Hello, Bicycle: A love letter on two wheels

Mango and I went to the e-cycle place in town to get rid of an old scanner,
then treated ourselves with a trip to the library!

My husband spoils me: for my birthday he bought me a shiny new bike. Though I originally intended to get a folding bike (for easy storing and getting around town), the folks at our local bike shop pointed out this beauty and I fell in love with it. I call her "Mango," and I take her out for rides as often as possible. Though Mango and I are probably in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, it is clear that Anna Brones and her bike are not. She obviously has a deep, abiding love for her two-wheeled conveyance. Hello Bicycle is clearly her love letter to bicycles with added useful information to their riders.

You are a woman of strange passions...
I am a woman of varied passions, that's all. And bicycling is now one of them! I requested Hello Bicycle from Blogging for Books— in exchange for an honest and fair review, of course— because it promised a "practical guide to the bike life with real-world advice" which I hoped included how to fix a flat tire. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect beyond that, and I was happy that I got it! I suspect Anna Brones is a woman of varied passions as well, since she includes more than just bike history, maintenance, and various reasons you should dust off your bike and get pedaling. Were you wondering what you could do with a bicycle beyond going for a joy ride? Ultimately we ride because we want to and it's enjoyable, but had you considered other possible biking adventures like camping, touring, or just commuting? And how will you remain fueled? Brones includes snack recipes to keep you pedaling, gear that might make your life easier if you want your two-wheeled steed to be as utilitarian as possible (or you want to go touring), and even up-cycle projects you can do when you inevitably get a flat tire (or two) and can no longer patch the tubes in your tires. All of that and more in a short book that you could read in an afternoon!

Overall, I would classify this book as a good, beginner "bike info sampler." You can tell with every sentence that Brones loves her cycling. She gives compelling reasons to add cycling to our everyday lives, as well as points out how easy it would be. If you haven't been on a bike since you were a kid, but you want to get back into it: this would be a good book for you. You'll get help figuring out what you need in a bike and additional resources to check out. If you're looking for something with more technical jargon, move along.

Art of Coloring Disney Princess: 100 Images to Lull You into a Catatonic State

This book was not made for me. When I see the title Art of Coloring Disney Princesses, certain expectations and standards come to mind. I expect a certain amount of froufrou nonsense and hoity-toityness featuring a pack of damsels in distress. Then I remind myself that "Disney Princess" refers to more than the classic damsels like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. My hopes rise, knowing that bad-asses like Mulan and Merida might be present. Let's not forget that Jasmine, Tiana, Rapunzel, and Belle are also intelligent, quirky, and brave. So I bought this Disney Princess coloring book with the expectation of seeing a variety of "princesses" doing and being more than decorative damsels in distress. Further, I expected the artwork would meet the high Disney Standards: interesting, dynamic, and beautiful. What I got amounts to little more than a Barbie-like coloring book with some characters standing or sitting around, looking pretty, with vacuous smiles plastered on their faces.

How do you know they're vacuous?
Because their eyes are glazed and unfocused, and they're staring at nothing in particular! The whole book is generic, discount, knock-off Disney at best! I find it insulting— to me as much as to these princesses— that they should take some genuinely interesting characters and have them only stand or sit, and smile at the camera. These ladies have better things to do! Tiana has work to do. Mulan has villains to outwit! For fucks' sake, Belle has a giant library to read, and Aurora could be taking a nap, and these artists interrupt their busy ass schedule to have them stand against a backdrop and smile?! Or they got a Disney Princess stunt double to sit/stand against a backdrop with infrequent wig and wardrobe changes.

You got a problem with looking pretty and having a rich husband?
Not at all! If you're pretty, have a rich husband, and that makes you happy? Good on you! I simply find it dull. My high school yearbooks were more interesting than that! Which leads me to my biggest problem with this book: It is mundane, uninspired, and mediocre. You're more likely to be lulled into a catatonic state while coloring these pages than be creatively inspired. But prepare yourself. There's a kicker. ... Are you prepared?

You're the Diet Coke of Disney. Just one calorie: not Disney enough.

I think so...
Of the approximately 120 pages to color, 98 are dedicated to generic, repeating wallpapers. I know. I counted. For the purposes of this math, I want you to understand that if the image was a mandala with a princess silhouette or a repeating pattern, I counted it as "wallpaper." Therefore, not really a princess. Just patterns. There were only 23 images of princesses (with vapid smile facial details), and even some of those pages were more patterns than princess.

Overall, I found this book terribly disappointing and misleading. It is monotonous at best, and I don't recommend it at all. In addition to all the problems with content, the book itself is odd in that it is a hardcover coloring book—

That's kinda cool!
—but the covers are actually just cardboard pieces stuck on the outside of a soft-cover book. It makes little sense, and it looks weird. It doesn't really bother me. I'm just annoyed at the book in general. But that does bring me back to my first point: This book wasn't made for me. I gave it to my friend, and he loved it. Know your audience, I guess. I bet my audience loves narwhals.

The Cruelty: Red-headed stepchild of the YA genre

I will find you... And I will read you. On 2/17/17

People who read my blog, take note: I am a bibliophile. You probably gathered as much from the fact that I have a book review blog that I post in on a mostly regular basis. Still, I wanted to preface the following review with that statement, so you would understand just how I came to possess a copy of Scott Bergstrom's The Cruelty. I love books, and if a print copy of something should be offered to me for free, well... How could I say "no"? It had everything to do with wanting a new book, and nothing with the fact that it's "young adult" fiction or that the plot is essentially reverse-Taken.

It's "reverse Taken"...?

Yes: a loved one is kidnapped by terrorists/mobsters/criminals that are involved with human trafficking and our heroic protagonist must save them. It just so happens that this time, the daughter has to go save her kidnapped father instead of the other way around. Dad's been damseled, but everything else is very similar.

Our heroine, Gwendolyn Bloom, is the seventeen-year-old daughter of a kidnapped diplomat, and she has tough choices ahead of her. Terrorists rarely pick the best time to kidnap one's family, and for Gwendolyn they chose the day after the tenth anniversary of her mother's murder. With one parent already brutally slain, Gwendolyn won't let the other go. The choices she faces begin benignly enough: will she go meekly to live with a distant relative she doesn't know and accept that the authorities are doing everything in their power to rescue her father— the only family she's ever really known? Or will she wrest control of the situation and do everything she can to get him back? I don't think we'd get much of a book if she'd done the former— "well-behaved women seldom make history" (L.T. Ulrich) and all that jazz. From that point forward, Bergstrom sets the narrative on cruise control in the "action packed novel" lane, complete with training sessions (where Gwendolyn emerges as a teenage badass capable of defending herself against anything after a month of intense training), breaking and entering, murder, even picking up on a cold trail in a missing person's case through Europe (which is where her dad disappeared).

That sounds intense!

It's predictable, yet satisfying. Except for a slow start— potentially a case of "first novel syndrome"— the writing was interesting and well-paced. I only wish that I'd actually been in the mood to read it, and that it weren't in the first person point of view because I find that irritating— both of which are personal problems and not the book's fault. It also didn't help that this was the third version of the Taken-plot I've read in the past month. (That was purely accidental, by the way.) But if you don't share my personal problems and you're a fan of action-packed, young adult thrillers drizzled with murder, you'll probably like this book.

There were a few things that pulled me out of the action. They mainly had to do with the aforementioned "first person perspective." That and I find it hard to believe any normal, "soft" 17-year-old could do this kind of stuff: leave the comforts of home only to get her ass handed to her repeatedly until she learns to destroy everything in her path. Still, it made for a good story.

Wait, how is this the red-headed stepchild of the YA genre?

Ah, that... Apparently the author made some disparaging remarks regarding young adult fiction, its writers, and audience in general. Or at least, he made remarks and they were taken very personally by the audience. If you google his name and the name of the book, it's practically the first thing that pops up. I mention this because I think the negative reaction is exaggerated— especially when people are rating the book like crap even if they haven't even read it purely because Bergstrom made some ignorant remarks.

I did receive a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A is for Adventure: Part Coloring Book, Monster Manual, Campaign Guide. ALL Fun

The other day, I went on a little shopping spree for my friends. I am not allowing myself to spend much on myself lately, but I wanted to get a few little thank you gifts for my D&D group so... I bought coloring books. Of the three that I bought, my absolute favorite is A is for Adventure, by Scott Aleric. I want this book for myself and I want it now.

So the artwork is good?

Yes, but that's not all. This book is fantastic! I appreciate Aleric's style and the attention to detail. All the monsters are displayed in dynamic poses— typically in the process of mauling some foolish adventurer. The illustrations are worked in ink with full backgrounds and— Okay, you may find this a little bit strange, but...

I've read your other reviews. How could this be any stranger?

—what really does it for me is the hatch and cross-hatch shading. I love the texture it creates on the page. It's something that I just don't see all that much anymore, especially as more artists do digital art. And I haven't even told you about my absolute favorite part!

There's more?!

Yes! Included with each letter/monster is a mini campaign scenario featuring the monster, a small map, and even some plot twists to kick things up a notch. What I particularly love about these adventures is that they act almost as adventure-Legos: you could play with them on their own, put them together, or drop it in to your bigger campaign set. Tweak the scenarios to taste! Overall, I highly recommend this book! You'll like it too if you're into: 

1. Coloring! The pages are thin, but single-sided. No worries about markers bleeding through to the next page.
2. Role-playing! Mini campaigns need little customization if you're a lazy dungeon master or you just want to sample playing with friends.
3. Monster art! Most of the illustrations look like the monsters are winning. That's typically a plus in my book!

Have fun!

What Alice Forgot (Spoilers: It was a lot)

Alice forgot an entire decade: the birth and lives of her three children, divorce proceedings, and the existence of her best friend. Meanwhile, I was beating myself up because I forgot when, exactly, I picked up this book; I'm fairly certain it was within the last two weeks. I read it over the course of two days, and I daresay they were two days well spent.

The story begins with Alice dreaming of cream cheese. Why not? Dreams are typically pretty weird. Alice Love is 29 years old, completely enamored with her husband, and pregnant with their first child. Or at least, so she believes when she wakes up from the cream cheese dream. But the reality is that Alice is 39 years old. She is on the floor of the gym wearing clothes she would swear are not hers. And what is she doing at the gym anyway? She hates exercising!

Oh no...
Oh Yes: It's an amnesia book.

Gasp of Horror!
As luck would have it, it isn't as cheesy as a soap opera; we can all rest a little easier. The story actually reads a bit like a detective novel: a heart-squishing kind of detective novel. Even my little black heart was momentarily touched as Alice tries to find the truth: if she and her husband were so happy, how could they be getting a divorce now? Did ten years turn her into an unlovable bitch where the most important people are concerned? Did he cheat on her? Why is her sister, who was always her best friend, so distant now? What did a decade do? As previously mentioned: it did a lot. The story goes back and forth primarily between Alice's perspective and her sister Elizabeth's journal/letters to her therapist. Alice's amnesia is a sort of catalyst for everyone to examine their relationships and who they've lost touch with over the years.

This may have been silly of me, but I read this as a horror novel for a while.

You ARE silly.
I know, but it was scary, because I can relate to the younger version of the characters. I was telling my husband how horrifying it is that in ten years we might have accrued all these little hurts and resentments that might make us hate each other, which is basically what was happening to these characters. And then he said something that made it all better. "Clearly, they never had the poop talk." Because if you can discuss your bowel movements with your partner, you can talk your way through anything. And those petty hurts you're bent out of shape over? You gotta let that shit go. In summary, the characters in this book are emotionally constipated, and Alice's amnesia is the laxative they needed. Once she gets in touch with her younger self, she remembers that some of the stuff she's wound up in really isn't so important after all. And she lets it go. So far, this book may seem like a bit of a downer. For those of you who cannot read something unless it has a happy ending, you can add this book to your list of things to read. You're safe.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and would recommend it to most people. Since much of it centers around what it means to be a wife, a mother, and reproductive issues, I don't expect men would care too much for it, but they might gain some insights anyway. The only thing that I found particularly weird about it didn't even have anything to do with the story, but with the book itself. Right after you're finished reading, there is a page toward the end that includes a list of discussion questions. I found the story compelling enough that I asked myself questions as we went along: What my life was like 10 years ago versus what I think it will be like 10 years from now, what relationships I lost to distance or pettiness, how the different character perspectives added to the story, etc. Well, I'm not sure if Liane Moriarty expects her book to be taught in college, or discussed in book clubs and she just has no faith in her readers' ability to think critically, because I found the inclusion of discussion questions to be unnecessary and even pretentious. Other than that, I don't think you'll regret reading What Alice Forgot.

StocktonCon is coming!

Just piles of stuff and things to do, as far as the eye can see. My
Jaded Internal Monologue (JIM) is having a field day.

Hello my dear internet people! (I can say that, because I'm too small fry to have trolls yet.)

The biggest troll is in your head.
Shut up, JIM, nobody asked you.

So StocktonCon is coming up this Saturday which is exciting stuff! I've given you guys a couple of random updates regarding it with pictures of half-finished projects, empty-box goals, and yarn.

Would anyone like to take a wild guess as to how many projects I actually finished?! Go on! Guess! It's more than zero, but less than everything.

Enough...?
Nope! But almost! I am officially in "last minute, crazy crochet lady" mode! Eek! Happily, Saturday's new review is already written and scheduled, so I won't have to worry about that this weekend. Unfortunately, that stack of books pictured above is not going to read itself, and I have to return them eventually, so I don't think I have any time left to slack off. Anyway! Just wanted to give you guys a little update! Hope you're having a great week!

Pop Manga Coloring Book: Made of Manga & WIN

Holy crapsicles, Batman! Another coloring book!

You guys, I'm so excited! My copy of Pop Manga Coloring Book arrived and I'm thrilled beyond belief! At first I wanted it because it was another coloring book, but now that I've had a chance to experience the artwork— I'm in love. Not bad for having picked this up for free from Blogging For Books (in exchange for an honest and fair review, of course). This is officially my new favorite coloring book! Camilla d'Errico perfectly summarizes the book in her title caption: "A surreal journey through a cute, curious, bizarre, and beautiful world."

So half of this review is done for you!
Not necessarily— I do have other things to say about it! Pop Manga Coloring Book includes a mix of clean-line, inked images and other sketchier, "fancy pencil drawings" images. d'Errico also supplies a little color buddy/blob throughout the book named Ayako to provide commentary and moral support. Mostly it says fun, silly reminders about how you're allowed to color outside of the lines if you want, and that you can use any coloring implement you'd like to color in this book. I think Camilla d'Errico understands that sometimes, when an image is beautiful, people might get anxious about coloring it in and "messing it up." She even goes so far as to say that you're allowed to photocopy the pages and practice beforehand if that's you're kind of thing. I know people who do that, but this is the first time I've seen an artist actually suggest it. All the pages are double-sided, and thick enough that markers might not bleed through to the other side; I haven't been able to test that out yet, though.

The surrealism also varies widely, ranging from an image that looks like a melting blob of would-be colors with a face to illustrations from potential comics, stories, or fairy tales. I say "potential stories" because I don't think they are pulled from any coherent manga, but my imagination certainly supplied a few story ideas for the illustrations. Speaking of "manga," it should be fairly obvious that if you're not into the Japanese comic book illustration style, this book is probably not for you. With a name like "Pop Manga," I hope that didn't come as a surprise.

Overall, this is a beautiful book. If you're into the manga style of art and you like coloring, I highly recommend it! I love it so much, I would happily pay money for it!