Category Archives: books

gone girl

Have you read Gone Girl yet? It’s pretty great. A quick read–easy to get into with twists and turns all over the place. Nick and Amy are a sweet couple (or are they?) who live in New York and relocate to Nick’s hometown in Missouri to take care of family (or do they?). And on their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy disappears under mysterious circumstances. I don’t want to give anything away, but I’d recommend reading it and then we can talk about it all we want! Until then, here’s what I picture Nick and Amy wearing.

Amy is blond, beautiful, and a pretty cool girl. And in the fall in Missouri, I bet she holds on to her New York style but still looks her put-together best.

Nick is gorgeous (of course) and laid back. He runs a bar with his twin sister Margo, and sometimes teaches college classes on journalism. He could easily go from his office to the bar without breaking a sweat.

Have you read it? Let me know what you think!

 

 

let’s share a cup

I remember my first cup of coffee, like any good addict. I was in high school and I was tired from homework and gymnastics practice and a pot was sitting on our kitchen counter, so I went for it. It was pretty good, or at least not bad enough for me to stop. I like everything about it. The smell, holding a hot liquid in your hands on a cold day, how the familiar taste of something delicious can ground you on a crazy day–it’s all good to me.

I like the sense of community that surrounds coffee. You wake up with coffee, and you share it with loved ones and with strangers who don’t stay strangers for long. You can go just about anywhere and people understand coffee. In Roland and his friends’ case, it even transcends worlds. (mild spoilers ahead)

In The Wolves of the Calla, Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy are trying to make their way to the dark tower. They get sidelined by a town looking for the gunslingers’ help. As gunslingers, it’s their duty to help others who can’t help themselves, so the group stays to rid Calla Bryn Sturgis of a group of wolves who come to steal the town’s children. There’s deadly throwing plates, an army dressed to look like wolves, split personalities and a possible demon pregnancy.

But amid all of this is coffee.

When Roland’s ka-tet meets a few good people from Calla Bryn Sturgis, they speak of business over coffee. “Eddie guessed that, among the four of them, they must have put away at least a gallon. Even Oy had a little. Jake put down a saucer of the dark, strong brew. Oy sniffed, said “Coff!” and then lapped it up quickly and efficiently.” Roland of Gilead, Jake of New York in 1977, Eddie of New York in 1987, Susannah of New York in 1964, Oy the Billybumbler of Mid-World, and Tian and Zalia of Calla Bryn Sturgis, in who knows when, all drink coffee.So this weekend, I took my sharpies and A Beautiful Mess’ tutorial, and made this.

Take a porcelain dish, write on it with a sharpie, and bake it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. I took two of my favorite quotes from this series, “If you love me, then love me,” which Susan pleads to Roland during their great love story, and “Go then, there are other worlds than these,” which Jake says to Roland as he’s falling to his death. They are beautiful and simple but convey so much meaning to me and to the characters. And now they can keep me company as I curl up with a cup of coffee and a good book.

I think this would be fun for any quote you like, from a book or otherwise. If you don’t like how it comes out, just take a damp rag, wash away the sharpie before you bake it, and start again. After you bake it, avoid the dishwasher and don’t scrub the writing. I had some smudge away as I was washing mine. But the worst that could happen is that you end up with a fresh slate. And that’s not so bad after all.

I also made this one, just for me.

For my favorite new coffee recipe, see here. And don’t forget you can see what I’m reading and follow along on Goodreads.

on youth

Some friends and I were talking about the common belief that the newest generation is the worst. It was always better back in the day, and kids these days couldn’t work their way out of a wet paper bag.

My generation in particular has gotten a bad rap lately. We are lazy, entitled, and clueless. We live with our parents instead of trying to get a job. We tweet in, like, abbreviations and can’t string together a professional, grammatically correct sentences to save our lives.

I hate this. I feel like I have to fight that impression just about every day in my professional life. Not everyone is as lucky as me when it comes to stable employment, but the idea that my generation as a whole is incapable of hard work just really kills me.

But if I were a trained assassin, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if people thought I was young and dumb.

In Wizard and Glass, Roland and his friends have a huge advantage when the town leaders underestimate them. They leave their weapons at home on purpose, so as to not raise suspicions. But even without their guns, these gunslingers have better odds on just about any fight they’d come across, especially when the enemy is unsuspecting.

One of my favorite parts of this book was how seriously Roland, Cuthbert, Alain and Susan take themselves. They are about 15 years old but each is making decisions that affect the rest of their lives. And each of them takes these responsibilities seriously. It’s everyone else, like Susan’s aunt or the leader of the Big Coffin Hunters, who write them off as foolish youth. But even that, they use to their advantage.

In one of the best scenes in the book, Roland and his friends get in an extreme bar brawl. Cuthbert is only armed with his slingshot, but he refuses to back down or lower his weapon (in fact, I think he uses his weapon and someone almost loses a finger). The men can’t believe children could best them, and eventually they realize there could be more to Roland’s gang than bumbling youth. And through a hilarious and suspenseful turn of events, the boys prove they aren’t the weak idiots they seemed.

Their story is a story of first love, but it’s also a story of adult decisions made at a very young age. And about boys who became men and go to war far too soon. These boys believe in what they are doing and force a small town to take notice. But part of being an adult is knowing that everything doesn’t always work the way you want it to. And unfortunately, they had to live with the consequences of their decisions, too.

If you want to see what else I’m reading, check me out on Goodreads. And don’t forget to browse Rae’s Days e-reader cases and book tote bags. 10% of the proceeds will go toward the International Book Project.

echoes

I have a lot of feelings about this book.

You know how people talk about seeing a movie in their head when they read books? I don’t always do this. I read the words and say them to myself and I can understand what’s happening without necessarily having to see it in my mind. I don’t think that means it’s bad writing or that I’m a bad reader, it’s just how it works best for me sometimes. 

But when I read the fourth book in the Dark Tower series, a movie was playing constantly in my head. It was effortless and it was lovely and I did it without realizing I had begun. I knew exactly what Roland looked like when he gave his cold, Gunslinger stare, and I know the way Susan’s tears fell down her cheeks and the bruise Cuthbert’s punch left on his friend’s face. I can absolutely see their homes and the landscape of the town they spent a fateful summer. And once I saw them, I couldn’t get them out of my head.

I’m attributing this mainly to Stephen King’s writing. When I read Stephen King, he has this way of getting his books to spill over into real life. In Roland’s world (or worlds, I should say), time is very fluid and events have a way of echoing to other characters and times and places. Jake hears of Roland’s quest for the tower and happens to take a walk to Tower Road and meets a Mr. Tower at a bookstore. These things keep reappearing in varying forms and they take is as a sign the world is changing and has begun to move on. But this echoing happens to me, too. I read about Blaine, a monorail the group takes quite an interesting trip on in Book 3, while I was on the subway train. I listened as the airport tram said, “welcome to the plane train, we are departing.” I saw a tour book in our house with a train on the cover. And it’s not just the Dark Tower series. When I was reading Stephen King’s It, I left the subway late one night and there was a balloon tied to the railing. I didn’t run all the way home, but I wanted to. 

The story he’s crafted over the three preceding books contributes to the urgency in Book 4. Before we begin this book, we already know the way Roland ends up. We know he loses his love, Susan Delgado. We know his cold empty fate and the friends that die along the way. But what grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let it go is how they got to the end. The entire book was exciting, and I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. This is a lot harder, however, when you are on page 300 than, say, 650. So give yourself some time.

This isn’t the first time someone has told the story of two teenagers falling in love with a tragic ending, and it won’t be the last. But it’s been one of my favorites. I have a lot of things to say about it, as you can probably tell, so I think it will be the subject of quite a few posts coming up. 

dark tower

I’ve just finished book two of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. The first book, The Gunslinger, introduces us to Roland, the last gunslinger. Gunslinger is pretty much what it sounds like, only way more badass. The first book whets your appetite for Roland’s world—one of many worlds—and touches on the surface of his quest for the tower, the evil of the Man in Black, and Roland’s troubling past that has left him without his family and friends. 

I still am not sure if I like Roland, but I respect him. His discipline and focus is admirable and though I haven’t quite figured out what his values are, I believe he has them and sticks to them. In book two, I think this quote sums up a lot of what Roland is: 

He was a romantic in his own harsh way..yet he was also realist enough to know that sometimes love actually did conquer all. 

Using the word “harsh” to describe Roland is a huge understatement. He goes where he needs to, for as long as he needs to, and does what he needs to, even if that includes losing the loved ones he has left to get closer to the Tower. Even if it includes losing his fingers and crawling for miles while his arm gets infected. Even if he kills 100 people without missing a shot. Why does he need to go to the Tower? I have no idea. But I’ll stick around to find out. 

Other quotes I liked:

  • The only contingency he had not learned how to bear was the possibility of his own madness.
  • It was an old yellow sound, like turning pages.
  • …but it’s very rotten. Like the ideas of certain people, maybe.
  • No, sugar was not cocaine, but Roland could not understand why anyone would want cocaine or any other illegal drug, for that matter, in a world where such a powerful one as sugar was so plentiful and cheap. 
  • Eddie was doing well. The gunslinger measured just how well by the fact that he was fighting naked.
  • “cliche. Do you know what that word means?” “It means what is always said or believed by people who think only a little or not at all.”

Just about every time I picked up these books I couldn’t put them down. Stephen King’s language is as beautiful and intriguing as the characters he’s introducing you to. He comes up with people and scenarios and sentences I couldn’t imagine in my entire life. 

One of my favorite moments in the first two books was when Detta/Odetta, the black woman who lives in the ’60s and doesn’t know she’s schizophrenic and who lost her legs when someone pushed her under a subway, looks into the gunslinger’s purse and is awed. Now this is a very manly purse. Here’s what I imagined was inside.

What’s in your bag? Bet it’s nothing like that.

50 ways to make 50 shades more interesting

Today in Sometimes I Read Things, I take a look back at the literary glory that was 50 Shades of Grey and add 50 ways I think it could be more interesting. If you need a refresher before you dive in, take a look at my thoughts on the book here. But you probably already know the gist of it. This list was compiled with the help of a fellow reader who also felt it was a little…lacking.

1. Christian’s secret is that he tortured and killed his mother’s pimp.
2. The charity he’s been donating to is actually a front for selling illegal arms in guerrilla warfare. I can’t decide if its better if he knows about it or finds out about it later.
3. Ana is actually kind of a ho and teaches Christian a few things
4. Ana gave a kid up for adoption before she met Christian
5. Christian is running a giant ponzi scheme
6. Christian is a pimp for expensive call girls that used to be his subs
7. Taylor, Christian’s live-in head of security, is secretly Christian’s biological father
10. Christian is an international gangster—that’s why he’s so rich
11. Christian opens a thesaurus and uses words for his mother that aren’t “crack whore”
12. Book is written from the perspective of Ana on the reality show “real girlfriends of Seattle”
13. Therapist Dr. Flynn falls in love with Ana and messes with Christians head in anger/jealousy
14. Taylor, the male head of the security team, and Christian had a secret illicit affair
15. Ana becomes a businesswoman and rivals Christian at work
16. I would also like to acknowledge that to receive an email on Ana’s blackberry, it would have to be sent to her personal email address, and for her to receive an email on her work computer, it would have to be sent to her work email address. These are different things. Also, does no one else ever send Ana an email?
17. Ana finds Viagra in his apartment
18. Someone at least once does something embarrassing during sex, i.e. falling off the bed, can’t get bra unhooked, etc.
19. They lived in a world where hangovers exist
20. They stopped arguing about how they don’t deserve each other
21. Christian makes $100,000 an hour? hahahahaha, please
22. Ana actually had a computer since, you know, she’s an A student and lives in the 21st century and has a job
23. The sex scenes were better. Yeah, I said it.
24. Ana was into dominating and Christian was not
25. Darfur seems to be thrown around a lot without anyone actually seeming to know why, so maybe we could pick a less trendy cause for Christian?
26. Christian has an older sister that surfaces
27. There is a hostile takeover of Grey’s company
28. Christian accidentally killed a submissive
29. Christian is a secret serial killer of pimps
30. Ana is already using birth control
31. Ana is a lesbian
32. Ana has a life-threatening disease that one of Christian’s research teams can cure…but she’s not telling
33. Ana likes being a submissive and later wants her own sub
34. Christian is gay
35. Christian’s real dad shows up and wants money
36. Christian’s real dad shows up and is also very rich
37. Christian’s real dad shows up and tries to kill Christan because he doesn’t want any other heirs around
38. Call the book 50 shades of red..amp up the sadism
39. Christian’s company sells the sex products and he tests them
40. Jose begins to stalk gray to do away with him
41. Kate feels she deserved Christian and goes after him
42. Someone starts blackmailing Christian…and it’s ?…Take your pick
43. Christian’s mom is still alive and is looking for him
44. Christian finds out he already has a kid he didn’t know about
45. Ana reads modern fiction/science fiction/anything other than romantic English literature
46. Ana likes make-up and shopping and realizes this does not make her any less smart
47. Someone at his work files a suit because he only hires attractive blonde women
48. Same story, half the length
49. Christian is ugly, Ana falls for him anyway
50. Everyone stopped saying the phrase “mighty fine” forever

Got your own ideas? Leave them in the comments!

I’ve since finished the 50 Shades trilogy and have moved on to better and brighter-titled literature Hot Pink by Adam Levin. It is just what I needed to cleanse my palate.

Keep up with me on Goodreads! And, as always, if you need a way to carry your trashy and not trashy books, check out Rae’s Days on Etsy!


P.S. I can’t take credit for this whole list, so my thanks to another 50 Shades reader who always has the time and wit to talk books.

books + fashion

So you all know I read 50 Shades of Grey and didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would (for my thoughts on the book, see here). And just to reiterate that you can use critical thinking and find inspiration in just about anything, let’s use the book to find some outfit inspiration. 

In the book, Ana borrow a purple dress from her roommate (you know, because Ana’s too smart to care about clothes and anything that’s not old English literature), and Hot Billionaire ends up quite liking it on her. Here’s how I might style a purple dress for Ana on days when she’s being a normal 20-something and not going on really expensive dates with the city’s hottest bachelor. I’d put her in flats because this girl just does not seem like she’d be comfortable in heels. And you know what, that’s totally ok. Play to your strengths and what makes you comfortable. These flats are from Madewell and I love them. Dress is J Crew, sweater is Jonathan Saunders, earrings are Dannijo (you know, she can’t completely give up glamour), and clutch is Rae’s Days. I think it’s so perfect for her because she loves to read and works in publishing. 

And for when she does have a really expensive date with HB? Why not hint at that sexy bondage stuff the book alludes to so much. Add a corset belt, shoes from Louboutin, bracelet from Asos, and McQueen lookalike clutch. Dress is L’Wren Scott. 

50 shades

So I do this thing, where if everyone starts reading something, I want to read it to. I was an early Harry Potter adopter, but since then hopping on the bandwagon has led me to things like the Hunger Games, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Twilight. (I’m not saying all of these things have been good.) I just can’t help it. I want to join the conversation and see what the fuss is about, and I want to be able to knowledgeably explain through experience why Hermione is a better role model than Bella Swan. (There are lots of reasons why).

I am also interested in how women are portrayed in the popular novels and I’m thankful that there are badasses like Katniss and Lisbeth to balance out the insecure boy-crazy Bellas of the young adult literary world. 

So when I started 50 Shades of Grey, I fully expected to hate it and the characters. I learned that it began as fan-fiction story based on Bella and Edward of Twilight. But then once it grew, they changed a few details, expanded on the story and made it what it is…which seems to be a sexy harlequin novel for the ladies who lunch.

So I expected the terrible character traits from Twilight + sex. But by the end of the book, I actually liked Ana, the main character who falls for a sexy billionaire. SPOILER ALERT—there are spoilers in the following lists, that is, if a trashy harlequin novel can be spoiled.

Reasons she is better than Bella:

  • She has a job
  • Her mother says that a man she dates should be worthy of her, and she agrees and takes this to heart
  • She is independent. For real, she has an after school job, gets an after college job, does her homework, packs her house, and gets to where she needs to go all on her own. 
  • She says no to the hot billionaire trying to swoon her—she doesn’t give him everything he asks for and she takes time to think about what she wants to do
  • She decides she wants love, and when Hot Billionaire can’t give it to her, she leaves (ok, I’m fully aware that in the next few books I’m sure they won’t be able to stay away from each other and they’ll get back together. But let me have this one time where she decides she doesn’t have to stay in a relationship that won’t give her what she needs)
  • For the record, this only applies to Ana. I find Hot Billionare to pretty much embody all the terrible things Edward also embodies: crazy, controlling, controlling, and controlling. Though I guess Hot Billionaire does listen to Ana and respects when she says no, where Edward does not. So, plus one very small point for HB.

Other surprising things I am ok with in this book:

  • They encourage open and honest communication, even (maybe especially) about sex. They talk about what they like and don’t like, what they are comfortable with and birth control and STD tests. Granted, this is on the premise of forming an S&M relationship, but they apply these open and honest discussions in every part of their relationship (and the S&M is overplayed and doesn’t really get that weird.)

Ok, this might be the end of that list. But really, among all the expected terribleness, I was very surprised to find that there was things that young women could take out of this book besides bad writing and sexy sex with a fantasy man. 

I read this on my kindle for two reasons: I love my kindle, and no one can tell that I was reading it. Need your own kindle and reading accessories for any embarrassing or non embarrassing books in your life? Check these out on my store at Etsy:

on books

Since style isn’t just what you put on your body, it’s also what’s in your head, I have a book to share. I just finished 11/22/63 by Stephen King and loved it. It’s about time travel, but in a cool way, trust me. The characters in this book get brought back to a specific day and time in 1958 and decide to try to stop Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. It was the perfect amount of history and adventure to satisfy all the kinds of nerd I am. Some of my favorite quotes, with no spoilers, promise: 

“The cyclone even had a sound, two Russian words spoken over and over again in a flat Southern drawl: pokhoda, cyka. Walk, bitch.”

“My dad used to say you can tell a lot about a person’s health just by the state of his or her fingernails.”

“Human things are terrific right to the end, it seems like.”

“When you put on a clown suit and a rubber nose, nobody has any idea what you look like inside.”

“In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning.”

“He listened. He did it as the world’s more charming and magnetic people do, always asking the right question at the right time, never fidgeting or taking his eyes from the speaker’s face, making the other guy feel like the most knowledgeable, brilliant, and intellectually savvy person on the planet.”

“Which brought the house down, of course. In dark times when even the sages are uncertain, declarations of love always do.”

I had 21 kindle pages of notes and highlighted quotes, so I had to narrow it down. I also teared up on the subway (seriously, books have brought me to tears on more than one occasion on the train) when I read about Jackie Kennedy, and of course Caroline and John-John. 

Anyway. Dedicating an outfit to Jackie seemed a little sad, so instead, here’s what I would wear, if I were going on a time traveling adventure from now to 1958.

Simple. Chic. Could look good now and in the ’50s and ’60s. Black is versatile and never out of style. The wedding band would keep hooligans away as you go about your business. But throw some flats in your vintage Chanel in case you have to run. 

(Want to read with me? See what’s on my bookshelf on Goodreads.)

meg36:

Robert Pattinson: “If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.”

I just gained some respect for him. I love this.

In between the gift shopping and holiday party outfit deciding, just a reminder that what’s in your head matters way more than what’s on your body. Also I just finished a book and have been wanting to share some of the best quotes from it, so look for that later this week!