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It has been a weekend for us, with Virtual Book Club and then a wintery adventure increasing over the weekend, and potentially into the week. And you know what we wish we were doing? Reading with a hot beverage and a warm blanket! We’ll get some in, to be sure, and won’t overthink it. If you want to learn more about not overthinking, meet (via book) Anne Bogel who we repeatedly blame for our reading choices talk about, or dig into a non-fiction title with Virtual Book Club, sign up here for your chance! We’ll gather at 7:30 p.m. CST on Friday, March 26 to discuss Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life (and it doesn’t hurt this title is only 200 pages, compared to the nearly 2,000 pages for February book club).
Dear readers, some days, I feel like Feyre gets me as no one else does. “I was burning through books every day—stories about people and places I’d never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair.” And if those days last too long (like back in April 2020) , I realize, just like Feyre, ‘I’d forgotten how strong I was.” It didn’t help that I was am still struggling to adapt to quarantine life and figuring out when to workout (and truly feel my strength) was (and is) a giant struggle bus. If only Cassian could train me every morning, then I’d have more motivation, but the ice coating my street does not make me want to move my body, from the couch, at all.
You know what else though? Reading and discussing books with people who value and adore them like I do is life-giving. Way back when this blog was just a dream, we knew we wanted to start a book club as part of it eventually. We didn’t have an idea of what that looked like at the time, but then the virus that shall not be named happened and everything was different. When we realized the “two week” lockdown had no end in sight, we decided it was the time for book club, and book club was going to look so different than we’d ever imagined, but so did life. We may not read the hottest books, but we aim to read a variety of affordable, accessible titles. But can I tell you my favorite part of our book club? I was originally worried it would make us all feel sad that we couldn’t gather in person for it, but when we had that first book club and we had attendees from four states and three time zones, I had no sadness at all. (This happened again this past Friday night – book lovers from four states and three time zones!) Getting to read and discuss with amazing people who wouldn’t be able to join in person because of geography is my favorite part! The screen is worth it, and the technology we have learned to embrace (then suffer through at times) in the last year is empowering connection in such ways I didn’t imagine the first time I was asked to attend a meeting via zoom.
All that to say, if you’ve ever seriously considered joining Virtual Book Club, please do! If we don’t read the sort of books you want to see in a book club, then let us know what books you want to see (or even if you do like what you’ve been seeing, as we haven’t firmed up our plans for the rest of the year yet). If you’ve joined us at Virtual Book Club, THANK YOU! WE ARE SO GRATEFUL FOR THE TIME WE GOT TO SPEND WITH YOU!
All the books we’ve gotten to read and discuss together have been comfort reads for me (yes, even the horror title), but none were as comforting as traveling back to Prythian in Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series (which is currently on sale for $2.99 each for books 1-3!). The comfort I find is in Feyre’s journey and the family she finds along the way. She begins as the sole provider, the only thing keeping her family from starving (the way I feel like I’m the only thing keeping my household remotely functioning), and then she is given time to rest and find herself, but amidst the Blight. And all that rest just prepares her before she goes to the mat for her love, and to save all of Pythian. And after all that, she’s (predictably, based on her experiences) broken, traumatized, and desperately in need of healing. Finding that healing is a struggle, but it happens, with time and care and the love of family, both blood and found. I think that’s why A Court of Mist and Fury is in my [our] top favorite books of ever list, and also my most reread book, because it’s the story of the healing after the horrors of Under the Mountain. It isn’t easy, but it happens, body and soul.
I want to say SO many things about the ways this series, and the second book in particular, are comfort reads, but I also don’t want to risk any more spoilers for those who haven’t read yet. Here’s what I will say, however many rereads I do of the series, it may not be enough. That’s right, I said it: THERE IS NO TOO MANY REREADS, especially not of a comfort read. Goodreads says I’ve read A Court of Thorns and Roses four times, but it lies. When I first read the trilogy (in the fall of 2017, before I really had Goodreads), I finished A Court of War and Ruin and started right over immediately (4+2=6), and I didn’t count when I listened to the trilogy on audiobook (6+1=7), so that’s seven, SEVEN times, four of them within a year of first reading it, and then again when A Court of Frost and Starlight came out, and now again as A Court of Silver Flames is coming AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. And dear readers, I might just need to start back over at the beginning and reread all five books after I finish that one. Stranger things have indeed happened in my reading life. I will be finishing A Court of Frost and Starlight again before starting the new release though, as I only got to 44% before Virtual Book Club.
Here is my advice to you dear readers, read what you love. Reread what brings you comfort, just be sure to leave space to find new comfort reads to, whatever that means to you. This week for me it means holding the last hundred or so pages of A Court of Frost and Starlight for when I need to close Caste for a bit before Thursday’s post. What does that mean to you?
~Nikki
I guess I also need to respect others and write a spoiler-free post, but I’m also feeling if you’re reading this far, you’re taking your chances and I’m not as conscientious as Nikki on a good day. Today, it may or may not be a good day. But, I’m going to listen to the Morrigan by living by the mantra of “don’t let the hard days win.” I believe in this so much I definitely purchased a matching set of bookmarks with these words on them for the writers of this blog.
I have read the books in this series, according to Good Reads, in series order: four, six, five, and four times since January 2018. That January marked the beginning of the most personally and geographically tumultuous time in my life. Adam got offered a position in Southern California, my nephew arrived a month early – the day after my 33rd birthday, Adam left January 31st for California while I stayed and prepped to sell our house in the spring market. That’s when I started reading these books. I consumed them through the process of packing an entire house, painting, coordinating contractors (yeah, cause our pipes burst while we were checking out SoCal that MLK weekend), being the owner/agent in the sale, having the first contract fall through because of a low appraisal and going to the official back up, coordinating 2 sets of PODS, and the adventures of driving two cats across the country over the course of 3 days. Feyre and the Court of Dreams, they were my escape from the hard and emotional realities of my life. In California, our second POD took an extra month to get to us because of an invasive ant species the inspectors at the California border kept finding on the truck. It’s not a surprise I read the entire series over again in June 2018. By the middle of October 2018 I had been let go from two different jobs in six weeks, we decided to get through the holidays before I was to look for more employment. In January 2019 I turned 34 and soon after Adam figured out the company wasn’t doing so well and we decided he would start looking for and applying for jobs to get us out of California. About once a month he’d have a phone interview and we’d get our hopes up, by that July we decided to set a date and we moved back home to Tennessee without him having a job lined up. We were back home in Tennessee by Labor Day 2019. The company Adam left in 2019 closed all facilities by the end of February 2020. I thank the Mother, Cauldron, Fate, all the heavenly beings, every day that he had the foresight to get us out of California so we could be closer to our people, especially during the virus that shall not be named and that we didn’t have to suffer through quarantine with two unemployed persons. Y’all that’s not the kind of adventure I anticipated when I moved to SoCal. Wine and giant redwoods, yes, packing, unpacking, packing, job loss and voluntarily leaving the state without employment, NO.
Was this where I thought I was going to go in this post, also no. I’m up in my feels today, y’all. But that’s the whole point, right? We gravitate towards comfort reads during those times when we feel most unsteady, internally or externally. We need those same words, same characters, the anticipation of feeling the nerves and excitement all over again, the character growth, and the happy endings to make us feel hopeful for what is occurring in our own lives. It allows us to realize and feel in our bones that things are going to be OK. That we do, in fact, have the emotional and physical strength to make the necessary decision to not let the hard days win.
So to you, dear readers, our stars who listen, from this blog, a dream that was answered, we are so grateful you are here with us.
~Ashley
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