Shannon > Recent Status Updates

Being a true believer meant helping others, lots of others, to believe just like me. To be an agent of God for evangelizing the world. Rather than convincing me of the righteousness of this kind of believing, rather than making me certain of its correctness, it made me question, and doubt, all the more. I knew it wasn't how my parents had thought about the world, about God.

My mother had been a big proponent of live Christmas trees. [...] My mother had also been a big proponent of winter ice-cream cones.
"Well, we don't have to worry about these melting," she used to say, holding a cone in her elegant, leather-gloved hand, her breath visible in the air even as she took a bite.

I don't know why, but this passage really made me sad.

I didn't feel close to God at the Presbyterian church, but some Sundays I felt really close to my memories of being at church, at this place, with my parents. And I liked that feeling.

Damn. That was good.

Love is not a disease.

ARGH. So difficult to stop here but I must really go to sleep!

Ruth was sort of right, I would learn: A relationship with a higher power is often best practiced alone. I don't think it's overstating it to say that my religion of choice became VHS rentals ... But Ruth was wrong, too. There was more than just one other world beyond ours; there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and at 99 cents apiece I could rent them all.

I didn't want to have those thoughts running simultaneously and constantly, constantly. What I wanted to do was to hide from all of it, to be small and unseen and just to get along. It might have comforted Ruth to talk to God, but it made me feel like I couldn't breathe, like drowning, the diving wells again.

But I also thought, at the exact same time I was thinking the other stuff, that maybe what all this meant was that there was no God, but instead only fate and the chain of events that is, for each of us, predetermined—and that maybe there was some lesson in my mom drowning at Quake Lake thirty years later.

But I didn't have any of that faith, and I didn't know where to get it, how to get it, or even if I wanted it right then. I felt like it could be that God had made this happen, had killed my parents, because I was living my life so wrong that I had to be punished, that I had to be made to understand how I must change, and that Ruth was right, that I had to change through God.

It wasn't like I'd never prayed before [...] (but) it had eventually ended up feeling sort of phony, like I was playing at a relationship with God, just like any little kid playing house or grocery store or anything else, but not like it was real. I knew that this is where the faith part was supposed to come in, and that faith, real faith, that's what was supposed to keep the whole thing from just being make-believe.

Grandma stooped over with a yellow rag, sprinkling out the cleanser, that chemical-mint smell puffing around us, her son dead and her daughter-in-law dead and her only grandchild a now-orphaned shoplifter, a girl who kissed girls, and she didn't even know, and now she was cleaning up my vomit, feeling even worse because of me: That's what made me cry.

I think about him on the other side of that door all the time, even now. How I still had parents before that knock, and how I didn't after. Mr. Klauson knew that too; how he had to lift his calloused hand and take them away from me at eleven p.m. one hot night at the end of June—summer vacation, root beer and stolen bubble gum, stolen kisses—the very good life for a twelve-year-old ...

Seraphina and Lucian's relationship reminds me of Cinder and Kai's, sort of.

I'll be honest ... I was a bit worried about this. The beginning was rough and I was dreading the fact that I'd be a Debbie Downer when so many people obviously loved it. I still think it could've used some polishing and a bit more beefing up in the description department, but I ended up reading 20% last night without wanting to stop, so, I'm more optimistic now. The main thing that's helping it? I like Seraphina.

"I'm attracting small children," Orma muttered, twisting his hat in his hands. "Shoo it away, will you?"

Lol, Orma is now my favorite character.

This author likes short declarative sentences. There is not much description. I'm not sure what's going on. Transitions are not very smooth. There isn't much dialogue yet. I think there are dragons. This is a book I am reading with friends. On my Kindle. I am not sure I like it.

Lucy wanted something summery and I found this in the library last night while wandering around, so we're reading it together! Hopefully it's not too depressing ...

Starting this tonight with Galla and Lethal! Here's hoping it's as good as everyone has said ...

I got a PM from an author about how I shelved his book (because that's always a good idea) but I decided to explain myself anyway. I'm wondering if he's deliberately trolling me to bring attention to his book because about 5 people know it exists. He said: "you could just be nice and remove it since you haven't read it and it wasn't me who spammed you," and my RAGEMONSTER wants to come out and play. Thoughts?

I don't understand why everyone is afraid of hybrids or why they're considered "wrong" (besides people's tendency to hate that which is different.) Also, can something actually happen, please?

Omg, I just realized this cover shows TWO faces. Aaahhhh!

I don't have a sister and I've always thought the relationship between twins can be a bit weird (actually, just the idea of twins kind of creeps me out, plus, the poor mother to have to push out more than one baby! Yeesh!) But really, this book takes the cake when it comes to my feeling of weirdness and twins. It's like having a conjoined twin but one of them doesn't have a body. So freakin' creepy.

Well, that was a shitty ending.

Barf.

I'm choking on the syrupyness of their relationship and I don't really understand where their love is coming from other than the fact that they're star-crossed lovers. Love at first sight and insta-love are huge turn-offs for me ... but the characters and the world are fascinating. It's really a shame that this book has been ruined by a love so sugary that's made my teeth ache. Oh well.

Man, I wish I could use my pain to do magic too. I'd be a powerful sorcerer then.

Gah. I hate it when one character knows the big secret of the whole story but gets interrupted before he can share it.

I had to stay up late to make sure my husband woke up on time this morning, so I figured I'd read for the rest of the night. I spent over three hours in the tub reading this book, ha. I'm surprised more people aren't turned off by the insta-love though to be honest, but I admit the story is incredibly compelling. I can see why people love it, but I don't think it's the best thing since sliced bread ... yet, at least

"He has a girlfriend," lamented Zuzana.
"What? How do you know?"
"He's always texting on his breaks."
"That's your evidence? Flimsy. Maybe he secretly fights crime, and he's texting infuriating riddles to his nemesis," suggested Karou.