Sometimes Stellar Storyteller Six Word Story Challenge

“Triumph” is this week’s prompt. Good luck!

Book Review – Rose Pressey

Finished reading If You’ve Got It, Haunt It by Rose Pressey the other day. I’m not all that into reading about clothing and there was a ton of that in it but it was good.

As I said before, If You’ve Got It, Haunt It revolves a bit around fashion. Not just any kind of fashion though – vintage. While I know nothing about fashion in general, new or old (my wardrobe currently consists of activewear), and I couldn’t care less when it comes to reading about it, I found this book to be surprisingly good.

I say it’s surprising because I expected the fashion part to bore me. Instead, I found myself trying to imagine what a Peter Pan collar looked like and, even more weird, I enjoyed wondering about it. I enjoyed imagining the outfits that she described in the book. It even made me want to go out and buy some clothes to mimic those looks. I won’t be going out to find vintage clothing, but something chic and a bit old-fashioned might strike my fancy because it’s different from what we have today.

But, of course, I won’t because that’s not me. I don’t doll myself up. Well, I do, but my version of getting all dolled up is to do a cute hairstyle and maybe some light eye makeup and lipstick. Nice clothing is optional but they would probably be jeans and a comfy but nice-looking top. Probably a layered top. Yeah, jeans is now considered dressing up for me. Usually I’m wearing leggings or shorts…some type of activewear. And when you spend a quarter of your day at a gym almost every single day, you’d be in activewear all the time too.

Anyway, totally off track. But that’s what the book’s like. It doesn’t get off track, it merely describes a lot of clothes. That, however, does not mean there’s no story to it. There is a story and it’s a good story. I believe the term for this book is a cozy mystery.

There’s murder and light mayhem, no real danger to the protagonist. Her name is Cookie (nickname) and she’s being haunted by a ghost. There are a couple discrepancies such as the clothes Cookie buys in the beginning of the book. They’re referred to several times throughout the course of the book but never seen again. They pretty much disappear despite seeming to be of great importance in the beginning.

Another Huh? moment was with the ghost, Charlotte. Cookie seems to pick her up at the estate sale in the very beginning where she got the aforementioned clothes. Charlotte decides to leave with her because Cookie’s the only one who can see her and Charlotte wants her murder to be solved (who wouldn’t?). It’s not a spoiler; it happens in the first few pages and is the basis for the rest of the book. But then suddenly toward the end Charlotte is unable to leave Cookie or even wander far from her. Why? Right before that’s mentioned, Cookie tries to sneak out of her house to go to work without Charlotte. What would be the point of trying to sneak out when we find out a page or two later that Cookie knows Charlotte can’t wander far from her? So why did she bother trying when she knew she couldn’t sneak away?

The last Huh issue I had was with Charlotte and Cookie’s arrangement. It’s a minor side point. Charlotte says she’ll help Cookie with promoting her business etc if Cookie helps find Charlotte’s murderer. That’s all well and good and Charlotte does give a few pointers but nothing else is mentioned. She doesn’t help Cookie at all. It’s as if this side point is brought up only to be forgotten later and dismissed from the book.

Was this an oops on the author’s part or will Charlotte help Cookie’s business in the 2nd book? Right now there are three books with a fourth coming out in November, 2016. Most likely each book stands on its own. The first one certainly does.

Despite these Huh issues I have, I enjoyed the book. I got ansy toward the end wondering when it would finish and I had a problem with Cookie never being completely honest with the detective. I’m a very honest person and I believe in telling the truth in important situations like the ones Cookie was confronted with throughout the book. I kept expecting the detective to single her out for the murders because she was being so dishonest about everything. The evidence she’d bring to him might look like she was trying to frame somebody and that she, in fact, did it. I kept waiting for something really bad to happen to her and wanting to shake her when she wouldn’t admit to certain things. I thought it would make her life so much easier if she just admitted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

All of this might sound as if I didn’t like the book and that it wasn’t a good read. But, as I have said several times already, I enjoyed If You’ve Got It, Haunt It. In fact, I’ve borrowed the second book in the series to read now because I want to continue with the series – All Dressed Up And No Place To Haunt.

Sometimes Stellar Storyteller Six Word Story Challenge

Hard prompt this week – Human. 6 words or less. I almost didn’t contribute because some of the other contributions perfectly expressed what I wanted to say. How could I say it better? I can’t, but I put in an entry anyway. Not my first thought for what I wanted to say for Human nor was it my second but 3rd is better than no idea at all and I like it well enough.

Challenge Completed

Yay! I completed my reading challenge for 2016! I challenged myself to read 100 books in the year 2016 and I’m actually over 100 books now. The main reason I was able to finish the challenge is that my son is old enough to enjoy chapter books now. He’s in love with the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne so we’ve been reading several chapters almost every night and sometimes even whole books when we’ve had time and the book’s been exciting enough. We’re on book 27 – Thanksgiving on Thursday.

I’m not sure if we’ll keep reading after 28 because then they move from Morgan Le Fay to Merlin and those are quite a bit longer. We read 2 of them at the beginning of summer before moving back to get the entire series in order. Yep, we’ve pretty much read the entire series this summer. Before that was every Ninjago chapter book we could find.

When we went to SoCal during Spring Break with my parents I continued the bedtime reading routine but I was going to stick with just a couple chapters a night so I didn’t annoy my parents or keep everyone up too late. That plan went right out the window when I tried to stop and my parents and Mini Me immediately complained that they all wanted to hear the rest of the story. Luckily the 2 books I had brought each had 2 stories in them (one short story and then the chapter book) so the books lasted 4 days. My throat, on the other hand, got really tired from reading out loud about an hour each night.

All for a good cause – my son’s literary entertainment and my reading challenge.

I’m actually surprised I was able to get a full 100 books read. Maybe I should extend my challenge? Mini-Me isn’t going to want to stop our bedtime reading routine and after school starts I’ll have more Me time that I’ll be using for reading. Actually, I’ll also be using it for writing, working, and practicing POP Pilates but I’m sure there will still be a lot of time left for reading. I mean, I can do fitness stuff for only so long every day before my muscles give out.

 

Sometimes Stellar Storyteller Six Word Story Challenge

Story in 6 words or less. Today’s prompt: Question.
Man, there were so many things I wanted to say for this. They usually came out to 7 words though. My husband is so nosy so I really wanted to write something about nosy questions. I get up to go the bathroom and he asks where I’m going. I’m reading a book and he asks what I’m doing…while looking at me holding an open book in front of my face. If I’ve come out of the bathroom he’ll ask me if I’ve pooped and was it successful! Okay, that last makes me laugh because there’s a history to that one. But the nosy questions Never. Ever. End.

Suicide Squad Comics

Lately I’ve added comics into my reading queue. With the new Suicide Squad movie coming out today, I wanted to know as much as possible about the stories without actually digging for information. Just as I was getting tired of reading about various missions and violence, I ran out of comics.

I had moved on from The New 52 Suicide Squad comics to the New Suicide Squad and it ended with Volume 2. It seems Volume 3 just came out a couple days ago but I’ve been reading them through Hoopla (free through the library) and they obviously aren’t going to have it yet so I’ll have to be happy to do without for awhile.

While I liked it for the most part, I didn’t like the last issue from Volume 2 of the New Suicide Squad. I mean, I liked it well enough but I didn’t like how they portrayed Harley. I know she’s certifiably nuts, but they hadn’t portrayed her so nutsy ditsy before. Nor had they shown her to deliberately and cold-heartedly leave a team member to die before. I suppose I understand why she did it, but I still didn’t like it and it didn’t ring quite right for me.

The comics are full of action, cruelty, violence, death, some humor, and some sexuality. Well, a lot of sexuality if you count scantily clad, big-busted women but I’m not counting that because that’s normal in comics.

One thing I really didn’t like from the first issue in Volume 1 in the New Suicide Squad was Joker’s Daughter. Grrr! What a wannabe. I was very happy when she got hers.

There’s not really much to say about these comics. There’s a story to them, yeah, but it’s not going to be winning any awards for depth and meaning. I’m not putting them down though. They don’t need to be deep and meaningful to be fun to read. And these are fun…if you like plenty of violence and action. If not, don’t read them.

It would’ve been nicer had they not painted Harley so skanky. I’m not altogether sure why they changed her old Harlequin outfit. I was happier when they gave her Harlequin pants and even when her bikini-like “booty shorts” increased to actual booty shorts length. And what was it with her and Deadshot for a bit? I’m glad that didn’t last.

Anyway, I was happy to have been able to read these comics especially because I won’t be able to see the movie for…I dunno…a really long time. I try not to think too much about it because I get pretty bummed when I do. However, this isn’t the first nor the last movie I’ll really want to see but be unable to see for at least months and months after it’s made its theatrical debut. Not a big deal. Life goes on.