April 5th, 2012

BlogHer Book Club: Born Wicked

I must say Born Wicked, by Jessica Spotswood,  is one case where I judged the book by it’s cover and got it all wrong. Or maybe I’ve been reading too much supernatural fiction set in the modern day to realized that this book was set in the past from the cover. I had a bit of trouble pinpointing when the book was taking place. By page 30, I had settled in to deciding it took place in Anne of Green Gables time* and a few pages later the author cleared up the matter by explicitly stating that the book took place in Rhode Island in 1900.

Overall, I really liked Born Wicked. It is chock full of things I like – witches, intrigue, scandal, redheads, creepy religious overlords, gardeners. Really, it has it all. The author did a good job pacing the book. The plot builds right from the beginning without tons of exposition, which is nice. I like books where you jump right in. I did get confused here and there (see location/era issues above), but it wasn’t anything that detracted from the book.

The biggest bummer is that it because it is the start of the Cahill Witch Chronicles series, the book doesn’t have a satisfactory ending so much as a cliffhanger. A successful one, too. I not only was surprised, but I really want to read the next book to see what happens.

Rather than recount the plot and inadvertently giveaway any spoilers, I thought I would try and give an idea of the tone.  It reads more like a modern novel than historical fiction. For the most part, people speak in modern day words (this is a big issue for me with a lot of fiction set in the past), the women are spunky but work within the system enough that I don’t feel like the characters are anachronistically feminist. The witchery is mellow – simple one word spells rather than long poemy things. (Long pages of spells drive me insane).

I really liked it and would recommend it to readers of supernatural fiction, young adult fiction and historical fiction alike.

This post was sponsored through my participation in BlogHer Book Club. I was compensated for my time reading the book and writing this post, but my opinions are purely my own.

*Turns out I wasn’t too far off, Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908.

April 3rd, 2012

WW: Rain Dancer

At some point, during the maybe three rain storms we’ve had this year, Spencer decided that rain was for dancing.

Keep dancing kid, keep dancing.

Technical difficulties on the Linky this week. Sorry!

April 2nd, 2012

Easter Fashion Flashback!

I’m a little bummed that I can’t find pictures of more horrific outfits. My mom dressed us so, so awfully for Easter that it became a long standing joke and “tulip vest” became family shorthand for embarrassing handmade clothes. Those vests are forever burned in my memory. I drew this picture for my sister last week in DrawSomething and she accurately guessed Easter when I was only halfway through.

Long, long ago, we looked like this in non-stick-figure form:

I think this was about 1982. I’m surprised they got me to stand so close to those flowers, I hated them so, so much. Why, might you ask? The bees. Oh good god the bees. Every Saturday my sister and I had to do yard work as part of our chores and I always got stuck cutting the dead daisies. I hated it. I still hate the smell of those.

I love Easter growing up. So many fun memories of searching for our Easter baskets when we woke up and then later the egg hunt. The egg hunt was a very big deal. Without fail every year a few eggs would go unfound because my parents were hard core egg hiders. Eggs were hidden by color in various plants and few times they even unscrewed light bulbs in the outdoor lights and replaced them with eggs. Hardcore.

Do you have a childhood easter outfits that you would like to share? Suzanne and I would love to see them – adorable, embarrassing, festive – we take all kinds. Feel free to link up below.

April 1st, 2012

Steppin’ Out to the Reagan Library (How educational!)

This is about as close to Air Force One as I am probably ever going to get and this one was decomissioned. We went to Reagan Library this weekend because I impulsively bought a groupon months ago and it was expriring in 2 weeks. I’d been before with just my husband a few years ago and it was pretty nice, so we thought we’d try again with the tot. I’m torn between saying it was a learning experience, a mistake or fun because it was all three. See also: Spencer is 2.5.

The main reason we thought Spencer might like it – Air Force One. They let you walk through it. No photography and pretty much no touching, but he did get to go on an airplane. The reason listed for the photography ban is protecting state secrets. The actual reason is selling souvenier photos. Souvenir photos in which we were ordered strongly encouraged to wave like the first family getting on the plane.

Reason Number 2 why I’ll never be president – my lack of presidential wave, (reason #1 – my twenties) And I’ll never be first lady because my husband was born out of the US (but to American parents, I think the law still stands though. Lame) I guess I will have to settle for being MOP (mother of the president). [My husband's face is crossed out because his job as a super secret double agent spy for SD6 requires that I don't post his identity online.]*

Spencer liked parts of the museum:

 The empty parts where he could run free. He was not so much a fan of the jelly belly reagan:

Check out that smile!

And then after the museum I had 5 guys for the first time. Verdict: loved the burger, loved the bite I had of Spencer’s hot dog (he ate the whole (bun free) thing! and thought the fries were just ok.

I was going to list the clothes, but then I realized that you can barely see them and no one cares. I’m linking up with Mandy for Steepin’ Out Saturday, about whom people do care what cute clothes she is wearing, but luckily she welcomes all.

*Lies. He doesn’t want his face on the blog. I respect that. Normally I would just crop or use a different picture, but this one was too hilarious to pass up.