, the more people he ends up trying to rescue.

I was very interested in the historical setting, having previously not read much about Portugal during this time period. The Inquisition and its cruelty and corruption is awful to read about, and the author does a masterful job of making the dread and menace feel real. I was also fascinated to read about the massive earthquake that leveled Lisbon in 1755, which is used to great effect as part of the dramatic escape efforts of the main group of characters.

I'm grateful to my online book group for selecting The Day of Atonement as a book-of-the-month discussion book. I might not have come across it otherwise, but I'm very glad that I did. This is David Liss's 8th novel, and I look forward to reading more of his work.

PS – I discovered after the fact that supporting character Benjamin Weaver is in fact the main character in three previous novels by this author. I'll have to check them out!

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The details:

Title: The Day of Atonement
Author: David Liss
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: September 23, 2014
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Library

"Take a Peek" book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book's about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad's leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can't bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.

Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden's woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.

My Thoughts:

The two timelines in this split-narrative story are united by place, centered on a single home in New Charleston, West Virginia.

In the contemporary storyline, we follow Eden, a woman whose marriage is on the rocks after years of failed fertility treatments. In a last-ditch effort to both conceive a child and repair their relationship, Eden and husband Jack have left city life behind to settle in a small town. Here, Eden gets to know the cute neighbor kid and then the other townspeople, finding in this little place a welcoming community and a home.

Meanwhile, in the historical chapters, we meet Sarah Brown, daughter of radical abolitionist John Brown. The books opens right around the time of the failed Harper's Ferry uprising, closely followed by John Brown's hanging. Sarah vows to carry on her father's work with the Underground Railroad (the UGRR), using her artistic talents to create pictographs that escaping slaves can use as maps as they find their way to freedom.

Sadly, neither storyline drew me in. Sarah's story should have been interesting, yet there were big gaps that kept me from connecting with her. Perhaps it was the choppy approach to the narrative, jumping forward months at a time and with the alternating timeline constantly breaking up any momentum in her story. In any case, Sarah's art and her work for the UGRR are not adequately explained or developed, and I never got a strong sense of the impact of her artwork or felt that her personal story had a true dramatic arc.

Meanwhile, Eden's part of the story is all fairly trite. A small town full of quirky townspeople, a whimsical bookstore, a cute girl and adorable puppy, a corporate career woman embracing a slower yet more meaningful way of life — none of it seems particularly new or engaging.

The connection between the two halves of the tale is a porcelain doll's head that Eden finds in a hidden cubby in her house. The doll's head prompts Eden to try to get the house listed as an historical site — and of course, this head can be traced back to Sarah and the UGRR.

I fully expected to love this story, based on the description. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd usually enjoy. Something about the execution, though, made the book feel really bland to me. The characters felt flat and lifeless. Sarah seemed very cookie-cutter to me, lacking true agency, and Eden could have been anyone.

I was interested to note, via the author's note at the end, that all of the places and dates in Sarah's story were real. Knowing nothing about John Brown's family previously, I had no real sense in reading the story as to which bits were based on history and which were purely fictional. I wish I'd read the notes ahead of time — perhaps that might have helped me feel more engaged.

The history itself is interesting — the aftermath of Harper's Ferry, the secret network that kept the UGRR alive in the South, and the impact of the Civil War on the townspeople, both during and after the war. The novel itself, though, lacks a sense of energy and movement. Ultimately, I had to force myself to keep reading and came close to abandoning the book several times. In fact, even close to the end, I didn't really care very much, and had to actually remind myself that there was still more to read.

Those interested in Civil War history may find this an interesting perspective on the role of women in the abolitionist movement. However, I suspect that reading historical non-fiction about the Browns might prove more enlightening and engaging than this novel.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: The Mapmaker's Children
Author: Sarah McCoy
Publisher: Crown
Publication date: May 5, 2015
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher

As a certain purple dinosaur used to sing:

Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere! Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share…

The Book Blog Meme Directory has been up and running for almost two years now, and while I've done updates here and there, whenever someone sends me a change, I haven't yet done a total top-to-bottom spring cleaning of the entire page.

So, I'm getting to it.

Over the next week or so, I'll be going through the whole page and testing each link to see if (1) the link is still active and (2) the meme is still up and running. I know some may have been discontinued, may have been rebranded, or may have been picked up by a new host.

For memes that appear to be inactive, I'll dig around and see if it's just moved or changed somehow — but if not, those listings will be archived. If I come across any that need updating, then I'll be sure to do that. And of course, for the ones that are still going strong, no changes needed!

Can you help? If you know for a fact that a meme has changed, moved, or been discontinued, please let me know! As always, new entries are always welcome. The easiest way for me to keep track of new memes to be added is if you send me the info via my Contact page, but feel free to reach out any way that's convenient to provide your information.

Thank you so much for your support and encouragement!

For those who haven't seen my earlier posts about the directory and want to know more, read on! The following information was originally posted earlier this year, and it gives an overview of what the Book Blog Meme Directory is all about.

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Do you host a meme? Do you have a favorite meme that you participate in? Do you know of a great meme I should check out? I'm always looking for new additions!

Any additions should:

• Fit the loose description of a meme that I provided in my initial Directory post:

So, for purposes of this Directory, let's include any regular ongoing features that encourage bloggers to join in, participate by writing their own posts, link back from their own blogs, and visit other participants' blogs as well.

• Have something to do with books, book blogging, or reading.
• Must be up and running (so please don't ask me to add a meme that you're planning for the future; let's add it once it's "live").

Frequently asked question: Is my feature a meme? Quick test: Is this a weekly theme that you – and only you – use for your own weekly postings, specific to your own blog? Sounds like a feature. Is this something you host and invite others to participate in by posting on their own blogs and linking back to yours? Sounds like a meme.

To add a meme to the Directory, the simplest thing to do is to submit your information (whether you're a meme host or participant) through my Contact page. I'll confirm back to you once the Directory has been updated.

I only ask two things of folks whose memes I add:

1) Keep it up to date! If you change domains, change the details of your meme, add a new graphic, switch hosts or days of the week, etc — just let me know! I want to make sure the info in the Directory is current, and make sure that people who want to play along can find you!

2) If your meme is listed, would you be so kind as to say so on your blog? I'd really appreciate it if you'd either post my Directory button (available at the bottom of the Book Blog Meme Directory page) or post a link so your readers can find the Directory. Many thanks to you!

I hope you've all been finding the Book Blog Meme Directory helpful! Thank you to all who have shared information up to now. It's great fun to hear about so many interesting, unusual, and quirky ways for book lovers to interact — let's keep it growing!

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it's something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you're invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

The Day of Atonement by David Liss
(published 2014 )

This historical novel, set in Portugal during the Inquisition, is the story of one man's quest for vengeance, no matter the cost:

How could I make peace with the dead? How could I atone for leaving my parents behind to be tortured and die in their prison cells? It had been a strange jumble of ideas. I was not even sure they made sense to me, but I had begun to sense that I needed to leave London and come to Lisbon. I needed to restore order to my broken life, and that could only happen in the city that had broken me. And now here I was. I had left my friend and mentor; I had abandoned everyone and everything in London. I was alone and vulnerable and in danger.

I was glad I had come.

This book is dark and ominous, page after page, but it's also a compelling read:

I am not a kind person. That much, I believe, I have established in the previous account of enraged rival-pummeling. If I am a monster, however, then I am monster made, not born.

Indeed, I was made by men such as the priest who stood before me.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you'd like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it's really simple:

• Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you're reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you'd be so kind!
• Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
• After you link up, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment about my quote for this week.
• Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.

What did I read last week?

I finished the book I'd started on the plane ride home from vacation last week, The Expats, and read a YA ARC and a graphic novel as well:

My review of The Expats is here. A really enjoyable thriller!

5 to 1 by Holly Bodger: The best things I can say about this YA dystopian novel is a) it's short and b) it has a really pretty cover. The writing annoyed me, told half in verse and half in prose, and the whole set-up was pretty boring and predictable. Just… nope. I didn't bother writing a review.

I also read the newest Fables volume (#21 – Happily Ever After). I love this graphic novel series so, so much — and I'm so sad it's coming to an end! Happily Ever After is an odd title for this volume, as many characters are most decidedly not happy at all, and it's also not the last. There's one more volume to come, and I'd dying to read it while also scared to death that I'll be upset with the fate of certain characters. I especially want an HEA ending for my favorite couple, but all signs point to NO. Sigh… According to Amazon, we'll have all our answers at the end of July. Meanwhile, I suppose I should catch up on the Fables spin-off series, Fairest.

Also this past week, I posted reviews of some of the books I read while on vacation the prior week. Here are the links:

• The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy
• All I Love and Know by Judith Frank

Elsewhere on the blog:

Prompted in part by my underwhelming experience with 5 to 1, I wrote a blog post about book plots and genres that I am just so over.

On a much more positive note — wanna see where I was the week before last? Check out my Alaska post!

Fresh Catch:

I did a bunch of random book ordering from my favorite online used book sources prior to my vacation, and all of my new pretties arrived while I was away! This was definitely fun to come home to:

What will I be reading during the coming week?

Currently in my hands:

I'm a bit behind, but I'm trying to finish up this month's Book of the Month discussion book so I can join the conversation over at Outlander Book Club.

Now playing via audiobook:

I can't help it! I seem to be hooked on the audiobooks for Patricia Briggs's marvelous books! This is the last one, and then I'll have to move on.

Ongoing reads:

The Outlander Book Club's new classic read is North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. We're reading and discussing two chapters per week. All are welcome! Contact me if you'd like to join in.

Still reading, with kiddo and with book groups:

So many book, so little time…

Looking for a fast-paced thriller for your beach bag? You can't go wrong with The Expats.

The Expats is a spy thriller, a cat-and-mouse espionage tale… and the story of a marriage. Mixing spycraft with ruminations on trust, love, and family, this books is quirky and dramatic all at the same time.

Kate Moore is the main character, a wife and mother of two young boys… and a former CIA field operative who resigns from the Company when her computer geek husband Dexter receives a lucrative job offer than entails moving to Luxembourg for a year.

Kate becomes one of the expat moms — the women from all corners of the world, married to wealthy but very busy men, who congregate in coffee shops and tennis clubs while their children attend preschool, then plan family outings, ski trips, and shopping adventures all over Europe. It's a great life… except Kate can't help being just a wee bit bored. As a working mother, she was itching for more time with the family, but now that she has it, she finds the daily routine — cooking, cleaning, shopping, chauffering, playdates, endless mommy gossip — not quite as fulfilling as she'd hoped.

Meanwhile, Dexter is suddenly the absent parent, as his new job entails high-level, hush-hush work for private banks to ensure that their online security systems are unbreachable…. or so he says. Kate begins to suspect that something is just a little bit off about Dexter's new job… and the new American couple who have befriended them seem to have more than just a friendly interest in worming their way into the Moores' lives.

The timeline jumps back and forth between "today", in Paris, as Kate is confronted by someone she thought she'd never see again, to two years ago, starting with Dexter's announcement about his new job and following the couple and the children forward into their new lives in Europe. The two timelines converge by the end, of course, as bit by bit the many threads start to form a pattern and the bigger picture emerges. Added to that, we learn about Kate's CIA background and the event that haunts her from her time as an operative, and all sorts of shades and nuances come into play.

And then there's the fact that Kate has never told Dexter about her real line of work. As far as he knew, Kate was a State Department employee whose works entailed writing position papers. So how can Kate be angry with Dexter for hiding secrets from her when he spent the first ten years of their relationship in complete ignorance of her profession, not knowing such an important part of what made her tick?

As the clues pile up, there's danger and drama, a few edge-of-the seat action sequences… and also trips to Ikea, playtime with the kids, and uncomfortable cocktail parties with other American expats. Kate is a terrific main character — smart, kick-ass, but tormented by her own set of demons; wanting to be a good wife and mother, but unable to completely come clean or to trust her husband. The plot twists and turns, there are complications galore, and small revelations in both timelines pile on top of each other to create a whole that's a real thrill ride.

The Expats is fun and compelling, mixing spy drama with domesticity in a way that highlights the deceptions in everyday life and love. The characters are well-developed, the plot is convoluted enough that we can't see all the answers before the author wants us to, and the cosmopolitan European setting gives the book a feeling that's both dangerous and exotic.

This book was perfect for me on a long plane ride. It's highly entertaining and very hard to put down. So if you're looking for a great beach read for the summer, consider picking up The Expats!

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The details:

Title: The Expats
Author: Chris Pavone
Publisher: Broadway Books
Publication date: March 6, 2012
Length: 352 pages (paperback edition)
Genre: Espionage/thriller
Source: Purchased

99% of what I blog about is books… so consider this post a part of the minority 1%. 🙂

I just spent the most wonderful week traveling in Alaska with my beautiful, funny, lovely daughter. Mommy-daughter quality time! We happen to make great traveling partners, and it was all just so enjoyable and relaxing and fun.

We've been to Alaska before: She spent a year in Juneau with Americorps, and I've been on two short visits previously, once on a cruise and the second time a different road trip with my daughter.

This time around, we had a week to spend, and we determined to do a few things we'd missed on previous trips. We started in Anchorage, then headed about two hours north to the quirky and adorable town of Talkeetna, known as the possible inspiration for the TV show Northern Exposure. Also know as the town with a cat for a mayor. (It's true! Even Wikipedia says so.)

While in Talkeetna, we stayed in cozy, rustic lodge by the Susitna River, where we could see Mt. McKinley on a clear day.

On our second day there, we boarded a 10-seater plane for a 90-minute flight over Denali National Park — and we even landed on a glacier!

The peak on the right is Mt. McKinley!

And here I am, just chillin' on Ruth Glacier.

Talkeetna itself is a super awesome town, where we ate world-class berry pancakes, over-indulged buying amazing locally made jewelry at a great gallery, and just wandered the streets for a while, admiring the random moose art:

That's my girl!

Next, we headed back south toward the Kenai Peninsula, enjoying the great drive along Turnagain Arm with a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, where we met these guys (from the other side of the fences, naturally):

This little guy! I can't even.

We did some hiking along the way, heading off on a trail through the woods that included amazing views in all directions. Stuff like this, for example:

We wrapped things up with a few days in Homer, staying in a weird and wonderful round cabin on a bluff overlooking the water:

We ate, we shopped, we hiked, we sat and read (of course), and we took a water taxi…

… across Kachemak Bay to hike through the woods to see this:

Grewingk Glacier – gorgeous!

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Alaska is beautiful, and there's just so much to see! I can't wait to go again!

A parting shot — taken at the Anchorage airport at 11:30 pm, saying good-bye to my daughter as we headed our separate ways for now. Yes, it's 11:30 and the sun is just setting!

Good-bye, Alaska! I'll miss you! Especially moments like this:

Do you ever get to the point in your reading that if you pick up ONE MORE BOOK about [insert your most over-exposed genre here], you'll simply run screaming into the night?

No?

Just me?

I think not.

We all have those moments, I'm pretty sure. Call it genre burn-out, plot overdose, or simply too much of a good thing — but I'd be surprised if there are any avid bookworms out there who haven't had these moments in their bookish lives.

Some readers find a genre or subject or style that they love, and that's all they want to read. And there's nothing wrong with that! If you like what you like, and you're happy reading what you like, go for it!

It just doesn't work for me.

I guess I'm a hopper. I can't read any one genre, any one setting, any one time period for more than a few books before I start getting a little batty. Sometimes, it's just a matter of taking a break or switching things up. Sure, I'll read a horror book or two, but then I'll need to switch off with a historical novel, a contemporary love story, or a thriller or two before I'll even consider horror again. Variety is the spice of life.

Still, there are certains types of books that I am JUST SO OVER at the moment, and I can't imagine wanting to read more of these… is ever too strong a statement? Well, at least for a long, long time.

I am SO OVER… anything you might describe as "dystopian". I don't want weirdly artificial social groupings. No bizarre rituals to select careers, spouses, or social castes. No common objects or foods that are randomly illegal in a future society. No battles to the death for survival, no high-tech arenas or stages, no bizarre contests of wits or strength in order to be selected for… anything.

I am SO OVER… historical novels with a split timeline framework. A 21st century woman finds [insert <relic/artwork/journal/rare book/other old-timey-thing-of-value> here] — and then, poof! wouldn't you know it, the very next chapter is all about the 18th or 16th or 12th or whatever-th century woman who originally owned or handled or created that MacGuffin-ish thing.*

*Carving out a very big exception here for Susanna Kearsley, because I love her books no matter what, and if she keeps writing dual timeline novels, I'll keep reading 'em. Period.

I am SO OVER… YA novels in which a geeky/shy/not-exactly-popular ordinary boy winds up in the orbit of a mysterious, slightly damaged, unforgettable wild girl. And his life will never be the same. No more. Just no.

These are my "over it" types of books at the moment, although I'm sure if you asked me again in two months, I might come up with something completely different that I'm just so over.

What about you? What type of book are you just done with? Is there a particular storyline or plot device that you never want to see again?

Share your thoughts!

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Source: https://bookshelffantasies.com/2015/05/

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