Category: Let’s Discuss

Of course, my main addiction is fiction (as my blog title so aptly points out), but I’ve realized that I’m addicted to something else as well: exclamation points! Yes, I am one of those terrible over-users of the exclamation point. If I have commented on your blog, I have probably exclaimed over you in egregious ways. Sometimes I’ve used three exclamation points in a two-sentence comment!! It seems like the shorter a comment is, the more it needs an extra oomph. Somehow adding that little exclamation point makes me feel like the comment is more cheerful, more interesting, more vibrant, more encouraging. Am I fooling myself? Probably. Will I change? Probably not. I know that some people find exclamation points really annoying. And sometimes I do go and remove one or two from my comments before I hit Send. After all, I don’t want to be obnoxious. But this is a… Read more »

Have you ever read a book and felt like there was a bit of issue overload? Like it dealt with just too many topics, and you started to wonder if it was all maybe a bit too much for one story? I definitely have. But I’ve also read books that handled multiple issues incredibly well, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how, in real life, many of us deal with a lot. I mean, we don’t really get to say, “No, sorry, I’ve already had my fill of ‘issues’–it just isn’t believable that I would have one more.” Believable or not, life is what it is. Take my family for instance: If I tried to write a book about my kids, people would read it and say, “This is so unrealistic. She just wanted to add in a bunch of diversity (or neurodiversity) for the sake of diversity.” And… Read more »

Here’s a sad fact: I didn’t make my goal for the Discussion Challenge in 2018. This wouldn’t be so bad, except it’s my challenge (along with Shannon, of course). How do I fail my own challenge? There’s a teensy part of me that worried about this. A nagging little compartment of my brain that said, “You shouldn’t be hosting a discussion challenge if you’re not going to be the ultimate book discusser. Maybe you just don’t have much to say anymore.” But don’t worry, I told my brain to just shut up already. And it listened (mostly). Because I LOVE the Discussion Challenge! (Even when I personally fail.) And here’s why: The Discussion Challenge is a community. Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you the number of bloggers I’ve connected to because of this challenge. And I feel like I’m truly getting to know bloggers through their discussions. These types of… Read more »

I know I’m not alone when I say I’m behind on books I have for review. Sometimes it’s because my eyes were bigger than my … eyes? (Yeah, that metaphor doesn’t work for books the way it works for food.) Or sometimes it’s because a book that I really wanted to read somehow lost its luster along the way and I wasn’t excited about it anymore. For whatever reason, not every book I have for review has gotten read. But recently I’ve been making a concerted effort to read some of those older review titles that have been waiting for me. Some strategies I’ve used lately to catch up on those review books: Sign up for blog tours. Nowadays, when I sign up for a blog tour, it’s almost always for a book I already have for review. So, why bother signing up for a tour, you ask? Because then… Read more »