What My Cousin Wants For His 7th Birthday

Me asking my 6-year-old cousin while out to eat:

Hey, what you want for your birthday, Junior?  You know I only give out books, right?

My 6-year-old cousin:

Dog Man and Cat Man books.

Me:

Do and say what?

My 6-year-old cousin:

I said 'Dog Man and Cat Man books'.

Me:

Well, I guess.

*Gets on cell phone to research*

Me at the bookstore:

Dang, it's legit!

{Screws 'N' Bolts} On Lending Out Books

What Happened With My Reading of The Cutting Season

"Just after dawn, Caren walks the grounds of Belle Vie, the historic plantation house in Louisiana that she has managed for four years. Today she sees nothing unusual, apart from some ground that has been dug up by the fence bordering the sugar cane fields. Assuming an animal has been out after dark, she asks the gardener to tidy it up. Not long afterwards, he calls her to say it's something else. Something terrible. A dead body. 

At a distance, she missed her. The girl, the dirt and the blood. Now she has police on site, an investigation in progress, and a member of staff no one can track down. And Caren keeps uncovering things she will wish she didn't know. As she's drawn into the dead girl's story, she makes shattering discoveries about the future of Belle Vie, the secrets of its past, and sees, more clearly than ever, that Belle Vie, its beauty, is not to be trusted."

So, yeah. Time for me to get to hammering with my TRUTH. Like how I had the total gall to DNF Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season. I know. I know. I know how stuff works around here. This was a book–like so many others–that I’m “suppose” to like. Nah, this mug was bor-RING.

The Cutting Season is a literary (if that word is necessary) murder mystery. It weaves together two periods in time alongside two respective mysteries. Mystery One: Civil War era plantation where a female slave once went missing. Mystery Two: same plantation now a historic landmark, where a present-day body turns up at the property line. Two interwoven mysteries blossoming with possibilities and profundity, as they pounce upon a study of American slavery era throes with its present-day echos and resonance. Sounds like a hit–like no other! And I believed it possible in The Cutting Season. Both concepts of the depravity of slavery and its compelling illustration of 17th to 18th century southern American history would become a taunt-like joy to unbraid around a present day murder mystery.

Yet, no. Or, at least, I didn't get into the book deep enough to step into its truth. Because I couldn't quite shake the wafting ennui in the book's first fifty pages. Nor could I shake the book's vibe of projection, as oppose to presences.

But while I did struggle with that, here’s why I decided to call it quits overall...

#NonFictionNovember ~ Memoirs on LOVE & LIFE

I'm just going to slide this in here, with little explanation (not that it's really needed with these two celebrities).  Wait, other than I'm starting #NonFictionNovember with books I've been wanting to read for a while now.  Or, rather yet, memoirs I've wanted to consume.  Either way I'm going for something inspirational to launch the hashtag with.  

Tembi's story for a little touch of LOVE, because Lord knows that's an abstract concept when it comes to me.  Tyler for some of that GOALS-type of inspired stuff, because Lord knows that's just as abstract a concept as love.

Ooooo-weee, chile.  Anyway, I'm already 50 pages into each and love them both.

#WeekendReads First Rider's Call by Kristen Britain

#NonFictionNovember is going to have to wait a little bit longer, bro.  Why?  Because I got to stay up all night and read First Rider's Call by Kristen Britain.  It's the second book in her Green Rider series.  A series that follows this pretty neat-o young lady named Karigan G'ladheon.  She works as one of the king's (y'all know how these fantasy worlds go) messenger services dudes called Green Riders.  And, well, given her job she also has the ability to turn invisible...

AND I LOVE EVERY BIT OF ITTTTTTTTTT!  WITH ALL THE PERSONAL AND FANTASY INTRIGUE IN BETWEEN!

CHOP IT UP: Alibis & Angels by Olivia Matthews (Sister Lou Cozy Mystery #3)

CHOP IT UP: Peril & Prayer by Olivia Matthews (Sister Lou Cozy Mystery #2)